No. Seriously. Where did the Gods go?

We have all read about the all-powerful Greek Gods, the mighty Zeus, Apollo, Athena, and the whole endless pantheon! We have read about the splendid Roman Gods who also adore our planet names – Mars, Venus and Jupiter. The mighty Egyptian Gods Ra, Anubis, Osiris who were oft-worshipped even in Rome. The Sumerian/ Babylonian/ Assyrian Gods – Anu, Enlil, Inanna, and the Norse Gods – Loki, Thor and Odin (the most popular ones) too! The Meso-American Aztec and Inca Gods. The list of deities in each of these are well-nigh endless. But, none are to be found! None of these are worshipped anywhere now, and exist merely as pieces of pagan history, ancient texts, cave drawings and tablet inscriptions. What happened to them?

The reality is a sad one for me. I for one, am highly mesmerised by all these Godly pantheons. I hate it that Hinduism is the only major polytheistic religion remaining today in the World. Even as I write this, my hearts sinks deeper. The reason for this I do not know, but perhaps at the very least we could shed some light together on what really happened, which led us to the present day.

In one word though – Abraham happened. Suddenly, we had several Semitic religions, each monotheism-enforcing, sprouting up around the modern-day Israel. These were Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and all three identify themselves as Abrahamic religions. Slowly and gradually, they spread across Eurasia. Christianity spread towards Asia Minor, and mainland Europe, engulfing the whole continent from the Baltics in the east to the French Atlantic coast in the west, even covering the British Isles and Iceland.

Islam spread outwards from Arabian peninsula, reaching as far as Punjab in the east and covering the North Sahara desert till Moroccan coast in the West. The ‘Berbers’ even invaded and held the Iberian peninsula (modern-day Spain-Portugal) under Mohammedan (Islamic) rule till quite some time (around 1400s).

The local Christians in Iberia had quite a hard time under the Muslim rule being treated as third-rate citizens beneath the Mohammedans (Muslims) and the Jews. This form of oppression had its own effects (ill or not, I’ll let you be the judge). The journeys of Christopher Columbus were in-part inspired from this oppression, and there was an urge to quickly discover a sea-route to India, in hopes of finding a Chrisitian-sympathetic monarch. What happened next is history – the European fleet landed upon the American continent, finding the local Aztec natives. The ensuing battle was easily won by the horseback and gunpowder-enabled Europeans, completely annhilating the Aztec and Inca natives, burying their Gods along with them. [Conquest of the Aztecs is another deeply touching story – I wrote a paper in my History class on this. Find it here].

The Imperialistic ventures of the European colonial powers, led to further spread of Christianity across the World. From Hong-Kong and Macau in China to the entire North/ South American continents. Slow and Steady – that’s how the advance of these religions has been. And now, more than 50% of the world by population is monotheistic. Polytheism is survived today majorly by Hinduism, and in part by Shintoism and the Han Chinese religion (Shenism).

I wonder why Hinduism has stood the test of time. Why didn’t we get converted so easily? How were all those religions mentioned in the beginning passage different from Hinduism. Or what exactly were the circumstances, which led them to adopting the newer religions promptly, while we have stuck to our roots? Remember, this is not a post about why Hinduism is superior or anything. I never claimed anything like that. All I am trying here is to find out why the other polytheistic religions disappeared, and Hindiusm stands as the major remnant of the ancient times. I will try to discuss these questions among other related things in Part 2 of this article. Stay tuned!

Part 2 is live now! Read here.

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