On hearing the news of the fate of his beloved wife, Siva, in vexation, renounced a secular life, and assumed the profession of a religious mendicant called a sunyasee. As a naked sunyasee he wandered from forest to forest, in the bitterness of grief. At length he arrived in a certain wilderness where many moonees were performing religious austerities, by the side of the river at a distance from their homes. The wives of these moonees, on beholding this naked, dirty, and withered sunyasee, asked him who he was, and why he was wandering up and down in this state? He related to them the cause of his sorrow, viz., that he had been deprived of his wife, and was overwhelmed with distress on her account. The women laughed at him, and pretended to doubt his relation, declaring that his body was so withered, that all desires must have been extinguished. In this manner they provoked Siva, till at length he seized the wife of one of the moonees and deflowered her. The moonee on hearing this relation, pronounced a curse on Siva, and he became an hermaphrodite. As soon as the curse had taken effect, the linga sunk into patalŭ, the world of serpents, and ascended into the boundless space.
Before this period, a fierce quarrel had taken place betwixt Brahma and Vishnu, as to which of them was the greatest, the former as the creator, or the latter as the preserver or cherisher, of all. They appealed to Siva, who left it to be determined by a trial of strength at some future time, when he should have leisure.
Siva at length proposed to the two gods to settle their quarrel in this way: one of them should ascend, and endeavour to ascertain the height of the linga, and the other descend, and bring up word of its depth. Brahma ascended, and Vishnu plunged into patalŭ. In this way both the gods tried their utmost efforts, but could not find either the height or the depth of the linga. As Brahma ascended, he met a flower which had fallen from the top of the linga, and asked how far it was to the top. The flower told him that it had been falling from the head of the linga so many kŭlpŭs (one kŭlpŭ is four hundred and thirty-two millions of years of mortals) and had not reached the earth yet; what hope was there then of his reaching the top? Brahma related the account of the difference betwixt him and Vishnu, and that upon this trial of their powers the point of pre-eminence was to be decided. The flower advised Brahma to tell the assembled gods, that he had gone to the top, and if they doubted the fact, he might call him to confirm it.
Brahma descended, and Vishnu came up disappointed in his attempt to get to the bottom of the linga. When the two gods arrived in the assembly, Brahma declared that he had been to the top, and brought the flower to prove it. Vishnu confessed his disappointment, and charged the flower with witnessing a falsehood. To this all the gods assented, and Vishnu pronounced a curse upon the flower, that it should never be received among the offerings presented to Siva.
After the matter was thus disposed of, the gods resolved that the worship of the linga should have the precedency of every other worship; that the benefits attending its worship should be boundless, and that the heaviest curses should fall on those who neglected to worship this image. So much for the account in the Doorga-bhagavata: in the Kaduru-khundu the origin of the worship is thus mentioned:
When the gods resolved to churn the sea, in order to obtain the water of life, become immortal, and overcome the usoorus, they were greatly afraid lest the usoorus should seize the water of life, and become immortal also. When the water of life came up, they contrived to send the usoorus to bathe; but after bathing, they arrived before the gods had drank the life-giving beverage. To draw off their attention, Vishnu assumed the form of a most beautiful female. This contrivance was successful.
The god Siva hearing that Vishnu had assumed this form, went to the spot, and was so overcome by the charms of Mohinee, that he was about to seize her by force: she fled, and Siva followed her; mad with lust, he pursued her till she could run no longer, when she turned, and pronouncing a curse upon him by which he became a hermaphrodite, she immediately assumed her original form, viz., that of Vishnu. Siva was so enraged, that all the gods, full of fear, arrived to soften him by praise. He at length consented to dismiss his anger on condition that the linga should become an object of universal worship.
Another account of the origin of this worship is contained in some of the other puranas: At the time of a universal destruction of the world all the gods are absorbed in what is called akashu; the linga alone remains. The puranas, therefore, say that as all the gods except the linga are absorbed in the akashu, he who worships the linga, obtains the unbounded merit of embracing all the deities at once. From these stories, temples innumerable have arisen in India, and a Siva linga placed in each of them, and worshipped as a god.
The worship of Siva under the type of the Linga, is almost the only form in which that deity is reverenced. Its prevalence throughout the whole tract of the Ganges, as far as Benares, is sufficiently conspicuous. 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. At Kalna is a circular group of one hundred and eight temples, erected by the Rajah 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, occupies the centre; the offerings are presented at the threshold. Benares, however, is the peculiar seat of this form of worship: the principal deity, Visweswara, is a Linga, and most of the chief objects of the pilgrimage are similar blocks of stone. Particular divisions of the pilgrimage direct visiting forty-seven Lingas, all of pre-eminent sanctity; but there are hundreds of inferior note still worshipped, and thousands whose fame and fashion have died away. If we may believe Siva, indeed, he counted a hundred Pararrdhyas in the Kasi, of which, at the time he is supposed to tell this to Devi, he adds sixty crore, or six hundred millions were covered by the waters of the Ganges. A Pararrdhya is said, by the commentator on the Kasi-Khanda, in which this dialogue occurs, to contain as many years of mortals as are equal to fifty of Brahma’s years.
This worship of Siva, under the type of the Linga, is also, perhaps, the most ancient object of homage adopted in India, subsequently to the ritual of the Vedas, which was chiefly, if not wholly, addressed to the elements, and particularly to Fire. How far the worship of the Linga is authorised by the Vedas, is doubtful, but it is the main purport of several of the Puranas—such as the Skanda-Purana, the Siva, Brahmanda, and Linga Puranas. There can be no doubt of its universality at the period of the Mohammedan invasion of India. The idol destroyed by Mahmud of Ghizni, was nothing more than a Linga, being, according to Mirkhond, a block of stone of four or five cubits long, and of proportionate thickness. The passage from the Rozet as Sefa (cited in the Asiatic Researches, vol. 17), runs thus:—“The temple in which the idol of Somnath stood, was of considerable extent, both in length and breath, and the roof was supported by fifty-six pillars in rows. The idol was of polished stone, its height was about five cubits, and its thickness in proportion: two cubits were below ground. Mahmud having entered the temple, broke the stone Somnath with a heavy mace; some of the fragments he ordered to be conveyed to Ghizni, and they were placed at the threshold of the great Mosque.”