Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, and Hinduism

[Sean]

Some comments on Hinduism below as complementing Dawkins' interesting book. I was brought up as a Catholic but became interested in Indian philosophy and would lke to make a few points about the legitimacy of both the levels of impersonal and personal gods.

On p.40 of TGD Dawkins touches on different conceptions of god and notes that he'd be happy to see himself as religious in the way Einstein and some scientists do, in terms of acknowledging the natural world's characteristics such as splendour, complexity and unity. He then focusses in the rest of the book on god as a supernatural being who can be prayed to and intervenes in the world, and for the most part i agree strongly with his numerous interesting arguments.

Of the four great world relgions Hinduism is the least well understood, perhaps as it's focussed in one country, India- and has an extraodinary conception of god and the divine (though it's not ultimately a conception), perfectly and indeed actively compatible with science. It would have been good to see Dawkins discuss it's tremendous insights and strength a little, whereas he almost completely ignores it: turning to the index I already suspected sadly that Hinduism would be sidelined to the Christian/ Muslim (Abrahmic) religions and their foolish ideas the West is more familiar with.

Hinduism is atheistic, as is Buddhism the other great dharmic religion, the difference being it still believes in something rather than nothing (and is based on personal experience not belief). That's to say in Hinduism ultimate reality is beyond the level of its gods, and is called Brahman: this is the fundamental plane of existence and the same thing as the unified field or theory of everything being sought in contemporary physics. Hinduism though is also polytheistic and massively monotheistic (among other possible -theistics), all the gods just being expressions of Brahman: it is tremendously inclusive of different doctrines.

Now the reason Dawkins et al need to take the unified field as a spiritual rather than purely scientific matter is that even at the present level of its understanding it is clearly not just rationally defined: it and the deep stucture of the universe intimately involves consciousness and our subjectivity, and the varous thoroughly irrational processes of quantum mechanics.

The Vedic tradition or the body of ancient sanskrit texts at the basis of Hinduism and Indian thought argue that union with god is simply finding and realizing this level of being within ourselves: there is no disjunction between a fulfilled spiritual life and the fundamental laws of physical (or trans-physical) reality. How to be and what to do in life emerge and self-generate from a coordinated state of mind in tune with its own nature, where the personal self has found its identity in the universal Self or Brahman. Hinduism is not prescriptive or dogmatic and the complexities of ethics aren't funnelled though a narrow set of rules that can't cover for all eventualities.

God is simply what we are, our immense potential, and indeed we are Brahman, which is higher than God. God is nothing more than the extent of our potential and fullness of humanity- but it's still right to speak of God rather than just us because most of us feel less than fully reallized and sense we can be more, and also because that greater part of us is universal in character and goes beyond our individuality and physicality.

That aspect of us that transcends our material rational being is the divine in us, and gives indeed shape and grounding to ethical and aesthetical experience- and even to knowledge, as Kant for instance argues. The very nature of life and consciousness is divinity- we are in the world (physically and rationally) but not of it (in terms of right and wrong, perception of beauty and art, intuition, emotion, creativity- the functions associated with the right half of the brain instead of just the scientific left).

Diversity is encouraged in Hinduism in the understanding that there are many paths to god- there is no such thing as heresy and parents may bring up a child as a devotee not only of a different Hindu deity to the one they chose but as a Sikh; Christian and Islamic images and shrines may be found in Hindu temples, a statement of absolutely supreme tolerance and non-confrontation- Christ and Allah for instance are just two more gods you can chose to pray to, out of 330 million in scripture. A Hindu shrine in a church or a Christian family raising a child as a Hindu would be as unthinkable as it is a disgusting an indictment of Western society.

As a Hindu I can pray and have prayed very seriously in various places of worship in the world to God the Father, Mohammed, Buddha, Vishnu and Shiva gods, Shinto gods, anamist gods, deified people and many others. Hinduism is an immense force for peace and harmony across religions, the only problem being that other religions have one main difference in their core values with Hinduism: they think their path is the only one, and that their impudence in pronouncing to God how He or She should be manifest in the world isn't a problem.

The impersonal god is just Brahman or our fullness of being as given by the underlying logic of physical reality and the world we live in, but the impersonal dimension of god does exist also, and is insisted on by the greatest of the abstract thinking Indian gurus, while focussing their attention on Brahman. The personal god can even be prayed to and intervene in the world- to a limited extent: the idol in temple is again simply a representation of the fullness of our potential, but in slightly more concrete terms. The different Hindu deities embody values like courage (eg Hanuman), fortutide (Rama), depth of character (Vishnu), wisdom (Ganesh), patience (Venkateswara), learning (Lakshmi) etc: the deities' numerous arms hold artifacts embodying these various transcendent, spirited and often entirely irrational qualitites.

