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Hinduism is pretty hard to define. As you say, Hinduism often accommodated other Gods. In this regard it was like the Roman religion. When the Romans conquered people, they were not like the later Muslim invaders, imposing their God. Instead they – and the folks they conquered – seem to have accepted that there were all these Gods: your Gods, my Gods. Ancient Hinduism (pre-Mahabharata / pre-Buddhism) is quite like Greek and Roman beliefs. In fact, they’re quite like most ancient beliefs… from all over the world.
“The “Hinduism” that now replaced Buddhism was not one religion, nor was in only religion; it was a medley of faiths and ceremonies whose practitioners had only four qualities in common: they recognized the caste system an the leadership of the Brahmans, they reverenced the cow as especially representative of divinities, they accepted the law of Karma and the transmigration of souls, they replaced with new gods the deities of the Vedas.” (Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilzation, Volume 1).
So then (I think) Hinduism is, rather than a religion, a grouping of related religions.
Right, and the Greek & Roman Gods are no longer worshipped, but the Hindu’s are—and in much the same way as they have been for over a thousand years.
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Importantly, Hinduism did not merely accommodate various Gods, it also accommodated various moral and metaphysical viewpoints (actually various mini-philosophies) within itself. I believe the same was true of other polytheistic religions. Consider morality. In a polytheistic religion, you might find a story about someone who was destroyed because he was too angry, but you might also find a story about someone who was destroyed because he could never get angry. Someone who is evil because he lies, and another who was moral to lie. So, it would be pretty impossible to say for sure whether a poly-theistic religion like Hinduism advocates anger or lying: it depends… You want a story from the scriptures to justify your viewpoint? We can do that for you.
I think the same can be said about monotheistic religions, although maybe with less room to do so?
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The same with metaphysics. Hinduism (and I guess Greek and Roman traditions) can accommodate various stories about the origin of the universe. Some more educated Romans viewed the specific Gods as concretes that the masses needed to keep them focused and to give them fiction-like non-abstract examples, but not as literal truths
What’s this about educated Romans? So they did not believe in the specific Gods, but viewed them purely as tools to control the masses?
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It amounts to the view of the Roman intellectuals who loved their religious tales, but did not view them as concretely true. You will even find Hindus who will go the next step and tell you explicitly that Hinduism is atheistic.
The Hinduism of the Vedas is very different from the Hinduism of the Mahabharata. The Hinduism in the Bhagvad Gita is actually a negative critique of the older Vedic Hinduism, and has more in similar with Buddhism. It sounds like a Hindu intellectual not merely trying to accommodate Buddhist metaphysics, but accepting it; but, also leaving space for the traditional Hindu social structure of caste. (Not saying it is a response to Buddhism, but that is sounds like a response. It could well pre-date Buddha, with no inconsistency.)
I think the likely secret to the question is this: you want one God? Hinduism has that for you. You want atheism? Hinduism has that for you. How do you fight that except by force and by imposition?
This is possible. In your opinion though is it common for most who associate themselves with Hinduism to believe in one god (?), no god (?). These groups may be minorities.
Anyway just something I find interesting, but not enough to want to start reading heaps more about it. (I still have around 19,000 pages left of Will Durant’s work–enough for me.)