Please accept my humble obeisances.All glories to Srila Prabhupada.Hare KrishnaI was wondering, since the Lord is so merciful to His devotees, He came to us in stone, clay, wood, etc.Why must the deities go to rest if we desire to always see them?Please forgive me if I have made any offense in asking this question.Hari bol!Your Aspiring Servant,David
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Very nice question pr. Before we know why deities go to rest, I would like to brief on what deity really is. In sanskrit, deity is archa vigharah - worshipable person. A deity is non different from Krishna. So, Srila Prabhupada has taught us that the deities has to be treated very personally. As such Krishna does not need any rest. He proved it when he lifted Govardhana hill and stood holding it for 7 days and 7 nights and did not feel any tiredness. But as a person He also needs to rest and that is why devotees put deities to rest. Second reason is that when deities are awake, there must be some kind of services being performed for them. This is not possible everywhere in the world. hence we put the deities to rest in the night.
I know in Tirupathi, Balaji gets hardly an hour rest in a day and sometimes that is also not there because there are millions of devotees flowing every single day for darshan and doing seva.
I hope that answers your question to some extent if not fully.
Replies
Hare Krishna.
PAMHO. AGTSP.
Very nice question pr. Before we know why deities go to rest, I would like to brief on what deity really is. In sanskrit, deity is archa vigharah - worshipable person. A deity is non different from Krishna. So, Srila Prabhupada has taught us that the deities has to be treated very personally. As such Krishna does not need any rest. He proved it when he lifted Govardhana hill and stood holding it for 7 days and 7 nights and did not feel any tiredness. But as a person He also needs to rest and that is why devotees put deities to rest. Second reason is that when deities are awake, there must be some kind of services being performed for them. This is not possible everywhere in the world. hence we put the deities to rest in the night.
I know in Tirupathi, Balaji gets hardly an hour rest in a day and sometimes that is also not there because there are millions of devotees flowing every single day for darshan and doing seva.
I hope that answers your question to some extent if not fully.
Hari bol!!!
Thank you so much Prabhuji.
Wonderful explanation
Please help me with this understanding.