ASIA 
 
 BL 
 
 460 
 
 .3485 
 
 1892a 
 

l^^m 
 
 1^ 
 
 
 i 
 
 pD 
 
 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924093743635 
 
PHALLISM: 
 
 A DESCRIPTION OF THE WORSHIP 
 OP 
 
 LiNGAM-YONI 
 
 IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE WORLD, AND IN DIFFERENT 
 AGES : WITH AN ACCOUNT OF 
 
 Ancient & Modern Grosses 
 
 PARTICULARLY OF THE 
 
 Crux Ansata 
 
 (OB HANDLED CROSS), 
 AND OTHER SYMBOLS CONNECTED *ITH THE MYSTERIES OP- 
 
 Sex Worship. 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED. 
 
 1892. 
 
PRE PAGE. 
 
 '/ ^ME subject described and illustrated in the following 
 •pages, though springing from a common source, Tfas 
 naturally many branches, and assume a number of soms- 
 what complicated f(yrms ; in order, hoioever, to keep the 
 volume within its intended limits, care has been taken not 
 io digress from the main topic, or stray in any way from, 
 the matter indicated by the title. 
 
 It may perhaps occur to a casual observer, that Phallism 
 is a topic zoanting in sufficient interest to make it worthy of 
 uny amount of consideration or study. It is hoped that the 
 extraordinary facts here narrated, the extensive and tenacious 
 hold this worship had and still has upon multitudes in various 
 parts of the world, and the mysterious objects supposed to be 
 connected with it, meeting us in all directions, will speedily 
 dissipate such an idea. A subject which reaches from 
 the earliest dawn of history throvgh long and eventful ages, 
 down to tlie most modern times, and touches almost every 
 kingdom of the past and present, in the four quarters of the 
 earth, and which is so closely interwoven with the moral, 
 social and religious life of the vast British dominions in the 
 East, must have an interest peculiarly its own. Still 
 further, the discovery of the sites of ancient kingdoms, and 
 
IV. PHEPACE. 
 
 the unearthing of long buried statues, monuments, cmd 
 mystifying inscriptions, has suggested and provoked new 
 lines of study amongst symbolical remains, and the key to so 
 much that for long was unreadable has been found in 
 the singular revelations of this peculiar worship. 
 
 It is not pretended that such a treatise is of a nature 
 which would render it suitable for the inspection of aK ages 
 and classes ; there are numberless things constantly occurring 
 about us which are wisely concealed from, the yoru/ng and 
 inexperienced, but which it is necessary men of 'mature 
 judgments should be acquainted with, but it toill, for the 
 mast part, be found after all not so necessarily indelicate 
 as some suppose, if properly viewed in connection vnth 
 its oion times and circumstances. That licentiousness and 
 grossness have been intimately associated vnth it at certain 
 times and in certain places, is undeniable, but there are 
 facts in history which the faithful chronicler is bound to 
 exhibit and narrate as far as possible in a manner con- 
 sistent with the m,ore refined and polished manners of 
 the age. In such style we have endeavoured to tell our story 
 and in commending its strange revelations to our readers, 
 ive can only remind them of the old and familiar motto, 
 "Evil be to him, that evil thinks." 
 
•PRE PAGE TO SECOND EDITION. 
 
 TN consequence of the great demand for " Fhallistn," the 
 work soon became out of print. The interest excited by 
 its subject matter continues unabated, and to comply tvith 
 the ever increasing applications for copies, it became obli- 
 gatory to isstie a neio and limited edition, which should, 
 partially at least, satisfy the exigencies of the eager studerU 
 of a ^uorship originating in rewrite antiquity and diffused 
 most undely over the habitable globe. So scarce had "Phallism" 
 become, and so great was the desire to master its contents, 
 that a single copy realized the sum of two pounds at Messrs. 
 Sotheby's sale only a few months ago. 
 
 In commending this new edition to the puilic, which has 
 been carefully revised, we take the opportunity of again 
 pointing out that such a treatise, dealt with scientifically 
 and viewed in connection with its oum times and circurn^ 
 stances, is free from the flavour of indelicacy which other- 
 wise m,ight be supposed to be inseparable from the subject. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 •- — Faqe. 
 
 Chaptbb I. — Nature and Origin of the subject ..~.. 1 
 
 Peculiarity of the subject. 
 
 Definition of Phallic Worship. 
 
 The Phallaphoroi. 
 
 Antiquity of Phallic Worship. 
 
 The Primitive Oath. 
 
 Pegasus and the Statues of Bacchus. 
 
 Sheevah and Prakreety, a Legend. 
 
 Feast of the Funeral Pile. 
 
 Lucian and the Syrian Goddess. 
 
 Common Origin of Pagan Beliefs. 
 
 Pagan Rites involved in obscurity. 
 
 Phallic Objects in Dahome. 
 
 Development of Phallism. 
 
 Innocent Origins. 
 
 Extravagances connected with Phallic Worship. 
 
 Superstitious Usages in England. 
 
 Cleft Trees and Physical Infirmities. 
 
 ■Chaptbe II. — Phallism in Various Lands 15 
 
 Variations of Detail. 
 
 The Egyptian Khem. 
 
 Growing Coarseness of the Egyptian Idea. 
 
 Swearing by the Phallus. 
 
 Welsh Customs. 
 
 The Hermaphroditic Element. 
 
 Expressive Character of the Phallus. 
 
 Phallic Emblems in Modern Times. 
 
 Herodotus and the Bacchic Orgies. 
 
 Priapus in Rome and Greece. 
 
 Maachah, a Worshipper of Priapus. 
 
 Horace's Satire on Priapus. 
 
 ^elphegor. 
 
 Excesses during the Worship of Priapus. 
 
 Koman Priapus derived from the Egyptians. 
 
 Catullus on the Worship of Priapus. 
 
 Various Priapian Forms. 
 
 Phallism in v arlous Countries, 
 
 St. Augustine. 
 
 St. Foutin and Priapus. 
 
 French Phallism. 
 
 Neapolitan Festivals. 
 
 Maypoles in India and England. 
 
contents. vu. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Chapter III. — India 27 
 
 Phallic Worshippers of the East. 
 
 longa Described. 
 
 Caves of Elephanta. 
 
 Lucian and the Temple at Hierapolis. 
 
 Small Linga. 
 
 Ceremony of Linga-puja. 
 
 Woman at Worship Described. 
 
 Hindu Desire for Children. 
 
 The Temple of Nuptials. 
 
 Beproach attached to Barren Women. 
 
 Stoiy of Shravana and Dasaratha. 
 
 The Twelve Lingas. 
 
 Distinction between Linga and Yoni. 
 
 Argha. 
 
 Veneration for Stones. 
 
 Story of Polluted Brahmans. 
 
 Brachmans and Fire Production. 
 
 Fends between the Linga and Yoni Worshippers. 
 
 Legend of Sarti and Parvati. 
 
 Chaptee IV. — India, continued 43 
 
 Legend concerning Mahadeva. 
 
 Diodorus Siculus on Osiris. 
 
 Ptolemy Philadelphua. 
 
 The Vaishnavas. 
 
 Hindu Sects. 
 
 Worship of Female Generative Principle. 
 
 The Fakirs and the Hindu Women. 
 
 Hold of Phallism on the Hindu-Mind. 
 
 Origin of Phallic Worship in India. 
 
 Hindu Prayer. 
 
 Chapter "V. — India, continued 53 
 
 Indian and Egyptian Worship Compared. 
 
 Hindu Soldiers in Egypt. 
 
 Brohm Atma, the Breathing Soul. 
 
 Growth of Hindu Religion. 
 
 Worship of Siva. 
 
 Benares. 
 
 The Lingayets. 
 
 Characters of Hindu Emblems and Ornaments. 
 
 Favourable View of Hindu Emblems. 
 
 Charge of Indecency against Hinduism. 
 
 Chapter VT. — Crosses and the Crux-Ansata 61 
 
 Erroneous Notions about the Cross. 
 Pagan Origin of the Cross. 
 History from Monuments and Tombs. 
 Unchanging Character of the Cross. 
 
vm. CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 Real Origin of the Cross. 
 The Cross in Ancient America. 
 The City of the Moon. 
 The Maltese Cross in Pre-Christian Times. 
 Danish and Indian Crosses. 
 Ancient British Crosses. 
 A Fallacy by Higgins. 
 True Origin of the Christian Cross. 
 The Crux-Ansata Described. 
 Antiquity of the same. 
 Suggested Meaning of the Crux-Ansata. 
 The Key of the Nile. 
 Supposed Phallic Origin. 
 NUe-Key Theory Examined. 
 The Cross in Ancient Scriptural Times. 
 The Crux-Ansata the Syihbol of Symbols. 
 The Crux-Ansata a Religious Symbol. 
 
