Re: Religion this week: Q & A about Hinduism
Because that is the natural order of human beings. Hindus know it (or atleast act as such!) , IMO others don’t. Regardless of whether one knows it, doesn’t know it, act as such or not, that fact about human beings is fact. Explanation follows.
Take any element, say water. Water regardless of where it is, is water. But people can only experience water through some attributes of water - such as its fluidity, temperature, weight, pressure etc. A different combination of these attributes makes the same water suitable for different uses; like water as ice helps preserve things; same water when hot cooks food! The change in the form (attribute change) is necessary depending on the circumstance, not for the benefit of water, but for the benefit of the humans..
Even so called ‘monotheist’ religions involve these attributes but simply do not take cognizance of it. For example the monotheist god of the Jews underwent attribute changes as the Christians perceived for their circumstances; and then underwent further attribute changes as the Muslims perceived for their circumstances. And as the next ‘monotheist’ religion emerges there will be further ‘changes’.
But the Jewish God and the Christian God and the Muslim God etc are such only for the respective groups, in reality not three different!
Same thing with how Hindus perceive God - the difference being as each new school emerges, they don’t throw each other out (some have tried but failed!) but rather end up accommodating each other (in most parts at least). Such accommodation leads to many new God forms appearing o0ver time. And given how ‘old’ Sanathana Dharma has been (from teh very beginning of time), it is no wonder there are so many new forms.
And as one worships one form, many don’t feel any issues with worshipping another form as well - whatever gives them peace of mind and harmony in life. In every Hindu household it is quite common therefore that the father has a favorite form, mother had another, uncle has a third and the grandma a fourth and so on!