Polytheism, Monotheism or ‘Cheat’-theism?

Subhas Mitra:   05 Dec 2025

The concept of Monotheism evolved from Persia (Ahura Mazda – ‘Light’ and Egypt – Akhenaten – the ‘Sun’), much before Moses came down with the commandments.

• Judaism was first practised in the 490s – 150s BCE.
• You shall have no God before me: Bible: Exodus: 20; 3, Deuteronomy -5:7
• “La ilaha illallah” or no god except Allah (who in this earth needs references?)

The Hindu Monotheism:

The Rig Veda speaks of a universal moral-cosmic law: Ṛta (ऋत) = cosmic order, truth, rightness. And then again Rig Veda 1.164.46 says: “Ékam sat viprā bahudhā vadanti.”(“Truth is one — the wise speak of it in many ways.”)

The entire Vedic age EKAM (one) and BAHUDHA (Many) or Mono and Polly walked hand in hand.  Much later, when the sages noted that opinions vary in understanding the equalities or similarities in Ekam (Mono) and Bahudha (Polly), and a tendency to consider either as a “separate or independent” theory, there emerged the methodologies for clarity as Dvaita (द्वैत) (duality ) and Advaita (अद्वैत  (Non-duelity).

At no given period of the evolutionary process of philosophical MANTHAN/ churning in Hinduism, neither did anyone restrict or reject the other, nor did anyone ask the other to be killed or converted to maintain “self-superiority”.

• I presume this sense of “superiority” is the gift of a jealous and intolerant God of Monotheism.
• Muslims did not come here to preach Islam but to destroy polytheist idolaters and establish Islam by might and force. Hindu scholars and intellectuals or sages had no role, but the Kshatriyas followed their SVADHARMA and protected Hinduism to the extent not seen anywhere outside India before the Christian resistance at the Gate of Vienna in 1683.

Christianity, on the other hand, entered and is entering in dubious or camouflaged means.

• It began with a Dominican missionary Jordanus Catalani in 1320 AD** at Surat as a Traveller,
•  Vasco da Gama in 1498 to the East India Co. for business,
•  John Allen Chau in 2018 to convert the Sentinelese XX as a tourist in the Andaman, and  
• Pastor Mark Burn came in the official delegation team of US President Donald Trump (violated Visa rules in Bengaluru).XX  

I am confused whether these were justified by the Nehruvian constitution or during the Hindu Renaissance of Calcutta. There has been no inquisition in India after Goa, but the conversion industry is flourishing with secularism.

** Ref: 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica and XX- News items

What prevented Hindu scholars from challenging Abrahamic preachers in medieval India or East India Co officials (Evangelists)?

Monotheism – Polytheism or Sakar (Form)-Nirakar (Formless) is nothing new for Hindus. The only difference was that we accepted each other and lived together, while the Abrahamic faiths wanted to eliminate one another.

Was this the summary of the Hindu Renaissance?  

Was there no one to convey this simple truth to our saviours from Muslim aggression?  Or did we simply slip from the Muslim claws to Christian grips?

What if our scholars / Pundits countered EIC narratives?

 At the most, some   Hindu seer/sage/scholar might have been killed  (like Surya Sen or Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose)  for telling that Christianity has nothing new to give to Hindus except their :

• dogmas,
• mannerism,
• colonial expertise,
•  English language and
•  Employee making education.

Who knows how many millions of Guru Tegh Bhadur & like sacrificed their life to save Hinduism from 711 AD onward. What if a few did so to counter EIC preachers?

Was it Subjugation?

Of course, we cannot deny the fact that the EIC met those Hindus who lived 1050 years in non-Hindu kingdoms without converting and got a golden chance to escape Jihad under the EIC. Perhaps they had no idea about Inculturation in their subjugated state of mind.

Was it very difficult to find formless monotheism in the Vedas?

• The “Rta” (ऋत) is not a personified entity that needed form, shape or visibility. 
• Were there attempts to prove all ancient Hindu Rishis and Seers as fools in comparison to the Evangelists of Europe?
• Were Hindus waiting for the Theosophical Society to come and teach Hinduism to Hindus? Why, after 22 October 1869 ‘Dharma Shabha’, was there an attempt to break Shiva Idols in Varanasi by Hindu believers of the formless God?

I do not have an answer, nor am I competent to challenge those iconic figures of Hindu Reform movements, but I do have the right to learn and understand their stands clearly.

Here is an AI-generated criticism of Hindu society:

Image:

Where Hindu/ Buddhist demography was shattered, and their customs and traditions were deformed beyond recognition on certain issues.

A Hindu reform was badly needed as “Revival cum Reform” and not “Reconstruction and Imitation” on the guidance or examples from a belief that has destroyed many civilisations before anchoring their ship at Murshidabad. We had definitely had lots to learn and adopt from them, but did that include learning “Hinduism” from EIC?

TWO Hindu refined Samaj:

The Arya Samaj too had fought against Idolatry and the Formless God, but they did not abandon Hinduism. On the contrary, they are a great saviour of Hinduism in a true sense. They have a pan-India presence with active services in education and social fields.

I am very eager to learn how the Brahma Samaj ( and Prarthana Samaj) is serving Hinduism or Hindu society. I do not know. I once visited one of their centres in North East India.  My grandson told me that local Hindus considered them as SHAHEB, and local converts consider them as HINDU.

 In my locality, a Brahmo centre was established in 1879, where only the anniversary of Debendranath Tagore is observed. There is a ‘Bagan Bari’ of Abanindranath Tagore, where a Muslim Dargah has recently emerged (perhaps due to politicians’ secularism). All local Brohmos are believed to have returned to mainstream.

