Idol Worship in Hindu Religion

The aim of any religious philosophy is to achieve direct mystical experience of reality. This is particularly true of Hinduism because of its non-theistic character which has not only influenced India’s social and cultural life but has determined its intellectual life as well.

Theism in religion is the thesis that the divine is determinate in character. A theistic God is one whose character can be conveyed positively by a determinate thesis. His nature is describable in terms of specific attributes. The oriental religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism deny this characteristic of the divine. To them the divine is indeterminate.

Hinduism, therefore, refers to something which must be immediately experienced and which cannot be attained by logical methods of western science, philosophy and theology. That something is Brahma or Chit, the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum, unchanging and formless which is the source of consciousness in the self. It is undifferentiated (abhinna), all pervading (sarvatravastha) and pure (shuddha). It is the Ultimate reality and the soul of all things. It cannot be apprehended by intellect nor can it be described purely in words. Brahma (or Brahman) is the unifying thread in the cosmic web, the ultimate ground of all beings. It is best described in negative terms as no one knows its positive characters. As the Upanishads say about Brahma:

“It moves, it moves not,
It is far and it is near,
It is within all this, and it is outside all this.

Svetasvatara Upanishad describes it (as per R. E. Hume’s translation);

The soul(atman) which pervades all things
As butter is contained in the cream...
This is Brahma.

The concept of Brahma may not be easy to grasp by westerners because of their religions’ rationalist, theistic philosophies. The Hindu reaction to this attitude of western religions is beautifully summerised by Charles Johnston in his commentary on Kena Upanishad: “All rationalistic philosophies end and inevitably end in agnosticism. This is one logical conclusion to the search for knowledge in that way by that instrument........having been inspired and set in motion by intuition...the rationalist philosopher instantly turns his upon intuition... Having begun with intuition he should go on with intuition.”

‘Mind’ on the other hand is a localised, differentiated, limited portion of the otherwise undifferentiated boundless Chit or Brahma. Thus while Brahma is unchanging and formless, mind is transitory, changing and limited. Hence ‘mind’ arises as an immediately sensed, differentiated natural object when Brahma or Chit, the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum becomes limited and determined in certain parts because of its differentiations.

Thus ‘mind’ or the determinate personality and natural objects are constituted of (a) Brahma (Chit), common to everything and (b) the qualities (Guna), differentiating one determinate part of Brahma from another determinate part. Similarly, all other natural objects, be it rivers, mountains, streams, flowers etc. are made up of these two aesthetic factors. If therefore, we are able to eliminate Chit-Guna differentiations from the complex aesthetic continuum, then all distinctions between the subject and the object and between self and non-personal object will disappear. Then the knower will become identical with the known and the subject with the object. That is what Yoga attempts to achieve i.e. to eliminate all differentiations from the totality of the immediately apprehended fact and whether anything positive remains when this is done. The ‘Siddhas’ who achieve this by Yoga are overwhelmed by the experience with no sense of either of self or the object. However, not all people have the capacity to apprehend Brahma by itself in its purity. Those who cannot achieve Brahma this way, ‘Sadhakas’ do so by rituals where limited, determinate aesthetic symbols are used. This entails difference between the worshipping subject and the worshipped object remaining, howsoever close the ritual might have taken one. This gives rise to idol worship. The umpteen number of gods and goddesses who populate Hinduism (Sanatan Dharma or Vedic religion) are thus nothing but different faces of Brahma in which the worshipper imagines it. Apparently an overwhelming majority of people could not conceive of Brahma by yoga and had to resort to rituals. Even within the rituals there are different types, some of which take one nearer to the undifferentiated Brahma than do others. Even amongst the people there are some who are so constituted psychologically that they require greater determinate symbolic aids than others and simpler forms of rituals. Thus the people in Hindu society are classified according to their differing capacities to achieve Brahma in its purity without any differentiations. The individual or group of individuals is called the most perfect which comes nearest to the experience of the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum in its purity.