Phallism : a description of the worship of lingam-yoni in various parts of the world, and in different ages: with an account of ancient & modern crosses, particularly of the crux ansata (or handled cross), and other symbols connected with the mysteries of sex worship.

Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Phallism : a description of the worship of lingam-yoni in various parts of the world, and in different ages: with an account of ancient & modern crosses, particularly of the crux ansata (or handled cross), and other symbols connected with the mysteries of sex worship. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    colours, and strings of cowrie shells; the conductor carries a bell in his hand, and travels about the country supported by the gifts of the people. In the southern parts of India, the Lingayets are very numerous, the Saiva priests being generally of this sect, and are called Aradhya and Pandaram. The learned Baboo llajendralala Mitra, in his Antiquities of Orissa says:—“ In describing the merits of Orissian art I must not forget to notice the despicable taste which the artists have displayed by making some of their figures most disgustingly obscene. By this I do not refer to their nudity, for, as justly observed by Professor Liibke, the task of sculpture is to conceive man in his full natural beauty. Hence the nude figure in its strictest sense is required. The perfect harmony and beauty of the whole can only be displayed in the unclothed form.” This canon has been more or less accepted by artists and men of taste in every age and clime, and the IJrijas have rather evinced a true sense of the proper sphere of sculpture by chiselling the nude, and not thereby given offence to good taste. But they have added thereto certain licentious representations which do not admit of description, their number is small, and they by no means enter into the general scheme of ornamentation of the temples ; but there they are; and their existence cannot but offer a violent shock to all modern sense of propriety and decency. I enquired of many learned pundits at Puri, as to why such offensive figures had been allowed to desecrate the sanctuary of the Divinity ; but they could tell me nothing worth hearing. In one instance ob¬ scenity in a -temple has been accounted for on the supposition of its being expiatory. In a note on Kajraha, with reference to Rashibuddin’s mention of that town. Sir Henry Elliot states, that “ in the PitJiviraj Rayasa mention is made of a Brahmin woman, Plemavani by name, who committed a little faux pas with the moon in human shape, and, as a self-imposed punishment for her indiscretion, held a Banda fig ^ a part of wliich ceremony consists in sculpturing indecent representations on the walls of temples, and holding up one’s foibles to the disgust and ridicule of the world.” The story occurs in the first Canto of the Benares M.S. of Chand and in Mr. Growse’s translation of it, mention is made of the Bhandava sacrifice, but without any allusion to indecent representations on temples, and I can nowhere find a description of the ceremony in any Sanskrit work. Possibly there may be some authority for it, and the obscenity on Hemavati’s temple at Kharjinpur or Kajraha might be accounted for, on the suppo-