In Hinduism, worshiping an idol is regarded as a common religious activity for it is perceived as a means to express one’s devotion to god. Many religions of the world akin to Hinduism accept this religious practice. Although it is prescribed by the ancient Hindu scriptures (Vedas), it has been a point of debate for long – notably, the social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy dismissed it as superstition.

Partly, this is because of lack of comprehension about the contradicting viewpoints expressed in the scriptures – while the Vedas describe God as omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and all-pervasive, it also approves of idol worship. Why would you want to worship god as idol, while he is omnipresent?


Few years back, it was almost by intuition that I got this analogy. Suppose, if someone asks us to calculate the answer for a simple mathematical expression, say 2 x 3, we would shout “6” almost immediately. However, if they were to ask us the result of a more complex expression, say 2138 x 43277 - 3281 / 12, we would either resort to using a calculator or pencil and paper.

The essence is that, for mere mortals (like most of us) it is rather difficult to analyze and comprehend complexity. Therefore, we resort to external tools to workaround the problem. This is true with just the numbers, let alone God, who is infinite. In case of worship, Idol provides us with such a tool.

There is more to it – why use an idol and not any other object as tool? It is probably more of human psychology to use a human-like idol, to which they can relate to better. Again, this is for mere mortals (like me). As is the case with anything else, there are exceptions - people who can handle complexity better – be it in Mathematics (like Shakuntala Devi) or in religion (great saints who have understood god better).