QUOTES ABOUT IDOLS

 Vistâsp destroyed the idols, but the demons they represented still remained, in a spiritual state, to produce evil

 abhishhi.nchati = performs' puuja', by pouring water etc. on the idol

 and the household charms, or idols, of the Semitic worshippers of the sun-god, to whom the serpent was sacred

 And the illustrious Pêshyôtanû advances, and the fire Frôbâ, the fire Gûsnasp, and the triumphant fire Bûrzîn-Mitrô will smite the fiend of excessive strength; he will extirpate the idol-temples that are the abode of demons; and they celebrate the ceremonial (yazisn), arrange the sacred twigs, solemnize the Dvâzdah-hômâst, and praise me, Ahuramazda, with the archangels; this is what I foretell . 38. The illustrious Pêshyôtanû walks forth to these countries of Iran which I, Ahuramazda, created, to the Arvand and Vêh river ; when the wicked see him they will be terrified, those of the progeny of gloom and those not worthy

 and we shall see that the religion of the Phoenicians, as, indeed, that of the Hebrews themselves, was the worship of Saturn, the erect pillar-god, who, under different names, appears to have been at the head of the pantheons of most of the peoples of antiquity. The reference in Hebrew history to the teraphim of Jacob's family recalls the fact that the name assigned to Abraham's father was Terah, a "maker of images." The teraphim were, doubtless, the same as the seraphim, which were serpent-images

 authorisedly, it is said, unto foreigners and idolators [dev-worshippers]

 Av. Bûiti of Vend. XIX, 4, 6, 140, who must be identified with Pers. but, 'an idol,' Sans. bhûta, 'a goblin,' and not with Buddha

 bestow no gifts and alms, and even those [they bestow] they repent of again. 46. And even those men of the good religion, who have reverenced the good religion of the Mazdayasnians, proceed in conformity with (bar-hamakö rûbisn) those ways and customs , and do not believe their own religion. And the noble, great, and charitable , who are the virtuous of their own country and locality, will depart from their own original place and family as idolatrous; through want they beg something from the ignoble and vile, and come to poverty and helplessness; through them nine in ten of these men will perish in the northern quarter

 extirpating the idol-temples of Lake Kêkast it settled upon the mane of his horse, and drove away the darkness and gloom, and made it quite light, so that they might extirpate the idol-temples; in the same locality the fire Gûsasp was established at the appointed place on the Asnavand mountain

 from the mother, so it was supposed that emergence from a terrestrial cleft was equivalent to a new birth. In direct proportion to the resemblance between the sign and the thing signified was the sacredness of the chink, and the amount of virtue which was imparted by passing through it. From natural chasms being considered holy, the veneration for apertures in stones, as being equally symbolical, was a natural transition. Holes, such as we refer to, are still to be seen in those structures which are called Druidical, both in the British Islands and in India. It is impossible to say when these first arose; it is certain that they survive in India to this day. We recognize the existence of the emblem among the Jews in Isaiah li, 1, in the charge to look "to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged." We have also an indication that chasms were symbolical among the same people in Isaiah lvii, 5, where the wicked among the Jews were described as "inflaming themselves with idols under every green tree, and slaying the children in the valleys under the clefts of the rocks." It is possible that the "hole in the wall" (Ezek. viii, 7) had a similar signification. In modern Rome, in the vestibule of the church close to the Temple of Vesta, I have seen a large perforated stone, in the hole of which the ancient Romans are said to have placed their hands when they swore a solemn oath, in imitation, or, rather, a counterpart, of Abraham swearing his servant upon his thigh :: that is, the male organ. Higgins dwells upon these holes and says: "These stones are so placed as to have a hole under them, through which devotees passed for religious purposes. There is one of the same kind in Ireland, called St. Declau's stone. In the mass of rock at Bramham Crags there is a place made for

 Human sacrifices, in historic times, were "offered to the earth goddess, Tari Pennu or Bera Pennu, and were believed to ensure good crops, and immunity from all diseases and accidents". One official record states that the victim, after being stabbed by the priest, was "literally cut to pieces". Each person who was "so fortunate as to procure it carried away a morsel of the flesh, and presented it to the idol of his own village".

