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                        Phallic Miscellanies.


    [Illustration: _Female at the ceremony of Linga Puja._
                                                 _E. W. Alais Sc._]




                        PHALLIC MISCELLANIES;
                Facts and Phases of Ancient and Modern

                             SEX WORSHIP,

                    As Illustrated Chiefly in the
                         Religions of India,

                            AN APPENDIX OF
                  ADDITIONAL AND EXPLANATORY MATTER
                            TO THE VOLUMES

                     Phallism and Nature Worship.

                   _BY THE AUTHOR OF "PHALLICISM."_

                          PRIVATELY PRINTED.

                              MDCCCXCI.




_PREFACE._


All that it is necessary to say by way of preface to this book is,
that, having in various former volumes, entitled severally Phallism,
Nature Worship, Phallic Objects, &c., entered at some length into a
consideration of the peculiarities indicated by these denominations,
we now propose laying before our readers an additional mass of
important matter which illustrates and throws further light upon the
subject. This has been sought out with great labour and research
amongst the most trustworthy sources of information, and will form a
valuable appendix to the several volumes in question.




_CONTENTS._


CHAPTER I.

    India, the home of Phallic-worship--Linga described--The bull
    Nandi--Linga puja--Large and small lingams--Antiquity of
    Linga-puja--Growth of the Hindu Pantheon--Siva the
    destroyer--Sacred bulls--Shrine of Ek Linga--Legend relating
    to rivers--The Churning of the sea--Variety of forms of
    Siva--Deities of India--Origin of the Universe--Hindu
    Triad--Aum and O'M--Jupiter Genitor--Attributes of
    Siva--Worship of Osiris--Identity of Egyptian, Grecian and
    Indian deities--Hindu temples--Ceremonies.

CHAPTER II.

    Hindu evidence respecting the origin of Phallic
    worship--Legend of the wounded Hara--The four sects of
    worshippers instituted by Brahma--Resumption of the Lingam by
    Siva--Siva and Parvati propitiated--Visit of Bhrigu to
    Siva--The Lainga Puran on the Origin of Lingam
    worship--Abolition of worship of Brahma--Moral character of
    Hindu worship---Profligate sects--Egyptian
    phallus--Bacchus--Testimony of Tertullian and Clement of
    Alexandria--Dionysus--Directions for worship--Unsatisfactory
    legends--Legend of Bhima--The fourth avatar of Vishnu--Visit
    of Captain Mackenzie to the Pagoda at Perwuttum.

CHAPTER III.

    Representations of Siva--Siva's quarrel with his
    father-in-law--Quarrel between Brahma and Vishnu--Misconduct
    of Siva--Bengal temples of Siva--Ancient linga idols--Siege of
    Somnath--Ferishtah's history--The twelve great
    lingams--Account of the Viri-Sawas--The Jangamas--Legend of
    Ravuna.

CHAPTER IV.

    Lingam Worship in the Sheeve Pouran.

CHAPTER V.

    The four kinds of stone lingas--Siva under a form called
    Muhakalu--Temporary images of Siva--Siva's wives--Siva's and
    Parvati's quarrels--Siva and Doorga--Siva's names--The heavens
    of Siva--Latsami--Power of the priests--Tamil poetry--Indecent
    worship--Dancing girls at religious ceremonies--Christian and
    Pagan idolatry--Religious prostitution--Worship of the
    female--Development of indecent practices--Sakti-puja.

CHAPTER VI.

    Further account of Right-hand and Left-hand worship--The
    practices of the Vamis or Vamacharis--The rite of Mantra
    Sadhana--Ceremony of Sri-Chakra--Claims of the priests to
    supernatural power--Legends.

CHAPTER VII.

    Considerations respecting the origin of Phallic
    worship--Comparisons between Indian and Egyptian practices and
    doctrines.

CHAPTER VIII.

    Vocabulary of words of Indian and Sanscrit origin.




PHALLIC MISCELLANIES.




CHAPTER I.

    India, the home of Phallic Worship--Linga described--The Bull
    Nandi--Linga puja--Large and small Lingas--Antiquity of
    Linga-puja--Growth of the Hindu Pantheon--Siva, the
    Destroyer--Sacred Bulls--Shrine of Ek-Linga--Legend relating
    to rivers--The Churning of the sea--Variety of Forms of
    Siva--Deities of India--Origin of the Universe--Hindu
    Triad--Aum and O'M.--Jupiter Genitor--Attributes of
    Siva--Worship of Osiris--Identity of Egyptian, Grecian, and
    Indian deities--Hindoo Temples--Ceremonies.


India, beyond all other countries on the face of the earth, is
pre-eminently the home of the worship of the Phallus--the Linga puja;
it has been so for ages and remains so still. This adoration is said
to be one of the chief, if not the leading dogma of the Hindu
religion, and there is scarcely a temple throughout the land which has
not its Lingam, in many instances this symbol being the only form
under which the deity of the sanctuary is worshipped.

