Asian Religions by Randall L. Nadeau

Author:Randall L. Nadeau
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2013-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

Offerings to the Hindu gods are made in a worship service (pūja) conducted in a temple (Figure 17.1) and presided over by trained priests. Devotees participate in these offerings with single-minded devotion. Thousands of Hindu temples can be found in India and throughout the world, including some 1,000 Hindu temples in North America.2

Figure 17.1 Hindu temple featuring images of the Lord Krishna. © Sunsetman / Shutterstock.

Theologically, Hindus explain that Krishna – or any of the other deities worshipped in Hindu temples – is a divine manifestation of the one great soul, Brahman. In fact, if you were to interview any of the devotees at the Hindu Temple of San Antonio (or any other temple situated in the English-speaking world), they would explain that Hinduism is a monotheistic religion, in spite of the presence of several deity images arrayed at the front of the temple, for instance the elephant-headed god Gaeśa, the goddess Lakmī, the kingly lord Rāma, the dancing god Shiva (Śiva), the shape-shifting monkey god Hanuman, and so on.

It is common among Hindus to choose one god as especially “cherished” or “favored,” a personal ia-devatā. This choice may be conditioned by one's place of birth or family, but the devotee is free to choose the god who is most meaningful to him or her. Although the ia-devatā – the “cherished one” – is but one god among many, he is treated as “one alone without a second” (as Brahman is described in the Upaniads), an object of love and devotion that is all-encompassing and – in Western terms – monotheistic. Bhakti inspires this kind of single-minded focus on the divine object of love. The one god of worship is given one's full attention, affirming the unity of God: the unity of all gods, the unity of all souls, and the unity of self and God.

On different occasions or in different temples, other Hindu devotees direct their undivided attention to a different god or to a different manifestation of the one God (Brahman). In this light the worshipper can appreciate the greatness of God in all of God's forms and experience the love of God in all aspects.3 As one devotee explained to me:

In my life I experience many kinds of love – parental love for my child, sexual love for my lover, adoring love for my parent, tender love for a pet, grateful love for a teacher, and so on; if I imagine God in all forms, I experience love of God in all of these aspects.4

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