Mūrti - gudestatuer og darśan-bilder i hinduismen

In this master’s thesis I show how visual images may influence religious people by exploring statues of gods and darśan-posters within Hinduism. I ask the question: How do Hindus gaze upon images – respectively statues of gods and darśan-posters – they regard as residence for the divine or the deity in definite form (mūrti)? I answer this question on a macro- and a micro-level in two different parts. In part one I answer the question in general by looking at previous literature. In this part I examine statues of the Hindu gods and darśan-posters on different levels. I focus on their connection with bhakti, some of their appearances, how they may be made, how they may be invested with the divine, and how they may be used in a ritual context. In part two I present information based on interviews of thirteen informants from Puducherry – a medium-sized town in Tamil Nadu, South-India. In my interviews we discussed the following questions: Is the god inside the darśan-poster, or is the poster “just” a poster showing the god?, where should darśan-posters be placed? and which images of the divine has most power – god statues or darśan-posters? This master’s thesis in total shows in different ways how Hindus today gaze upon and respond to different images of the Hindu gods, images they believe are residence of the divine or the deity in definite form (mūrti), and are regarded as divine