Yes, they do. The following is from Wikipedia:
Hindus perform their worship through icons (murti), such as statues or paintings symbolic of God's power and glory. The icon serves as a tangible link between the worshipper and God. Another view is that the image is a manifestation of God, since God is immanent. The Padma Purana states that the mūrti is not to be thought of as mere stone or wood but as a manifest form of the Divinity.
We pray to Mary and the Saints as fellow Christians who are no longer in the Church Militant (here on Earth) but have joined the Church Triumphant (in Heaven). They are alive in Christ and we ask for their prayers as we would ask any other Christian to pray for us. We are one congregation as we believe in the communion of saints expressed by the Creed. Statues and other imagery are not worshipped as anything more than pictures of relatives we miss.
Icons, on the other hand, are something a little more special. Just as the people only had to touch Jesus's cloak or have Peter's shadow pass over them for an imposition of grace so to we venerate those items of saints as having been touched by the divine.
Okay...
The Padma Purana states that the mūrti is not to be thought of as mere stone or wood but as a manifest form of the Divinity.
Mūrti, by the way, means 'a statue' or 'a figurine'. And this is in no way different to a Christian showing respect to a statue of Jesus or Mary (If not, would they defile one? I think not), or Catholics who kiss relics and fragments, as acts of reverence to God.
KRISHNA:
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Rejects notÂthat last lore, deepest-concealed, | |
That farthest secret of My Heavens and Earths, | |
Which but to know shall set thee free from ills, | |
A Royal lore! a Kingly mystery! | 5 |
Yea! for the soul such light as purgeth it | |
From every sin; a light of holiness | |
With inmost splendor shining; plain to see; | |
Easy to walk by, inexhaustible! | |
They that receive not this, failing in faith | 10 |
To grasp the greater wisdom, reach not Me, | |
Destroyer of thy foes! They sink anew | |
Into the realm of Flesh, where all things change! | |
By Me the whole vast Universe of things | |
Is spread abroad;Âby Me, the Unmanifest! | 15 |
In Me are all existences contained; | |
Not I in them! | |
Yet they are not contained, | |
Those visible things! Receive and strive to embrace | |
The mystery majestical! My Being | 20 |
Creating all, sustaining allÂstill dwells | |
Outside of all! | |
See! as the shoreless airs | |
Move in the measureless space, but are not space, | |
[And space were space without the moving airs]; | 25 |
So all things are in Me, but are not I. |
The Bhagavad-Gita, Chapter IX.
Wikipedia is now being cited to address issues of faith?
What? Are the words of Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger written in red?