Is the Hindu Bhagavadgita Monotheist?

Even though the Bhagavadgita is just a small part of the Mahabharata Hindu epic, the popularity of the former book in Hindu households has led to it being referred to as the Hindu Bible. This likeness should be taken at face value, for the contents in the Gita are very different than the theological context of the Bible, whether just the Torah, the Talmud, or the New Testament. Even though the virtue of kindness or love issuing out in compassion to other people is a shared descriptor of the Hindu Lord Krishna, which is the highest god in the Gita, and the Christian Lord Jesus, the ideational dissimilarities between the Gita and the Bible should not be glossed over. Put another way, not even the symbol of the mandala, which Joseph Campbell includes as the religious archetype of wholeness in The Power of Myth, should dispel the notion that religions contain unique and thus different philosophical and theological ideas and even just stances.

In the Bhagavadgita, for example, “(y)oga practices and knowledge of salvation are equated with ritual performances in which all defilements and desires are offered up in the ‘sacrificial fire’ (agni) of knowledge.”[1] In ritual, basic elements on Earth, such as fire, water, and food, which, astonishingly, are labeled as deities in the Chandogya Upanishad, are related to, and perhaps even vicariously connect, the cosmos and the human person. Knowledge of liberation from rebirths (samsara) involves or even necessitates the sacrifice of desires. The word salvation is extremely salient in Christianity, and yet is hardly innate to Hinduism; the connotation that being saved by the vicarious sacrifice (as per Anselm’s theology) of a god-man once and for all so that any believer is made right thereby with God (i.e., justified by faith, as per Luther’s theology) is foreign to Hinduism. To be sure, the inclusion the element of food in both the Hindu sacrificial ritual and in the Christian Eucharistic ritual (i.e., Communion) and even that the food is consecrated in the latter with the real presence of the divine (agape) and food is labeled at a deity in a Upanishad should not blind a non-Hindu reader of the Gita into supposing that the book’s paradigm like the one upon which the Judeo-Christian Bible rests.

Even taking into account Gnostic Christianity, the emphasis which the Gita places on knowledge, especially that which Krishna imparts to Arjuna, distinguishes Hinduism from Christianity, where at least Paul distinguishes theology from philosophy—only the knowledge of the wise being vain.[2] This demarcation, and prejudice against philosophy, does not exist in Hinduism. Malinar, for instance, refers explicitly to “the various religious and philosophical doctrines presented in the [Gita]” without driving an artificial wedge between them.[3]

Furthermore, even though Krishna is portrayed as the high deity and even the portal through which Brahman itself can be glimpsed in full—as if that were possible for a human being—it is a mistake to label the Gita as monotheist. Even though Krishna is portrayed in the Gita as “the mighty ruler and creator of the world and its dharmic order, as well as the ever-liberated and transcendent ‘highest self’” and thus as “the most powerful Lord and yogin,” with “power over nature (prakrti)” and being “the cosmic cause of activity” yet “detached from the created world, being forever ‘unborn’ and transcendent,”[4] it is a mistake to conclude that Krishna’s supreme qualities renders the Gita as monotheist.

As if the Gita were akin to Hobbes’ Leviathan, Malinar states that the “monotheistic theology in [the Gita] also offers an interpretation of kingship and royal power” simply because Krishna is revealed “as the highest god.”[5] Even in the Hebrew Bible where other gods are referred to, they are not credited with being real gods, so it is not as though Yahweh is the highest god; rather, Yahweh is the only god, and thus God.[6] Also, the accolades that Malinar attributes to Krishna do not make Krishna merely a manifestation of Yahweh, for the latter did not create a dharmic order and is not liberated as the highest-self. Although “detached from the created world, being forever ‘unborn’ and transcendent” also characterizes Yahweh, or God, I wonder whether Malinar was knowingly or unknowingly drawing on Christian theology in describing Krishna in such “Western” terms.