 Chapter VII. — The Hebrews and Phallism 75 
 
 Solomon and the Heathen Gods. 
 Old Testament Characters. 
 Worship of Groves. 
 Consecrated Pillars. 
 Jacob's Pillar at Bethel. 
 Worship of the Phallus. 
 Asherah and the Grove. 
 Ashtoreth. 
 Jewish Lingham. 
 Iniquity of Solomon. 
 Worship of Baal. 
 St. Jerome on Baal-peor. 
 Jewish Opinion of Baal-peor. 
 Maachah^ Idol. 
 
PHALLISM 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Nature and origin of the subject — Peculiarity of the subject — 
 Definition of Phallic Worship — Phallwphoroi — Antiquity of 
 Phallic Worship — The Primitive Oath — Pegasus and the Statues 
 of Bacchus — Sheevah and Prakreety, a Legend — Feast of the 
 Funeral Pile — Lucian and the Syrian Goddess — Common Origin 
 of Pagan beliefs — Pagan Rites involved in obscurity — Phallic 
 Objects in Dahome — Development of Phallism, — Innocent origins 
 — Eztravagances connected tvith Phallism — Superstitious usages 
 in England — Cleft Trees and Physical Trifirmities. 
 
 THE subject before us is of so remarkable a character, and so 
 surrounded with the mystical and the unlikely that, but 
 for an abundance of incontrovertible facts supported by the 
 investigations of accurate observers, and an almost unlimited 
 number of ancient monuments and emblems, we should be dis- 
 posed to put it aside as too mythical and uncertain to be worth 
 our serious attention. Whatever we may think of it, however, 
 whatever may be the mystery surrounding its origin, and what- 
 ever the extravagances of the views of development theorists, 
 who have professed to discern in it the germs of even the highest 
 forms of modern worship, it is a fact beyond contradiction that 
 it has prevailed and still prevails to a very large extent in certain 
 parts of the world, and must be regarded as the most ancient 
 form of natural religion known. 
 
 By phallic worship we mean the adoration of the generative 
 organs as symbols of the creative powers of nature. The word 
 is a Greek one (Phallos), and is interpreted as representing the 
 membrum, virile, especially a figure thereof which was carried in 
 procession in the Bacchic orgies, aa an emblem of the generative 
 power in nature. Other and kindred words found in the same 
 language refer variously to a similar thing, thus : — Phallephoria, 
 a festival of Bacchus in which a phallus was carried in proces- 
 sion ; Phallikos, belonging to the phallic festivals; Phallobates, 
 a phallic priest ; and Ithyphalloi, men disguised as women, who 
 
 B 
 
PHALLI8M. 
 
 followed immediately behind the phallus in Greek processions 
 of the Dionysia. Then we get Phallaphoroi, a name given at 
 Sicyon to certain mimes who ran about the streets smutted with 
 black and clothed in sheepskins, bearing baskets full of various 
 herbs — as violet, ivy, <fec. — and bearing the phallus made of red 
 leather. The word is from Phallos, a pole at the end of which 
 was fastened the figure of a human penis, and Phero, I bear. 
 
 Two things chiefly impress themselves upon our attention in 
 this study: the great antiquity of phallic worship, and the 
 extensive degree in which it has fo«- ages prevailed in certain 
 parts of the world, especially in India. 
 
 With regard to its antiquity, it is impossible to assign any date 
 with certainty respecting its origin and rise. Some do not 
 hesitate to describe it as the most ancient form of faith that we 
 know of j and as a system of natural religion, probably, as we 
 have already said, that is true. Richard Gough, in his Comr 
 parative View of the Ancient Monuments of India (London, 
 1785), said : — "Those who have penetrated into the abstruseness 
 of Indian Mythology find that in these temples was practised a 
 worship similar to that practised by all the several nations of the 
 world, in their earliest as well as their most enlightened periods. 
 It was paid to the phallus by the Asiatics ; to Priapus by the 
 Egyptians, Greeks and Romans ; to Baal-Peor by the Canaanites 
 and idolatrous Jews. The figure is seen on the fascia which 
 runs round the circus of Nismes, and over the portal of the 
 cathedral of Toulouse and several churches of Bordeaux. M. 
 d'Ancarville has written two large quarto volumes to prove 
 phallic worship to be the most ancient idea of the deity. This 
 latter writer, indeed, along with others who have dealt with the 
 subject, affirmed that the death and deification of Brama, called 
 the " Gracious One," or "Prince of Peace," "Siva," or "Maha- 
 deva," took place 3553 B.C. Porlong, in his Hivers of Life, 
 endeavours again and again to show that phallic worship is far 
 more ancient than any other religion known ; and he says in one 
 place (Vol. 2, page 38) : — " The earliest instance I know of 
 phallic worship or reverence, or at all events of phallic drawings, 
 is that mentioned in the Moniteur of January, 1865. There it 
 is related that in the province of Yenetia, Italy, in a bone cave 
 beneath ten feet of stalagmite, and amidst post-tertiary remains, 
 beside a bone needle, was found a rude, drawing of a phallus, 
 scratched on a plate of an argillaceous compound^ surely a very 
 primeval idea of the Idnga-in-Argha." ~ 
 
