The Ṛg Veda Monotheistic flashes in a pantheistic universe

Abstract

The Ṛg Veda, the fundamental Scripture of the whole Hinduism, is presented, normally, as a typical example of oriental pantheism, with hundreds of gods and goddesses as mere anthropomorphic representations of natural phenomena with, at most, some tinge of henotheism by which one or other of the gods or goddesses is chosen as the first among all, however, a most critical reading of the Hindu text presents us with a quite different panorama: a midst this forest of divinities, typical of a popular religion, we find, fruit of more reflexive authors, precious and authentic monotheistic flowers. The present article intends, simply, to present those Ṛg Veda texts in which we can discover the essential characteristics of a monotheistic conception of the divinity: Uno and only personal God, immanent and transcendent, source of moral live, who keeps a personal relation with man.