 In a recent prosecution under Sections 292, 293 of the Indian Penal Code against an accused who had published a Tantra (but who was rightly acquitted), an Indian Deputy Magistrate who had advised the prosecution, and who claimed to be an orthodox Hindu, stated (I am informed) in the witness box, that he could not define what the Tantra Shastra was, or state whether it was a Hindu scripture of the Kali age, or whether a well-known particular Shastra shown to him was one of the Tantras. Such ignorance is typical of many at the present time and is a legacy from a vanishing age. How is it that a Shastra which has had its followers throughout India from the Himalayas (the abode of Shiva and of Parvati Devi) to Cape Comorin (a corruption of Kumart Devi) which ruled for centuries, so that we may speak of a Tantrik epoch; which even to-day governs the household and temple ritual of every Hindu; how is it that such a Shastra has fallen into complete neglect and disrepute amongst the larger body of the English-educated community'? I remember a time when mention of the Shastra was only made (I speak of course of the same class) with bated breath; and when any one who concerned himself therewith became thereby liable to the charge of giving licentious sway to drink and women. The answer is both a general and particular one. In the first place the English-educated people of this country were formerly almost exclusively, and later to a considerable extent, under the sway of their English educators. In fact they were in a sense their creation. They were, and some of them still are, the Manasaputra of the English. For them what was English and Western was the mode. Hindu religion, philosophy and art were only, it was supposed, for the so-called "uneducated" women and peasants and for native Pandits who, though learned in their futile way, had not received the illuminating advantages of a Western training. In my own time an objection was (I am informed) taken by Indian Fellows of the Calcutta University to the appointment of the learned Pandit Candrakanta Tarkalamkara to a chair of Indian philosophy on the ground that he was a mere native Pandit. In this case English Fellows and the then Vice-Chancellor opposed this absurd and snobbish objection. When the authority of the English teachers was at its highest, what they taught was law, even though their judgments were, in respect of Indian subjects of which they had but a scant and imperfect knowledge, defective. If they said with, or in anticipation of, one Professor, that the Vedas were "the babbling of a child humanity" and the Brahmanas "the drivel of madmen," or with another that the thought of the Upanishads was so "low" that it could not be correctly rendered in the high English language; that in "treating of Indian philosophy a writer has to deal with thoughts of a lower order than the thoughts of the every-day life of Europe"; that Smriti was mere priestly tyranny, the Puranas idle legends and the Tantras mere wickedness and debauchery; that Hindu philosophy was (to borrow another English Professor's language concerning the Samkhya) "with all its folly and fanaticism little better than a chaotic impertinence"; and that Yoga was, according to the same man of learning, "the fanatical vagaries of theocracy"; that Indian ritual was nothing but superstition, mummery, and idolatry, and (Indian) art, inelegant, monstrous, and grotesque :: all this was with readiness accepted as high learning and wisdom, with perhaps here and there an occasional faint, and even apologetic, demur. I recollect in this connection a rather halting, and shamefaced, protest by the late Rajendra Lal Mitra. I do not say that none of these or other adverse criticisms had any ground whatever. There has been imperfection, folly, superstition, wickedness, here as elsewhere. There has been much of it, for example, in the countries, whence these critics of India came. It is, however, obvious that such criticisms are so excessive as to be absurd

 It may be well doubted whether the world contains an idolater in the sense in which that term is used by persons who speak of "the heathen worship of sticks and stones". According to the traveler A. B. Ellis ("The Tshi speaking peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa"), even "negroes of the Gold Coast are always conscious that their offerings and worship are not paid to the inanimate object itself but to the indwelling God, and every native with whom I have conversed on the subject has laughed at the possibility of its being supposed that he would worship or offer sacrifice to some such object as a stone". Nevertheless a missionary or some traveler might tell him that he did. An absurd attitude on the part of the superior Western is that in which the latter not merely tells the colored races what they should believe, but what notwithstanding denial, they in fact believe and ought to hold according to the tenets of the latter's religion

 It should be remembered that the Chaldeans worshipped a plurality of gods, supposed to have been symbolized by the seven planets. Among these deities the sun-god held a comparatively inferior position, the moon-god, coming before him in the second triad.