• Among the founders, there was an Islamic scholar with a much higher Islamic education. The Samaj could not have afforded to see India as a land of only Hindus. Did the Samaj ever say anything about child marriage and polygamy in Muslims?
• Is the Samaj present in Rajasthan and Haryana to reform people there against child marriage? 
• Is there any recorded evidence of the Sati Memorial in Bengal before the EIC’s arrival?  
• Image

Brahmins and Hinduism: 

Instead of “Varna and Jati”, why did they accept “Caste system” as the Hindu social base?  The word caste did not prevail in India even during Muslim rule and was First time (1799) used by Jesuit Padre Abbe J A Dubois to condemn Brahmins, who were a big obstruction for conversion in India.  (India Beyond Narratives, Page 309).

 Was Hinduism only that old for reform?

In 1543, St. Francis Xavier wrote to the Jesuit society that: ***

•  “If it were not for the opposition of the Brahmins, we should have them all embracing the religion of Jesus Christ.
•  I could not convert a single Brahmin.

*** Ref: https://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/mod/1543xavier1.asp?utm_source=chatgpt.com 

When the   “convertors” in Goa and Madras could not convert the Brahmins, Bishop Robert Caldwell became a Tamil scholar to project Brahmins as enemies of Hindus and resume harvesting among non-Brahmins. In Calcutta, they did differently, and their front-line faith harvests were Brahmins.

SWADHARMI :

• Swadharmi in western India meant Hindus of all Varna & Jatis, including Sikhs and followers of Sufis like Baba Bulleh Shah (1680-1757), who refused to be identified as Muslim.
• The eldest son of the Swadharmis usually kept kesh(Sikh).
• W. C. Plowmen, the first census commissioner, got totally confused***.

Sikhi to Sikhism :

In 1870, Lt Governor Sir Donald Friell McLeod to 1921, Sir Edward Douglas Maclagan conspired to give a separate Religious identity to Sikhs by,

•  Promoting the Khalsa identity.
• 1898- Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha writes the book “Ham Hindu Nahin”.
• 1905 forms TAT KHALSA and throws out Hindu symbols and Brahmin out of the HARMANDIR and names DURDWARA.

If this is Hindu Renaissance, go to hell with it.  

Caste Genesis in India that is Bharat:  

***Anyone can read the forwarding of the FIRST census in British India of 1871 and 1881 under W. C. Plowden. They did not use Hinduism but IR (Indian Religions). He was unable to understand what SWADHARMI, SVAJATI, means. He suggested a uniform fixed classification for all IR.

Note:  SUFISM effects in Sindh, Punjab and Bengal- JHULE LAL was a Hindu PIR (پیر), .

•  In 1901, Herbert Hope Risley came up with the caste system, and that led to 1,646 castes.
• By 1931, this number rose to over 4,000.
• The Caste schedule was in 1936.

I wonder how the 1820s caste system came from. Yes, surely there were differences and discrimination amongst Varnas and Jatis, and they needed course correction, but a reform should not be based on the basis of a colonial manufacture.

• Anyone in Bengal would have expected the Samaj to take up from the Sen Dynasty instead of the Evangelists.
• If Samaj was against the system, they could go to the Pal Dynasty for guidance they did not have a caste system.

British Hinduism:

Max Muller:

Is it true that Max Müller learned Sanskrit, but he found it insufficient to translate the Vedas?  

Friedrich Max Müller, in 1845, moved to Paris to study Sanskrit under Eugène Burnouf. In 1846, the EIC hired and brought him to London. He Translated the Rig Veda (between about 1849 and 1874). 

Müller himself did express caution about the possibility of a “perfect” translation of Vedic texts. Some critics quote from his preface/introduction to his work on the Rig Veda — claiming that he said “no one who knows anything of the Veda would think of attempting a translation of it at present,” or that a “true translation is a task for the next century.”  ***Ref: (This is taken from Wisdom Library online).

Raja Ram Mohan Roy:

To my understanding, RRR was not Gora Sahib but an outstanding scholar and Pundit after becoming an Alim or Mullah. He would have been better than Max Müller. His exposure to Christianity is much less compared to Islam and Hinduism.

Then why does his biographer SOPHIA DOBSON COLLET hold him instrumental in turning,

•  EIC from a trading statute to a Political organisation (Page 176-177).
• Why did he have to become a Christian? (Page – 184).

If this is called” Saving Hinduism” from conversion, then what is Christianization?

Image Book:

Conclusion:

Hindus need a modern Neelkanth :

The Amrit Kalash from Samudra Manthan produced 14 valuable treasures, but the first item to emerge was the deadly poison (HALAHAL), which Shiv ji alone DEACTVATED.

The Manthan called INDIAN RENASCENCE that began by and due to:

William Carey (1761 –1834)

Sir William Jones (1746 –1794)

Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772 –1833)

Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800 –1859)

Friedrich Max Müller (1823 –1900)

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky1831 –1891),

Robert Caldwell (1814 –1891)

Max Arthur MacAuliffe (1838 − 1913),

E V  Ramasamy (1879 –1973)

M K Gandhi (1869 –1948)

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 –1964)

B R Ambedkar (1891 –1956)

Brought us AMRIT KALASH (Modern India), but it also gave POISON (Inculturation or hidden agendas). I am still waiting for a modern human Shivji to enhance ‘Amrit’ and deactivate the Poisons.