Murti Pooja

As described here, I couldn't find any source that describe the origin of Murti Pooja.  As the case of origin of Mandir, so to develop faith of people, Murti’s were created and put in the mandir. More about Murti in form of questions and answers, below.

At Idol Worship in Hinduism | Idol Worship in Vedas (ganeshaspeaks.com), you can find references to Murti Pooja in Vedic Scriptures.

There are a few questions that need to be answered in this context:

• When Sanaatan Philosophy believes in Nirgun, Nirakaar Brahma, why create Murti to depict this nirakaar?
• If Murti is needed for training the mind to focus, one could create replica of huge natural objects like Himalaya, Hind Mahasagar, Galaxy, Solar-system etc. So why create human like murti?
• Does God or Brahma reside in the murti? What is Pran-Pratishtha? Can reciting some Vedic hymns enable a murti to become a living being?
• How did current shape of various deity evolve and is consistent across the world?
• If the murtis represent God, why do they need a personal animal vahan? They have so much power yet, they need an animal to carry them?

Some additional questions related to murti pooja and rituals in mandir are:

• Why should we take off our foot ware before entering the mandir?
• Why should we take bath before doing pooja – either in mandir or at home?
• Why have doop-agarbatti etc. before and during pooja?
• Why offer flowers and fruits to the murti during pooja?
• Murti is murti, why bath it, put clothes on it, feed it, enable it to sleep and so on? Overall, why treat it as a living being?