From Indias largest newsroom, I'm Arun George and this is the Times of India podcast. God is infallible. There is no error. That's the definition of God with a capital G. But gods don't always have a capital G While some faiths have this one big God who governs it, all others have multiple gods who interact with each other and
the world of humans. But while some gods make errors that sometimes their human followers have to deal with and take lessons from, some gods are said to never make any errors. What may seem like an error is often a way of teaching their followers something. In today's episode, my colleague Jayarat Singh and I are in conversation with author and mythologist Devdutt Patnaik about why some gods are seen as making mistakes and why others don't.
Devdutt explains why gods in different religions and myths behave very differently, and why we like our gods to be blameless and error free. He explains how the idea of an all powerful God emerged, how the idea's influence stretched into other faiths, and why it's been an attractive premise for leaders all through time. So I would imagine that, you know, we would like to describe God as being the all powerful.
Even in faiths that have many gods, you would want to still embolize that one powerful God. Can you tell us a little bit about this whole allure of having Boeing down to that one person, which is obviously predominantly a male? So this is because of the colonial discourse, because most of our stories were written by colonial authors. How do you and I know the Norse mythology? How do you and I know Greek mythology?
They are written by colonial people, scholars who are red red but essentially Christian in their training and subjects like anthropology and sociology had not evolved. And I think the human mind if you look at it, we like a simple solution like there should be 1 formula to solve all problems. We love this one thing. Gram barn as they say in Hindi. We want this one thing which will strike the target and solve everything. And we are always looking for
it, Never goes away. Humans are always looking for it. If you look at in the old smaller groups, perhaps there was a more democratic way of living, with different people having different power at different times. Then there were collaborative ecosystems, and gradually you have this autocratic ecosystem emerging where there is only one king who decides everything.
I think the way the political structure grows as you become larger and larger, very weirdly, you start getting irritated with collaboration, you start getting irritated with democracy and you want kind of a dictatorship which seems to be simpler and more efficient. And therefore 1 God who solves all problems becomes the answer. And let's understand it's one of the reasons why the Roman Empire chose to become Christian. Christianity spread as an imperial exercise.
It became popular with the slaves because he offered salvation. The stories of martyrdom emerged and spread amongst the aristocrats. There were other cults like this, but it's Christianity which won over which it gave this idea one God and his archangels. And this idea was very familiar to Rome, because one thing we don't realize is that they were fighting the Parthians, who were Zoroastrians and who also had this idea of one God and with and even that one enemy.
Not even multiple enemies. One enemy. So there was one God, one enemy. Ahura Mazda and Angra Manu. And that was the fight. It was a very simple line. Good things come from Ahura Mazda. Bad thing comes from Angra Manu, God devil. This idea of the devil came in many ways from Persia percolates into the Roman Empire, Roman Empire, which at that time is polytheistic. It's also democratic system. It was the Republic at one time. Then the Caesars come and then
it becomes a monarchy. And as it becomes a monarchy, it becomes monotheistic. So there's clearly a correlation between monotheism, the history of imperial Roman Empire. That's when for the first time it's an imperial decree that everybody should follow this religion, those who don't, so that all the temples are broken. This never happened before 300 CE. So roughly the time Gupta Empire was happening in India, we know the Roman trade collapses. Something major has happened in Europe.
Now what has happened major? The Roman Empire has become Christian. It is going inwards. It is talking about against hedonism and they're talking about salvation. And the church will give you salvation. And the church is becoming very, very, very powerful, the Roman Church.
And even then you see the split, the Byzantium split, the emperor moves to Byzantium. There are different churches seeking absolute control, which gives rise to the Orthodox Church, which gives rise to what is called the Catholic Church. There were churches in ancient Egypt. You see monotheism as being part of an imperial exercise and something that has to be remembered. And in these monotheistic order of belief, is there any room for the God to make any mistake? Are there any Gray areas?