A visit to a temple just brings these things into focus.Hindu worship has the central concept of the darshan, or a momentary sighting of the idol in its enclosure in the temple, with it looing back at you: this provides a self-referential loop where the mind of the devotee is given back to itself and their wishes realigned within themselves for their realization, via their transcendent powerful qualities being better awakened.

We bring our wishes into reality by ourselves of course, but indeed through our spiritual, inward, passionate dimension as striving human beings. God is no more than us, but in this sense it can intervene in the material world through attention to a deity; also note that Brahman or the fundamental plane of reality is everywhere, and everywhere includes where the stone statue is, so Brahman is legitmately in that statue, it not just being a focus of attention.

There are also important notions of faith that have got very confused in the Abrahamic religions, where the ego or confused individual self is relinquished and we're in touch instead with those fundamental forces and aesthetic imperatives beyond rational account: once you think too much you've lost that contact and are out of the sphere of what faith really is. You're back in the rational, which of course means 'of ratios': self-realization by contrast is a matter of direct contact with reality, not relativistic relating of one thing with another and scientifically explaining things so that the explainer remains distinct from the explained (presently being undermined by physics).

Furthermore Hinduism unlike Buddhism doesn't preach reununciation of the world and human pleasures, only affected attachment to them where the mind confusedly loses itself in them, taking its self to be them rather than the Self: 200% of life is needed, fullness of absolute and relative realms.

Society in fact needs spiritualizing, not atheistizing. People on every spiritual and mental level need something to believe in that goes beyond them- postmodernism and the downgrading of the arts as the highest of achievements from their former position at the head of culture has produced horrendous cynicism and belief meaninglessness in the minds of the young. Reality isn't fundamentally rationality and relativity but something much richer which rationality can at most only reflect, and society needs shaping from this perspective.

I rather think the sort of thing I'm saying here is too much for most readers, being located in their Western-Christian thought paradigms. Indeed the Dharmic religions are too much for Dawkins as he so quickly moves on from them in TGD, and even from Islam to concentrate soley on Christianity. His book is a pleasant and interesing, and humorous read but it doesn't need writing from the academic point of view: of course the interventionist Christian God is a lot of nonesense, at least as superficially understood- and to write a whole book arguing for this is a bit strange for an academic, though indeed I understand the need for it. Dawkins, like many on the forum no doubt, are lost in a pattern of understanding that they need to widen. You need to understand Hinduism, the world's founder religion and where the truth is and thence how it becomes diluted elsewhere...

[Dr. Dread]

Furthermore Hinduism unlike Buddhism doesn't preach reununciation of the world and human pleasures, only affected attachment to them where the mind confusedly loses itself in them, taking its self to be them rather than the Self: 200% of life is needed, fullness of absolute and relative realms.

Which is why Buddhism rules!

[Sean]

Buddhism is an intriguingly relativistic religion and you can really feel the sense of disorientation in places like Thailand, but it's impossible even to walk across the room without experiencing desire- trying to eliminate this and place nothing as the goal of life is, well, misguided.

[Dr. Dread]

Buddhism is an intriguingly relativistic religion and you can really feel the sense of disorientation in places like Thailand, but it's impossible even to walk across the room without experiencing desire- trying to eliminate this and place nothing as the goal of life is, well, misguided.

Not eliminate. Non-attachment.

And I don't think "nothing" is the goal.

[drogulus]

     Sean, that's all interesting but I don't think "fundamental plane of existence" is a name that refers to anything in the world. Things imagined as not in the world are in the head instead, rather than a non-world world. With Eastern religions (just like Western ones) there will be more names than real entities to assign them to. Since the principle that you stop using the names if you can't find the thing is not accepted by believers the mere existence of the name is taken as a sign that the thing exists anyway. It's a miracle!

     You might be able to convince me that polytheism is more fun than monotheism. I don't know if I can stand much more fun than I'm having now, though. And my "fundamentals" don't require anything to exist other than what's really there, whatever that turns out to be.

[Sean]

MN Dave, well non-attachment is the Hindu goal too, but you still experience and enjoy life- both spiritual and material existence is possible, to the Buddhists' mystification: you just avoid affected attachment where you're lost in the experience...

drogulus, the fundamental plane of existence is just the physicists' Unified field, nothing more or less.

Yes, Hinduism is superficially polytheistic; it's also another nice -theistic I can't quite remember the name of right now where you just take whatever form of God is before you at that moment as the ultimate deity: Hinduism's just great.