FHALLISU. 3 
 
 In harmony with the difficulty of fixing upon dates is the 
 f ui-ther difficulty of tracing the origin of this kind of worship. 
 Dr. Ginsburg, in the article " Oath " in Kitto's Oyclopedis, finds 
 reverence for the phallus, if not worship, in primitive customs as 
 old as the time of Abraham. He says: — "Another primitive 
 custom which obtained in the patriarchal age was that the one 
 who took the oath ' put his hand under the thigh ' of the adjurer 
 {Gen. 24, 2 ; 47, 29). This practice evidently arose from the fact 
 that the genital member, which is meant by the euphemic expres- 
 sion, ' thigh,' was regarded as the most sacred part of the body, 
 being the symbol of union in the tenderest relation of matri- 
 monial life, and the seat whence all issue proceeds, and the 
 perpetuity so much coveted by the ancients (comp. Gen. 46, 26 ; 
 Exod. 1, 5 ; Judges 8, 30). Hence this creative organ became 
 the symbol of the Creator, and the object of worship among all 
 nations of antiquity ; and it is for this reason that God claimed 
 it as the sign of the covenant between Himself and His chosen 
 people in the rite of circumcision. Nothing, therefore, could 
 render the oath more solemn in those days than touching the 
 symbol of creation, the sign of the covenant, and the source of 
 that issue who may, at any future period, avenge the breaking of 
 ■a compact made with their progenitor." 
 
 One account of the origin of the phallica, or feasts and sacri- 
 fices celebrated at Athens in honour of Bacchus (gathered chiefly 
 ■from Aristophanes) is to the efiect that one Pegasus, a native of 
 Cleutheris, in Bceotia, having brought to Athens some statues of 
 Eacchus, was treated by the Athenians with the utmost contempt 
 and ridicule. The deity, indignant at the insult, in revenge sent 
 among them an epidemic disease, which attacked them in their 
 private organs. On consulting the oracle upon the best method 
 ■of preventing the further extension of so grievous a malady, they 
 were recommended publicly to receive Bacchus into their city in 
 a.11 the pomp of his worship. The oracle was obeyed, and amidst 
 other splendid trophies, to appease the incensed divinity, were 
 displayed thyrsi, with the figures of the parts affected bound to 
 tlie end of them. M. Bochart, and Bishop Patrick in his com- 
 mentary on I. Samuel, 5 and 6, curtly pronounce this story to be 
 a forgery from a passage in the latter book, where the Philistines, 
 having taken and violated the Ark of the God of Israel, are 
 smitten with emerods, a distemper concerning the exact nature 
 of which the commentators are not fully agreed, but which has 
 been supposed to be of the same nature with that before 
 
4 PHALLISU. 
 
 mentioned. On inquiry of the priests \7ith what trespass-offering 
 the God of Israel might be appeased, they were directed, among 
 other things, to prepare five golden emerods, according to the 
 number of the principal cities of Fhilistia, and dedicate them to 
 the God of Israel ; which mandate when they had obeyed, the 
 distemper ceased to make further ravages among them. There 
 is great similarity in these two accounts, it is true, but that by 
 no means implies that there has been a forgery, as it is well 
 known that the ancient heathen consecrated to their gods such 
 memorials of their deliverance as best represented the evils from 
 which they were liberated, and it is a custom to this day for the 
 pilgrim", when he goes to a pagoda for the cure of any disease, to 
 bring the figure of the member affected, made either of gold, 
 silver, or copper, according to his rank and ability, as an offering 
 to the god.* 
 
