CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Lord Kṛṣṇa’s Instructions on the Process of Deity Worship

In addition to performing their prescribed duties, devotees of the Lord engage in regulated worship of the Lord in His Deity form in the temple. Such worship acts powerfully to cleanse the heart of both the lust to enjoy one’s material body and the material family attachment that results directly from this lust. To be effective, however, the process of Deity worship must be performed in the authorized way. Therefore Uddhava now inquires from the Lord about this subject.

Here the word karma-kāṇḍa refers to the various Vedic methods of worship, culminating in Deity worship of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Just as the means of sense gratification and material renunciation are innumerable, the transcendental pastimes and qualities the Supreme Personality of Godhead enjoys in His own abode, called Vaikuṇṭha, are also innumerable. The various concepts of piety and methods of purification in the material world ultimately cannot be reconciled amongst themselves without accepting the Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead, since without appreciation of Him there is no definitive understanding of what is actually obligatory for a human being. Even though almost all human beings are engaged in various processes of worship, the Lord will now summarize this topic, describing how one should worship Him in His Deity form.

Vaidika refers to sacrifice performed with mantras from the four Vedas and auxiliary Vedic literature. Tāntrika refers to such literatures as the Pañcarātra and the Gautamīya-tantra. And “mixed” indicates utilization of both literatures. It should be remembered that superficial imitation of elaborate Vedic sacrifices will not bring one the actual perfection of life. One must perform sacrifice according to the prescription of the Supreme Lord, who recommends for this age the chanting of His holy names: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.

The word sva-nigamena refers to the particular Vedic injunctions relevant to one’s social and occupational status. Members of the brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya and vaiśya communities all achieve dvijatvam, twice-born status, by initiation into the Gāyatrī mantra. Traditionally, fully qualified brāhmaṇa boys may be initiated at age eight, kṣatriyas at eleven and vaiśyas at twelve, provided the proper conditions are met. Having achieved twice-born status, one should faithfully worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His form of the Deity, as the Lord Himself will describe.

Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī explains that certain Deity forms, such as those made of sand, are manifested for a brief time to fulfill a personal desire of the worshiper. Those, however, who desire to attain pure love of God should worship the permanent form of the Deity (made, for instance, of marble, gold or brass), and they should maintain continual worship. In Kṛṣṇa consciousness there is no scope for neglecting the worship of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

The devotees of the Lord understand themselves to be the Lord’s eternal servitors; recognizing the Deity to be the Lord Himself, they permanently install the Deity and engage in perpetual worship. The impersonalists, however, regard the eternal form of the Lord as a temporary manifestation of illusion. In fact, they regard the Deity form as a mere stepping-stone in their ambitious program to become God. Materialistic persons of whatever stripe consider the Lord to be their order supplier, and so they make temporary arrangements for religious ceremonies to achieve temporary material sense gratification. This temporary mode of worship is favored by those desiring to exploit the Personality of Godhead for their personal ends, whereas the loving devotees in Kṛṣṇa consciousness eternally engage in worship of the Personality of Godhead. They install permanent Deities meant to be worshiped perpetually.

Various classes of devotees worship the Deity of the Personality of Godhead according to their various stages of faith in the Lord. An advanced devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa understands his eternal loving relationship with the Lord and, seeing the Deity as the Lord Himself, establishes an eternal relationship with the Deity based on loving servitude to Him. Understanding Lord Kṛṣṇa to be the eternal form of bliss and knowledge, a faithful devotee makes a permanent arrangement for Deity worship, installing the Lord’s form made of, for example, stone, wood or marble.

The śālagrāma-śilā is considered to be automatically installed even without the formal ceremony, and so it is forbidden to call the Deity with mantras or ask the Deity to leave. On the other hand, if one prepares a Deity form by drawing on sanctified ground or by constructing a sand image, one must call the Deity with mantras and then ask the Deity to leave the external form, which will soon be demolished by the natural elements.

The general principle is that a pure devotee of the Lord understands his relationship with the Deity to be eternal. The more one surrenders in loving devotion to the Deity, the more one can understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Lord Kṛṣṇa is a person, but He is the Supreme Person, possessing His own unique feelings. One can easily please the Lord by devotional service offered to His Deity form. By pleasing the Lord one can gradually progress in the mission of human life and eventually go back home, back to Godhead, where the Deity personally appears before the devotee and welcomes the devotee to His personal abode, known throughout the world as the kingdom of God.

