There are 33 Gods only. It is mentioned many times in Vedas.
A popular but unfounded belief has been spread that Hindus have 33 crore gods. It is a misunderstanding of the Vedic concept of the State, and hence a misinterpretation of the word koti.
This transition from 33 to 330 million came after Upanishadic Age. Upanishads taught that Ultimate reality is a single supreme soul Brahman. The count went to millions in an attempt to poetically express the infinitude of the universe, to capture the all-pervading reality. This is how 330 million gods made sense.
Nobody actually took this as a fact. It was always taken as a poetic narrative. Obviously there 's no list !, because nobody meant exactly that. Not even the poet who actually wrote this.
33 divinities are mentioned in the Yajur-veda, Atharva-veda, Satapatha-brahmana, and in several other Vedic and later texts. The number thirty-three occurs with reference to divinities in the Parsi scriptures of Avesta as well.The expression trayastrimsa deva is found in the list of classes of gods in Sanskrit Buddhist texts like the Divyavadana and Suvarnaprabhasa-sutra.
Moreover wherever this account is given, the word "Trayatrimsa koti" is used. The word koti in 'trayastrimsati koti' does not mean the number '33 crore' or '330 million'. Now Trayatrimsa is 33. Koti can mean Crore, it can also mean type. So, most probably it means "type" instead of "crore" in this context.
Here koti means 'supreme', pre-eminent, excellent, that is,the 33 'supreme' divinities.
This count is maintained in Buddhism as well. Trāyastriṃśa
It was a problem even in AD 725 when Subhakarasimha and his Chinese colleague I-hsing translated the Mahavairocana-sutra into Chinese. They rendered the compound sapta-koti-buddha as shichi (sapta) kotei (koti) butsu (buddha) in which they did not translate the word koti that transliterated its pronunciation as kotei. The Buddhas were not 'seven crore', but only 'Seven Supreme Buddhas': six predecessors and the historic Buddha. Tibetan masters who translated Sanskrit texts into Tibetan, rendered koti by rnam which means'class, kind, category'.
In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, chapter 3, Yājñavalkya has said that in reality there are only 33 gods and goddesses. Of these 8 are Vasus, 11 Rudras, 12 Adityas, and Indra and Prajapati.
33 koti gods = 8 Vasus + 11 Rudras + 12 Adityas + 2 Heaven and Earth ( 8+ 11 + 12 + 2 = 33).
There are many temples depicting 33 gods, they belong to medieval age as well, that means those temples were built even after 330 million account was given in Puranas. This seals the fact that nobody took it as fact, they took it as a mere representation of vastness of the universe.
So, whenever you see somebody saying " 33 crore devi-devata" or "land of 33 million gods" , you know how to reply to that .
Angkor temple of 33 gods, Combodia
A popular but unfounded belief has been spread that Hindus have 33 crore gods. It is a misunderstanding of the Vedic concept of the State, and hence a misinterpretation of the word koti.
This transition from 33 to 330 million came after Upanishadic Age. Upanishads taught that Ultimate reality is a single supreme soul Brahman. The count went to millions in an attempt to poetically express the infinitude of the universe, to capture the all-pervading reality. This is how 330 million gods made sense.
Nobody actually took this as a fact. It was always taken as a poetic narrative. Obviously there 's no list !, because nobody meant exactly that. Not even the poet who actually wrote this.
33 divinities are mentioned in the Yajur-veda, Atharva-veda, Satapatha-brahmana, and in several other Vedic and later texts. The number thirty-three occurs with reference to divinities in the Parsi scriptures of Avesta as well.The expression trayastrimsa deva is found in the list of classes of gods in Sanskrit Buddhist texts like the Divyavadana and Suvarnaprabhasa-sutra.
Moreover wherever this account is given, the word "Trayatrimsa koti" is used. The word koti in 'trayastrimsati koti' does not mean the number '33 crore' or '330 million'. Now Trayatrimsa is 33. Koti can mean Crore, it can also mean type. So, most probably it means "type" instead of "crore" in this context.
Here koti means 'supreme', pre-eminent, excellent, that is,the 33 'supreme' divinities.
This count is maintained in Buddhism as well. Trāyastriṃśa
It was a problem even in AD 725 when Subhakarasimha and his Chinese colleague I-hsing translated the Mahavairocana-sutra into Chinese. They rendered the compound sapta-koti-buddha as shichi (sapta) kotei (koti) butsu (buddha) in which they did not translate the word koti that transliterated its pronunciation as kotei. The Buddhas were not 'seven crore', but only 'Seven Supreme Buddhas': six predecessors and the historic Buddha. Tibetan masters who translated Sanskrit texts into Tibetan, rendered koti by rnam which means'class, kind, category'.
In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, chapter 3, Yājñavalkya has said that in reality there are only 33 gods and goddesses. Of these 8 are Vasus, 11 Rudras, 12 Adityas, and Indra and Prajapati.
33 koti gods = 8 Vasus + 11 Rudras + 12 Adityas + 2 Heaven and Earth ( 8+ 11 + 12 + 2 = 33).
There are many temples depicting 33 gods, they belong to medieval age as well, that means those temples were built even after 330 million account was given in Puranas. This seals the fact that nobody took it as fact, they took it as a mere representation of vastness of the universe.
So, whenever you see somebody saying " 33 crore devi-devata" or "land of 33 million gods" , you know how to reply to that .
Angkor temple of 33 gods, Combodia
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