Generally speaking, the Linga may be described as a smooth, round,
black stone, apparently rising out of another stone, formed like an
elongated saucer, though in reality sculptured from one block of
basalt. The outline of this saucer-like stone, similar in form to what
is called a jew's harp, is called Argha or Yoni: the upright stone,
the type of the virile organ, is the Linga. The whole thing bears the
name of Lingioni. This representation of the union of the sexes,
typifies the divine sacti, or active energy in union, the procreative
generative power seen throughout nature; the earth being the primitive
pudendum or yoni, which is fecundated by the solar heat, the sun--the
primeval Lingam, to whose vivifying rays, men and animals, plants and
the fruits of the earth owe their being and continued existence. Thus,
according to the Hindus, the Linga is God and God is the Linga; the
fecundator, the generator, the creator in fact.

Lingas are of all sizes and of various forms. Sometimes they are
extremely minute, being then enclosed in small silver reliquaries, and
worn as amulets or charms upon the breast or arm. At other times they
are several inches in height, as in the domestic examples, and often
have the bull Nandi carved either at the end of the yoni or at the
side of the emblem. The Hindus say that the bull will intercept the
evil which is continually emitted from the female sacti. Upon the
erection of a new village, in setting up the Linga, they are careful
to turn the spout of the yoni towards the jungle, and not upon the
houses or roads, lest ill fortune should rest upon them. These Lingams
are of a much larger size than those just mentioned, being generally
two or three feet in height. Early in the morning around these emblems
may be seen the girls of the neighbourhood who are anxious for
husbands, sprinkling them with water from the Ganges; decking them
with garlands of bilwa flowers; performing the mudra, or gesticulation
with the fingers, and while rubbing themselves against the emblem,
reciting the prescribed incantations, and entreating the deity to make
them the fruitful mother of children.

This is what is called the Linga puja. During its performance the five
lamps are lighted and the bell frequently rung to frighten away the
evil demons.

Still larger Lingas than any yet mentioned are found in the temples,
some of them immense--as high as forty feet and measuring twenty-five
feet in circumference. These large emblems are, as a rule, Lingas
only, not in conjunction with the Yoni. Colonel Sykes in his "Account
of the Ellora Excavations," (near Poonah, in the Bombay Presidency),
speaking of the Bisma Kurm, says, "The first thing that meets the eye
on entering the temple is the enormous hemispherical figure of the
Ling (Lingam) at the end of the cave; it is always found on this scale
in the arched Boodh excavations, and even at Tuneer, in a flat roofed
cave, this emblem is forty-two feet in circumference, though its
height is inconsiderable."

How long this worship of the Lingam has prevailed in India it is
impossible to say; it is positively known to have existed for at least
1500 years, and it is estimated that about two thirds of all the Hindu
people, perhaps eighty millions of souls, practise it. The idols are
often described as conspicuous everywhere, in all parts of British
India from the Himalaya to Ceylon. We are told that throughout the
whole tract of the Ganges, as far as Benares, in Bengal, the temples
are commonly erected in a range of six, eight, or twelve on each side
of a ghat leading to the river, and that at Kalna is a circular group
of 108 temples, erected by a raja of Bardwan. Each of the temples in
Bengal consists of a single chamber, of a square form, surmounted by a
pyramidal centre. The area of each is very small, the linga of black
or white marble occupying the centre. What race brought the Lingam
worship into India is not known, but it seems to have come from the
basin of the Lower Indus through Rajputana, about the beginning of the
Christian era. At Ujjain it was particularly celebrated about the
period of the Mohammedan invasion, but probably long before, and one
particular Linga was named Vinda-swerna; from Vindu, _drop_, Swerna,
_gold_. At present there is a four-faced lingam, sometimes three-faced
or tri-murti; and tri-lingam is said to be the source of the name
Telinga and Telingana, the country extending north of Madras to
Ganjam, and west to Bellary and Beder. The four-faced lingam is called
the Choumurti Mahadeva, such as may be seen in the caves of Ellora,
and of common occurrence in other districts; and a famous shrine of
ek-linga, or the one lingam is situated in a defile about six miles
north of Udaipur, and has hills towering around it on all sides.

This ek-lingam, or one phallus, is a cylindrical or conical stone; but
there are others termed Seheslinga and Kot-Iswara, with a thousand or
a million of phallic representations, all minutely carved on the
monolithic emblem, having then much resemblance to the symbol of
Bacchus whose orgies both in Egypt and Greece are the counterpart of
those of the Hindu Baghes, so called from being clad in a tiger's or
leopard's skin, as Bacchus had that of the panther for his covering.
There is a very ancient temple to Kot-Iswara at the embouchure of the
eastern arm of the Indus; and there are many to Seheslinga in the
peninsula of Saurashtra. At the ancient Dholpur, now called Barolli,
the shrine is dedicated to Gut-Iswara Mahadeva, with a lingam
revolving in the yoni, the wonder of those who venture amongst its
almost impervious and unfrequented woods to worship. It is said that
very few Saiva followers of the south of India ever realize the lingam
and the yoni as representations of the organs of the body, and when
made to apprehend the fact they feel overpowered with shame that they
should be worshipping such symbols.[1]

        [1] See the Indian Cyclopaedia.

