INDIAN IDOLS.
FIG. 69.—AMIDA. FIG. 70.—A "BLUE" TARA.
FIG. 71.—AMITAYUS.
FIG. 72.—VAJRA DHARMA. FIG. 73.—AMITAYUS.
CHAPTER XIV
IDOLS AND TEMPLE RELICS
Varied shrines and many idols—Indian idols—Temple vases and ornaments.
There are some who hold it to be a wicked thing to loot the temple of a heathen deity, and regard it as sacrilege to ruthlessly tear down the idol from its shrine. Others glory in an opportunity of proving the powerlessness of the man-created idol to save the temple from ruin and desecration. Yet there are many who recognize in these idols of wood, stone, and metal, emblems and symbols of ancient faiths in which there may be a greater reality, and, for all we can tell, potency, to those who look beyond the mere shrine, than appears at first sight. Notwithstanding all that, the multiplicity of gods and the number of so-called deities make many sceptical about the worship of their devotees, and there are few who feel much compunction when adding such objects as metal idols to their curios—when they are able to secure them honestly.
Varied Shrines and Many Idols.
Needless to say the faiths of those who worship "unknown gods," from whatever source they may have come, differ. The very uncertainty of the religions, which admit of varied deities, has fostered the increase of ceremonies and the change in rites, which, added to local folk-lore and myths which have gained in the telling, have caused new idols to be set up. It was so in pagan Greece and Rome, and it is the same in some parts of the world to-day. To these causes we may attribute the number of idols of different types, or the same idols represented with other attributes, which the collector of metal meets with. There is a strange fascination about the stories of pagan and heathen deities and their influence over men, and to obtain the full interest and delight from such a specialized collection the collector must become a student of Eastern and other religions and priestcraft.
The temples in which religious rites have been, and in some instances are still, observed, vary in importance just as the associations around the cathedrals and ruined abbeys in our own land differ from those almost absent in the more recently erected churches. The wealthy Indian, not unnaturally, employed artificers in brass to make models of the great shrines, and some of these rare works of metallic art are to be seen in the Indian Museum. Several are of eighteenth-century workmanship, among them beautifully modelled temples of Krishna. Incidentally it may be mentioned that secular buildings have been reproduced too; notably there is a very fine model of the Palace of the Winds at Jaypore, Rajputana, which was presented by the Maharajah of Jaypore.