How many gods are in the Hindu Religion?

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Hindus don’t have an exact number for how many gods they believe in, and there are theoretically too many in traditional Hinduism for anyone to be able to name them all. So, in theory, Hindus believe in millions of gods. However traditional Hindus consider these millions to be lesser gods compared to the primary Hindu gods which are Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. There is also a pantheistic element that runs through Hinduism which some Hindus believe in. It’s a religion that is open to almost any kind of interpretation. At the end of the day, Hinduism is basically a religion of relativism.
 
adawgj said:
Question is the title.
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How many gods do you want?

One: The one Brahman (note the “n” at the end) is universal and unknowable. How can mere humans know the ultimate? Brahman is a very high level philosophical abstraction.

Three: Brahma (no “n”), Vishnu, Shiva. There are more comprehensible versions, but not complete. The parable of the blind men and the elephant applies here. These three are each a large part of the elephant, but not all of it.

Man/God: Krishna, who is a human incarnation of Vishnu.

Goddess: plenty to pick from – Durga, Kali, Lakshmi etc.

Tens of thousands: all the others, such as Ganesha, Kubera etc.

Hinduism offers many options, you merely select the option you want and can ignore the others.

rossum
 
rossum said:
How many gods do you want?

One: The one Brahman (note the “n” at the end) is universal and unknowable. How can mere humans know the ultimate? Brahman is a very high level philosophical abstraction.

Three: Brahma (no “n”), Vishnu, Shiva. There are more comprehensible versions, but not complete. The parable of the blind men and the elephant applies here. These three are each a large part of the elephant, but not all of it.

Man/God: Krishna, who is a human incarnation of Vishnu.

Goddess: plenty to pick from – Durga, Kali, Lakshmi etc.

Tens of thousands: all the others, such as Ganesha, Kubera etc.

Hinduism offers many options, you merely select the option you want and can ignore the others.

rossum
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Actually almost nobody ignores Shiva, Vishnu, Laxmi and Ganesha, maybe also Durga (even Krishna and Rama/Hanuman are pretty universal) - some may be worshiped more than the others.

So these 5 or 7 could be consider to be the main Gods.
 
adawgj said:
Question is the title.
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when the original hinduism started there were nearly two different beliefs held by the different groups; belief in only one god or semi-polytheism. when “middle” hinduism asserted itself in ~200 B.C. rejection of pagan polytheism started and there were three known prominent views: semi-polytheism(precursor to “modern” hindu liberalism), emergence of a “new” interpretation called faceted-"polytheism, and a belief in only one God. (which may have been the minority) and “modern” hinduism which has belief systems ranging from 1 or less god - more than millions of gods.

God bless
 
aragonjohn1 said:
when the original hinduism started there were nearly two different beliefs held by the different groups; belief in only one god or semi-polytheism. when “middle” hinduism asserted itself in ~200 B.C. rejection of pagan polytheism started and there were three known prominent views: semi-polytheism(precursor to “modern” hindu liberalism), emergence of a “new” interpretation called faceted-"polytheism, and a belief in only one God. (which may have been the minority) and “modern” hinduism which has belief systems ranging from 1 or less god - more than millions of gods.

God bless
Click to expand...
Where are you getting this from?

Nevermind I see the link in your post
 
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