polytheism
On the village level of existence in India, pollution ideas are directly
related to supernatural beings because the high gods maintain the highest
state of purity, whereas spirits are innately impure and malevolent and
local deities are not as consistently protected from impurity. If the local
village deities are maintained in a field of purity, they are useful to people
by granting desires, whereas impurity can elicit their malevolent aspects.
Within Hinduism, areas of purity exist like islands in an ocean of impu-
rity, which suggests that purity is artificially created and maintained.
Hence, purity is not an absolute condition because it is always temporary
and relative. Thus, the simple opposition between pollution and purity
does not hold in Hinduism, in part because purity is a ritual state of being
that must be continuously renewed.
Finally, the evidence from Hinduism allows us to recognize that pol-
lution can flow, directly or through a conductor, from one being to
another. In contrast to pollution, purity cannot flow from person to per-
son, although it can be lost by contact with a defiled person. Purity is an
impermanent condition that can be easily lost but never transferred.
Indian cultural attitudes towards pollution call for experts in dealing
with pollution, such as washers and barbers, although the greatest amount
of pollution is removed by Untouchables or Dalits because of their activ-
ities associated with village sanitation, scavenging, deposing of animal
carcasses, and working in leather. These occupations protect upper caste
members from pollution by performing defiling tasks, such as plowing
fields, making blood sacrifices to demanding local deities, sweeping
public roads, and disposing of dead animal bodies. This type of situation
in village India suggests that higher castes need the assistance of lower
castes because the formers’ states of purity are dependent upon a division
of labor among castes.
Further reading: Babb (1975); Douglas (1966); Turner (1967)
POLYTHEISM
Although this concept is ordinarily defined as the worship of many (poly)
gods (theos), this definition is too simplistic because historical evidence
elucidates that the oneness of god plays an important role in polytheistic
religions such as Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian, Greek and other religious
traditions. From the perspective of the major monotheistic faiths –
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – polytheism is called idolatrous and
pagan as a way of distinguishing a religion’s monotheistic position. These