Saturday, August 4, 2007

idol worship

धर्मग्रन्थ सब जला चुकी है, जिसके अंतर की ज्वाला,
मंदिर, मसजिद, गिरिजे, सब को तोड़ चुका जो मतवाला,
पंडित, मोमिन, पादिरयों के फंदों को जो काट चुका,
कर सकती है आज उसी का स्वागत मेरी मधुशाला।।१७।

Can someone tell me the logic behind idol worship? I know the same question has been asked by greater minds since time immemorial. Yet the kind of resource in terms of man-hours and money is engaged in the maintenance of idols across India is mind boggling. The market-size would definitely go in Billion dollars.

I remember our family trip to Gangotri-Yamunotri-Kedarnath-Badrinath. At Badrinath, we faced a 4 hour long queue to the temple. We had letters from some high dignitaries and hence were able to go through the holy place in minutes. I was feeling guilty later. I mean God must have deducted some marks from our expected score of 'Punya' that we were supposed to get from this visit after such manipulations.

And what did I learn from this manipulated holy visit? That few stones have been endowed with the power to command life. I forgot to tell that even we had to wait for an hour along with other people albeit for a genuine reason. The Shankaracharya was visiting the temple and no other soul was allowed to get near the holy stones.

That's what I would definitely call holy shit.

1 comment:

Surbhi said...

What's worse is that some obscene amount of money/ precious metals, and even more obscene amount of foodstuff, is "donated" to places of worship as offerings to 'please' the Lord. While the same can be used for the benefit of mankind, which is the greatest of all worships!