 There is a Hindoo legend which explains the matter as follows, 
 and which some regard as similar to the above : — Certain devo- 
 tees in a remote time had acquired great renown and respect, but 
 the purity of the heart was wanting ; nor did their motives and 
 secret thoughts correspond with their professions and exterior 
 conduct. They affected poverty, but were attached to the things 
 of this world ; and the princes and nobles were constantly 
 sending them offerings. They seemed to sequester themselves 
 from the world, they lived retired from the towns, but their 
 dwellings were commodious and their women numerous and 
 handsome. But nothing can be hid from the gods, and Sheevah 
 resolved to expose them to shame. He desired Prakreety 
 (Nature) to accompany him, and assumed the appearance of a 
 Pandaram of a graceful form. Prakreety appeared as a damsel 
 of matchless beauty. She went where the devotees were assem- 
 bled with their disciples, waiting the rising sun to perform their 
 ablutions and religious ceremonies. As she advanced, the 
 refreshing breeze, moving her flowing robe, showed the exquisite 
 shape which it seemed intended to conceal. With eyes cast 
 down, though sometimes opening with a timid but a tender look, 
 she approached them, and with a low enchanting voice desired tO' 
 be admitted to the sacrifice. The devotees gazed on her with 
 astonishment. The sun appeared, but the purifications were- 
 forgotten ; the things for the Pooja lay neglected ; nor was any 
 ■worship thought of but that to her. Quitting the gravity o£ 
 
 * Tavemier. — Voyage aux Indea. 
 
PHALLISH. O 
 
 their manners, they gathered round her as the flies round the 
 lamp at night, attracted by its splendour but consumed by its 
 flame. They asked from whence she came, whither she was 
 going. " Be not offended with us for approaching thee, forgive 
 us for our importunities. But thou art incapable of anger, thou 
 who art made to convey bliss; to thee, who mayest kill by 
 indifference, indignation and resentment are unknown. But 
 whoever thou mayest be, whatever motive or accident may have 
 brought thee amongst us, admit us into the number of thy 
 slaves, let us least have the comfort to behold thee." 
 
 Here the words faltered on the lip, the soul seemed ready to 
 take its flight ; the vow was forgotten, and the policy of years 
 was destroyed. 
 
 Whilst the devotees were lost in their passions and absent 
 from their homes, Sheevah entered their village with a musical 
 instrument in his hand, playing and singing like some of those 
 who solicit charity. At the sound of his voice the women 
 immediately quitted their occupations, they ran to see from 
 whence it came. He was beautiful as Krishen (the Apollo of 
 the Hindoos) on the plains of Matra. Some dropped their jewels 
 without turning to look for them ; others let fall their garments, 
 without perceiving that they discovered those abodes of pleasure 
 which jealousy, as well as decency, has ordered to be concealed. 
 All pressed forward with their offerings, all wished to speak, all 
 wished to be taken notice of, and bringing flowers and scattering 
 them before him, said : — "Askest thou alms, thou who art made 
 to govern hearts ? Thou whose countenance is as fresh as the 
 morning, whose voice is the voice of pleasure, and thy breath 
 like that of Vassant (Spring) in the opening rose ! Stay with us 
 and we will serve thee, nor will we trouble thy repose, but only 
 be jealous how to please thee !" 
 
 The Pandaram continued to play, and sung the loves of Kama, 
 of Krislien, and the Gopia; and smiling the gentle smiles of fond 
 desire he led them to a neighbouring grove that was consecrated 
 to pleasure and retirement. Soav (the sun) began to gild the 
 western mountains, nor were they offended at the retiring day. 
 
 But the desire of repose succeeds the waste of pleasure. Sleep 
 closed the eyes, and lulled the senses. In the morning the 
 Pandaram was gone. When they awoke they looked round with 
 astonishment, and again cast their eyes on the ground. Some 
 directed their looks to those who had been formerly remarked -for 
 their scrupulous manners, but their faces were covered with their 
 
O PHALLISM. 
 
 veils. After bitting awhile in silence they arose, and vent back 
 to their houses with slow and troubled steps. The devotees 
 returned about the same time from their wanderings after 
 Prakreety. The days that followed were days of embarrassment- 
 and shame. If the women had failed in their modesty the devo- 
 tees had broken their vows. They were vexed at their weakness, 
 they were sorry for what they had done ; yet the tender sigh 
 sometimes broke forth, and the eye often turned to where the 
 men first saw the maid, the women the Pandaram. 
 
