VEDIC CONCEPTION OF GOD

Vedic Conception of God

By Dr. C.A Qadir

The religion of the Vedas is polytheism. It has not the charm and grace of the pantheon of the Homeric poems; but it cer­tainly stands nearer the origin of the gods. All gods whether great or small are deified natural phenomena. The interesting thing about them is that they are identified with the glorious things whose deifications they are and are also distinguished from them. They are still thought of as being sun, moon, rain, wind, etc., yet each god is conceived as a glorious being who has his home in heaven and who comes sailing in his far‑shining car to the sacrifice and sits down on the grass to hear his own praise recited and sung and to receive the offerings.The hymns sung by the priests were mainly invocations of the gods meant to accompany the oblation of soma‑juice and the fire‑sacrifice of the melted butter.

 The Vedas are not consistent in their account of the gods. In one myth the sun is a male, in another‑a female. The sun and the moon are mentioned in one place as rivals, elsewhere as husband and wife. The dog is extolled in one place as a deity and in another mentioned as a vile creature. Again the sun, the sky, and the earth are looked upon sometimes as natural objects governed by particular gods and sometimes as themselves gods who generate and control other beings.

 In the Rg‑Veda, heaven and earth are ordinarily regarded as the parents of gods, pitra or matra. In other passages heaven (dyaus) is separately styled as father and the earth (prithivi) as mother. At other places, however, they are spoken of as having been created. Thus it is said, [9] that he who produced heaven and earth must have been the most skilful artisan of all the gods. Again, Indra is described as having formed them, to follow him as chariot wheels do a horse. At other places the creation of the earth and the heaven is ascribed to Soma and Pushan.

 Thus, while the gods are regarded in some passages of the Rg‑Veda as the offsprings of heaven and earth, they are at other places considered independent of these deities and even their creators.

 In various texts of the Rg‑Veda the gods are spoken of as being thirty‑three in number. Thus it is said in the Rg‑Veda: "Come hither Nasatyas, Asvins, together with the thrice eleven gods, to drink our nectar." Again, "Agni, the wise gods lend an ear to their worshippers. God with the ruddy steeds, who lovest praise, bring hither those three and thirty." In the Satapatha Brahmanas this number of thirty‑three gods is explained as made up of eight vasus, eleven rudras, and twelve adityas, together with heaven and earth, or, according to another passage, together with Indra and Prajapati instead of heaven and earth.

The enumeration of gods as thirty‑three is not adhered to throughout the Vedas. In the Rg‑Veda, the gods are mentioned as being much more numerous: "Three thousand, three hundred, thirty and nine gods have worshipped Agni." Thus verse which is one of the many shows that the Vedic Indian believed in the existence of a much larger number of supernatural beings than thirty‑three.

The gods were believed to have had a beginning; they were stated to be mortal, but capable of overcoming death by the practice of austerity. The Rg ­Veda says that the gods acquired immortality by drinking soma. Still the gods are not self‑existent or unbeginning beings. It has been seen that they are described in various passages of the Rg‑Veda as offsprings of heaven and earth. In various texts of the Rg‑Veda the birth of Indra is mentioned, and his father and mother are also alluded to.

The Vedic gods can be classified as deities of heaven, air, and earth