Objective manifestation of belief

The following passages from the Bhagavad Gita and the Mahabharata are sufficient to understand the philosophical foundation behind the manifestation of religious belief through worship, rituals and places of worship.

“The material nature is working under My direction, producing all moving and non-moving things; by this rule this manifestation is created and annihilated again and again.”
— Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 9, Verse 10

“It is I who am the ritual, I am the sacrifice, the offering to the ancestors, the healing herb, the transcendental chant. I am the butter, the fire and the offering.”
— Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 9, Verse 16

The philosophical point is clear: the Divine is understood as manifesting through the world and through different forms of worship. Therefore, when a Hindu worships a deity through an idol and performs rituals in a temple, the theological understanding is not necessarily that the stone itself is God. Rather, the deity is regarded as a manifestation or representation through which the devotee directs his or her consciousness and devotion towards the Divine.

The Mahabharata likewise repeatedly emphasizes the principle that human action should be directed towards the welfare of society and in accordance with Dharma.

A temple, therefore, is not merely a building. Traditionally, it is a place where a community gathers for worship, rituals, meditation, festivals and collective religious life. The idol provides the devotee with a concrete focus through which the otherwise abstract conception of the Divine can be contemplated and worshipped.

Now apply the same principle consistently.

A Muslim goes to a mosque, offers namaz, and observes the practices prescribed by Islam. The mosque is a physical manifestation of the Muslim community's religious faith and its place of collective worship.

There is nothing controversial about recognizing that proposition.

But then a peculiar contradiction arises.

If one side is permitted to explain, before the Court, the religious objective and manifestation of Muslim belief through a mosque, how can the religious purpose and manifestation of Hindu belief through a temple and its deity simultaneously be questioned or minimized?

If the argument is that a mosque represents the religious faith of the Muslim community, then, by the same principle, a temple represents the religious faith of the Hindu community.

If the mosque is understood in the context of the faith, rituals and beliefs of Muslims, then a temple must likewise be understood in the context of the faith, rituals and beliefs of Hindus.

Faith cannot be selectively interpreted.

One cannot argue for the protection and recognition of the religious character of one community's place of worship while questioning the very religious reasoning by which another community understands its own place of worship.

The issue before the Court should therefore be approached with intellectual consistency.

The question is not whether a person personally believes that an idol represents God. The question is what the religious tradition itself believes, how that belief is manifested through worship, and what historical and archaeological evidence establishes regarding the character and use of a particular site.

If the religious belief of one community is relevant to understanding its mosque, then the religious belief of the other community is equally relevant to understanding its temple.

The principle must be the same for everyone.

Otherwise, the argument ceases to be about law, history or evidence and becomes an exercise in applying two different standards to two different faiths.

So, before questioning the Hindu conception of idol worship and temples, the basic question ought to be asked:

If faith explains the existence and purpose of a mosque, why should faith suddenly become irrelevant when explaining the existence and purpose of a temple?