A devotee still troubled by material desire tends to see the world as an object of sense gratification. Such a neophyte devotee may misunderstand the Lord’s supreme position and may even consider the Lord an object of his own enjoyment. Hence the neophyte must offer opulent paraphernalia to the Deity so that he may constantly remember that the Deity is the supreme enjoyer and that he, the neophyte, is simply the worshiper and is actually meant for the Deity’s pleasure. In contrast, an advanced devotee, one fixed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, never forgets that the Supreme Lord is the actual enjoyer and controller of everything. The pure devotee offers his unalloyed love to the Personality of Godhead along with whatever paraphernalia is easily obtained. A Kṛṣṇa conscious devotee does not waver in his devotion to Lord Kṛṣṇa, and even with the simplest offering he completely satisfies the Personality of Godhead.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is present everywhere, and Vedic culture prescribes various ritualistic methods for worshiping the Lord in His various manifestations. The principal item is the faith and devotion of the worshiper, without which everything else is useless, as the Lord describes in the next verse.

The Lord has stated in the previous verse that even a little water offered with love and devotion gives Him great pleasure. Therefore the words kiṁ punaḥ indicate the Lord’s complete happiness when a suitably opulent offering is made with love and devotion. But an opulent offering made by a nondevotee cannot please the Lord. As Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī explains, the rules and regulations concerning Deity worship and the listing of offenses against the Deities are all meant for helping one avoid precisely this kind of disrespectful or neglectful attitude toward the Personality of Godhead in His Deity form. In fact, all offenses against the Deity are based upon irreverence and disregard for the Lord’s position as master, and thus upon disobedience to His orders. Since one must worship the Deity with reverence, one should offer opulent presentations to the Deity with love, for such presentations both enhance the respectfulness of the worshiper and help him avoid offenses in his worship.

The word sambhṛta-sambhāra means that before beginning the Deity worship one should place all necessary paraphernalia nearby. In this way one will not have to get up continually to search for different items. If the Deity has been permanently installed, then one should sit facing the Deity.

Before beginning the process of worship mentioned here, one should offer obeisances to one’s spiritual master, the Deity and other worshipable personalities.

Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī gives references from Vedic literature stating that the water meant for bathing the feet should be combined with millet seeds, dūrvā grass mixed in water, viṣṇukrānta flowers and other items. The water used for arghya should include the following eight items: fragrant oil, flowers, unbroken barleycorns, husked barleycorns, the tips of kuśa grass, sesame seeds, mustard seeds and dūrvā grass. The water for sipping should include jasmine flowers, ground cloves and kakkola berries.

According to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, the praṇava, or oṁkāra, has five parts: A, U, M, the nasal bindu and the reverberation (nāda). Liberated souls meditate upon the Lord at the end of that reverberation.

The body of a devotee is pervaded by the Supreme Lord just as a house is pervaded by the glow of a lamp. Just as one gestures in a friendly way to indicate that a guest should enter one’s house, one touches the body of the Deity, chants appropriate mantras, and enthusiastically invites the Supersoul to enter the form of the Deity. Since both the Deity and the Supersoul are the Supreme Personality of Godhead, they are not different. One form of the Lord can immediately become manifest in another.

According to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, religion, knowledge, renunciation and opulence are the legs of the Lord’s sitting platform and occupy the four corners, beginning with the southeast. Irreligion, ignorance, attachment and wretchedness are the intermediate legs, standing in the four directions beginning with the east. The nine śaktis, or potencies, of the Lord are Vimalā, Utkarṣiṇī, Jñānā, Kriyā, Yogā, Prahvī, Satyā, Īśānā and Anugrahā.

According to Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, the Gaṇeśa and Durgā mentioned in this verse are not the same personalities present within the material world; rather, they are eternal associates of the Lord in Vaikuṇṭha. In this world Gaṇeśa, the son of Lord Śiva, is famous for awarding financial success, and the goddess Durgā, the wife of Lord Śiva, is famous as the external, illusory potency of the Supreme Lord. The personalities mentioned here, however, are eternally liberated associates of the Lord who reside in the spiritual sky, beyond the material manifestation. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī quotes from various Vedic literatures to prove that the name Durgā may also indicate the internal potency of the Lord, who is nondifferent from Him. The external, or covering, potency of the Lord expands from this original Durgā. The Durgā of the material world, called Mahā-māyā, assumes the function of bewildering the living entities. Thus a devotee should not fear becoming polluted by worshiping the Durgā mentioned here, who has the same name as illusion, but rather the devotee must show respect to these eternal servitors of the Supreme Lord in Vaikuṇṭha.

