From: narayana@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu (Kuram T Narayana)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Idol worship and Hinduism
Date: 20 Dec 92 23:39:23 GMT
Organization: Penn State Computer Science


                Idol worship in Hinduism

S. Radha Krishnan has the following to write:

"There is such a thing as pratiikopaasanaa or symbol worship.
This is an aid to worship. The symbolic is not the imaginary.
Slowly we get beyond the symbol to the object symbolized.
Until we reach the Highest, we gain rewards great or small
according to our aims and objects." 

On the status of image worship, the scrpiture has the following to
say.

1)

  ajnaanaam bhaavanaarthaaya pratimaah parikalpitaah.


2) Sankara Bhasyam has the following to say:

  prathamaa prathimaa-puujaa japah stotraani madhyamaa
  uttamaa maanasii puujaa  so'ham puujaa uttamottamaa.

3) Even Advaita vedanta accepted image worship as a preparation 
   for contemplation. Maha-nirvaana Tantra says:

   uttamo brahma-sadbhaavo dhyaana-bhaavas tu madhyamah
   stutit japo adhamo bhaavo bahih-puujaa adhamaadhamaa.

To remain merged in the Brahman is the highest, meditation is
the middle way, prayer to god and repetition of his name is the
lowest, and external worship is lower than the lowest.

The above are the footnoted passages from Radha Krishnan's work
on the Brahma suutras.
This places pure idol worship that is external in the lowest form.
However one can use the same to achieve concentration in meditation.

Commenting on the Badarayana's aphorism

  Brahma-drushtit utkarshataat

meaning 

 "A contemplation of Brahman (is to be superimposed on symbols
  of Brahman), on account of the exaltation (thereby bestowed
  on the symbols).

Sankara has the following to say: (this is from Thibaut's
translation os Sankara Bhashyam)

  "with regard to the texts quoted above there arises another
   doubt, viz. whether the conteplation fo Aditya and so on is
   to be superimposed on the Brahman, or the contemplation of
   Brahman on Aditya and so on--- ...

   The puurpakshin says that there exists no fixed rule for this
   case because we ahve no scriptural text establishing such a
   rule.....
  
   To this we make the following reply: The contemplation on Brahman
   is to be exclusively superimposed on Aditya and so on. why?---
   on account of exaltation. ... Thereby we also comply with a secular
   rule, viz. the one enjoining that the idea of something higher
   is to be superimposed on something lower, as when we view---and
   speak of---the king's charioteer as a king. .... 

   The contemplatory clauses, more over, which belong to the passages
   under discussion (`He who knowing this meditates upon Aditya as
   Brahman;' `Who mediates on speech as Brahman;' `Who meditates
   on will as Brahman;' exhibit the words Aditya and so on in the
   accusative case, and there by show them to be the direct objects
   of the action of meditation. Against this remark... we point out 
   that Brahman that is the supreme ruler of all will give the fruits
   of mediatation on Aditya and so on. ... And after all, Brahman is 
   also meditated upon (in the cases under discussion) in so for as
   a contemplation pn Brahman is superimposed on its symbols, analogously
   as a contemplation on Vishnu is superimposed on his images"

The gist of this argument is that when the passages of upanishads say
"meditate on speech as Brahman, Sky as Brahman, light as Brahman,
 Hearing as Brahman, mind as Brahman, etc." the objects under consideration
 are to be superimposed on Brahman not the reverse. The same holds
in the case of image worship. The devotee implies by that image his
object of mediatation, namely Brahman.

Thus idol worship implies worship of Brahman. However Brahman can be
meditated upon in any other manner that a student wishes.

Thus breaking idols and beating them with chappals, the dravidian
racists of EVR and his followers have precisely desecrated that
very object that the devotees consider as Brahman, because without
that notion there is no such thing as mediatation. That is why
it is a crime. In mythology, Rakshasas used to do such things.
In modern days, we have these fellows!

...kt
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian