Invitation to World Religions

106  CHAPTER 4  Hinduism

Images of supernatural beings and mythical beasts decorate Hindu temples, as well as Hindu homes. These images can be richly adorned stationary icons enshrined in temples or beautifully crafted bronze icons carried in reli- gious processions. Today, some Hindus revere print and online images of the divine. This love for the divine form emerges from Hindu notions of the simultaneous imma- nence and transcendence of God. An image of a deity is a symbolic representation meant to aid devotees in contem- plating the deity’s divine attributes, but the image is also believed to be suffused with divine presence, as we saw in the opening narrative about the Ganesha festival and temple. Thus, Hindus believe that God becomes accessible to devotees through images. For Hindus, an image of a god is God. The Divine in Nature  If Brahman is everywhere and everything, it follows that the natural world is an expres- sion of the divine. This belief is held by most Hindus, whether inclined toward the monistic or the dualistic viewpoint. The worship of such natural entities as rivers, the earth, mountains, and the sun, as well as a reverence for certain trees and animals, can be traced back to the roots of Hinduism. Many sacred sites arose in conjunction with the worship of rivers and mountains. Rivers in particular are worshiped as embodying the creative energy that generates the uni- verse, as well as being powerful places of crossing between the divine and terrestrial worlds. It is for all of these reasons

that many Hindus bathe in rivers—of which the Ganges in India is the most important—believing that they wash away one’s sins. For centuries, the awe-inspiring peaks of the Himalayas have attracted monks, yogis, and pilgrims seeking an experi- ence of the divine. Mount Kailash, believed to be the home of the god Shiva, draws devotees who perform a ritual circumambulation of the mountain over the course of several days, reaching elevations of greater than 18,000 feet on the trek. Hindu my- thology portrays the sun, planets, and other celestial bodies as gods. For Hindus, all living things are sacred, and some especially so. For example, the type of fig tree under which Gautama the Buddha attained enlightenment (Chapter 5) is sacred to the god Vishnu. As is well known, Hindu society gives a special place to the cow, a practice that has deep historical roots in the pastoral, cattle-tending communities found throughout India. Because a child, once weaned from its mother’s breast, is frequently given cow’s milk, Hindus revere the cow as a second mother. Cows are worshiped on the first day of the important Hindu festival Shiva as Lord of the Dance (Nataraja) performs his Five Activities: creation, represented by the drum in his upper right hand; preservation, signified by the positions of his lower right and left hands; destruction, symbolized by the fire in his upraised left hand; illusion, personified by the Demon of Forgetfulness crushed beneath his right leg; and liberation, offered by surrendering to his upraised left foot. Chola period, c. eleventh century. India, Tamil Nadu. PROPERTY OF OXFORD

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