Hindu Images and their Worship with special reference to Vaisnavism

A philosophical-theological inquiry

Julius J. Lipner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351967815
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Landeskunde

Hinduism comprises perhaps the major cluster of religio-cultural traditions of India, and it can play a valuable role in helping us understand the nature of religion and human responses to life. Hindu image-worship lies at the core of what counts for Hinduism – up-front and subject to much curiosity and misunderstanding, yet it is a defining feature of this phenomenon.

This book focuses on Hindu images and their worship with special reference to Vai??avism, a major strand of Hinduism. Concentrating largely, but not exclusively, on Sanskritic source material, the author shows in the course of the book that Hindu image-worship may be understood via three levels of interpretation: the metaphysical/theological, the narratival or mythic, and the performative or ritual. Analysing the chief philosophical paradigm underlying Hindu image-worship and its implications, the book exemplifies its widespread application and tackles, among other topics such as the origins of image-worship in Hinduism, the transition from Vedic to image worship, a distinguishing feature of Hindu images: their multiple heads and limbs. Finally, with a view to laying the grounds for a more positive dialogic relationship between Hinduism and the "Abrahamic" faiths, which tend to condemn Hindu image-worship as "idolatry", the author examines the theological explanation and justification for embodiment of the Deity in Hinduism and discusses how Hinduism might justify itself against such a charge.

Rich in Indological detail, and with an impressive grasp of the philosophical and theological issues underlying Hindu material culture, and image-worship, this book will be of interest to academics and others studying theology, Indian philosophy and Hinduism.

Part I

1 “The heathen in his blindness […]”

Methodological considerations

In 1819, the Anglican cleric, Reginald Heber (1783–1826), wrote what became a well-known hymn, entitled From Greenland’s Icy Mountains. The first three verses (of four) run as follows:

1 From Greenland’s icy mountains,

From India’s coral strand,

Where Afric’s sunny fountains

Roll down their golden sand,

From many an ancient river,

From many a palmy plain,

They call us to deliver

Their land from error’s chain.

2 What though the spicy breezes

Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle;

Though every prospect pleases,

And only man is vile;

In vain with lavish kindness

The gifts of God are strown;

The heathen in his blindness

Bows down to wood and stone.

3 Can we, whose souls are lighted

With wisdom from on high,

Can we to men benighted

The lamp of life deny?

Salvation! O salvation!

The joyful sound proclaim,

Till each remotest nation

Has learned Messiah’s Name.

The hymn may well be regarded as expressing offensive sentiments, especially by its strident references to heathens bowing down to wood and stone as a mark of their spiritual blindness. One need not be opposed to the missionary enterprise. Every individual has the right to proclaim the beliefs that matter to him/her, and to attempt to persuade others to share these beliefs – not least in the public square. And every individual has the right to change his/her beliefs and practices. But if there is to be a morally acceptable transaction between preacher and hearer, it must be done on the basis of due discernment of views, and proper respect for the person, without resort to abuse or other violence of any kind, whether verbal, psychological or physical.

Reginald Heber’s hymn had been written in England even before he visited India, presumably before he got to know those benighted heathens and inquire into their reprehensible practices. He travelled to India to accept the position of Bishop of Calcutta – to which he had been appointed and for which he was consecrated before his departure – only in 1823. Thus one may find his strictures on image-worship in the hymn objectionable, largely for two reasons: first, they appear to have been issued without due recourse to the relevant Hindu (or other) philosophical/theological rationales involved; and second, they make no attempt to distinguish between Christians bowing down to images/icons (a common enough Christian liturgical practice of the time) and non-Christians behaving in a similar manner.¹ No doubt other things, besides theological condemnation, were also occurring through the writing of the hymn, such as an attempt to legitimate controlling British presence in foreign lands (“They call us to deliver their land from error’s chain”), to affirm the superiority of the Christian (and Western) way of life over non-Christian faith and culture, and so on. But none of this justifies the offending language mentioned, whose effect is to impair the integrity of the hymn. It is important, then, to consider first the method that we will employ for our inquiry into Hindu image-worship. But before we do this, we must attempt a few clarifications.

As noted in the Introduction, this is a book predominantly about religious images in Hinduism (especially Vaiṣṇava Hinduism); in other words, it is a book ostensibly, but not exclusively, about those many-armed and sometimes many-headed representations of gods and goddesses that an increasing number of people, visually and in other ways, associate with the religious allegiance of Hindus, thanks to the developing communication networks of our rapidly globalizing world. ‘Hinduism’ – we will comment on the meaning of this term below – is the majority tradition by far of the political entity that is India,² which is set to become one of the global superpowers of this century, and it would be as well to note at this point that image-worship lies at the very heart of the multifaceted tradition that is ‘Hinduism’. We will not be delving, therefore, into something that is out-of-the-way or barely visible; rather, we will be inquiring into a phenomenon that has been historically very much in the public eye, if largely misunderstood. But by discussing Hindu images, this book will also necessarily inquire into how the imagination – until recently vastly underrated, if not denigrated, as a capacity of the human mind – has worked in this context of image-making and so has acted as a major resource for giving expression to the defining elements of this variegated faith.³ In the process, we may hope to gain some appreciation of the way in which the imagination determines and enriches our experience of ourselves and of the worlds in which we live. It is the imagination, after all, that is a distinctive contributory factor in making us human.