Furthermore, I submit that not even Brahman considered as the highest or supreme god in Hinduism renders the religion monotheist. One twentieth-century American philosopher, Keith Yandel, erroneously interpreted the Hindu philosopher and theologian, Shankara (8^th century, CE), as characterizing Hinduism as monotheist simply because, according to non-dualism, the Hindu deities are merely appearances, or manifestations, of Brahman. As the ground-being of the world’s multiplicity, Brahman cannot be said have what we think of as intelligence as it differs from the awareness or consciousness of being itself qua being.  Neither can Brahman be thought of as a discrete entity, for Brahman is the being of everything—of all existence, or, perhaps more accurately, of existence itself. It is surely difficult, if not impossible, to view raw being as an entity; rather, being is the existential basis (rather than an attribute) of entities. So, I’m not convinced that Brahman can even be said to be a deity. It is possible that English translators of the Gita (and the Upanishads) have used a familiar word whose meaning differs from what the writers of the text(s) had in mind. In any case, when the warrior Arjuna gets a glimpse of Brahman itself by Krishna revealing himself as he really is, it is not the Abrahamic deity, or God, that Arjuna sees in his epiphany.

As yet another example of a leitmotif of the Gita that is not easily convertible into any of the Abrahamic faiths, Krishna urges Arjuna to engage on the external battlefield with “detached action” as a way to avoid “karmic bondage” even as Arjuna is active and performs his social duties.[7] To be sure, to be detached from sinful desires in Christianity bears a rough similarity to the “detached action,” but here even the desire not to harm relatives is a problem. Also, the very notion of “karmic bondage” is utterly foreign to the Abrahamic religions. In Christianity, for example, the bondage is to sin, whose basis lies within rather than as actions (even less in the residue of past actions).

Although religions can be said to bear Wittgenstein’s “family resemblances” to each other, the urge to minimize or overlook the differences between religions, as in depicting one in terms of another (or that another uses), should be checked and corrected for, lest scholars of religion unintentionally remake particular religions into more familiar terms. One of the main benefits of studying more than one religion, especially religions other than one’s own, is the access to different ideas and theologies/philosophies. A person’s own religious/philosophical paradigm can be made transparent to oneself even to be seen as an alternative rather than as the unquestioned and unrecognized default. Unconsciously distorting other religions into more familiar terms diminishes this realization.

---

1. Angelika Malinar, The Bhagavadgita: Doctrines and Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 4.
2. 1. Cor. In contrast, the Hebrew Bible contains the verse, “God knows the thoughts of men.” Paul adapts this to: “God knows the thoughts of the wise; they are vain.” Jerusalem is fine; Athens is not. Such a dichotomy does not exist in Hinduism.  
3. Malinar, The Bhagavadgita, p. 5.
4. Ibid., p. 6.
5. Ibid., p. 4.
6. Also, whereas Hobbes’ notion of a sovereign power, whether a king or an assembly, has absolute political and religious (i.e., interpreting divine law) power within a territory, Hindu kings have traditionally been at least ritually dependent on the Brahmin priests in the main temple not only for another year of legitimacy, but also as a means of gaining power by giving land away through the auspices of the temple.
7. Malinar, The Bhagavadgita, p. 4.

A Bishop's Partisanship Overshadows Her Christianity

On the first full day of U.S. President Trump’s second term, the president and vice president attended a multi-faith prayer service at the National Cathedral. Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde delivered the sermon on what is necessary for imperfect political unity in a country such as the United States. I contend that in trying to influence the president on immigration policy in a partisan way, she undercut the credibility of her message that there is strength in loving rather than retaliating against one’s detractors and even political enemies. The sacrifice of which she spoke concerning being kind in reaching out in humanity to people we dislike could be applied to herself in resisting the temptation to be partisan. That she lapsed at the expense of Jesus’ most important message is particularly striking.