[Dr. Dread]

MN Dave, well non-attachment is the Hindu goal too, but you still experience and enjoy life- both spiritual and material existence is possible, to the Buddhists' mystification: you just avoid affected attachment where you're lost in the experience...

Buddhists don't enjoy life? 

[Sean]

Guess you'll have to ask one.

[Elgarian]

Since the principle that you stop using the names if you can't find the thing is not accepted by believers the mere existence of the name is taken as a sign that the thing exists anyway.

But the believers do think they've found the thing behind the name, don't they? No one believes in gregorious spondulators just because I've invented a name for them. Even I don't (and I should know, for I have yearned for a spondulatistic encounter for so long).

[Catison]

Nice post Sean.  I am very unaware of Hindu religion, which is sad because I am the only non-Indian in my office.  I should take the time to know more.

While reading your post, I was surprise to think a lot of this is completely compatible with Catholicism.  But of course a lot of this isn't.  I would imagine that there is room in all of the worlds most prominent religions for this relativism you crave, albeit in different amounts.  There also being a limit in Hinduism, because you can't be an atheist and Hindu, am I right?

I also think you've gotten the cause and effect reversed in regards to Western culture.  The culture is a response to Christianity, not the other way around.  This rationalization you see as so revolting is already present in St. Paul's epistles and even Jesus Himself ventures quite close as he explains his parables.  Adding to this the great (polytheist) Greek thinkers, e.g., Aristotle, and you are on your way to a culture thinking in terms of objective ideas, including God.

Altogether, though, I think you would find a great friend in Sam Harris rather than Dawkins.  Harris is the only neo-atheist who takes spirituality seriously, and defends the spirituality of the human person as a real thing, capable of exploring reality every bit as well as science.  Of course, what that means, I cannot be sure.

[drogulus]

Not eliminate. Non-attachment.

And I don't think "nothing" is the goal.

    How about non-attachment to goals?  

   

drogulus, the fundamental plane of existence is just the physicists' Unified field, nothing more or less.

    If so it's just as contingent on what's found.* Steven Weinberg wrote a book, Dreams of a Final Theory, which goes into this. If you've been following what I've been posting you can probably guess what I think of final theories. The optimism about final theories or final unifications is misplaced. There will never be any such thing IMO. All such theories are frame-dependent and the frame will continue to expand beyond the present theory. In a race between the Heat Death and a Final Theory the Heat Death wins.

     _{* To say nothing about contingent on not being about anything, a serious objection in itself.}  

[Sean]

Let me get back to you tomorrow. (It's not really polished work though...)

...Moreover Dawkins' rational-reductive-Darwinian method is inhuman, and the stuff about reducing morality to evolutionary imperatives for instance I'm sure many people will find highly offensive.

The heart of religion, ethics and spiritual life has the same foundation as that of physical reality: religion and science are reconciled in the Veda/ Hinduism; try Roger Penrose and his discussions with Prabupada or Carl Sagan's Hindu enthusiasm, among many examples.

[drogulus]

But the believers do think they've found the thing behind the name, don't they? No one believes in gregorious spondulators just because I've invented a name for them. Even I don't (and I should know, for I have yearned for a spondulatistic encounter for so long).

     Yes, they have a belief about beliefs, that they are true. And no, they don't apply that in a principled manner to gregorious spondulators* because that isn't their belief. That is the only reason they don't. Other than that, they have no reasons, only the motive to protect a particular belief. They are blind to the door they've left open because the belief they hold comes before everything and reason about reasons has been disabled.

     

Let me get back to you tomorrow. (It's not really polished work though...)

...Moreover Dawkins' rational-reductive-Darwinian method is inhuman, and the stuff about reducing morality to evolutionary imperatives for instance I'm sure many people will find highly offensive.

The heart of religion, ethics and spiritual life has the same foundation as that of physical reality: religion and science are reconciled in the Veda/ Hinduism; try Roger Penrose and his discussions with Prabupada or Carl Sagan's Hindu enthusiasm, among many examples.

     Oh no! I though they were the same! Now the one you don't like is inhuman!

      If as you say:
     

The heart of religion, ethics and spiritual life has the same foundation as that of physical reality

     Then you should be more willing to agree with me, since that is the core of my position. I just remove the inessentials.

     _{* You've identified the logic by which the believer's arguments that there's a difference between superstition and supernaturalism fails. There can't be difference between one unverifiable proposition about the world and another one where evidence is completely subordinated to the belief process itself.}

[Dr. Dread]

I have read the OP again and have decided Sean doesn't know much about Buddhism, so it's a good thing he's into Hinduism.

