ArpitGarg's Weblog

330 million. The number of Gods in Hindu mythology. It has always intrigued me. Who came up with this number? Why it is not 340 million or 350 million? Why is has to be 330 million?

I have been doing a bit of reading on this of late. I have not really understood the rationale behind this number. The only interpretation is that it represents infinity (a very large number). It is said that we do not have 330 million Gods, but 330 million gods. There is only one God, the unison of Holy Trinity, Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva. All other are demi-gods, who themselves worship God.

This very large number is used to represent that Hinduism believe everything is created by God and thus is divine. So everything we see (living/non-living) is divine. We worship all. Thus there is no concept of devil in Hinduism. As devil himself would have to be created by God and would thus be divine. In fact you will find that Shiva never differentiated between even good and bad people. Anyone who did tapasaya was granted a var. It led to even Shiva being threatened once, when he gave an Asura power to kill anybody and that Asura tried to kill Shiva himself.

Hence there is freedom in Hinduism to worship anything and anyone. We worship cows, sun, moon, flowers, stone, water etc. The list is endless. Thus all the egoists, who worship themselves, do nothing wrong. We are created by God and are ourselves divine. Self-worshipping not only takes less time buy also saves money.