DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0269
CHAPTER X.
Hero-worship and Saint-worship.
The worship of great men, saints and sages, who have
been remarkable for the possession of unusual powers or
striking qualities of any kind, is a phase of religious deve-
lopment which perhaps more than any other is the natural
outcome of man's devotional instincts and proclivities. In
India a tendency to this kind of worship has always pre-
vailed from the earliest period. Nascent in Vedic times, it
speedily grew with the growth of a belief in the doctrine
of divine incarnation and embodiment. For although it is
true that Indian philosophers disparage the body and invent
elaborate schemes for getting rid of all corporeal encum-
brances, yet it is equally true that nowhere in the world has
the conception of God's union with man, and of His enno-
bling the bodily frame, not only of men but of animals and
plants, by taking it upon Himself, struck root so deeply in
the popular mind as in India.
We know indeed that, according to the pantheistic creed
of Brahmanism, God and the Universe are One. His pre-
sence pervades inanimate as well as animate objects, and
every human being is a manifestation of His energy; but
He is believed to be specially present in all great, good, and
holy men. All such men are held to be entitled to worship
at the hands of their fellow-creatures, invirtueof their being
embodiments in various degrees of portions of His essence.
The homage they receive may not always amount to actual
S
Hero-worship and Saint-worship.
The worship of great men, saints and sages, who have
been remarkable for the possession of unusual powers or
striking qualities of any kind, is a phase of religious deve-
lopment which perhaps more than any other is the natural
outcome of man's devotional instincts and proclivities. In
India a tendency to this kind of worship has always pre-
vailed from the earliest period. Nascent in Vedic times, it
speedily grew with the growth of a belief in the doctrine
of divine incarnation and embodiment. For although it is
true that Indian philosophers disparage the body and invent
elaborate schemes for getting rid of all corporeal encum-
brances, yet it is equally true that nowhere in the world has
the conception of God's union with man, and of His enno-
bling the bodily frame, not only of men but of animals and
plants, by taking it upon Himself, struck root so deeply in
the popular mind as in India.
We know indeed that, according to the pantheistic creed
of Brahmanism, God and the Universe are One. His pre-
sence pervades inanimate as well as animate objects, and
every human being is a manifestation of His energy; but
He is believed to be specially present in all great, good, and
holy men. All such men are held to be entitled to worship
at the hands of their fellow-creatures, invirtueof their being
embodiments in various degrees of portions of His essence.
The homage they receive may not always amount to actual
S