 It was at Ur, the special seat of the worship of the moon-god

 It would seem, from this account, that the Hebrew seraph was, as before suggested, in the form of a serpent; but what was the especial significance of this healing figure?

 make derision and idolatry, and shut (to the poor) the door of thy house

 Moses prayed for them, and we read that, thereupon, "Jehovah said unto Moses, make thee a fiery serpent [literally, a seraph], and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made the serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that, if a serpent had bitten any man, when he belield the serpent of brass he lived."

 muurti = idol

 See Introd. V. This principle still prevails even with Musulman Persians: 'Pour encourir leur immondicité dans l'attouchement des Chretiens et autres idolatres, il est nécessaire que s'ils les touchent, leurs vétements soient mouillés. C'est à cause, disent-ils, qu'étans secs l'immondicité ne s'attache pas; . . . . ce qui est cause que dans les villes où leurs Mullas et Docteurs ont plus d'autorité, ils font par fois défendre par leurs Kans que lorsqu'il pleut, les Chrétiens ne sortent pas de leurs maisons, de crainte que par accident, venans à les heurter, ils ne soient rendus immondes

 similarly regulates the ensuing worship. Much ignorant talk takes place as to the supposed worship of the Formless. Worship implies an object of worship and every object has some form. But that form and the ritual vary to meet the needs of differing capacities and temperaments; commencing with the more or less anthropomorphic image (Doll or Puttali, as those who dislike such worship call it) with its material service reproducing the ways of daily life, passing through pictures, emblems, Yantras, and mental worship to adoration of the Point of Light (Jyotirbindu) in which at length, consciousness being merged, all worship ceases

 spoken, when thou fall upon the idolaters and thieves and Daevas

 stupefaction; and the wicked evil spirit flees, with the miscreations and evil progeny he flees back to the darkest recess of hell. 36. And Mitrô of the vast cattle-pastures cries to the illustrious Pêshyôtanû thus: "Extirpate and utterly destroy the idol-temples, the abode of the demons! proceed to these countries of Iran which I, Ahuramazda, created! restore again the throne of sovereignty of the religion over the wicked! when they see thee they will be terrified."

 that Abraham is said to have lived before he quitted it for Haran; and this fact, considered in the light of the traditions relating to the great patriarch, may, perhaps, justify us in inferring that the reformation he endeavored to introduce was the substitution of a simple sun-worship for the planetary cult of the Chaldeans, in which the worship of the moon must to him have appeared to occupy a prominent place. The new faith was, indeed, a return to the old phallic idea of a god of personal generation, worshipped through the symbolical betylus, but associated also with the adoration of the sun as the especial representative of the deity. That Abraham had higher notions of the relation of man to the divine being than his forerunners is very probable, but his sojourn in Haran proves that there was nothing fundamentally different between his religious faith and that of his Syrian neighbors. I am inclined, indeed, to believe that to the traditional Abraham must be ascribed the establishment of sun-worship throughout Phoenicia and Lower Egypt, in connection with the symbols of an earlier and more simple phallic deity. Tradition, in fact, declares that he taught the Egyptians astronomy

 That some great religious movement, ascribed by tradition to Abraham, did take place among the Semites at an early date is undoubted. What the object of this movement was it is difficult to decide.