The Puruṣa-sūkta prayer, beginning om sahasra-śīrṣā-puruṣaḥ sahasrākṣaḥ sahasra-pāt, is contained within the Ṛg Veda.

Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī quotes Lord Śrī Viṣṇu’s instructions to Ambarīṣa Mahārāja in the Viṣṇu-dharma Upapurāṇa as follows: “Absorbing your mind completely in the Deity, you should give up all other shelter and consider the Deity your intimate well-wisher. You should mentally worship Him and meditate upon Him while you walk, while you stand, while you sleep and eat. You should see the Deity in front of you, behind, above, below and on both sides. In this way you should constantly remember My Deity form.” In the Gautamīya-tantra one is enjoined to give the Deity of the Lord a brāhmaṇa thread, if possible one made of gold. In the Nṛsiṁha Purāṇa it is stated, “If one offers to Lord Govinda a yellow sacred thread containing three strands of silk, he will become an expert in Vedānta.”

One can acquire detailed information of proper and improper foods to offer in Deity worship by consulting Śrī Hari-bhakti-vilāsa, eighth vilāsa, verses 152-164.

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura describes the process of Deity worship as follows: “First the Deity’s teeth should be cleaned and His body massaged with fragrant oil and rubbed with vermilion, camphor powder and so forth. Then He should be bathed with fragrant water and the five kinds of nectar. Next one should offer valuable silk garments and jeweled ornaments to the Deity, smear His body with sandalwood paste, and offer Him garlands and other gifts. After this, one should hold a mirror in front of the Deity and then offer fragrant oil, flowers, incense, lamps and scented water for refreshing the mouth. One should offer all types of palatable foods, fragrant water, betel nuts, garlands, ārati lamps, a bed to rest on, and so on. One should also fan the Deity and perform instrumental music, singing and dancing. This Deity worship must be performed on special occasions like religious holidays or else, if one can afford it, daily.” According to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, Ekādaśī is an appropriate day for performing special Deity worship.

Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī mentions that one should meditate upon the Lord as the Supersoul within the sacrificial fire.

A devotee engaged in regulative worship of the Supreme Lord should sometimes become ecstatically absorbed in chanting and hearing the pastimes of the Lord, dancing, and other festivities. The word muhūrtam, “for some time,” indicates that a devotee should be careful not to neglect his regulative principles and service to the Lord in the name of so-called ecstasy. Although one may be ecstatically engaged in chanting, hearing and dancing, he cannot give up the formality of regulated service to the Lord.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is worshiped according to the faith of a particular worshiper. The Deity form, arcā, is specifically mentioned here because Deity worship is essential for spiritual progress. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura mentions that inexperienced persons may think that the Deity is meant for the sense gratification of the worshiper, since superficially the Deity is made of external substances such as marble or brass. But through the process of installing the Deity by chanting of authorized mantras, one invites the Supreme Personality of Godhead to enter the Deity form. By regulated, faithful worship one gradually understands that the Deity is completely nondifferent from the Supreme Lord Himself. At that stage, on the strength of Deity worship, one rises to the second-class platform of devotional service. At this more developed stage one desires to make friendship with other devotees of the Lord, and as one becomes solidly established in the community of Vaiṣṇavas, one completely gives up material life and gradually becomes perfect in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Wealthy, pious persons should be engaged in constructing temples and gardens for the pleasure of the Deity. The word dṛḍham indicates that the most solid means of construction should be employed.

By placing tracts of land in the Deity’s name, there will be regular income for opulent Deity worship, both from rent and from agricultural production. A worshiper who makes the arrangements mentioned above will certainly achieve opulence like that of the Personality of Godhead.

The previous two verses were spoken by the Lord to attract those interested in fruitive results, and now the ultimate purpose of worshiping the Lord is described. The ultimate goal in life is Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself. Love for the Lord is the highest bliss, although ordinary people cannot understand this.

Stealing paraphernalia meant for worshiping the Supreme Lord or His authorized representatives should be avoided at all costs.