Do Hindus believe in one God or in many gods?

Smarta, Shankara (by tradition)

Smarta families worship five forms together in the panchayatana puja, the worship of five shrines: Shiva, Vishnu, the Goddess (Shakti), Surya and Ganesha. Each family may place its own chosen deity in the centre. In the Advaita teaching linked with this worship, these forms are ways to approach the one Brahman, which is beyond all form. Shankara compares the mind's focus on the Lord in one place to the way Hari is contemplated in the sacred salagrama stone.

Sources for this reading

• “PanchAyatana Puja”, advaita-vedanta.org (an Advaita tradition website), the tradition's own description: the five forms (Shiva, Vishnu, Devi, Surya and Ganesh); the worshipper's own chosen form placed at the centre; the practice held to have been established by Shankara; the differences among the forms explained as due to maya. Cited, not copied.
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Smarta sect” (worship of the five major gods, Shiva, Vishnu, Shakti, Surya and Ganesha, in the pancayatana puja; Shankara their greatest teacher and, for some, the founder). Read in the Wayback Machine copy (snapshot July 27, 2026). Cited, not copied.
• Brahma Sutra 1.2.7, Shankara's commentary, in George Thibaut (tr.), The Vedânta-Sûtras with the Commentary by Sankarâkârya, Part I (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 34, Oxford, 1890). Thibaut died 1914: public domain. Summarised in our words. (p. 114 (leaf n243), checked on the page image)
• Monier Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism, 4th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1891; title page leaf n10): household worship through five symbols of Vishnu, Siva, Ganesa, the wife of Siva (Devi) and the Sun, placed on a dish called Pancayatana and “arranged in five different methods, according to the preference given to any one of the five deities”, that deity in the middle (pp. 411–412); the gods held to be “manifestations of the invisible and formless Brahma” (p. 411). Monier-Williams died 1899: public domain. Diacritics dropped; the author's own judgements are not repeated. Checked on the page images. (pp. 411–412 (leaves n446–n447))

Vaishnava

Vaishnava traditions hold that Vishnu, or Krishna, is the Supreme Lord, and that the other gods form his body, so that what their worshippers receive comes from him. The Gita says: “Even those … who being devotees of other divinities worship with faith, worship me only, (but) irregularly” (9.23). It also says: “Whichever form (of deity) any worshipper wishes to worship with faith, to that form I render his faith steady” (7.21).

Sources for this reading

• The Bhagavadgîtâ with the Sanatsugâtîya and the Anugîtâ, translated by Kâshinâth Trimbak Telang (The Sacred Books of the East, vol. VIII, ed. F. Max Müller) (Bhagavad Gita 9.23 (SBE 8, p. 84, leaf n97) and 7.21 (p. 76, leaf n89); quoted verbatim, checked on the page images)
• Bhagavad Gita, 7.21
• Sri Bhagavad-Gita with Sri Ramanujacharya's Visishtadvaita commentary, translated by A. Govindacharya (Madras, 1898) (commentary on 7.21–22, pp. 248–249 (leaves n253–n254), and on 9.23, pp. 305–306 (leaves n307–n308): Indra and the other gods form the Lord's body, and the desires granted through them are granted by him)

Shaiva

Shaiva traditions hold that Shiva is the one supreme Lord, who creates, keeps and withdraws the world. The Shvetashvatara Upanishad says: “For there is one Rudra only, they do not allow a second, who rules all the worlds by his powers” (3.2). The same Upanishad calls him “the creator and supporter of the gods” (3.4).

Sources for this reading

• The Upanishads, Part II, translated by F. Max Müller (The Sacred Books of the East, vol. XV; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884) (Shvetashvatara Upanishad 3.2, p. 244 (leaf n301), and 3.4, p. 245 (leaf n302); quoted verbatim, checked on the page images)

Shakta

Shakta traditions hold that the Goddess, Devi or Shakti, is the supreme power from whom the world and all the gods arise. The Devi Mahatmyam, a part of the Markandeya Purana read above all at the great Durga Puja festival, tells how the powers of the gods join to form the Goddess, who then defeats the demons that the gods could not. It praises her as the one who creates, keeps and withdraws the universe.

Sources for this reading

• The Devi-mahatmya, cantos 81–93 of the Markandeya Purana (the poem proper is cantos 82–92 by the translator's count), in F. Eden Pargiter (tr.), The Markandeya Purana (Calcutta: Asiatic Society, Bibliotheca Indica, 1888–1904). Pargiter died 1927: public domain. Summarised in our words. His introduction calls the poem “a text-book of the worshippers of Kali throughout Northern India and in Bengal, especially at the great Durga-puja festival” (diacritics dropped). (Introduction, p. iv (leaf n11: cantos 82–92) and p. x (leaf n17: Durga-puja); canto LXXXI, headed “Commencement of the Devi-Mahatmya”, p. 465 (leaf n510); Brahma's hymn to Maha-maya, in which the Goddess creates, protects and consumes the world, canto LXXXI, pp. 470–471 (leaves n515–n516); canto LXXXII, headed “The Devi-mahatmya”, the gods' energies combined into the Goddess, p. 473 (leaf n518); canto XCIII, “The Devi-mahatmya (concluded)”, p. 522 (leaf n567); checked on the page images)

Sources

• Rig Veda 1.164.46, in R. T. H. Griffith (tr.), The Hymns of the Rigveda, vol. 1 (Benares: E. J. Lazarus, 1889). Griffith died 1906: public domain. Quoted verbatim. (p. 292 (leaf n315), checked on the page image)
• Rig Veda 1.164.46 in Sanskrit, in F. Max Müller (ed.), The Hymns of the Rig-Veda in the Samhita and Pada Texts, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (London: Trübner, 1877; title page leaf n4). Max Müller died 1900: public domain. The Samhita text prints “एकं सद्विप्रा बहुधा वदंत्यग्निं”, joining the verb to the next word; the Pada text prints the verb alone (“वदंति”). The Hindi quotes the words up to the verb in that separate form, with न् for the anusvara. Checked on the page images. (Samhita text p. 148 (leaf n307); Pada text p. 148* (leaf n308))
• T. A. Gopinatha Rao, Elements of Hindu Iconography, vol. 1, part 1 (Madras, 1914), p. 9: “Every Hindu household possesses its own images of the family deity (ishta-devatas and kula-devatas)”. Gopinatha Rao died 1919: public domain. Checked on the page image (leaf n48); diacritics dropped. (p. 9)
• The Upanishads, Part II, translated by F. Max Müller (The Sacred Books of the East, vol. XV; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884) (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3.9.1–9 (Yajnavalkya and Vidagdha Sakalya: “How many gods are there really?”), pp. 139–142 (leaves n196–n199): 3306, then thirty-three, six, three, two, one and a half, and one, which is Breath (prana) and Brahman; summarised in our words, checked on the page images)
• Bhagavad Gita, 4.11
• The Bhagavadgîtâ with the Sanatsugâtîya and the Anugîtâ, translated by Kâshinâth Trimbak Telang (The Sacred Books of the East, vol. VIII, ed. F. Max Müller) (Bhagavad Gita 4.11 (SBE 8, p. 59, leaf n72) and Telang's note there: “all worship is worship of me”)

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