Except for those super natural elements like sun, moon, air, fire etc., all the other gods or the people worshiped as gods are the ones who lived as human beings. Its their Karma that made people to follow their way of living to attain good life like them and worship them because they respect him/her. This is the origin of idol worship. I accept that many of the idols are exaggerated. But the base element is true and existed once upon a time. Shiva, Parvathy, Ganpathy, Vishnu(s), Brahmma...all lived once upon a time. They lived a justified and noble life, each having their own significance. Hence they are worshipped till now. As the generations passed people started adding stories to magnify the supremacy of these people(gods), so that their subjects will worship them as they did then. As history says that harappan culture is the oldest culture, some evidences say that Kumari Kandam (a huge tamil kingdom)existed south of india and submerged in a huge tsunami (or) probably by melting of polar ice caps. The civilization moved towards north to escape the wrath of the oceans. Some of you would know that Harappa was not an evolving civilization. It was a burst of a civilization. The civilization bursted out in short span. This was only possible when a group of well civilized people settle and start their way of life. You might think what I am trying to connect with... HINDUISM IS NOT A RELIGION. It is a WAY OF LIFE that every human on earth should follow and live. There are scientific reasons for all the activities in hindu rituals. But as the generation passed by, people didn't have patience to explain all the reasons to their younger generations and they just set them as strong rules by saying that they will be punished if they don't follow it. Moreover, idol worship is the most easiest way to bring your concentration to one spot and intensify your brain waves.(people should agree with the power of brains...do you?). Even layman can make use of this technique, if there is a physical object on which he should concentrate rather than closing his eyes and concentrating on a virtual object. So thus originated the Idol worhip in HINDUISM. So this was part of the WAY OF LIVING of hindsuism. I am not a follower of HINDUISM as a religion but respect it a lot similar to the way I respect ISLAM or CHRISTIANITY. Because ISLAM and CHRISTIANITY (including other religions) are offsprings of HINDUISM, like SIKHISM. Like the evolution in animals, even the religions had their own evolution. In animals, after a repeated evolution at a stage the two species look totally different and they start fighting among themselves for territory invasion, without knowing that they once belonged to a common breed. Same is with those religions which are offsprings of HINDUISM. Hope all friends of this blog agree my view. JAI HIND.