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One God, many names?

Step 1 of 9

Do the Hindu scriptures teach that God is one?

One without a second: the Self of all (Advaita)

Brahman alone is real. In the beginning there was only Being, one only, without a second. The Upanishad tells the pupil that the Self is that Being: "thou, O Svetaketu, art it". For the one who sees that everything has its Self in Brahman, the world of many things, with its actions and agents, is non-existent. The many things come from wrong knowledge.

The case for it

The Chandogya says that in the beginning there was only Being, one only, without a second.

Where it falls short

Islam agrees that One was before all things, and that nothing was beside Him. Islam goes further: He created a real world that is not Him, and every being in it comes to Him as a servant.