God is infallible. There is no error. That's the definition of God with a capital G In the Jewish faith you don't even take his name. There is no name. His name shall not be spoken. It's this forbidding deity who has created the world and made humans on top of the plant and animal Kingdom. There's not a two way traffic. It's a one way traffic. There's God and you shall obey the angels obey him, the demons disobey him. The structure is very linear.
It's there is no feedback loop and improvement. The God will can be improved upon, or you can complain to him. You can appeal to him. So you have this idea of the appeal and the petition. Even in the Sufi's traditions where they say he's my lover, he's my beloved, the is masculine and you are the feminine. The power gradient is very clean. It may be a loving relationship, but you're not an equal. Is that also where the the
concept of blasphemy comes from? Where you cannot speak against you're gods because they're incapable of errors. So you have to see it from even the human point of view now that when the child talks back to the parent, the parent doesn't like it. This kind of authority which exists even within family, we would like the younger generation to listen to the older generation.
So I think this is projected in the idea of God who's so perfect that he cannot be challenged, his ideas cannot be challenged. And again, it becomes a very political idea. You can't hear God. You have to hear God through an institution and the institution will tell you this is the way you're supposed to be. The institution can decide what is blasphemy. This is right. That is wrong. And that's really a very powerful political control. God wants you to do this.
God wants you to be homophobic. The God wants you to kill all the people who don't believe in him. These ideas are human ideas. They could easily be military ideas, but the moment you sort of outsource it to God, you get unbelievable level of authority, which you don't have to prove because how do you prove that God said so? You just say, well, it's written in the holiest book and you cannot challenge it. So there is no argument there. So it's finished. And that happens, right?
You see this in a lot of religious people. They just said, well, it's written the text, it's written the Bible, it's written in the Quran, it's written in the Vedas, and now that becomes difficult to negotiate. Now there's no human factor, so I think it's a very powerful political tool, which sort of is also very seductive to politicians. You have things like, say, Norse and Roman gods who keep making mistakes upon mistakes. They dig themselves into these sort of deep holes.
They emerge from them only because they are gods. The mortals are kind of left to fend for themselves. Why do some myths go this way and have gods that are like that and others that don't? Let's look at take an example of
Greek mythologies. So Greek mythologies have a whole bunch of gods, and all the gods have different powers, but there's no one all powerful God. There is a leader amongst the gods called Zeus, but he is also sharing his power with his brothers who control the sea, control the afterlife and so there is not complete power. And he himself has achieved the status by defeating the Titans. And the Titans had achieved their status by defeating the giants.
And you're afraid that the current power system can be replaced and he can be replaced by humans, and therefore he, the the gods of Olympus, distract human beings through wars, keep them busy with adventures, So they're so busy with the mundane stuff of life that they don't have time to come together and plot against the gods and take over and become gods themselves. This is a very different idea of God, right? It's very different from the Middle Eastern pattern.
The Norse people did not have a word called God. They had the vaneer. And the ale who lived in different parts of the world is like a tree. And every branch of the tree has a different universe. And in these different worlds there are different kinds of people. And then what we call the Norse gods, all the gods have their halls on different branch or a sub branch. So humans live in one of those branches. So we are one of many creatures. There are elves, there are demons.
And the closest we get to understanding them is by films like Lord of the Rings. Of course, a lot of the Rings goes judeo-christian because he tries to make them good and bad and all that. But the Norse did not have it. They were trouble making gods. It was Loki the trickster. And the gods knew that one day they're going to die, the tree is going to be broken, and there's an assumption that maybe the tree will come back again and the new world will emerge.
So it's a very different world where the gods are going to die. So you see, these are not all powerful gods. They are negotiating with human beings. They they like human beings to come to them. They want soldiers around them. Why would people worship a particular God if you didn't give them something in return? So there's a lot of negotiation going to happen. Exchange is going to happen. I'm going to give you a gift.