[drogulus]

     I don't see how religion could be good for anything if you had to know about it. It should be like driving a car, which you don't have to build from raw materials to get the benefit. Maybe Sean is like Edina in Absolutely Fabulous, one of the great spiritual aspirants of our fictional time.

     

[Dr. Dread]

     I don't see how religion could be good for anything if you had to know about it. It should be like driving a car, which you don't have to build from raw materials to get the benefit. Maybe Sean is like Edina in Absolutely Fabulous, one of the great spiritual aspirants of our fictional time.

Though you should learn how to drive first. 

[Sean]

drogulus

Oh no! I though they were the same! Now the one you don't like is inhuman!

The foundation of the material world is paradoxically the foundation of the spiritual. However, the material world is not Dawkins' foolish type of rationality. He winds up his book by noting that quantum and other 20th century physics do seem to be irrational, but seeing that this is nudging his position, ends by stamping his foot to himself and saying in the future these pesky phenomenon that don't fit will fall under the same rational transparency. They won't.

[Sean]

Catison

I am very unaware of Hindu religion, which is sad because I am the only non-Indian in my office.  I should take the time to know more.

It doesn't proselytise, it's a student led religion- if you don't want to know you can hardly learn or look within to find anything.

While reading your post, I was surprise to think a lot of this is completely compatible with Catholicism.  But of course a lot of this isn't.  I would imagine that there is room in all of the worlds most prominent religions for this relativism you crave, albeit in different amounts.  There also being a limit in Hinduism, because you can't be an atheist and Hindu, am I right?

Yes Hinduism has obvious parallels with Catholicism in the smells and bells and also the pantheon, so-called monotheistic Catholicism emphasizing god the father, god the son, god the holy spirit, Mary, angles, arch angles, saints etc. However Hinduism is atheistic, yes: the level of God is not the ultimate reality, only Brahman.

I also think you've gotten the cause and effect reversed in regards to Western culture.  The culture is a response to Christianity, not the other way around.

I don't think so: Christianity's proscriptions and dogma reflect wider Apollonian civilization and the desire to funnel the world through transparent principles.

Altogether, though, I think you would find a great friend in Sam Harris rather than Dawkins.  Harris is the only neo-atheist who takes spirituality seriously, and defends the spirituality of the human person as a real thing, capable of exploring reality every bit as well as science.  Of course, what that means, I cannot be sure.

Thanks, I'll look him up.

[Sean]

Widening the picture for you heathens, here's some notes I put together on my local temple and the deities there.

Abrahamic-Dharmic

There are four main world religions of about a billion followers each. Christianity and Islam can be called Abrahamic religions, being based on the bible and its prescriptions, traced back to Abraham. Hinduism and Buddhism by contrast are dharmic religions begun in India and more concerned with the idea of one's more personal duty and right action in life, whatever form it takes; morality is seen as infinitely complex and there's no set of commandments.

Of the four religions Hinduism is the least known in the West, partly because it's largely confined to one country whereas the others have spread much more, but also due to its nature radically outside of Western religious paradigms.

No principles

There's no founder and Hinduism is decentralized with no regulating institutions or overall leaders, though all sects accept the authority of the core Vedic texts, these also being the oldest textural record of any language, written down around 1500 BC but possibly much older. It's not based on principles and there's no set dogma or prescriptions on behaviour.

Hinduism's aim is only the unity of your own self with the universal Self, or atman with Brahman, leaving no duality or advaita: Brahman or God is within us, equivalent to consciousness, and forms the core of what we are. The Self is the subject or that which knows and experiences and is never-changing, while the ever-changing relative world revolves around it.

Dharma & caste

Samsara is the process of birth, life, death and reincarnation and moksha freedom from this- when all karma is worked out and one has unity with Brahman. You need to fulfil your dharma in life, the divinely necessary action in your particular circumstances, to find God and enlightenment: the path of the regular householder is as valid as that of the ascetic guru.

Though illegal there are four castes or varnas in Indian society of Brahmins or priests and scholars, Kshatriyas or rulers and warriors, Vaishyas or artisans and traders, Shudras or manual workers, and the Dalits or underclass: the Vedas define caste as based on merit not birth and sanction no underclass.

Indus valley

Hinduism is the world's oldest religion, dating at least from the Indus valley civilization of the early third millennium BC, contemporary with the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians: the Vedas may date much older still than these times, being passed down orally in various communities. The river Indus runs through central Pakistan and has the important archaeological sites of Mohenjo-daro and Harrapa (where I went in May 2009).

