Page 208 - A Historical Lie: The Stone Age

A HISTORICAL LIE: THE STONE AGE

The Origins of Superstitious Polytheism in India
Even if Indian culture is not as old as Middle Eastern cultures,
still it is one of the oldest surviving cultures in the world.
In Indian paganism, the number of so-called deities is virtually
endless. After long study, Andrew Lang has determined that poly-
theistic religions appeared in India as a result of a process similar to
that in the Middle East.
Edward McCrady, writing about Indian religious beliefs, ob-
served that the Rig Veda shows that in the early days, the deities
were regarded simply as diverse manifestations of a single Divine
Being. 78 In the hymns in the Rig Veda, we can see traces of the de-
struction of the monotheistic idea of a single God. Another re-
searcher in this area, Max Müller, agrees that at first, there was a
belief in one God:

There is a monotheism that precedes the polytheism of the Veda; and
even in the invocation of the innumerable gods the remembrance of a
God one and infinite, breaks through the mist of idolatrous phraseol-
ogy like the blue sky that is hidden by passing
clouds. 79

From this, it is again obvious that there
has been no evolution of religions, but
that people added false elements to
true religion, or neglected certain

The superstitious Hindu religion has many
false deities. However, research has shown
that in the early days of Indian culture people
believed in a single God.

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