What will you give me an exchange or I will make your life miserable unless you worship me. And you find these in many tribal deities. If you go to Bengal for example, you have Mansa, Mangal, Maha, Kavya and where the goddess it basically says that I'm the goddess of snakes and I'm going to make life miserable if you don't worship me or you have Mamangara in Orissa, you know a woman is waiting for her brother and her husbands to come back
from their trip across the sea. These are the Sadabas. These are the people who are ship sailing aristocrats. They travel in one part of the year when the winds are blowing towards the Southeast Asia and the return in the second part of the year when you pray to this goddess and you remember her and you give her the food you want. In exchange she ensures that your brother or your husband or your son comes back safely.
So Chet Puja and all is really coming from those traditions, but you give the gods, you acknowledge the gods and in exchange that gods give you back something else. And these are the old practices. So you have these two schools of thought broadly, which exists, the polytheistic thought and the monotheistic. Therefore, when we talk of gods, we have to clarify and India is mixed of both. It's a mix of both the monotheistic and the polytheistic for its various historical reasons.
In Hindu mythology, how do we see mistakes that which is not criminally wrong? What is the grey area as far as gods themselves exhibiting this? The Shades of Grey and gods dealing with humans showing them a benevolence. There's no concept of a code of conduct. The monotheistic faiths have a very clear code of conduct. God says you should live like this. That's very clean. It comes from Haburabi's code, so there is a clear code of conduct. Hinduism never had that code of conduct.
The closest you have is a phrase called sanatan, the timeless way of assignment. And nobody really knows what it means. There was this correct way of being and you and depending on who you ask, it could mean doing your cast, responsibilities, gender, responsibilities and really this word Sanatan that really starts becoming popular in the Mahabharat when the feudal systems are emerging in India. So you can actually see this yearning for a code of conduct to control people.
And this idea of there is a proper way of being called Sanatan Dharami emerging. And the variations from it is always decided by a Brahmin lobby. And the Brahman lobby says, OK, we have the Dharma shastras and we will tell you what is Anatan Dharma and it somehow happens. The Brahmins are always in a privileged position. The land owners are always in a privileged position. So you see that people use the voice of God to determine different, different things depending on the realities of
society. At no point do we say that being nasty is blasphemous. You're always talking about don't be nasty to God, but I can be nasty to everyone else. So long as I go to the temple and I behave like a pious being. It's fine, but I can be an obnoxious human being outside. So you create this kind of an artificial structure because in your mind there is a God out there in front of whom you're like the schoolboy who comes on times and sits in front of the
front bench. But you are the bully outside in the playground, and somehow the teacher does not know that part of you, because the teacher only sees you in the classroom coming on time, doing your homework. And you can see this kind of approach, this almost childish approach across religions. I'm also wondering that like while you have like say a Vishnu avatar like say Krishna who interacts with humans, you have a who again interacts with humans. But there are some gods even above that.
Like like I was discussing with Jayarajan clearly only. What is a Brahma? I I don't quite know what he does in the barring the creation aspect, has he made any mistakes? Has he ever interacted with humans and had any? Well, not so great experiences. So in India you have the monotheistic and the polytheistic merged with each other. And the idea is that every human being is potentially capable of being divine. And if that is so, that means you all have the code of being divine.
That's why there's a common phrase that God is inside you, which means you all have a potential to be like the divine. And how do you explain this? Hey, let me tell you the story of a king who manifested the divine and his name was Ram. Or let me tell you the story of a cowherd who manifested the divine and his name was Krishna. So now I have these stories to tell. What happens when divinity manifests on earth because everybody else is struggling
with hunger and fear. Now that brings us to the big gods. So there's Brahma, who creates all the living beings, and all living beings are hungry and frightened, and they're fighting over property and territory. And that's Brahma now, because he's created this world which is full of violence and conflict and contradictions. His job is done over there. We are the children of Brahma, not worthy of worship because he's not made a life better.