 But the people began to perceive that what the devotees fore- 
 told came not to pass. Their disciples, in consequence, neglected 
 to attend them, and the offerings from the princes and the nobles 
 became less frequent than before. They then performed various 
 penances ; they sought for secret places among the woods, unfre- 
 quented by man ; and having at last shut their eyes from the 
 things of this world, and retired within themselves in deep medi- 
 tation, they discovered that Sheevah was the author of their 
 misfortunes. Their understanding being imperfect, instead of 
 bowing the head with humility they were inflamed with anger ; 
 instead of contrition for their hypocrisy they sought for ven- 
 geance. They performed new sacrifices and incantations, which 
 were only allowed to have effect in the end to show the extreme 
 folly of man in not submitting to the will of heaven. Their 
 incantations produced a tiger, whose mouth was like a cavern, 
 and his voice like thunder among the mountains. They sent 
 him against Sheevah, who, with Prakreety, was -amusing himself 
 in the vale. He smiled at their weakness, and killing the tiger 
 at one blow with his club, he covered himself with his skin. 
 Seeing themselves frustrated in this attempt the devotees had 
 recourse to another, and sent serpents against them of the most 
 deadly kind. But on approaching him they became harmless, 
 and he twisted them round his neck. They then sent their 
 curses and imprecations against him, but they all recoiled upon 
 themselves. Not yet disheartened by all these disappointments, 
 they collected all their prayers, their penances, their charities, 
 and other good works, the most acceptable of all sacrifices, and 
 demanding in return only vengeance against Sheevah, they sent 
 a consuming fire to destroy his genital parts. Sheevah, incensed 
 at this attempt, turned the fire with indignation against the 
 human race, and mankind would soon have been destroyed, had 
 not Yishnu, alarmed at the danger, implored him to suspend bia 
 wrath. At his entreaties Sheevah relented. But it was ordained 
 
PHALLISM. 7 
 
 that in his temples those parts should be worshipped which the 
 false devotees had impiously attempted to destroy. 
 
 The author of Indian Antiquities observes : — " Possibly ili 
 Syria is to be found the genuine origin both of the Indian and 
 Egyptian phallic worship." 
 
 liucian's tract on tbe Syrian Goddess is regarded by scholars 
 as of particular value in matters belonging to the religions of the 
 ancients, as it contains an accurate detail of the superstitious 
 rites celebrated in the most remote periods and in the most 
 renowned pagan temples of the world. In the course of it he 
 informs us that the grandest and most solemn feast observed by 
 the ancient Syrians was known as "The Funeral Pile," or " The 
 Torch " (some translated it " The Feast of Fire "). It was cele- 
 brated at Hierapolis at the commencement of the vernal season, 
 and the sacrifices were of the most extravagant description. 
 Everything was on a scale of the greatest magnitude and 
 splendour, multitudes flocking from all parts of the adjacent 
 counti'ies, bringing their gods with them, to heighten the grandeur 
 of the festival. The most remarkable feature of the proceedings, 
 however, was that after the priests had been flogging and 
 slashing each other with knives, some of them sacrificed to their 
 protectress not the symbolical but the real phallus. A young 
 man would be seized with a sudden fury, would tear the clothes 
 from his back, leap amongst the assembled Galli, snatch up a 
 short sword that had probably been long kept there for the 
 purpose, castrate himself, run with what he had cut ofi" round 
 the city, go into whatever house the fancy took him to throw it, 
 from which house he was provided with a complete suit of 
 woman's apparel, and all the ornaments becoming a lady. 
 
 The practice can only be accounted for either by that ancient 
 maxim of superstition that whatsoever is most sacredly precious 
 to mankind should be consecrated to the gods, and that we please 
 them best when we make the most costly sacrifice ; by supposing 
 that, in the perpetration of an act so abhorrent to nature, they 
 intended to give public proof of a vow of perpetual virginity, or 
 on account of a particular mythological reason. 
 
 Those mythologists who consider the Syrian goddess to be a 
 personification of the earth, as Cybele in Greece doubtless was, 
 rather than of nature, insist that her eunuch-priests allude to the 
 barren state of that earth without cultivation. When considered 
 in this point of view, they represent the noise of her beaten 
 cymbals, which denote the globe, as allusive to the uproar which 
 