Myths

Hindu gods' involvement in the world is only mythological not literal, and there are endless versions of the myth- there's no fixed doctrine as in Christianity or Islam for instance. The myths are typically concerned with correction of misunderstanding, or the self-referential return of oneself to oneself, as indeed in the character of artworks generally.

Paths

Behind all the gods is Brahman, the fundamental plane of being and which is the same as the unified field in modern physics, behind all phenomena. There are any number of paths to Brahman and you're free to choose the god or gods you wish to focus on and the sect to belong to, the main four divisions being Shiva gods followers or Shaivites, Vishnu gods followers or Vaishnavities, female god followers or Shaktites, or Smartists who have a combination.

Hindu scripture speaks of 330 million gods, indicating there are any number of expressions of the divine, and would ask who is the Christian or Muslim to pronounce to God how it can reveal itself to humanity. Even people can be deified and temples and shrines erected to them, because of the divine element in them.

Hinduism is a mixture of sects and practices, it's only definition and function being to encompass definitions- it's profoundly inclusive and non-confrontational; a Hindu family may even choose to bring up one of its children as a Sikh or subscribing to another religion.

No heresy

Hence there's no heresy in Hinduism, there being endless gods, incarnations and forms of gods, mixtures of gods, names of gods, and versions of their myths and qualities they embody: the confusion is encouraged and delighted in because it's all valid: scriptural inconsistency is impossible.

All four of the major world religions have dual divisions but the Vaishnavism-Shaivism split in Hinduism causes no antagonism- the point is that relative dualities are to be transcended to the absolute: Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism is similar, but Catholics and Protestants and Sunnis and Shiites with their set intellectually transparent tenets both regard each other as heretical.

God is one

The subtle idea of God being one is widely understood in India: only things that are more than one in kind have characteristics, whereas God is singular and absolute and can't vary, howsoever it may be framed by religions- therefore there can only be one God as its singularity deprives it of distinguishing features. The God of the Bible or of the Koran are necessarily the same; Brahman is one without a second.

Theisms

Brahman or the absolute though is beyond the level of the pantheon of gods: they're only expressions of what's beyond them and aren't the ultimate reality, making Hinduism atheistic. Hinduism hence encompasses pantheism in Brahman being the foundation of all physical as well as ethical and spiritual reality as well as polytheism, monotheism and atheism, among other theisms.

(It's more Christianity that is polytheistic with God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary, the arch angels, angels, saints, regular souls, devil, fallen angels and other spiritual entities, all not regarded as versions of the same thing).

We are God

Brahman though isn't something other than us and doesn't intervene in the world per se, instead communion with God is just communion with the divine aspect of us- God is what we are and what we can be, and nothing distinct.

The essence of a person, the aspect of us going beyond materiality and giving us consciousness and ethical and aesthetical experience, is the level of God and beyond. It is the transcendent aspect of the human condition, and present in all life: humanity has infinite power and ability.
 
Indeed the priests treat the deities as persons and are bathed, offered food and put to rest at night.

Worship

Worship is about focusing the mind on realizing our transcendent aspect: we often feel unfulfilled, but God helps those who help themselves in that our desires are realigned within ourselves by the central experience of the darshan with the idol, where you look at it and it, or the transcendent element in you or God in you, looks back at you.

There's a self-referential subject-subject loop that develops, the essence of consciousness and the basis of all achievement and right and powerful thought and action: the mind finds its basis in the level of faith in dharma and proceeds from there, beyond rationality or the ratios of usual subject-object relations.

The enclosure, or garbha griha, for the idol, or murti, is hence rather narrow, providing the momentary sighting before you move off again; there are guardian deities on either side.

Circumamabulation around the deity, or temple, is clockwise and always done after the puja: the deity is to your right with the more lowly left hand at a distance. Moreover the Hindu symbol of the swastika always has clockwise arms, not as Nazi anticlockwise ones.

Hindu worship isn't congregational and attendance is a personal matter even with festival days; priests perform pujas, ceremonial offerings to the gods, for individuals or groups on request. The religion is student-led, teaching not being imposed from without.

Personal gods

The personified gods here though aren't just expressive of abstract Brahman but are real on more concrete levels in as far as they embody those transcendent qualities we live our lives by, such as wisdom, righteousness, steadfastness, courage or success, embodied in the gods' myths.
 
Also though the statue is a focus for Brahman beyond its materiality, Brahman or God is everywhere, and everywhere includes where the statue is- so God is in the statue; Brahman is both transcendent and immanent.