Who do you worship? You worship a Shiva or a Vishnu who tells you how to manifest the divine inside you? And what is the divine inside you is your ability to be a nice person. And how can you be a nice person no matter what job you're doing? And what is the definition of a nice person? So just as every tree lives for itself and its ecosystem and doesn't behave like a parasite, humans have the capability of living for themselves and their
ecosystem. So you worship a Shiva and a Vishnu because Shiva is more saying hunger and fear. I will destroy hunger and fear. So you worship him. Oh wonderful. But Vishnu says, hey, it's not enough to destroy hunger and fear. It's also important to pay attention to other people's hunger and fear. And so the other becomes important. Now see these ideas? It's very different from the monotheistic structures.
The operating system I'm giving you now is not about this is the code of conduct the way you're supposed to behave. It is not this linear imperial model. This is a model which is talking about human life and how to engage. It almost sounds like a self help book where you're trying to tell how to live as a member of society because the concern in Indian society was never an imperial power. These imperial ideas come to India only after the Mughal Empire.
We have this Chakravarthy idea as a theory but he's never imperial as in controlling every aspect of your life. This idea of the monotheistic monarchy emerges in India really at the time of the Mughal Empire. The Vijayanagar Empire, which is such a big empire is not a centrally controlled empire. Indian were Raja Mandalas, which means no king who had absolute power.
He would negotiate with his. In fact, there were five major confederacies within the Vijayanagar Empire and you see this replicating itself in the Maratha Empire. We talk about Shatrapati Shivaji Maharaja's single, but really in its height of its power it was the Bhoslas and the Shindes and the Bholkars and the Peshwas and they were a confederacy. It's never a central control in India. Central control is a very new idea.
You see this fierce resistance in India which is very uncomfortable with this idea of this one hegemonic way of being. Although you keep having this idea that there's only one God, Paramatma Ishwara. But he keeps manifesting in different ways in different ecosystems. So it's like a compromise between the monotheistic way and the polytheistic way. There is a constant negotiation between one God is many, many God is 1. These ideas are not Islamic. These ideas are not Christian.
These are uniquely Hindu gods In China, where you have many gods and every and every God follows a very clear hierarchical model. Whoever is the most senior or the most powerful, everybody bows to him. The alpha is all powerful in a species, so the Chinese follow that model. Very clear alpha pecking order model. Very, very clean. India doesn't like the pecking order model because it's command, it's Mada, it's pride,
it's the egos that is rejected. The idea of one rule fits all is rejected because there is a talking of diversity dynamisms. So the diversity and dynamism of India does not allow monotheistic practices. And because polytheistic practices do not bind people together, you have this kind of a new mix of the monotheism and polytheism. And it's not well understood because the British tried to understand India using their monotheistic framework and
privileged monotheism. Even today, when you hear some of these Babajis talking, you can see they are really talking a very imperial language of power. And it's triumphalist, it's imperial and it's marketed as religion. But imperialism is not religion. So imperialism is a kind of religion? In India we have a rich tradition of humans who have either attained God like a divine personifications or who we we describe as avatars of gods.
Do we get a sense of whether they are infallible or not? When I read the Buddhist and Jain scriptures, you see people who live ordinary lives, so they are finite beings who over time through spiritual practices becoming larger than life and they become infinite beings. So the Buddha becomes infinite, he becomes larger than Adi Buddha. He becomes this part of the cosmos he sees as being human.
And in the Mahayana Buddhist traditions, there are many Buddhists. He's like sort of part of the larger realm and it's visualized with these massive statues in China. So from the finite you become infinite, from the small you become the big. Hinduism brings a different idea. There is an infinite being out there called Vishnu or Paramatma, and he manifests compassion, kindness on earth as a finite being. You have to live in a finite being. You have to deal with other
finite beings. The difference being you are a finite being with wisdom, but you're surrounded by finite beings who are ignorant. And these kind of engagements will always create complications because the the people you're dealing with are hungry and stupid and ignorant and that you're here for them. And you have to realize that in the finite world your God like powers won't work.
