LAKSHMI.
In the Musée Guimet.
| A CILICIAN COIN. | COIN OF TARSUS. |
| COIN OF GAULOS. | COIN OF PERGA. |
In India the goddess of beauty was revered under the name of Lakshmi, and we need not doubt that she still finds worshipers among the Hindu population of to-day, but there are no statues left of the age of ancient Brahmanism. All monuments are of comparatively late origin; in fact the large mass of Hindu idols is quite modern, although it represents art and religious notions of a typically primitive character.
Another and, as it seems, independent development can be traced from the worship of stone pillars or bethels. A bethel, i. e., “house of God,” well known from the Bible as a monument of divine revelation, developed gradually into the representation of a stiff female figure like the Diana of Ephesus, but we cannot doubt that the primitive idea of it was the worship of an all-nourishing mother. From her the Greek conception of the chaste moon goddess, the virgin Artemis or Diana, developed in course of time; but the Diana of Ephesus still preserves symbols of a pantheistic conception of the All under the allegory of a mother goddess. (For illustrations see pages 152 and 153.)
