Re: Idol Worship
Posted By Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian (rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu)
Tue, 22 Apr 1997 12:04:32 -0500
Narahari Achar wrote:
>
> Mani Varadarajan wrote on 9th Apr:
> " It is offensive to me as a practising Hindu to be told that the idol that >I
> worship is a mere 'means for concentration'....more offensive when the >author's
> aim is to spread the 'truth' about Hinduism."
> My whole point was that the words "Idol" and "Idol worship" have a >derogatory
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> connotation and are used that way by others. We should not use them in
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> describing ourselves. We should perhaps use "icons" instead. The angry
> responses of Mani and Vasu are not warranted. At the risk of being over
> pedantic and boring permit me to write the following:
[ ... ]
It's quite true that Avahanam etc are done in Hinduism. However, I agree with
the sentiments expressed by Mani. Why should we call the mUrti an icon? Icon
refers to the symbols used by the catholic tradition and for them it's only a
_representation_ which serves to remind them of Ishvara and not Ishvara
himself.
Why is there a "derogatory connotation"? It's because the religions like
judaism, christianity etc deride hindusim for worshiping idols. It's time we
get rid of the feeling of shame about what we do.
Ramakrishnan.
--
http://yake.ecn.purdue.edu/~rbalasub/
