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]
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]
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 Brühm 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, supported by columns, and fronting the four-faced divinity, is the brazen bull Nanda, of the natural size: it is cast, and of excellent proportions. The figure is perfect, except where the shot or hammer of an infidel invader has penetrated its flank in search of treasure. Within the quadrangle are miniature shrines, containing some of the minor divinities.[3]