Can deities be bought and sold like commodities?
By definition, modern science tries to explain all natural phenomena without having to accept the existence of God. Does it really make sense? It depends on how much faith one has.
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Many years ago, I was managing a small temple. At a certain point, I was looking for Gaura Nitai deities for the temple and was contacted by a devotee who wanted to offer his personal deities. He had worshiped these deities for a few years, but now, being pressed by other duties, he was looking for someone who would take them. I went to talk with him, and after showing the deities, he proposed discussing the “dowry”, his code word for the price.
No offense intended to the Prabhu in question, who is a very nice devotee, but that’s a particular behavioral phenomenon that I was never able to understand.
When one is an artisan and he is making deities for a living, it’s perfectly normal that he will charge money for the forms he is producing, covering for his work as well as the materials and other expenses, and some profit on top. When forms of Krsna are there in the artisan store, they are not yet considered deities. They become deities at the time they start being worshiped, when Krsna is asked to descend into this form. However, after we start worshiping a particular set of deities, they stop being a product that can be bought and sold and become persons.
It happens frequently that a devotee starts worshiping deities, but later is not able to maintain the worship due to different situations. In such cases, the general instruction is that we should find someone who can continue worshiping them. However, it sounds quite strange to me when money comes into the question. If deities are persons, how can they be bought or sold?
One may not be able to continue taking care of a child due to difficult situations in life and may come to the conclusion that it is better to give the child to someone else who can take proper care. This is perfectly understandable and is regularly done in practically all countries of the world through systems of adoption. As long as the process is conducted taking into consideration the best interests of the child, no one would condemn it. However, if one were to come up with the idea of asking money for the child, the situation would become quite different.
When devotees were about to open the first temple in London, in Bury Place, Śrīla Prabhupāda was looking for deities of Rādhā and Krsna to install. Of course, finding marble deities of Rādhā and Krsna in London in the late 1960s was not an easy task, but Prabhupāda was not losing hope. Eventually, one Indian man contacted devotees, saying that he had deities of Rādhā and Krsna that he could offer.
This man was part of a Hindu temple in London. They had brought the deities from India to install in their center, but it happened that the deities could not be installed because a small crack appeared in the finger of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī during the transport. The deities were sitting there without being worshiped.
The reason this man called devotees was to try to sell them these deities and thus cut his losses. He was not an artisan who was making deities to make a living, but just a rich businessman who was seeing these deities, who were originally destined to be worshiped in his temple as commodities.
Śrīla Prabhupāda went to his house and played a very gracious and cunning play to take the deities for free. He didn’t want to pay for them. The man protested when the devotees started carrying them out, but Prabhupāda just joked that these are strong Western boys and the weight was not a problem for them. Prabhupāda made it in such a way that the man was forced to concede. Apparently, he was not interested in paying a ransom.
Śrīla Prabhupāda got the crack on the finger of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī repaired, and the deities were installed as Sri Sri Rādhā London Īśvara. The rest is history.
Tamal Krsna Maharaja narrates this event:
“Prabhupāda sat down in the man’s sitting room. The man said, “So, Swamiji, you are interested in our deities?” Prabhupāda said, “Where are you from? Where is your family from? Let me meet your wife. Let me meet your children.” The man paraded his family before Prabhupāda. I couldn’t understand what Prabhupāda was doing. As far as I could see, Prabhupāda spent 30 to 45 minutes wasting time talking to the man. The man was eager to pull the cloth off again to show Prabhupāda the deities, but Prabhupāda had no interest in seeing the deities.
Finally, the man said, “Look, are you interested or not?” Prabhupāda said, “What is that?” The man said, “In the deities.” Prabhupāda said, “Let us see the deities.” Then the man lifted the cloth up. Prabhupāda’s face was placid; he didn’t react or respond. The man became anxious, “Don’t you want these deities? Your disciples said you were looking for deities. Don’t you want these deities?” Prabhupāda was just looking at Them. The man started to encourage Prabhupāda, “You should take these deities. You must take these deities.” Prabhupāda asked me, “See if you can pick up this deity.” I went over to Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, tilted Her back, and picked Her up. I said, “She’s not that heavy.” Then Prabhupāda asked Shyamasundar, “See if you can pick up the other deity.” Shyamasundar picked Him up and said, “He’s not that heavy.” Prabhupāda said, “Okay, let’s go.” We picked up the deities and walked out of the house, and the man said, “Wait, Swamiji, wait, wait.” He wanted to discuss the price of the deities, but Prabhupāda said, “It’s okay, They’re not that heavy, we’ll be all right.”
Prabhupāda had us put the deities in our van. The man was there with his wife and children, and he was trying to beg Prabhupāda to wait and discuss and negotiate some money for the deities. But we were all in the van and Prabhupāda said, “Drive.” We drove one or two blocks and then Prabhupāda said, “Stop the car.” We stopped, and Prabhupāda said, “Now let me see the deities.” Then he started to chant the Brahma-samhita to Sri Sri Rādhā-Londonisvara, and he said, “Krsna has appeared.” He was so happy. He was so, so pleased.”
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