Thus, not all icons of gods and saints are mūrti; for example, purely decorative depictions of divine figures often adorn Hindu temple architecture in intricately carved doorframes, on colourfully painted walls, and ornately sculpted rooftop domes.

[7] In a religious context, they are found in Hindu temples or homes, where they may be treated as a beloved guest and serve as a participant of puja.

Hindu devotees go to the mandirs to take darshan, bringing prepared offerings of naivedya to be blessed at the altar before the deity, and to perform puja and aarti.

Traditional Murti literally means any solid body or form with a definite shape or limits produced from material elements.

However, there isn't a universal consensus, with scholars such as AC Das, pointing to the word Mūradeva in Rig Veda verses 7.104.24, 10.87.2 and 10.87.14.

[19] One of the earliest firm textual evidence of Deva images, in the sense of murti, is found in Jivikarthe Capanye by the Sanskrit grammarian Pāṇini who lived about 4th-century BCE.

[20] In ancient Sanskrit texts that follow Panini's work, numerous references are found to divine images with terms such as Devagrha, Devagara, Devakula, Devayatana and others.

[20] These texts, states Noel Salmond, strongly suggest that temples and murti were in existence in ancient India by about 4th century BCE.

Recent archaeological evidence confirms that the knowledge and art of sculpture was established in India by the Maurya Empire period (~3rd century BCE).

[20] By the early 1st millennium BCE, the term murti meant idols, images, or statues in various Indian texts such as Bhavishya Purana verse 132.5.7, Brihat Samhita 1.8.29, and inscriptions in different parts of India.

Explanation of the metaphysical significance of each stage of manufacture and the prescription of specific mantras to sanctify the process and evoke and invoke the power of the deity in the image are found in the liturgical handbooks the Agamas and Tantras.

[31] The sixth century Brihat Samhita and eighth-century text Manasara-Silpasastra (literally: "treatise on art using the method of measurement"), identify nine materials for murti construction – gold, silver, copper, stone, wood, Sudha (a type of stucco, mortar plaster), sarkara (gravel, grit), Bahasa (marble types), and earth (clay, terracotta).

[32][33] For Bahasa, the texts describe working methods for various types of marble, specialized stones, colors, and a range of opacity (transparent, translucent and crystal).

[45] According to John Keay, "Only after achieving remarkable expertise in the portrayal of the Buddha figure and of animal and human, did Indian stonemasons turn to produce images of the orthodox 'Hindu' deities".

[3]Devotional (bhakti movement) practices centered on cultivating a deep and personal bond of love with God, often expressed and facilitated with one or more murti, and includes individual or community hymns, japa or singing (bhajan, kirtan or aarti).

"[50][51] In Vaishnavism, the building of a temple for the murti is considered an act of devotion, but non-murti symbolism is also common wherein the aromatic tulsi plant or Saligrama is an aniconic reminder of the spiritualism in Vishnu.

Adorning a murti is mode that allows devotees to express love for the deity and visually and experientially connect with the nature of the god or goddess.

[58][59][60] During the colonial era, Christian missionaries aiming to convert Hindus to Christianity wrote memoirs and books that were widely distributed in Europe, which Mitter, Pennington, and other scholars call fictionalized stereotypes, where murti were claimed as the evidence of lack of spiritual heritage in primitive Hindus, of "idolatry and savage worship of stones", practices akin to Biblical demons, calling murti monstrous devils or eroticized bizarre beings carved in stone.

[61][62][63] The British Missionary Society with colonial government's assistance bought and sometimes seized, then transferred murti from India and displayed it in their "trophies" room in the United Kingdom with the note claiming that these were given up by Hindus who now accept the "folly and sin of idolatry".

[64] In other instances, the colonial British authorities, seeking additional government revenue, introduced Pilgrim Tax on Hindus to view murti inside major temples.

This literature by the Christian missionaries constructed the foundation of a "Hindu image" in Europe, during the colonial era, and it blamed murti idolatry as "the cause for the ills of Indian society".

[62][67] By 19th-century, ideas such as pantheism (the universe is identical with God or Brahman), contained in newly translated Sanskrit texts were linked to the idolatry of murti and declared as additional evidence of superstitions and evil by Christian missionaries and colonial authorities in British India.

The Vāstusūtra Upaniṣad, whose palm-leaf manuscripts were discovered in the 1970s among remote villages of Orissa – four in Oriya language and one in crude Sanskrit, asserts that the doctrine of murti art making is founded on the principles of origin and evolution of universe, is a "form of every form of cosmic creator" that empirically exists in nature, and it functions to inspire a devotee towards contemplating the Ultimate Supreme Principle (Brahman).

[72] This text, whose composition date is unknown but probably from late 1st millennium CE, discusses the significance of images as, state Alice Boner and others, "inspiring, elevating and purifying influence" on the viewer and "means of communicating a vision of supreme truth and for giving a taste of the infinite that lies beyond".

It is this vision of Rishis, of the gigantic drama of cosmic powers in eternal conflict, from which the Sthapakas [Silpins, murti, and temple artists] drew the subject matter for their work.

[74] Non-theistic Jaina scholars such as Jnansundar, states John Cort, have argued the significance of murti along the same lines, asserting that "no matter what the field – scientific, commercial, religious – there can be no knowledge without an icon", images are part of how human beings learn and focus their thoughts, icons are necessary and inseparable from spiritual endeavors in Jainism.

[45] Among Hindus, states Gopinath Rao,[78] one who has realized Self (Soul, Atman) and the Universal Principle (Brahman, god) within himself, there is no need for any temple or divine image for worship.

For those who have yet to reach this height of realization, various symbolic manifestations through images, idols, and icons as well as mental modes of worship are offered as one of the spiritual paths in the Hindu way of life.