Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and the Christian Trinity of God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. Comparing the Trinity and the Trimurti, religious scholar Anuradha Veeravali (Indian Philosophies, Encyclopedia of Religion) draws parallels between Brahma and God, Vishnu and the Holy Spirit, and Shiva and Jesus, but persists in the common idea according to which Christianity is a monotheistic faith while Hinduism is polytheistic. However, Bede Griffiths, a Christian priest living in India, dared to question this firm notion of polytheism, proposing comparisons between the Christian Trinity and another Hindu triad - Brahman/Atman/Purusha - to conclude that the two religions share ultimately a belief in the One Supreme Power. By scrutinizing the two comparisons - that between the Trimurti and the Trinity and that between the "other" Triad and the Trinity - we can establish that Hinduism, like Christianity, can be considered a monotheistic faith. Anuradha Veeravali argues that, like the Christian concept of the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva also exists in Hinduism. Describing the main functions of the three deities that make up the Hindu Trinity, the author contrasts their roles with their counterparts in the Christian Trinity. Further explaining this position, the author says that Brahma is analogous to God (in the Christian concept) because he too is considered the creator; Vishnu is the omnipresent (Holy) Spirit, and Shiva is like Jesus in Christianity and Muhammad in Islam: Shiva's function, in his words, is to "destroy the duality of unity and plurality." It is thus the beginning and the end, the first and the last, marking both the destruction of plurality and the realization... middle of paper... of monotheistic religion. The creation of the world and the comparison of Brahman with the Word clearly indicate a belief in Brahman as the supreme power of creation. The analogies present between the fundamental concepts of Brahman, Atman and Purusha and the Trinity in Christianity lead us to believe that these two religions follow different paths towards the same universal Truth. Works Cited • Triads - Geoffrey Parrinder (Encyclopedia of Religions) • Indian Philosophies - Anuradha Veeravali (Encyclopedia of Religion) • The Great Triad - René Guénon, Henry D. Fohr, SD Fohr • Bede Griffiths: An Introduction to His Interspiritual Thought - Wayne Teasdale• A Survey of Hinduism- Klaus K. Klostermaier• The Upanishads• The Bible• Britannica- http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/45474/avatar• Wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/Panini