From time immortal, belief in the existence of God has influenced the life of human beings. Most thinkers believed in God, and this very belief influenced their thoughts and conduct in a big way. Therefore, it is of great importance to know what the existence of God means.

As most religions believe in the existence of God, in the past their followers used to worship God the Almighty, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Compassionate, Eternal—the Creator of the universe and all that exists.

But when we study the Hindu concept of God, a number of surprising facts come to light. Today Hinduism is a well-established polytheistic religion, even though it is against the Vedic (sacred Hindu scripts) commandments. Because of the plurality of gods within Hinduism, it is very difficult to come to any specific conclusion about what commandments are given by God to be followed by Hindus. Through this essay we will try to seek answers to questions like: “Does Hinduism have a uniform view concerning who God is? How many gods are there in existence (in Hinduism)? Does God have a birth and death? Who created the universe? We will also find out whether the “Trinity of God”, described in Hindu scriptures, has any logic to be called the Supreme God.

1. In Purush Sukta of Rigveda (10/90/1) God is described as having thousands of heads, eyes and feet.

2. Hiranayagarbh Sukta of Rigveda says that in the beginning of the universe there was only Hiranyagarbh (the Almighty God). He was the Lord of all beings. He set earth and the sky at their present places (Rigved, 10/121/1). God blessed the beings with strength. All the deities obey His commands. Even death is under His command. He is the Lord of all beings and animals. This Rigveda also stresses God’s Attributes such as Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent and the Master of Salvation.

3. Swetambar Upanishad (618) sheds some light on the body-figures of God. “He has no body, no soul, no senses. Nobody is even equal to him.” “He is the Almighty God. He is the protector of the whole creation. He is exempt from hunger, thirst, grief and death.”

When the Hindu scriptures say that God is one and exempt from birth and death, then the question arises why is He defined as having a body. Is it not contradictory?

The Rigveda also suggests that “Prajapati” is the Almighty God of Hindus. But Atharvaveda (7/3/26/1) says, “Vishnu created earth, heaven and space.” In the Mandukya Upanishad (6) Brahma is described as the creator of earth, heaven and space. What a contradiction!

The study of Rigveda, Athravaveda and various Upanishads suggests that Brahma and Vishnu are described as two almighty gods. But the great surprise is that these scriptures describe god as exempt from birth in one place, while in the other they describe him tied to wordly bonds.

4. According to Shiv Mahapuram (6/1/19), Brahma and Vishnu used to fight to prove their respective superiority. Brahma says that he created Vishnu, but Vishnu says that he created “Lotus” from his navel which in turn gave birth to Brahma.This conflict turned to a terrible battle between them.

Besides Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, thirty-three gods are also described in the Vedas. Today their number has reached thirty-three crore (330,000,000). This means that every third person of India has his own god!

Due to this brief exposition of the Hindu concept of god, one might be astonished at the terrible perplexities and contradictions the Hindu scriptures contain. Can a human being, enjoying the slightest degree of sanity, reach any kind of certitude concerning the true concept of God by adopting this mysterious and bewildering philosophy? One may compare this with the simple, clear-cut Islamic way of achieving this concept. Muslims believe in one and only one God (Allah). They admit neither peers to Him nor intercessors, which is a distinguishing feature of Islam.