The Vedas

The Vedas are four collections of ritualistic hymns that include philosophy on the relation between humanity and God- rig, yajur, sama and atharva: they have four parts each- samhitas (main part), brahmanas, aranyakas and upanishads and written in Sanskrit, India's ancient sacred language.

They're seen as shruti or revealed texts that are heard in the mind, contrasting with other secondary texts, smriti or remembered. The Brahmin priests chant in Sanskrit while performing the puja.

Puranic & Vedic deities

Brahman has three expressive facets or major gods called the trimurti- Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Brahma- vehicle/ mount- swan, consorts Gayatri, Savitri & Saraswati
Vishnu- vehicle- Garuda, half man half eagle, consort Lakshmi
Shiva- vehicle- bull Nandi, consorts Sati & Parvati
Son of Shiva, Ganesh- vehicle- mouse, consorts Ridhi & Sidhi
Son of Shiva, Kartikeya/ Murugan/ Skanda- vehicle- peacock, consorts Valli & Devayani

The older Vedic deities include Hanuman and the weekly celestial bodies gods but lost some importance to later Puranic deities; all have been worshipped in various forms since the medieval or antiquity.

Trimurti/ trinity

There may be a parallel between Hindu and Christian trinities in God the creator being Brahma, Christ being a Shiva figure destroying himself and sins of the world for spiritual renewal, and the Holy Spirit in a Vishnu type preserving role; the three gods are also one, similar to the same Brahman being behind all gods. The word Brahman may also have links with the Old Testament name Abraham, being almost the same letters.

The Weekly deities

The seven major naked eye moving celestial objects known by the ancients, in the Navagraha building, are deified-

Ravi-var = Sunday, day of the sun
Som-var = Monday, day of the moon
Mangal-var = Tuesday, day of Mars
Budh-var = Wednesday, day of Mercury
Brihaspati-var = Thursday, day of Jupiter
Shukra-var = Friday, day of Venus
Shani-var = Saturday, day of Saturn

Brahma

Brahma is the creator god and is represented by both water and fire: Vishnu the preserver is water and Shiva the destroyer is fire.

Brahma's worship declined and hasn't been widespread since the 6th century: once creation is established the rest of the time he's in meditation- he's usually depicted with four heads with eyes closed reciting the four Vedas. He may be included with the minor gods in temples' sculptural decoration but not as presiding deity; two of the few small temples to Brahma include ones in Pushkar south of Delhi and Bangkok Thailand.

In Hindu cosmology a day of Brahma or the Kalpa period of 4.32 billion years almost exactly matches the age of the earth calculated by modern science.

Temple architecture

This temple's design is based on that on the hill of Tirumala near the town of Tirupathi in southern Andra Pradesh state, southeast India: there's an extensive set of buildings it's one of the world's richest temples with thousands of visitors daily (I visited in April 2009). The Tividale temple opened August 2006.

The tower on the roof is usually above the presiding deity but in south India may be above the temple entrance. The mandapa is the main pillared hall, the pillars displaying minor gods and goddesses or incidents from the deities' myths, or from the Indian epic stories; further carvings may extend over the exterior walls and tower. The entrance porch is the ardhamandapa.

Vishnu iconography

Vishnu, also known as Narayana among his hundreds of names, in his classic pose reclines on a bed of the coils of the serpent king Sheshanaga with Lakshmi seated near his feet, as here; his resting reflects God's nature as non-intervening in the world, God having no separation from us yet separate from our relative or material selves.

In creation myth the snake was used as a rope twisted around the world axis that rested on a tortoise, pulled either way by the Gods and demons and churning the primeval waters or milk: the Gods won despite the demons having equality with them, truth being beyond both good and evil.

Vishnu like many other gods sleeps from June/ July to October/ November, when fewer ceremonies are performed: marriages are more auspiciously dated after this time.

Vishnu is depicted the colour of water as in rivers, lakes and the ocean, blue or black, embodying Dionysian drowning of the intellect into spiritual awareness, along with depth of character and the ability to deal with difficult situations- the ocean's green and blue becoming black in deepest waters. Vishnu reflecting water hence has his statue in the fountain; the statue's original colour was green. Blue is also the colour of the limitless sky; Shiva statues are usually white, the colour of purity.

Vishnu arms

The upper left hand holds a conch shell, representing his power to maintain the universe, and especially through sound and the Aum syllable; the lower left hand holds a mace, representing mental and physical strength, and the power of the divine within us to rise above the ego.

In the upper right hand is a chakra or sharp discus-like spinning weapon, representing sharp and purified mind; in the lower right hand is lotus flower representing liberation and the unfolding of divine consciousness in the individual. Brahma the creator is sitting on a lotus emerging from Vishnu's navel, indicating the gods' interdependence.