Thus, this is not a book that focuses on the taxonomy, historical or otherwise, of Hindu images, such as Jitendra Nath Banerjea’s monumental work, The Development of Hindu Iconography (1956, 2nd edn), or on the role Hindu images can play in a political, social, juridical or similar context, such as Richard Davis’ fine study, Lives of Indian Images (1997); still less is it a book that attempts to construct some grand, panoramic theory about Indian art or aesthetics. It is a book, rather, that reflects on the foundations of our subject – foundations of method, of history, of philosophy, of theology and of aesthetics. It is at this level that we will seek the somewhat elusive groundwork for belief in Hindu images and their worship.

No doubt ‘Hindu’ is a contentious term (cf. e.g. Llewellyn 2005), even more so than such counterparts as ‘Christian’, ‘Buddhist’, ‘Muslim’, etc., and on occasion its contentiousness will strike us with more force than usual. Nevertheless, I am happy to use the word; indeed, I think its use necessary for the delineation of certain kinds of religious experience on the one hand, and of certain forms of the cumulative tradition of faith on the other.⁴

Descriptive terms can be useful signifiers in at least two ways: either as strict delimiters of meaning or as less rigid ones. In the first case, semantic precision is generated by the exigencies of a particular technical discourse. For example, the so-called Arian controversy in the Christian Church of the fourth century about the relative ontological status of the members of the Trinity produced a number of terms to describe the various parties that pursued this controversy (particularly in respect of the relationship between the Father and the Son), namely the ‘Homoousians’, the ‘Homoeousians’, the ‘Homoeans’ and the ‘Anomoeans’.⁵ Such terms are useful because their very precision enables the debate to be recorded accurately and to be taken forward with clarity, not least by obviating the need for their meanings to be constantly repeated. This is how jargon becomes not only useful but also necessary for progress in professional discourse.

But less rigid semantic signifiers also have their uses. Here there is recognition that the meaning of a term cannot, indeed may not, be given undue precision, because of the very nature of the phenomenon being referred to; this is based on the realization that the term’s semantic field cannot but have blurred or porous boundaries. ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hinduism’ are such terms. Each is capable of having referents whose identity would by common consent be reckoned ‘Hindu’ on the one hand,⁶ yet, on the other, each could also refer to actualities whose identity would not be so clear-cut, or whose identity would seem to be shared, or merged, or hyphenated in a way that crosses standard boundaries of nomenclature. Thus we could say, “This experience (or this object) is clearly ‘Hindu’ ”, or “There is no doubt that this is a feature of Hinduism”, but equally, we could also say of something else, “I’m not sure if this is really Hindu or Buddhist or Jain”, or “This seems to be more an aspect of Hinduism than of Buddhism (or Jainism), though one could identify Buddhist (and/or Jain) features too”,⁷ or “This is probably not Hindu”, or “I am a Hindu-Christian at heart”. But we need such constitutive naming terms in the first place, semantically open-ended though they be, because it gives (in our case) Hindus and their faith a recognizable voice amid a medley of competing identifiable voices.⁸ Further, Hindus identify themselves by the use of such terms (‘Hindu’, ‘Vaiṣṇava’, ‘Śākta’, etc.), amid a general consensus that they are entitled to do so, since we must take self-identification seriously. Let us then work with an understanding of ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hinduism’ in this permeable, pragmatic sense. One reason for choosing a particular focus for our study, namely Vaiṣṇavism, is that this major cluster of traditions can function as a multifaceted lens – though it has no exclusivist claims in this regard, as we will show – for exemplifying what is generally accepted as Hindu from very early times for the purposes we have in mind. Appropriately negotiated, it can showcase a spectrum of instances in what is basically a polycentric religious approach,⁹ to counteract any charge of arbitrariness in our choice of illustrative and analytic material.

Hindu images and image-worship have had a chequered history, not only outside Hinduism but also within the fold. On the one hand, they have been excoriated as implying ‘idolatry’, especially by members of the so-called ‘Abrahamic’ faiths,¹⁰ or as aesthetically ‘monstrous’, usually by non-Hindu critics;¹¹ on the other hand, they have been demeaned or dismissed as spiritually shallow or puerile, if not unworthy, by some Hindus themselves. We will consider these criticisms in Chapter 8. In both cases, however, these judgements have invariably been based on want of a proper respect for their object of inquiry, and consequently on a deficient or tendentious understanding of what Hindu image-worshippers – a varied lot – are about.

Speaking conceptually, method refers to the procedure one adopts in pursuit of understanding, whereas one’s methodology concerns the theory underlying or justifying this procedure. In what follows, I wish to make a particular methodological case about my approach in this book, one that has been an object of concern for me over many years of study and research in the Hindu traditions. This relates to what I call a methodology of respect. It seems to me that a certain psychological and intellectual readiness must be cultivated when one seeks to understand trans-culturally, especially in a religious context. The objects of such attention may be recorded experiences (ranging from the everyday to the mystical), material artefacts of one sort or another such as religious buildings, images, sacred relics, etc., and institutions, concepts, beliefs, doctrines, practices and so on. By ‘cultivation’, I imply a disciplined approach. This is why it informs a methodology. It is a practice thought through and justified by its implementer. As such, it is calculated to produce sound and balanced judgements. Such judgements have two aspects – fused in the judgement itself, no doubt, but still logically distinguishable one from the other. The first a...