History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c92.318

v7.c92.318

These passages make it clear that a yantra was deemed to be a factor helping in restraining the restless movements of the mind due to anger, love and the like and in making the mind concentrate on a diagram or model deemed to represent the deity worshipped. It induced concentration and encouraged the mental realization of the deity. The distinction between the *devatā* and yantra is similar to that between the soul and the body. Most Hindus look upon such forms of worship without antipathy because it is felt that they serve as a way of approach to divinity for ordinary unsophisticated people and that it is better to have one's foot on the lowest rung of the ladder to higher life than to have it on no rung at all.