The age assigned by the above writer to this particular kind of
worship falls very far short of what has been stated by others, and
appears most probable. It has been asserted that its history goes
back two thousand years before the Christian era--that it was then, as
it is now, in full force--that it witnessed the rise, decline, and
fall of the idolatry of Egypt, and of the great Western Mythology of
Greece and Rome. "And when we reflect," says a modern writer, "on its
antiquity, and on the fact that hitherto it has scarcely yielded in
the slightest degree to the adverse influence of the Mohammedan race
on the one hand, or to European dictation on the other; and that it
exercises by its system of caste, a powerful control over the manners,
customs, costumes, and social status of the entire Hindu community, it
becomes a subject fraught with interest to every cultivated mind, and
offers an affecting but curious example of the power of a hoary and
terrible superstition in degrading and enslaving so large a portion of
the human race."[2]

        [2] Sellon.

It can scarcely be questioned, theorise as writers may, that the
origin of this worship is lost in antiquity; we seem able to trace it
back to times when it was comparatively pure and simple--when it was
the worship of one god only, the Bruehm Atma, the "Breathing Soul," a
spiritual Supreme Being. As time passed, however, the primitive
simplicity disappeared, and rites and ceremonies became complicated
and numerous. The spiritual worship of the Deity gave place to the
worship of a representative image of him--a block of stone called
Phallus or Linga, representing the procreative power discerned in
Nature. Even this was comparatively simple at first, but it soon
spread itself out in a variety of directions, until an extensive
Pantheon was formed and an elaborate ritual and worship organised. It
is computed that this Pantheon contains little short of a million gods
and demi-gods.

It is more particularly with the god Siva we shall have to do in
stating facts which illustrate the subject of Phallic worship, for the
Lingam or Phallus was the emblem under which he was specially
worshipped. It certainly does seem remarkable, as Mr. Sellon remarked,
that of the host of divinities above mentioned, Siva should be the god
whom the Hindus have delighted to honour. "As the Destroyer, and one
who revels in cruelty and bloodshed, this terrible deity, who has not
inaptly been compared to the Moloch of Scripture, of all their
divinities, suggests most our idea of the devil. It may therefore, be
concluded that the most exalted notion of worship among the Hindus is
a service of Fear. The Brahmins say the other gods are good and
benevolent, and will not hurt their creatures, but that Siva is
powerful and cruel, and that it is necessary to appease him."

The attribute of destruction is found visibly depicted in the drawings
and temples throughout Bengal. To destroy, according to the Vedantis
of India, the Susis of Persia, and many philosophers of the European
schools, is only to generate and reproduce in another form: hence the
god of destruction is held in India to preside over generation; as a
symbol of which he rides on a white bull.

The sacred bull, Nanda, has his altar attached to all the shrines of
Iswara, as was that of Menes, or Apis to those of the Egyptian Osiris.
He has occasionally his separate shrines, and there is one in the
valley of Oodipoor, which has the reputation of being oracular as
regards the seasons. The Bull was the steed of Iswara, and carried him
to battle; he is often represented upon it with his consort Isa, at
full speed. The Bull was offered to Mithras by the Persian, and
opposed as it now appears to Hindu faith, formerly bled on the altars
of the Sun-god, on which not only the Buld-dan (offering of the bull)
was made, but human sacrifices. We do not learn that the Egyptian
priesthood presented the kindred of Apis to Osiris, but as they were
not prohibited from eating beef, they may have done so. The shrine of
Ek-Linga is situated in a defile about six miles north of Oodipoor,
the hills towering around on all sides are of the primitive formation,
and their scarped summits are clustered with honeycombs. There are
abundant small springs of water, which keep verdant numerous shrubs,
the flowers of which are acceptable to the deity, especially the Kiner
or Oleander, which grows in great luxuriance on the Aravulli. Groves
of bamboo and mango were formerly common, according to tradition; but
although it is deemed sacrilege to thin the groves of Bal, the bamboo
has been nearly destroyed: there are, however, still many trees sacred
to the deity scattered around. It would be difficult to convey a just
idea of a temple so complicated in its details. It is of the form
commonly styled pagoda, and, like all the ancient temples of Siva, its
sikra, or pinnacle, is pyramidal. The various orders of Hindu sacred
architecture are distinguished by the form of the sikra, which is the
portion springing from and surmounting the perpendicular walls of the
body of the temple. The sikra of those of Siva is invariably
pyramidal, and its sides vary with the base, whether square or oblong.
The apex is crowned with an ornamental figure, as a sphynx, an urn, a
ball, or a lion, which is called the kulkis. When the sikra is but the
frustrum of a pyramid, it is often surmounted by a row of lions, as at
Biolli. The fane of Ek-Linga is of white marble and of ample
dimensions. Under an open vaulted temple,