Hindu Stone Gods! - Part 1

Many of you would recollect that sometimes I refer or swear up "9,999 Hindu gods" and the presence of one too many for every occasion, tree, animal etc. It always boggles my mind as to how we worship an inanimate object like a stone or a carving or a statue with such deep devotion and fervor, I always wondered if it is the same intrigue for others. To classify others for ease of my writing, I will refer to them as Westerners. Now, don’t go slamming me for labeling all into one category.

There was a writer Francois Gautier, who said "We westerners are brought up on the good old values of Logic and Cartesian Reason - from Descartes, French philosopher, mathematician and physicist, who in his Discourse of the Method elaborates a system whereby doubt is methodically used to analyze any unknown phenomenon. He is also the man who said "I think, therefore I am". Francois also said that we are taught right from childhood to believe, like St. Thomas, only what we can see and to have faith only in what we experience ourselves. A few of us, whose parents have Marxist leanings, are also injected with a good dose of atheism - that is to disbelieve in the unnatural, the supernatural, the religious, and generally what is invisible to the eye.

In the next installment, I will explore the writings of people who visited India and who have experienced this phenomenon of admiration, adulation with the gods and their presence in day to day life and activities.