 The demon Nas is he who causes the pollution and contamination (nisrûstih), which they call nasâi ('dead matter'). 30. The demon Frîftâr ('deceiver') is he who seduces mankind. The demon Spazg ('slander') is he who brings and conveys discourse (milayâ), and it is nothing in appearance such as he says; and he shows that mankind fights and apologizes (avakhshînêd), individual with individual. 3 The demon Arâst ('untrue') is he who speaks falsehood. The demon Aîghâsh is the malignant-eyed fiend who smites mankind with his eye. 24. The demon Bût is he whom they worship among the Hindûs, and his growth is lodged in idols, as one worships the horse as an idol. 35 Astô-vîdâd is the evil flyer (vâê-i saritar) who seizes the life; as it says that, when

 the fair Balarama, and their sister, Subhadra. Once a year the idol is bathed and afterwards taken forth in a great car, which is dragged by pious worshippers. Some have considered it a meritorious act to commit suicide by being crushed under its wheels

 the fire of the waters; with the illustrious Hâdôkht they bless me, Ahuramazda, with the archangels, and after that it demolishes one-third of the opposition. 29. And the illustrious Pêshyôtanû walks forth, with the hundred and fifty men who wear black marten fur, and they celebrate the rituals (yasnân) of the Gadman-hômand ("glorious") fire, which they call the Rôshanô-kerp ("luminous form") , which is established at the appointed place (dâtô-gâs), the triumphant ritual of the Frôbâ fire, Horvadad, and Amerôdad, and the ceremonial (yazisn) with his priestly co-operation; they arrange and pray over the sacred twigs; and the ritual of Horvadad and Amerôdad, in the chapter of the code of religious formulas (nîrangistân) demolishes three-thirds of the opposition. 30. Pêshyôtanû son of Vistâsp walks forth, with the assistance of the Frôbâ fire, the fire Gûsnâsp, and the fire Bûrzîn-Mitrô , to the great idol-temples, the abode of the demons ; and the wicked evil spirit, Wrath with infuriate spear, and all demons and fiends, evil races and wizards, arrive at the deepest abyss of hell; and those idol-temples are extirpated by the exertions of the illustrious Pêshyôtanû

 The forms of worship vary according to the capacity of the worshipper. In the simplest form, the worshipper draws upon the daily life, and treats the Divinity whom he invokes as he would a guest, welcoming It after its journey, offering water for the dusty feet and the mouth, presenting It with flowers, lights, clothes, and so on. These ingredients of worship are called Upacara. In the psycho-physiological rites of some Shaktas, the abuse of which has brought them ill-fame, the Upacara are the functions of the body. In image-worship, the mind is shaped into the form of the object perceived. But the perception of a material image is not enough. The worshipper must see Divinity before him. This he invokes into the image by what is called the welcoming (Avahana) and Life-giving (Pranapratishtha) ceremonies, just as, at the conclusion of the worship, he bids the Deity depart (Visarjana). Uncomprehending minds have asked: "How can God be made to come and go?" The answer is that He does not. What come and go are the modifications, or vrittis, of and in the mind of the Sadhaka or worshipper. To invoke the Deity means, then, a direction not to the Deity, but by the worshipper to himself to understand that the Deity is there. Deity which is omnipresent is in the Image as elsewhere, whatever the Sadhaka may do or not do. The Sadhaka informs his own mind with the notion that the Deity is present. He is then conscious of the presence of and meditates on Divinity and its attributes, and if he be undistracted, his mind and its thought are thereby divinely shaped. Before the Divinity so present, both objectively and to the mind of the Sadhaka, worship is done. It is clear that the more this worship is sincerely continued, the greater both in degree and persistence is the transformation effected. The body is made to take its part either by appropriate gestures, called Mudra, or other acts such as prostrations, offerings, libations, and so forth. By constant worship the mind and disposition become good, for good thoughts repeated make a man good. Ritual produces by degrees, transformation, at first temporary, later lasting. "Ridding the Divinity depart" means that the mind of the Sadhaka has ceased to worship the Image. It is not that the Deity is made to retire at the behest of his worshipper. A true Sadhaka has Divinity ever in his thoughts, whether he is doing formal worship or not. "Invitation" and "Bidding Depart" are done for the purposes of the worship of the Image only. Personally, I doubt whether idolatry exists anywhere in the sense that a worshipper believes a material image as such to be God. But, in any case, Indian image-worship requires for its understanding and practice some knowledge of Vedanta

