If there are 33 crore demigods, then why does Shatpatha Brahman mention 33 gods?
From: Ravikant Jagtap
In Shatpat Brahmana 33 Type of Gods Are given,8 Vasu,12 Adityas,11 Rudras,Indradev & Prajapati.then 33 Koti Is Number Of Demigods Or categories
Transcript
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does that answer your question? In Shatapad Brahman 33 types of gods are given 8 Vasus, 12 Adityas, 11 Rudras Indra, Deva, Prajapati then 33 crores koti is number of demigods those are categories answer there are multiple levels of devatas and Shatapad Brahman gives the broad categories of devatas however within these there are there are the primal demigods there for example Brahma and Shiva, they are considered to be extremely powerful, then below that there is another level of devatas, that is Indra and others, they are one level and below that there are Upadevatas so basically the word devata refers to a broad variety of beings who are playing some participatory role in the administration of the universal government on behalf of the supreme lord so this system of administration is analysed in different ways by different scriptures depending on the context and the purpose just like the elements of Sankhya, how many elements are there in the material world sometimes there are 24 dimensions elsewhere it may be mentioned that there are 15 somewhere it may be 16, 18 so in the Uddhava Gita Lord Krishna describes to Uddhava that different thinkers, munis they analyse the material world in different ways and he says I am pleased with their intellectual creativity in this analysis because such analysis eventually leads them to the absolute truth because after analysing the material elements they move beyond it ultimately towards the supreme lord so the point here is that the material world can be analysed in different ways so just as we can have another example we can have 3 levels of planetary systems the upper, middle and lower or we can have 14 levels of planetary systems where there are Atharvita so is it 3 or is it 14 it depends on what we are focusing on 3 is in terms of if you have earth centric view above, below and middle and 14 in terms of the Lokas in terms of the kind of residents that are there broadly speaking and other factors like what are the broad levels of existence so the point here is we can have different kinds of classifications and they are dependent on different premises and purposes so in the Linga Purana it is described how there are 33 crore Devatas and I have put a PDF file of the words from the Linga Purana which gives actually the large number of Devatas in terms of their further subcategories not the names of all the Devatas but in terms of their categories so the point here is in the Vedic literature the numbers especially with respect to analysis of the material world are not as important as the principles underlying that numerical analysis the principle is we can say that there are this many gods or that many gods but the principle is that we are accountable to higher powers and all these higher powers are in the hierarchy of universal administration that is under the supreme lord and the ultimate goal of life is to surrender to the supreme lord and harmonize with him so whichever analysis we adopt for looking at the material world the purpose ultimately is to look beyond the material world towards the absolute truth so often the count of 33 crore Devatas is used to emphasize the point, two points one is that all these numerous gods are subordinate to the supreme lord and they worship the supreme lord and second is that individually satisfying all of them is impossible and that’s why instead of watering the leaves and branches and flowers of a tree it is best to water the root of the tree similarly instead of trying to worship all these Devatas separately it is best to worship the