Vishnu incarnations

A number of popular folk deities in different areas were absorbed into the Vishnu cult as mythical incarnations, with the Buddha likely being incorporated by Hindu priests due to unease felt over Buddhism's development.

There's a distilled group of 24 incarnations but of those ten main ones reflect humanity's evolution; whenever forces of evil begin to overtake the world, Vishnu descends to earth to rectify it-

#1 Matsya the fish is an invertebrate
#2 Kurma the tortoise is an amphibian
#3 Varaha the boar is a mammal
#4 Narasimha is a half man half lion
#5 Varmana is a dwarf, reflecting an early form of man
#6 Parashurama or 'Rama of the axe' is a man, reflecting the start of humans' use of metal
#7 Rama is a man, reflecting the human ability to have structured urban societies
#8 Krishna is a man fully embodying the level of god for humans to aspire to in life (Krishna is
      sometimes seen Vishnu's son and has a brother, Balarama)
#9 Buddha is Siddhartha Gautama of the 6th century, founder of Buddhism
#10 Kalki is yet to be incarnated

Rama is the protagonist in the Ramayana epic and is usually depicted with his wife Sita to his right and brother Laksmana to his left, who holds a bow and arrow and is shorter than Rama; Rama expresses honour and righteous action in adversity and Sita devotion. Parashurama is a different figure; Rama may have been a historical king.

Multi-armed

Deities gained or lost popularity over time and were merged- in the 5th century for example attempts were made to make sense of the mass of myths and legends built up, though many new deities are still created today.

Merged deities were shown with extra sets of arms to hold objects symbolizing the progenitor deities' qualities; sometimes hands are empty though- fingers pointing toward the ground designates the god as of charitable disposition whereas pointing upward it's of protective disposition. Gods sometimes also have extra legs, such as Kuber, a god of wealth having three.

Sexualized

Hinduism is a sexualized religion with the links between sexuality and spirituality understood, for instance Vishnu's head in his creation pose being under the hood of the snake's heads has procreative reference to the genitals, with the snake also phallic.

Some temples are covered in erotic carvings and sexual depiction and the swung hip sculptural style is ubiquitous, very sensuous and ancient. Vishnu and water also reflects sexual fluid and the loss of self and intellectual mind's drowning in the divine.

Tantrism is a sect emphasizing the union of the female partner, especially Shiva's consort Parvati, an expression of Shakti. Also Shiva began as the ancient fertility God Rudra, becoming elevated to the highest ranks and many Shiva temples have phallic stone lingas on which water is constantly dripped.

Buddhism

Buddhism's relativism doesn't hold with Brahman the absolute but Hindus can still pray to the Buddha as they understand the presence of the absolute in the relative: Buddhists somehow pray to gods and look to a state of enlightenment without seeing these as beyond the relative plane of the ever changing experience of life's surface.

The Lotus

The Lotus flower reflects the irrelevance, at least in any direct sense, of a person's circumstances to their spiritual development- it grows in muddy water but unfolds by itself into a perfect flower regardless of the surrounding's impurities. Unfolding also symbolizes self-creation and self-generating knowledge, and the lotus is in water yet detached from it all as we are in the world but not of it. It's India's national flower.

Aum

The Aum symbol on the flag is Hinduism's greatest symbol, referring to the states of consciousness en route to enlightenment and unity with the divine- there are seven states with the 4th onwards being beyond regular experience.

The symbol's three curves express waking, dreaming and deep sleep states, separated by the dot of the unchanging absolute or Brahman, the dimensionless transcendent before the three dimensions of space or line, plane and solid; the letters of the word also relate to these states with the whole word being Brahman.

It also embodies many other sets of three to including the trimurti and the gunas or three states of the relative mental mind- sattva or serenity, rajas or work and tamas or rest.

The flag is saffron coloured, the colour of fire and the burning up the confused intellect in the quest of the divine's light.

Bells, smells, marks

A flame waved around the idol reflects God as light and illumination with incense reflecting God as all-pervasive; the melting of aromatic camphor reflects the need for the ego to melt and become one with the supreme.

A bell hanging down at the entrance may be rung by devotees to help concentrate their minds, moving the attention inward.

A tilak is a coloured paste mark put on the forehead by the priest: the point between the eyebrows is the third or spiritual eye, the goal being to open it and gain unity. This is distinct from the bindi mark Hindu women put higher up on forehead indicating marital status.

There are distinguishing sect forehead marks- Vaishnavites have vertical lines of various kinds, sometimes with the dot of Brahman between: Vishnu is water, having the property of always descending so the lines point down, as the mind descends deeper into itself.

