LECTURE XVI - IMAGES AND IDOLS

Summary

On several occasions during my travels through all parts of India, I asked intelligent Paṇḍits how they could reconcile the gross idolatry and fetish-worship which meet the eye at almost every step throughout the length and breadth of their land, with the doctrine repeatedly declared to be the only true creed of Brāhmanism—the doctrine that nothing really exists but the one eternal, omnipresent Spirit of the Universe (named Brahman or Brahmă).

The answer I generally received to this inquiry was, that spiritual worship was at first the only form of religion dominant in India, till the Buddhists set the example of worshipping material objects and images (pratimā-pūjā).

Of course it is impossible to say what amount of truth there may be in this accusation. It seems probable that material impersonations of the forces of nature existed before the Buddha's time. Yet there is no evidence of the prevalence of actual idolatry at the time when the Ṛig-veda was composed. Nor is there any very clear allusion to it in Manu. Nor have any images of Hindū gods been found which are so ancient as some Buddhist images. At the same time nothing is said about image-worship in the Buddhist Piṭakas. The statement that the Buddha himself sanctioned idolatry is wholly legendary (see p. 177). Nor is there any proof that carved images of his person were common in India till several centuries after his death.