History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c33.s5.6

v3.c33.s5.6

Gibbon moralises here upon the inadvisibility of staking the truth of a religion on the miraculous powers of idols which are but pieces of stone, metal or wood. And yet Christianity itself, like Buddhism, later drifted into the same superstitious idolatry which it had exposed, in the worship of idols of Jesus and Mary and Mahomedanism arose almost as a natural consequence to correct this error. The iconoclastic expeditions of Mahmud were similarly an eye-opener to the Hindus to correct their erroneous belief in the miraculous power of idols. But they also came to correct another error viz. the natural but absurd impulse to dedicate riches to temples and to decorate idols with gold and jewels. This added to the religious zeal of idol-breaking Mahomedans the further motive of greed for the gold and the jewels. Wherein is the merit of making idols of entire gold or of decorating them with priceless jewels? Does an idol of five cubits height of pure gold contribute more powerfully to the concentration of the mind on the deity than a stone idol? The old teachers of the Hindu religion prescribed small unworked stones in their natural shape as the proper *Pratīkās* or idols of the four gods Śiva, Viṣṇu, Gaṇeśa and the Sun while Vedic *Ṛiṣis* were content with concentrating their mind on the sun itself and the wind. But the human mind cannot but descend into the superstitious desire first of having finished idols and then of having idols of gold and silver or of decorating them with precious jewels. Śiva worship indeed in selecting the linga as an idol selected natural blocks of stone. And yet prosperous kings who were worshippers of these Swayambhū or natural lingas adorned them with crowns of gold covered with diamonds and rubies, thus tempting robbers and even avaricious kings or conquerors and even priests and thereby themselves causing the desecration of temples and the sacrilege of idols. Indian history is full of the mention of the building of new temples or of new rich endowments of temples by prosperous kings in every kingly line and specially holy places such as Mathura, Kot-Kangra, Somnath or Ujjain were overflowing with rich donations of hundreds of pious kings and thousands of rich merchants. All these riches might have been differently employed, the historian and politician will observe, in the maintenance of strong armies by kings and the amelioration of the people by rich merchants. Both were apparently neglected and temples were enriched and idols sumptuously decorated doubly accelerating the fall of the country by whetting the appetite, and strengthening the resources, of the foreign conqueror on the one side and weakening the power of resistance of our own kings and people on the other. But the Hindus did not learn these obvious lessons from these iconoclastic and plundering expeditions of Mahmud and they continued to build temples and accumulate riches in them. It may finally be observed that Hindus are not still alive to the two errors into which idol-worship when it degenerates into superstition descends viz. the belief in the miraculous powers of particular idols and the belief in the merit of donating riches to temples and idols leading to the demoralization of Mahants and pujaris.