z:\ ambedkar\vol 04\vol4 03.indd MK SJ YS 21 9 2013/YS 8 11 2013 81
RIDDLE NO. 11 81
loyalty or attachment or faith in one God. In the history of Hindu Gods one finds it a very common experience that some Gods have been worshipped for a time and subsequently their worship has been abandoned and the Gods themselves have been thrown on the scrap-heap. Quite new Gods are adopted and their worship goes with an intensity of devotion which is full and overflowing. Again the new Gods are abandoned and are replaced by a fresh crop of new Gods. So the cycle goes on. In this way the Hindu Gods are always undergoing rise and fall—a phenomenon which is unknown in the history of any other community in the world.
The statement that the Hindus treat their Gods with such levity may not be accepted without demur. Some evidence on this point is therefore necessary. Fortunately there is abundance of it. At present the Hindus worship four Gods (1) Shiva, (2) Vishnu, (3) Rama and (4) Krishna. The question that one has to consider is : are these the only Gods the Hindus have worshipped from the beginning ?
The Hindu Pantheon has the largest number of inmates. The Pantheon of no religion can rival it in point of population. At the time of the Rig-Veda the number of its inmates was colossal. At two places the Rig-Veda [1] speaks of three thousand three hundred and nine Gods. For some reasons, which it is not possible for us now to know, this number came to be reduced to thirty-three [2] . This is a considerable reduction. Nevertheless with thirty three, the Hindu Pantheon remains the largest.
The composition of this group of thirty-three Gods is explained by the Satapatha Brahmana [3] as made up of 8 Vasus, 11 Rudras and 12 Adityas, together with Dyasus and Prithvi (heaven and earth).
Of greater importance than the question of numbers is the question of their relative rank. Was their any distinction between the 33 Gods in point of their rank ? There is a verse in the Rig-Veda which seems to suggest that these thirty-three Gods were divided for purposes of honours and precedence into two classes, one being great and small and the other being young and old. This view seems to be against an earlier view also contained in the Rig-Veda. The old rule says :
“None of you O ! Gods ! is small or young : You are all great”.
This is also the conclusion of Prof. Max Muller :
“When these individual gods are invoked, they are not conceived as limited by the power of others, as superior or inferior in rank. Each god is to the mind of the supplicants as good as all the gods.
1 Rig-Veda iii, 99 : X 52 : 6, Vaj, S. 33, 7, Muir V, p. 12.
2 Rig-Veda 1, 139, II, iii, 6, 9 ; VIII 28.1, VIII 30,2, VIII 35.3, Muir V. p. 10.
3 S. B. IV 5, 7, 2, Muir V, p. II.