Hinduism Gods

QUESTION: Hinduism gods - Who do they worship?

ANSWER:

It has been said that Hinduism is a religion of 330 million Hinduism gods. Sri Ramakrishna, a prominent Hindu saint once wrote, "There can be as many Hindu Gods as there are devotees to suit the moods, feelings, emotions and social backgrounds of the devotees." So in some ways Hinduism is a polytheistic religion. There is an exceedingly wide variety of gods to choose from to worship with statues and symbols to pay homage before. If one wants to pray for acquiring knowledge and understanding, he would pray to the god, Sarasati, for example. One might pray to the god, Moksha, to obtain God's grace. Many Hindus worship their own village god or goddess.

However, to say that Hinduism is a polytheistic religion with an unknown and unnamed number of Gods would be incorrect. Many Hindus view the religion as a monotheistic religion with only one supreme being who is formless and impersonal. All other gods and goddesses are simply facets of this one God. This supreme being is viewed as the god of all other religions and equal to all existence or the ultimate reality.

In the Hindu faith, there is a trinity as in the Christian faith, where God is in three persons:

• Brahma: is the creator of all reality,
• Vishnu or Krishna is the preserver of all of the creations,
• and Shiva is the destroyer.

There are some major divisions in the Hindu faith. Many see Brahman as the ultimate deity. Others see Vishnu or Krishna as the supreme being and another sect see Shiva as their ultimate reality.

Hinduism is a religion which does recognize a single supreme deity but is tolerant of all other religions and gods or goddesses as forms or manifestations of this one single deity or supreme being. Their philosophy is that, although they believe there is but one truth, there are different "Sages" or spiritual leaders who call the truth by different names.