Concepts of Idol Worship

I have observed that not just the western world, but also some indians themselves are puzzled at the concept of Idol worship by Hindus. A simple pespective to the concept of idols is that each person is an expert in some field or the other. Some are good with education, some with music, some with business, some with engineering and everyone in the world is gifted someway or the other. As human beings, we tend to forget that it is a gift and thus also forget to express gratitude for the same. Thus the vedic ancestors came up with the concept of idols. Each idol created has been defined as the bestower of a special gift. For instance

• Saraswati - Education and music


• Lakshmi - Prosperity and wealth


• Shakthi - Will power and strength


• Shiva - Liberation


• Vishnu - Protection


• Brahma - Creation


• and many more.

Thus gratitude is expressed towards the respective diety for the gift bestowed. Over time, humans started to become ignorant of the society and our very Mother earth too....which is happening now at a very large scale. The vedic ancestors very well knew that humans are never perfect and have a tendency to misuse their mind. In order to protect the society, a family system was established among the dieties. This family system, shows how an ideal family should be and also has plenty of stories around the families of dieties, that uplift the human values of truth, righteousness, love, peace, nonviolence. Thus the temples in India became the homes of the dieties, just like our own homes with the family members. Last but not the least comes protecting Mother Earth who is the biggest gift of all. Each diety has an animal, flower, plant, bird etc attributed to it. For example, Lord Shiva, the cosmic dancer wears the snake as his garland and is offered bilva leaves during prayers. Lord Muruga has peacock and hen as birds. Godess Shakthi has her special tree as the neem tree and so on.

Thus each idol has been created simply to have the order of 'MAN - SOCIETY - NATURE - GOD' to be maintained. This order can be described as man is the limb of the society, society is the limb of nature and nature is the limb of God. Thus man, society, nature all are God.