8 PHALLISM. 
 
 the warring winds, waters, and subterraneous fires confined in its 
 cavities, occasion, and which, convulsing its internal regions, 
 produce earthquakes and volcanic eruptions ; and the rattling of 
 her brazen sistra they understand as figurative of the clashing of 
 the various instruments used in husbandry, which were in the 
 first instance composed of brass. , It is indeed a principal object 
 with Lucian in this treatise to demonstrate that Ehea or Greece 
 was the Dea Syria of the Babylonians ; in this he may be right, 
 since the very same species of worship, and the use of the very 
 same instruments have* immemorially prevailed in India. His 
 hypothesis, if admitted, only exhibits still more glaring proof 
 how universally throughout the pagan world a system of gross 
 physics prevailed, and the earth was adored instead of its Creator. 
 Many, however, are inclined to the opinion of other mytholo- 
 gists, who consider this celebrated deity, in the most extensive 
 view of her character, as universal nature herself, which includes 
 not only the earth but the whole circle of being ; and though, 
 when understood in this point of view, the mutilation of her 
 priests may appear somewhat singular, there was another custom 
 practised in her temple very consonant to this character, the 
 consideration of which brings us back to the dancing girls of 
 India, who were public prostitutes, and were denominated women 
 of the idol. The custom, recorded with expressions of indig- 
 nation by Herodotus, was that all female votaries of this deity, 
 once at least in their lives, should prostitute themselves to some 
 stranger in the polluted porches of this temple. It had, gays 
 that historian, for this infamous purpose, a long range of galleries 
 open on every side, that the passing stranger might more freely 
 view the assembled fair, thus devoutly frail, and make his choice 
 with unrestrained freedom. For the object of his choice he did 
 not, like the proud sultan, throw the handkerchief of love, but a 
 piece of silver coin, into her lap, which the severe laws of the 
 country forbade her to refuse, as well as his embrace, however 
 disgusting might be her lover. The wages of iniquity, thus 
 menially obtained, were accounted holy, and were devoted to 
 increase the treasures of the temple. Every female in that 
 district, without exception, the noble as well as ignoble, the 
 princess and the peasant's wife, were alike obliged to go through 
 this indispensable ceremony of initiation into the mysteries of 
 Mylitta ; with the difierence only, that women of distinguished 
 rank, with a numerous train of servants attending at some little 
 distance, no doubt with the politic intention to overawe any 
 
PHALLISM. 9 
 
 intruder of mean parentage from approaching the shrine of 
 princely beauty, took their station in covered chariots at the 
 gate. Such were the rites of the Syrian goddess, and the reader, 
 by comparing the account with those of the bayaderes, will find 
 that the devotees of India were by no means behind those of 
 Syria in the duty of sacrificing at the shrine of nature, either at 
 the vernal or autumnal equinox.* 
 
 Faber, in his Origin of Pagan Idolatry, says (1 p. 58, &c.) ; — 
 "All the various modifications of paganism in every quarter of 
 the globe originated from a common source, not from independent 
 
 sources Each nation was thought to have its own ritual 
 
 and its own set of deities, framed independently of every other 
 nation, and if any coincidence were accidently observed, it was 
 deemed the effect of pure accident, not of design. In short, 
 paganism was supposed to have as many different origins as there 
 were nations which had apostatised from the truth." Further, 
 he says : — " I will readily allow that if the premises were well 
 founded the conclusion would be inevitable ; that is to say, if the 
 theological systems of the various pagan nations resembled each 
 other only in what was arbitrary, and circumstantial, and 
 artificial, we might be perfectly sure that they did not originate 
 from any common source, but on the contrary that they were 
 invented severally by each people after their settlement in their 
 own particular country. The very reverse, however, of this will 
 be fonnd to be the case. The fact is that the various theological 
 systems of the Gentiles agree not only in what is obvious and 
 natural, but in what is arbitrary and circumstantial. There is 
 such a singular, and minute, and regular accordance between 
 them, both in fanciful speculation and in artificial observances, 
 that no person who takes the pains of thoroughly investigating 
 the subject, can avoid being fully persuaded that they must all 
 have sprung from some common origin." The conclusion he 
 comes to is that " all nations were once assembled together in a 
 single place and in a single community, whence they adopted a 
 corrupt form of religion, which they afterwards respectively 
 carried with them into the lands that they colonised." 
 
 Despite all the speculation which has been indulged in respect- 
 ing the origin of phallic worship, we are painfully conscious 
 that no certain conclusion has yet been arrived at. Speaking 
 generally, we can of course discern the leading idea involved in 
 
 * Maurice. — Ind. Antiq. 
 
