Murti

• Raudra or ugra are images that were meant to terrify, induce fear. These typically have wide, circular eyes, carry weapons, have skulls and bones as adornment. These idols were worshipped by soldiers before going to war, or by people in times of distress or errors. Raudra deity temples were not set up inside villages or towns, but invariably outside and in remote areas of a kingdom.[8]
• Shanta and saumya are images that were pacific, peaceful and expressive of love, compassion, kindness and other virtues in Hindu pantheon. These images would carry symbolic icons of peace, knowledge, music, wealth, flowers, sensuality among other things. In ancient India, these temples were predominant inside villages and towns.^[8]

Beyond

Murti, when produced properly, are made according to the design rules of the

The artists who make any art or craft, including murti, were known as shilpins. The formally trained Shilpins shape the murti not following fancy but following canonical manuals such as the Agamas and the Shilpa Shastras texts such as Vishvakarma.^[7] The material of construction range from clay to wood to marble to metal alloys such as panchaloha.^[31] The sixth century Brihat Samhita and eighth-century text Manasara-Silpasastra (literally: "treatise on art using the method of measurement"), identify nine materials for murti construction – gold, silver, copper, stone, wood, Sudha (a type of stucco, mortar plaster), sarkara (gravel, grit), Bahasa (marble types), and earth (clay, terracotta).^[32][33] For Bahasa, the texts describe working methods for various types of marble, specialized stones, colors, and a range of opacity (transparent, translucent and crystal).^[32]

Brihat Samhita, a 6th-century encyclopedia of a range of topics from horticulture to astrology to gemology to murti and temple design,^[34] specifies in Chapter 56 that the pratima (murti) height should be ${\displaystyle {\tfrac {7}{8}}}$ of the sanctum sanctorum's door height, the Pratima height and the sanctum sanctorum room's width be in the ratio of 0.292, it stands on a pedestal that is 0.146 of sanctum room width, thereafter the text describes 20 types of temples with their dimensions.^[35] Chapter 58 of the text describes the ratios of various anatomical parts of a murti, from head to toe, along with the recommendation in verse 59.29 that generally accepted variations in dress, decoration, and dimensions of local regional traditions for the murti are the artistic tradition.^[36]

Proper murti design is described in ancient and medieval Indian texts. They describe proportions, posture, and expressions among other details, often referencing nature.^[37][38][39]

The texts recommend materials of construction, proportions, postures, and mudra, symbolic items the murti holds in its hands, colors, garments, and ornaments to go with the murti of each god or goddess, vehicles of deities such as Garuda, bull and lion, and other details.^[40] The texts also include chapters on the design of Jaina and Buddhist murti, as well as reliefs of sages, apsaras, different types of devotees (based on bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, karma yoga, ascetics) to decorate the area near the murti.^[41] The texts recommend that the material of construction and relative scale of murti be correlated to the scale of the temple dimensions, using twelve types of comparative measurements.^[42] Neither the Hybrid Sanskrit of Mahayana Buddhism, nor the Pali of Theravada Buddhism has the word murti. PK Acharya imputed the Hinduïstic word murti on Buddhist iconography, in which he erred.

In Southern India, the material used predominantly for murti is black granite, while the material in North India is white marble. However, for some Hindus, it is not the materials used that matter, but the faith and meditation on the universal Absolute Brahman.^[43] More particularly, devotees meditate or worship on the formless God (nirguna Brahman) through murti symbolism of God (saguna Brahman) during a puja before a murti, or the meditation on a Tirthankara in the case of Jainism,^[44] thus making the material of construction or the specific shape of the murti not spiritually important.^[45]

According to John Keay, "Only after achieving remarkable expertise in the portrayal of the Buddha figure and of animal and human, did Indian stonemasons turn to produce images of the orthodox 'Hindu' deities".^[46] This view, however, is not shared by other scholars. Trudy King et al. state that stone images of reverential figures and guardian spirits (yaksha) were first produced in Jainism and Hinduism, by about 2 century BCE, as suggested by Mathura region excavations, and this knowledge grew into iconographic traditions and stone monuments in India including those for Buddhism.^[47] Neither the Hybrid Sanskrit of Mahayana Buddhism, nor the Pali of Theravada Buddhism has the word 'murti'.

It is much more difficult to focus on God as the unmanifested than God with form, due to human beings needing to perceive via the senses.[48]

In Hinduism, a murti itself is not god, it is an image of god and thus a symbol and representation.

Some Hindu denominations like Arya Samaj and Satya Mahima Dharma reject idol worship.^[55][56]

Worship of a murti involves various modes and rituals. Before a murti is worshipped, a ritual known as prana pratishta is conducted.^[57] This ritual is performed to invoke the presence of the god or goddess into the physical form of the murti. In temples, this ceremony is a one-time event for a specific murti. In domestic rituals, the deity is invited to reside in the murti through avahana (invocation) each time a puja is conducted and then dispersed back at the end of the puja. Adorning a murti is mode that allows devotees to express love for the deity and visually and experientially connect with the nature of the god or goddess. In worship at a temple, the significant moment is when the adorned murti is revealed, and worshippers take darshan by witnessing the fully adorned murti.^[4]

Murti and temples were well established in South Asia, before the start of Delhi Sultanate in the late 12th century CE. They became a target of destruction during raids and religious wars between Islam and Hinduism through the 18th century.^[58][59][60]

