How Many Gods Are There?

For a long time an evolutionary view held sway over the history of religions. According to it, out of some animist or fetishistic-shamanistic roots there supposedly grew first the deification of the forces of nature, and then polytheism. This chaotic state was supposedly brought to an end by Jewish monotheism, and Islam's claim to supremacy invokes the same thing: the concept of the abstract, intangible one true God, which is, so to speak, the culmination of the evolution of religious thought. In this light, however, how are we to interpret the fact that the expression ‘foreign gods’ occurs seventy-six times in the Bible?! So then, how many gods are there?

This question is asked in the secret teachings of India too, in the Upanishads. Some would no doubt shoot back: one, and the Gnostics, who hold to the dualist view, would surely claim two. The Holy Trinity, by its very name, is three, while a citizen of ancient Rome would say many. But the Upanishads, the secret teachings of India, put it far more surprisingly than this.

In the last stage of the brahmins' spiritual debate, the sage Shakalya presses Yajnavalkya, the most eminent of scholars, on the number and identity of the gods.

– How many gods are there, Yajnavalkya? – asked Shakalya.

– Three hundred and three, and another three thousand and three, as the invocations praising the gods have it…

– Very well – said Shakalya – but still, how many gods are there, Yajnavalkya?

– You are right, these are only manifestations; in truth there are only thirty-three gods.

– Which are these thirty-three?

– The eight Vasus (Fire, Earth, Air, Sky, Sun, Moon, Heaven and the Stars); the eleven Rudras (the ten sense functions of man – the five perceiving functions and the five organs of action – with the mind as the eleventh); the twelve Adityas (the twelve months of the year) – that makes thirty-one, and together with Indra, lord of thunder, and Prajapati, lord of the sacrificial rite, thirty-three.

– Very well – said Shakalya – but still, how many gods are there, Yajnavalkya?

– Six, to be sure, three, two, one and a half, but in truth only one…

– Then which are the six gods?

– Fire, earth, wind, the atmosphere, the Sun and the vault of heaven – these are the six, for these six are everything.

– Well, and which are the three gods?

– Those, surely, are the three worlds, for in them dwell all the gods. The first world is the world of fire and the Earth, the second the realm of wind and sky, and the third the world of the Sun and the vault of heaven.

– And which are the two gods?

– Food and breath, for out of the pairing of matter and spirit all else develops.

– And which is the one-and-a-half god?

– This one, who breathes here.

– Some say, though, that he who breathes is one, so how could he be one and a half?

– In that, when he breathes, he also grows.

– And who is the one God?

– Breath, that is Brahman. It is also called: That.

A surprising feat of abstraction! Yajnavalkya first names an incredibly large number of deities, three thousand three hundred and six, then speaks of thirty-three, six, three, two, one and a half, and finally of one god. As the numbers decrease, the principles he names become ever more universal. As the multitude diminishes, the enumeration reaches an ever more essential vision, until at last it arrives at the ultimate essence, breath, that is, Life. This is the principle of being, in other words the divine mystery of existence. Existence is… This ultimate essence is the ground and source of every further existent, God himself…