Scion of Ikshvaku (Ram Chandra, #1)

by Amish Tripathi

concept of the Ekam, the One God. All who worshipped the One God were equal in His eyes.’ Ram frowned. ‘But that was hardly a new idea! Even the Rig Veda refers to Ekam, the One Absolute. To this day we call him the Sum of all Souls, the Parmatma. Even the followers of the feminine principle, like the Devas, believed in the Ekam.’ ‘There is a nuance that you’re missing, Sudas. The Rig Veda states clearly that while the Ekam is the One God, He comes to us in many forms, as many Gods, to help us grow spiritually, in the hope that we will eventually understand Him in His original form. After all, variety is what surrounds us in nature; it is what we relate to. Shukracharya was different. He said that all other manifestations of the Ekam were false, leading us into maya, the illusion. The Ekam was the only True God, the only Reality, so to speak. It was a radical thought for that period. Suddenly, there was no hierarchy in the spiritual journey of both, the one who knew no scripture, as well as the one who was an expert on them, simply because they both believed in the Ekam.’ ‘This would make all human beings equal.’ ‘True. And, it worked well for some time for it obliterated all divisions within the Asuras. Furthermore, the dispossessed and oppressed