In the
religious world, idol worship has been a contentious issue. History is replete
with incidents where either a group of people holding a particular view on idol
worship destroyed the sacred icons of other groups who held a different view,
or looked down on them as pagans or primitive people. Recent destruction of
Bamian Buddha images in Afghanistan by extremists is only a sad example.
On the
other hand, modern Hindus consider idol worship as an inalienable part of their
faith, so much so, that today we can’t think about Hinduism without idol worship.
The
intention of this series of posts is neither to justify Hindu worship of idols,
nor to condemn it. My intention is to bring some interesting facts to light
that would force either group to rethink on their respective stand.
In the next
post, I will start with some quotes from ancient Hindu scriptures about idol
worship.
PS; Most of
the material in these posts is taken from my own book on ancient Indian ShilpaSastra (sculpture manuals).
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