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Friday, December 2, 2016

Why do Hindus worship idols?



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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