Elements of Hindu Iconography v1.c7.1

v1.c7.1

THE origin of image worship in India appears to be very ancient and its causes are not exactly known. Many believe it to be the result of the followers of Gautama Buddha adoring their master and worshipping him in the form of images on his apotheosis after death. However, there are indications of the prevalence of image worship among the Hindus long before the time of Gautama Buddha. The employment of an external object to concentrate the mind upon in the act of meditation in carrying on the practice of *Yōga* is in India quite as old as *Yōga* itself. Patañjali defines *dhāraṇa* or fixity of attention as "the process of fixing the mind on some object well defined in space." This process is, as he says, "of two kinds, in consequence of this defined space being internal or external. The external object, defined in space consists of the circle of the navel (the nabhi-chakra), the heart and so on. The fixing the mind thereon is merely directing its existence to be there.” There is indeed ample evidence to show that the practice of *Yōga* is in this country much older than the time of Patañjali. Vāchaspati Miśra, a commentator on Vyāsadēva’s Bhāshya on Patañjali’s *Yōga-Sūtras*, mentions a great sage Hiraṇyagarbha as the founder of the *Yōga* doctrine, which, he adds, was simply improved upon and promulgated by Patañjali, as evidenced by the use of the word *anuśāsanam* in Patañjali’s first aphorism *Atha yōgānuśāsanam*. This old sage Hiraṇyagarbha and his successor Vārshagaṇya Yājñavalkya are alluded to by Rāmānuja and other later teachers of Vēdānta; and Śaṅkara actually quotes some *Yōga* aphorisms which are not found in the work of Patañjali, but look older than his time. It is therefore clear that image worship among the Hindus was contemporaneous with, if not older than, the development of the *Yōga* system, which, as we have seen, dates from before the age of Patañjali, who has been assigned by scholars on good evidence to the second century before Christ. There is no doubt that the *Yōga* system is even older than the time of Buddha, because Buddha himself is declared to have been initiated into its practice in the earlier stages of