During the colonial era, Christian missionaries aiming to convert Hindus to Christianity wrote memoirs and books that were widely distributed in Europe, which Mitter, Pennington, and other scholars call fictionalized stereotypes, where murti were claimed as the evidence of lack of spiritual heritage in primitive Hindus, of "idolatry and savage worship of stones", practices akin to Biblical demons, calling murti monstrous devils or eroticized bizarre beings carved in stone.^[61][62][63] The British Missionary Society with colonial government's assistance bought and sometimes seized, then transferred murti from India and displayed it in their "trophies" room in the United Kingdom with the note claiming that these were given up by Hindus who now accept the "folly and sin of idolatry".^[64] In other instances, the colonial British authorities, seeking additional government revenue, introduced Pilgrim Tax on Hindus to view murti inside major temples.^[65][66]

The missionaries and orientalist scholars attempted to justify the need for colonial rule of India by attacking murti as a symbol of depravity and primitiveness, arguing that it was, states Tanisha Ramachandran, "the White Man's Burden to create a moral society" in India. This literature by the Christian missionaries constructed the foundation of a "Hindu image" in Europe, during the colonial era, and it blamed murti idolatry as "the cause for the ills of Indian society".^[62][67] By 19th-century, ideas such as pantheism (the universe is identical with God or Brahman), contained in newly translated Sanskrit texts were linked to the idolatry of murti and declared as additional evidence of superstitions and evil by Christian missionaries and colonial authorities in British India.^[67]

The polemics of Christian missionaries in colonial India triggered a debate among Hindus, yielding divergent responses.

Superstition is a great enemy of man, but bigotry is worse. Why does a Christian go to church? Why is the cross holy? Why is the face turned toward the sky in prayer? Why are there so many images in the Catholic Church? Why are there so many images in the minds of Protestants when they pray? My brethren, we can no more think about anything without a mental image than we can live without breathing. By the law of association, the material image calls up the mental idea and vice versa.

— Vivekananda, World Parliament of Religions[69]

Religious intolerance and polemics, state Halbertal and Margalit, have historically targeted idols and material symbols cherished by other religions, while encouraging the worship of material symbols of one's religion, characterizing the material symbols of others as grotesque and wrong, in some cases dehumanizing the others and encouraging the destruction of idols of the others.^[70][71] The outsider conflates and stereotypes the "strange worship" of the other religions as "false worship" first, then calls "false worship" as "improper worship and false belief" of pagan or an equivalent term, thereafter constructing an identity of the others as "primitive and barbarians" that need to be saved, followed by justified intolerance and often violence against those who cherish a different material symbol than one's own.^[70] In the history of Hinduism and India, states Pennington, Hindu deity images (murti) have been a religious lens for focusing this anti-Hindu polemic and was the basis for distortions, accusations and attacks by non-Indian religious powers and missionaries.^[71]

Ancient Indian texts assert the significance of murti in spiritual terms. The Vāstusūtra Upaniṣad, whose palm-leaf manuscripts were discovered in the 1970s among remote villages of

From the contemplation of images grows delight, from delight faith, from faith steadfast devotion, through such devotion arises that higher understanding (parāvidyā) that is the royal road to moksha. Without the guidance of images, the mind of the devotee may go astray and form the wrong imagination. Images dispel false imaginations. [... ] It resides within the consciousness of "Rishis" (sages), who possess the ability to perceive the essence of all created things in their manifested forms. They observe the various attributes, the divine and the demoniac, the creative and the destructive forces, engaged in their eternal interplay. It is this vision of Rishis, of the gigantic drama of cosmic powers in eternal conflict, from which the Sthapakas [Silpins, murti, and temple artists] drew the subject matter for their work.

— Pippalada, Vāstusūtra Upaniṣad, Introduction by Alice Boner et al.^[73]

In the fifth chapter of Vāstusūtra Upaniṣad, Pippalada asserts, "from

शिवमात्मनि पश्यन्ति प्रतिमासु न योगिनः |
अज्ञानं भावनार्थाय प्रतिमाः परिकल्पिताः || ५९ ||
- जाबालदर्शनोपनिषत्

A yogin perceives god (Siva) within himself,
images are for those who have not reached this knowledge. (Verse 59)

— Jabaladarsana Upanishad, [79]

• Hindu iconography
• Hindu deities
• Ishta-Deva
• Thangka
• Utsava

Further reading

• "Idolatry and The Colonial Idea of India: Visions of Horror, Allegories of Enlightenment" by Swagato Ganguly. Routledge.
• Prasanna K Acharya, Indian Architecture According to Manasara-Silpasastra, South Asia Books,
  OCLC 296289012
• Prasanna K Acarya (1927), A dictionary of Hindu architecture : treating of Sanskrit architectural terms, with illustrative quotations from silpāśāstras, general literature, and archaeological records, Oxford University Press (Out of Print),
  OCLC 5709812
• Alice Boner (1965), Principles of composition in Hindu sculpture, BRILL,
  OCLC 352681
• TA Gopinatha Rao (1993), Elements of Hindu iconography, Vol 1 and 2, Motilal Banarsidass,
  ISBN 81-208-0878-9
• Vidya Dehejia (1997), Indian Art, Phaidon,
  ISBN 978-0-7148-3496-2
• P Mitter (2001), Indian Art, Oxford University Press,
  ISBN 978-0-19-284221-3
• Vinayak Bharne and Krupali Krusche (2012), Rediscovering the Hindu Temple, Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
  ISBN 978-1-4438-4137-5

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Murti.

• Divine Images in Stone and Bronze: South India, Chola Dynasty (c. 850–1280), Aschwin Lippe, Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 4, pages 29–79
• The Sculpture of Greater India, Aschwin Lippe, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, Vol. 18, No. 6, pages 177–192
• The Arts of South and Southeast Asia, Steven Kossak, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series, Vol. 51, No. 4