33 crores or 33 types of Demigods. Which is right?
A devotee (name hidden) asked like this:
HK Prabhuji! Yet I hv nt become a prfct devotee, but trying my best to serve Lord Krsna, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu & Srila Prabhupad. I met 1 lady she is hindu by birth but now she is into christianity. Gradually, she came to know abt Krsna through me. She told me to talk to their sisters as she is not able to raise qustn abt bible & I seem her little knowledgeable abt our shastra. We met. It’s Krsna & Prabhupad’s mercy that I proved our mission to them. But sister raise 1 qustn & it is abt 33 koti demigods. So prabhuji my qustn is about ‘Koti’. I read smwhr dat many ppl are misinterpreting d ‘Koti’ word. I read koti means types. There are 33 koti(types) of demigod. But evrywhr is 33 crore demigods. Even in iskcon they say 33 crore. So plz clear dis doubt it is types or crore. Dandavat pranaam. Hari bol!
REPLY:
The word Koti has many direct and indirect meanings in Sanskrit or Hindi (that has many resemblence with Sanskrit) : Crore, Category (Type), Grade, Order, Quality, etc.
So, we can simply take as both number and types.
Therefore, both are correct and can be fused like this:
Devas or demi gods are the administrators of the entire creations.
Even for a country, we have hundreds of administrators. If we consider all the countries on this earth, we will have lakhs of administrators.
This is for just a single planet. If you consider the entire material creations, there will be innumerable planets and stars. So, there must be crores of controllers for entire creations.
Based on this logic, we can take the word KOTI as denoting CRORE. That means, crores of demigods can be there.
If we take the word KOTI meaning TYPES or CATEGORIES, there is an explanation for that in vedic scripts.
Many texts give the number 33 like this:
“The eight Vasus, the Eleven Rudras, and the twelve Adityas, make Thirty one. Indra and Prajapati are the remaining two”
Thus, we can classify 33 types of demigods like this:
(1) 8 VASUS:
Fire, earth, air, sky, sun, heaven, moon and stars.
(2) 11 RUDRS:
The ten breathes in the body and the mind together are called 11 RUDRAS.
(3) 12 ADITYAS:
The twelve months of a year are called 12 Adityas. Each month has a presiding demigod.
(4) ONE INDRA – who causes thunderbolt.
(5) ONE PRAJAPATI.
All these account for 33 categories of demigods.
Under these prime 33 types of demigods, there are crores of administrators. Even the each and every organ of our body is controlled by a separate demigod.
Similarly, every portion of these creations is controlled by demigods.
Thus, under these 33 Prime demigods or devas, there are 33 crores of demigods or devas.
This alone can be a logical conclusion because KOTI has diversified meaning though Crore is the primary meaning.
All these demigods originate from Brahmam.
This Brahmam originates from the Supreme Personality of Godhead Krishna.
This is the system of administration that can be logically inferred from vedic scriptures.
This topic is debated in different ways. A section of scholars take as 33 TYPES and another section as 33 CRORES. This debate is going endless.
Therefore, to get a logical understanding, we can take it as 33 Crores under 33 types of demigods from Brahmam that originates from the Supreme Person Krishna.
To avoid confusing with different versions, be peaceful with this logical inference. Nothing is lost and everything is included in this way of inference.
Hope this helps.