We Hindus are a bit colourful in nature. Sample some of the points below:
We have approximately 330 million Gods (and Goddesses). Yes the no is right; in fact the list keeps increasing because we also keep including our family Gurus in this list. So we see people worshipping Baba Ramdev, Yogdev, Somdev and so on and so forth. By the way, Hindu population is 885 million. So almost 1 God for every 2.5 Hindus…Now that’s called focussed attention.
Our Gods come in all shapes and sizes: Gods with 10 heads; Gods with 3 eyes; Gods with a trunk as their nose; Gods who resemble a monkey; Gods who have a river flowing out of their hairs and the list goes on. To top that, most of these Gods will have an animal as their rider. So we end up worshipping cows, snakes, peacocks, rats etc…
We have Gods for everything. So I have full choice. If I want wisdom, I goto one and if I want money, I goto another. In fact, we even have a God for love and Sex. Kamadeva is our own handsome Hindu love god. His attributes are quite similar to Cupid; difference being Cupid is not a God in Christianity. Kamadeva rides a parrot. By the way, he is supposedly son of Lakshmi who represents money (wow so there is a connection between love and money afterall)
Adding to the color, Hinduism as a religion have promoted alcohol (You don’t believe me …remember all the devtas used to have “madira” flowing through their parties). In fact that reminds me we also do not have any objections to “nach ganas”. So we read about beautiful females seducing Rishi munis in our “granthas”.
Ours might be the only religion where we have allowed polygamy and polyandry. (please refer to Arjuna having two wives and Draupdi having 5 husbands).
We also enjoy the “leelas” of Lord Krishna which is nothing but healthy flirting in modern terms.
We have multiple festivals. In fact going by the Hindu calendar, I might end up celebrating every day. While talking of this, no festival is complete without a proper show. So we see firecrackers, colors, “nautankis”, rakhis etc.
Our mythology has talked about every invention that has come in this era. So we see aeroplanes, modern weapons (brahmastra), “door drishti”, in our Ramayana and Mahabharta etc.
By the way, does anybody know who founded Hinduisum? For every religion, there is a founder but Hinduism as far as I could study doesn’t have any founder.
So what do you think…aren’t we a colourful race?
2 comments:
very well written as always. esp the stats r quite surprising 1 god per 2.5 hindu! Am sure that most of the religions in india falls under hinduism group (thankfully else we would have had numerous gods n religions seperated)! Am curious to compare it with SOA, a set of principles & design that drive different languages. :-)
So r there only 3 religions in the world then being Hinduism, Islam and Christianity?
It is the arrogance of modern man when you say that 'almost every invention was dreamt up by those ancient people'. Imagination has never been a problem for the infinitely small social history you are talking about.. some 5-10k years. Why do you suppose they would have lesser imagination that us????
That apart, Hinduism has the distinction of emerging slowly as a political instrument than ibrahamic religions..
Noting else to praise there.. the tired dogma of a different time.
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