Rev. Budde claimed that recognizing the dignity of even one’s enemies as being worthy of respect is one of three elements in achieving an admittedly imperfect (for we are imperfect beings) political unity, which in turn can be understood as “a way of being with one another.” To hold different perspectives or opinions as “valid and worthy of respect” does not require agreeing with them, and it is indeed permissible to proffer corrections on faulty reasoning. Such differences can exist within a deeper political unity if there is also compassion with another person’s humanity, as in the context of natural disasters.

Helping another person even though dislike exists in either or both directions involves sacrificial love as we give of ourselves for the sake of others, regardless of whom they voted for in the last election. In his Sermon on the Mount, the priest said, Jesus advocates loving not just our neighbors, but to love our enemies. Such love can seem vague, and the term “enemies” can easily be dismissed as too extreme to apply as the term does not include people who simply don’t like us or whom we don’t like. Being willing to be compassionate and kind in not just sympathizing, but also helping even people whom we regard as assholes is none other than the content of the kingdom of God, according to Samuel Hopkins, an American theologian who followed his relative, Jonathan Edwards, in the First Great Awakening. God is incarnate in our world in the interpersonal dynamic that only exists when a person disregards dislike in choosing to respond in kindness to another person’s needs when doing so is inconvenient interpersonally.   Valuing this divine presence in the world and enabling it to manifest by helping out in humaneness is something that anyone can value without necessarily believing in a god-man. Indeed, the litmus test in Christianity could be changed in line with this focus on the kingdom of God, whose mysteries Jesus says in the Gospels he came to discuss. Put another way, were actual acts of kindness to people who have been rude or even mean the focus for Christian intention, interpersonal peace might just break out as from a mustard seed. The world would change dramatically, and a president could lead the way by example.

Had the priest left her message at that, the impact would have been greater than it was, but she went on to bring up Jesus’ position on societal outcastes in order to beg President Trump to have mercy on people in the United States who have entered illegally. Reminding the president of Jesus welcoming outcastes in the Gospels, she pleaded for mercy on the hard-working people in the U.S. who don’t “have the proper documentation” to be in the country but “are not criminals.” I submit that not having the proper documents is a function of having broken U.S. law, and thus being criminals by entering the U.S. illegally. The problem lies not with documents, but with the willful decision to enter another country without permission, which, I submit is rather presumptuous. To label this as not criminal is not only incorrect factually, but glosses over the sheer presumption in sneaking into another country. I submit that the attitude of “laws don’t apply to me” is indeed presumptuous, and in fact is inconsistent with being in a society at all. For it is only in a Hobbesian state of nature that laws do not apply.

So, I submit that by “getting political” in a misleading or artful way, the priest undercut the immense credibility that lies in the strength of forgiveness by helping out people who have been most unkind—a kind of strength that is often dismissed in the political world, as it is by the Romans in the Gospels. In his writings, Nietzsche argues that this sort of strength is actually weakness. He even points out how it is preached as a means of gaining power over the politically strong. This is exactly what the priest was doing in trying to make the president feel guilty for objecting to people whose first act in the U.S. was to break its laws by entering illegally. That they have no right to be in the U.S. does not undercut their dignity, for they have done that themselves in audaciously sneaking into a country (or staying beyond a court date). The priest herself said that honesty is a major element of political unity.  

Unfortunately, the focus was not on whether serving the humanity of even political adversaries in acts of kindness rather than seeking retribution constitutes strength or weakness. Christianity stands for the former, whereas Nietzsche provides a counter-argument wherein the religion is useful for the weak who are not strong enough to be politically powerful. It could be that valuing not only turning the other cheek, but responding to the humanity of detractors in acts of kindness is the or ought to be the definitive litmus test by which a person can decide in the privacy of one’s own heart whether one is a Christian. Were this the focus of the religion, then the earthly city might really change. Being opportunistic in seeking political influence, on the other hand, is unfortunately already well-ensconced, and is thus easily recognizable.