The Shaivites are distinguished by two or more horizontal lines, often arches or triangles, again sometimes with a dot: Shiva is fire, having the property of always ascending so the lines point upwards, as the enlightened mind burns up impurity and confusion; Shaivite marks are white.

The Nataraja

The nataraja is also one of the greatest Hindu symbols, embodying immense psychological insight: Shiva as the lord of the dance on the demon of ignorance is self-referral consciousness as the basis of enlightenment, with a ring of fire circumscribing his movements: the mind needs to stay within reach of its intuitive base and not get lost in its intellect per se, creating groundless principles and the false understandings of castles in the sky, separated from reality.

The Female godhead

The female goddess is Shakti or Durga, the more personalized form, or Devi the more abstract and impersonal form: she is traceable to a great ancient mother goddess and has numerous manifestations, assuming benign and terrible forms. She may be invoked for assistance against disasters and demons.

Important groups of goddesses include the nine Nava-Durgas, the seven Septa-Matrikas and the ten Mahavidyas, all with their imagery and mythology: one for instance is seen having cut her own head off held in one hand, with blood spurting from her neck into the mouths of surrounding other deities and into her own head's mouth.

Venkateswara/ Balaji & Padmavarti/ Alamelu

There are numerous myths but the main one is of a sage coming to see Vishnu and not being received immediately, and then kicking him in annoyance: Vishnu's lack of response to this prompts his consort Lakshmi to leave him, and for him to make his way after her, Lakshmi being incarnated as Padmavati and Vishnu as Venkateswara.

There are subtle relations between the two, him having to act along an aesthetic line to reunite with her and her having to act dispassionately for him to show fulfilment of right action in the circumstances of his non-resistance to the sage; Ventakeswara statues may have the eyes covered due to the intensity of his gaze. Padmavati is a goddess of wealth and good fortune.

Hanuman

Hanuman has a monkey's head on a well-built human body, and sometimes depicted with five arms and ten heads. He features in the Ramayana epic where he helps find Rama's kidnapped wife Sita on Sri Lanka, held by the demon king Ravana and leads an army of monkeys to her rescue.

He embodies devoted service and loyalty, bhakti or devotion to God and the locked-on, doubtless mind of animals, aligned with nature: he's free of the confused distractions of the human intellect when lost touch with the intuitive mind or common sense. His worship removes evil.

Ganesh & the mouse

Ganesh is one of the most popular gods, with an elephant's head, a pot belly and his vehicle a mouse showing that even the mightiest, if indeed they are mighty, have respect for the smallest and least powerful- sometimes it's a rat, an even lower creature. Looking to the mouse also represents the overcoming of selfish grandiose desires.

Ganesh is the remover of obstacles, a mouse also being able to find unexpected routes around them. He's the lord of beginnings, offerings being made to him before an undertaking for an auspicious start; he's also a god of wisdom, letters and learning. He has a gentle nature and is often employed as a guardian deity, as here.

Ganesh iconography

The objects he holds include an axe that cuts off excessive attachment to worldly experience and a rope that pulls devotees closer to the divine.

There are numerous myths explaining the elephant head but a common one is that young Ganesh was asked to guard the door by his mother Pavarti while Shiva was away, but on Shiva's return he didn't recognize Ganesh and cut his head off for standing between him and Parvati: he replaced his head with that of the first animal he then encountered, an elephant.

Ganesh's broken tusk, one shorter than the other, symbolizes non-dualism, one-pointedness and focus of mind, while the foot on the floor with the other raised expresses the humanity being in the world but not of it, our essence going beyond the material world- his legs reflect the horizontal or relative and vertical or absolute aspects of mind. Similarly the elephant head plus god's body reflects human duality, worldly and divine.
Ganesh further personifies the Aum symbol, the shape of his body resembling it; some medieval depictions though have him with 14 and 20 arms.

Murugan/ Subrahmanya/ Kartikeya

He's a popular deity particularly among Tamil Hindus, a god of war and victory, another son of Shiva and Parvati; his vehicle is a peacock. He slew the demon Surapadman, only Shiva's offspring being sufficiently powerful for this.
He was six children who became one and often has six heads, also referring to the six Kartika gods or brightest stars or in the Pleiades star cluster in the constellation of Taurus that looked after them. There are many temples in south India marking the stages of his battles.

[Catison]

Thanks the post Sean.  I'll come back to it again because it is so long.

However, you are quite wrong about Christianity being polytheistic.  To suggest such is a horrible misunderstanding of Christian and Catholic theology.