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== Monotheism ==
Monotheism is the belief in a single creator God and the lack of belief in any other Creator.<ref>Bruce Trigger (2003), Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study, Cambridge University Press, {{ISBN|978-0521822459}}, pages 473-474</ref><ref>Charles Taliaferro and Elsa J. Marty (2010), A Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion, Bloomsbury Academic, {{ISBN|978-1441111975}}, pages 98-99</ref> Hinduism is not a monolithic faith and different sects may or may not posit or require such a belief. Religion is considered a personal belief in Hinduism and followers are free to choose the different interpretations within the framework of ''karma'' and ''samsara''. Many forms of Hinduism believe in a type of monotheistic God, such as [[Krishnaism]] with polymorphic theism, some schools of [[Vedanta]], and [[Arya Samaj]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Eric Ackroyd|title=Divinity in Things: Religion Without Myth|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bv8o5lGxtgAC&pg=PA78 |year=2009|publisher=Sussex Academic Press|isbn=978-1-84519-333-1 |pages=78 }}, Quote: "The jealous God who says, "Thou shalt have no other gods but me" belongs to the Jewish-Christian-Muslim tradition, but not to the Hindu tradition, which tolerates all gods but is not a monotheism, monism, yes, but not monotheism."</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Frank Whaling|title=Understanding Hinduism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WudXAAAAYAAJ |year=2010|publisher=Dunedin Academic Press |isbn=978-1-903765-36-4 |pages=19 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Hiroshi Ōbayashi|title=Death and afterlife: perspectives of world religions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ub8oAAAAYAAJ |year=1992|publisher=Praeger|isbn=978-0-275-94104-8 |pages=145 }}</ref>
[[Advaita Vedanta]], for instance, espouses [[monism]], and holds ''[[Brahman]]'' to be unchanging and undifferentiated from reality. ''Brahman'' is therefore undifferentiated from the individual self, or ''Atman''.<ref name="Leeming 2014">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Leeming |first=David A. |author-link=David Adams Leeming |year=2014 |title=Brahman |editor-last=Leeming |editor-first=David A. |editor-link=David Adams Leeming |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion |page=197 |edition=2nd |publisher=[[Springer Science+Business Media|Springer]] |location=[[Boston]] |doi=10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_9052 |isbn=978-1-4614-6087-9 |quote=For Hindus, especially those in the [[Advaita Vedanta]] tradition, Brahman is the undifferentiated reality underlying all existence. [[Brahman]] is the eternal first cause present everywhere and nowhere, beyond time and space, the indefinable [[Absolute (philosophy)|Absolute]]. The gods are incarnations of Brahman. It can be said that everything that is Brahman. And it can be argued that Brahman is a [[Monotheism|monotheistic concept]] or at least a [[Monism|monistic]] one, since all gods – presumably of any tradition – are manifestations of Brahman, real only because Brahman exists.}}</ref><ref name="BEH3">{{cite encyclopedia |author-last=Ram-Prasad |author-first=Chakravarthi |author-link=Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad |year=2018 |origyear=2010 |title=Brahman |editor1-last=Basu |editor1-first=Helene |editor2-last=Jacobsen |editor2-first=Knut A. |editor2-link=Knut A. Jacobsen |editor3-last=Malinar |editor3-first=Angelika |editor4-last=Narayanan |editor4-first=Vasudha |editor4-link=Vasudha Narayanan |encyclopedia=Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism |location=[[Leiden]] |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |volume=2 |doi=10.1163/2212-5019_BEH_COM_2050070 |isbn=978-90-04-17893-9 |issn=2212-5019}}</ref> The concept is though by some, such as [[David Adams Leeming]] and [[Gavin Flood]], to resemble monotheistic conceptions of god to some degree, since all other since are believed to be manifestations of ''Brahman''.<ref name="Leeming 2014"/><ref name="Flood 2020">{{cite book | last=Flood | first=Gavin Dennis | title=Hindu Monotheism | publisher=Cambridge University Press | date=2020-07-23 | isbn=978-1-108-58428-9 | doi=10.1017/9781108584289}}</ref>
Several medieval Muslim scholars, such as [[al-Biruni]] and [[Amir Khusrau]], described Hinduism as fundamentally monotheistic in nature, and attributed polytheistic worship to a lack of education.<ref name="Friedmann, Yohanan 1975">Friedmann, Yohanan. "Medieval Muslim views of Indian religions." Journal of the American Oriental Society (1975): 214-221.</ref>
=== Madhvacharya's monotheistic God ===
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