So Vishnu can do many magical things as Vishnu, but the moment he becomes Ram, he's controlled by the rules of his body and his birth. He's a Roy, eldest son of the royal family. He can't just fly through the air and rescue his wife, which he can't because he's divine. He has magical powers. But no, you haven't been given a human body and therefore you're limited by your human abilities and you will behave with the dignity that a eldest son of the
royal family. So they are trying to explain what it means to be supremely wise but be limited by a body. Now these are complex ideas. These are ideas which are very subcontinental. They really emerged in India. And you know, even today you see people talking nonsense when they talk about Rama and Mahabharat purans and you realize they are so in in all of the imperial discourse because
your body loves it, right? You love the Ravana, we love the Ravana. But since it's not politically correct to say I love the Ravana, I will sort of frame it differently and frame it to rationalize it and say actually I am this. And then Indians are very good with rationalizations and we figure out these things. But in India, if you look at folk stories, there are
quarreling stories. Shivas wife Parvati is quarreling with Lakshmi who complaining about Vishnu and saying, oh, your husband is a cowherd. He just wanders around with the cows. And then Lakshmi says, but what about your husband? He doesn't do any work. He doesn't even know that snakes are not to be kept in your body. But he decorates himself with snake. Now these are these kind of a folk banter and therefore that brings you intimate with the
gods. So if you go to Odisha Jagannathpuri, you will talk about God is your friend, You go to Pandharpur, God is a friend. You go to Srinathji, The God is a friend. The Sakha Bhava das Abhava. You want to look at him as your master. He is your Madhuri Abhava. He's your lover. Vatsali Abhava, he's your child. So you have different emotional approaches to deal with the divine and you talk to them the way you would talk to a friend, a parent.
And these are not ideas that are found in other parts of the world. Since we are living in a global discourse. And we are in a way fascinated by the kind of power that a sort of a Catholic Church has. You know, you want that power. That's what the religious establishments in India is trying to be. The Matas are trying to suddenly say that we are the spokesperson of Hinduism. They never were. It was always a collaborative activity. The Qurans were written in courts in collaboration with
otherwise people. Every Quran was designed like a vision statement of the Kingdom and every king. And therefore you see the Quran's look a little complicated because scholars have now realized that these were documents that guided the king on how to conduct and therefore it was always organic. But it was never that. All power is with this mud. You outsource religion to one
group of people. No. Religion is a outcome of every human beings, aspirations and needs in India. It is not something transcendental and outside and perfect, known only to a group of people. That's a very western model which the British introduced to India, which the Islam introduced to India. And we're trying to create these matters and some Pradas, but they work only small pockets, not Pan India. And that that's the thing, India
is too diverse. What applies in Himachal will not apply in Uttarakhand. What applies in Uttarakhand will not apply to Bihar. Jharkhand will be so different. Odissa will be different. And that's the thing. Once you recognize this and you allow these local polities to emerge, then things work out quite comfortably in our country. This whole imperial model is where you are standing in the presence of God, know how to
behave. When Krishna shows his infinite form to Arjun, he's not trying to intimidate him. He's saying, you know, I want to show you reality. And when you see reality, you are in awe of it. It's not done to intimidate, but truth is intimidating. But truth has no consciousness to intimidate you. It's very unlike a God showing his power.
It's a very different. It's this idea that if I show you Infinity, you suddenly realize how small you are and then you realize, Oh my God, I think I'm so important. I'm not to. Shock in all you not to destroy you. Even when we use these words like I'm trying to shock in all you, there's a personal agenda over there. It's like if I take you and
throw you in space. Space is not trying to intimidate us, but when we experience space and the hollowness and silence of space, I think it can be quite overwhelming. When we are talking about monotheism, there is an assumption of a mind out there and that is theological conversation. But definitely politicians like that idea of this one powerful God who sort of says don't look into my eyes because I'm special, I'm superior and more powerful than you are.
Today's episode was produced by Jayraj Singh and Anuja Singh. For a daily spotlight on people, ideas and stories that matter, subscribe to us. We are available on TOI, Spotify, Apple, Google Podcasts and all other platforms of your choice. For any news tips, e-mail us at TOI Podcast at Timesinternet dot in.