Gods were superseded by Religious Teachers... [View all]

[Flabbergasted]

I found this to be a interesting insight from the book "A History of God", a scholarly work by Karen Armstrong. It is written defining an era of transition from polytheistic roots to Buddhism, Hinduism.

In the seventeenth century bce, Aryans from what is now Iran had invaded the Indus Valley and subdued the indigenous population...Like the Babylonians, the Aryans were quite aware that their myths were not factual accounts of reality but expressed a mystery that not even the gods themselves could explain adequately. When they tried to imagine how the gods and the world evolve from primal chaos, they concluded that nobody---not even the gods---could understand the mystery of existence.

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The religion of the Vedas did not attempt to explain the origins of life,...(but) instead to help people come to terms with the wonder and terror of existence.

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By the eighth century bce changes ...meant the old Vedic religion was no longer relevant. The ideas of the indigenous population that had been suppressed in the centuries following the Aryan invasions surfaced and led to a new religious hunger. The revived interest in karma, the notion that ones destiny was determined by ones own actions, made people unwilling to blame the gods for irresponsible behavior of human beings. Increasingly the gods were seen as symbols of a single transcendent Reality.

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Sacrifice and liturgy were not enough: they wanted to discover the inner meaning of these rites. We shall note that the prophets of Israel felt the same dissatisfaction. In India the gods were no longer seen as other beings who were external to their worshippers; instead men and women sought to achieve an inward realization of truth.


The gods were no longer very important in India. Henceforth they would be superseded by the religious teacher, who would be considered higher than the gods. It was a remarkable assertion of the value of humanity and the desire to take control of destiny: it would be the great religious insight of the subcontinent. The new religions of Hinduism and Buddhism did not deny the existence of the gods, nor did they forbid the people to worship them. In their view, such repression and denial was damaging. Instead, Hindus and Buddhists sought new ways to transcend the gods, to go beyond them.

The part that I find most interesting in this passage, is the idea that gods as a concept were superseded by religious teachers, whereas in Abrahamic religions, gods progressed to God. You can see a vast range of ideas stemming from this. An important related idea is Judaism progressed, so to speak, to Christianity which in a sense is a religious teacher being God. Also we typically see the gods as being the source of religion, as well as above and beyond man, whereas this flips both concepts on their head.

It is also interesting to note the Babylonians and Aryans concluded that even the gods could not understand the mystery of existence. Today this idea is still around, but takes the form of the cliche, "God works in mysterious ways": whereas god is the bearer of an unrevealed mystery. This is perhaps a stretch but interesting to ponder.