 The light for which the storm god struggled was often compared, as is well known, to a fair maid or bride carried off by the fiend. There was a class of myths, in which, instead of being carried off, she was supposed to have given herself up, of her own free will, to the demon, and to have betrayed the god, her lover. In another form of myth, still more distant from the naturalistic origin, the Pairikas were 'nymphs of a fair, but erring line,' who seduced the heroes to lead them to their ruin. Afterwards the Pari became at length the seduction of idolatry

 The Mâzainya daêva of the Avesta, and Mâzendarân demons, or idolators, of Persian legends.]

 The MSS. have Tughzghuz in Pâzand. Mas’âudî states (A.D. 943) that the Taghazghaz were a powerful Turkish tribe who dwelt between Khurâsân and China, in and around the town of Kûsân, and not very far from the supposed sources of the Ganges. They had become Manicheans, having been converted from idolatry to the heretical form of Mazda-worship taught by Mazdak (see Mas’âudî, ed. Barbier de Meynard, vol. i, pp. 214, 288, 299, quoted at length in a note to Sls. VI, 7). It would seem from the allusion in our text that Zâd-sparam had recently been among these Taghazghaz, and might have imbibed some of their heretical opinions, so as to lead to this controversy with his brother and the orthodox people of Sîrkân. That he had recently been in the extreme north-east of Khurâsân is further shown by the allusion to Sarakhs in Chap. V, 3

 The people of the southern coast of the Caspian, the Mâzainya daêva, 'Mâzainyan demons or idolators,' of the Avesta.]

 The Tantra contains nothing like idolatry or 'worship of the doll' which we, taking the cue from the Christian missionaries, nowadays call it. This truth, the author, Arthur Avalon, has made very clear in the Introduction to his translation. The Tantra repeatedly says that one is to adore the Deity by becoming a Deity (Devata) himself. The Ishta-devata is the very self of Atman, and not separate from It; He is the receptacle of all, yet He is not contained in anything, for He is the great witness, the eternal Purusha. The true Tantrik worship is the worship in and by the mind. The less subtle form of Tantrik worship is that of the Yantra. Form is born of the Yantra. The form is made manifest by Japa, and awakened by Mantra-Shakti. Tens of millions of beautiful forms of the Mother bloom forth in the heavens of the heart of the Siddhapurusha. Devotees or aspirants of a lower order of competency (Nimna-adhikari) under the directions of the Guru adore the great Maya by making manifest'. (to themselves) one of Her various forms which can be only seen by Dhyana (meditation). That is not mere worship of the idol! if it were so, the image would not be thrown into the water; no one in that case would be so irreverent as to sink the earthen image of the Goddess in the water. The Primordial Shakti is to be awakened by Bhava, by Dhyana, by Japa and by the piercing of the six Cakras. She is all will. No one can say when and how She shows Herself and to what Sadhaka. We only know that She is, and there are Her names and forms. Wonderfully transcending is Her form :: far beyond the reach of word or

 The worship of the golden calf may, perhaps, be described as an idolatrous act, in imitation of the rites of Egyptian Osiris-worship, although probably suggested by the use of the ark. The other case, however, is far different; and it is worth while repeating the exact words in which the use of the serpent-symbol is described. When the people were bitten by the "fiery" serpents

 There is one remarkable incident which is said to have happened during the wanderings of the Hebrews in the Sinaitic wilderness, which appears to throw much light on the character of the Mosaic cult, and to connect it with other religions. I refer to the use of the brazen serpent as a symbol for the healing of the people.

 When thou wouldst see a man making derision and deeds of idolatry, or rejecting (the poor)

 When thou wouldst see a man] making derision and deeds of idolatry, or rejecting (the poor)