10 PHALLISM. 
 
 it — the intense desire of the Eastern to raise up a family, and 
 his consequent veneration of those organs by whose power alone 
 his wishes could be fulfilled. For want of better knowledge his 
 worship was natural and reasonable, and no doubt was perfectly 
 free from everything that was immoral and licentious. Observing 
 the creative power of the generative organs, seeing there the 
 means of bringing forth beings like himself, with faculties of 
 reasoning and thought, and religious conception, what wonder 
 that he should render to them direct adoration, or should regard 
 them as the types of the unknown and omnipotent Author of all 
 things, his own and the world's Creator. 
 
 Mr. R. F. Burton, in his paper read before the Anthropo- 
 logical Society (Vol. 1, No. 10), on Certain Matters contiected 
 with the Dahoman, says : — " Amongst all barbarians, whose 
 primal want is progeny, we observe a greater or a less develop- 
 ment of the phallic worship. In Dahome it is uncomfortably 
 prominent ; every street from Whydah to the capital is adorned 
 with the symbol, and the old ones are not removed. The 
 Dahoman Priapus is a clay figure of any size between a giant 
 and the pigmy, crouched upon the ground as if contemplating its 
 own attributes. The head is sometimes a wooden block, rudely 
 carved, more often dried mud, and the eyes and teeth are supplied 
 by cowries. A large penis, like the section of a broomstick, 
 rudely carved, projects horizontally from the middle. I could 
 have carried off a donkey's load had I been aware of the rapidly 
 rising value of phallic specimens amongst the collectors of Europe. 
 The Tree of Life is anointed with palm oil, which drips into a 
 pot or a shard placed below it, and the would-be mother of 
 children prays that the great god Legba will make her fertile. 
 Female Legbas are rare, about one to a dozen males. They are 
 if possible more hideous and goiilla-Iike than those of the other 
 sex ; their breasts resemble the halves of German sausages, and 
 the external labia, which are adored by being anointed with oil, 
 are painfully developed. There is another phallic god, named 
 ' Bo,' the guardian of warriors and the protector of markets." 
 
 Originally, phallic worship had no other meaning than the 
 allegorical one of that mysterious union between the male and 
 the female which throughout nature seems to be the sole con- 
 dition of the continuation of the existence of animated beings.'''' 
 There is no reason whatever for supposing that licentiousness 
 
 * Chambers. 
 
PHAIiLISH. 11 
 
 invented the rites incidenal to the worship of Pan, Priapus, 
 Bacchus, and Venus, whatever use may have been made of them 
 afterwards. " It is impossible to believe," said Voltaire, " that 
 depravity of manners would ever have led among any people to • 
 the establishment of religious ceremonies, though our ideas of 
 propriety may lead us to suppose that ceremonies which appear 
 to us so infamous could only be invented by licentiousness. It 
 is probable that the first thought was to honour the deity in the 
 symbol of life, and that the custom was introduced in times of 
 simplicity." This is just how the matter strikes a thoughtful 
 mind — that veneration and gratitude for the bounties of nature 
 were thus expressed in ascriptions of praise, and humble depen- 
 dence upon the deity for all good things in actions of sacrifice 
 and supplication ; in the course of time, however, the dangers 
 attendant upon such a system developed themselves first into a 
 wild enthusiasm, then into an extravagant mysticism, and finally 
 into the practice of the most flagrant excesses, excesses so 
 immoral, and so opposed to the safety and well-being of society, 
 that even in Rome, when it was the hot-bed of all sorts of 
 unnatural vices, the senate had to interfere and put a check upon 
 them. The Bacchic phrenzies were accordingly suppressed or 
 mitigated as to their ostensible usages and tangible abominations. 
 Nature, in the phraseology of certain sects, was no longer 
 propitiated through the indulgence of feelings of her own 
 prompting, excited further by the presence of unequivocal 
 exhibitions. She, still personified, was more decently represented 
 by certain symbols substituted for the earlier types ; the cunning 
 priests, no longer daring to exhibit their obscenities in shameless 
 nudity, permitted only a portion of indecency to remain in the 
 hands and eyes of their deluded votaries, and concealed their 
 origin and meaning in the various mysteries and hieroglyphics 
 denominated Bacchic, Eleusinian, Phallus, Linga, Yoni, <Scc. 
 
 By such people Nature was contemplated chiefly under her 
 attribute or property of fecundity, and symbols of generative 
 allusion were those under which her prolific potencies were 
 exhibited. Those prone, like the Hindoos, to resolve almost 
 everything into sexual allegory, of course fancied the male and 
 female pudenda omni-archetypal. These, in the early days of 
 such devotion, were probably pourtrayed in India, as elsewhere, 
 without reserve ; but were in most cases soon corrected into the 
 comparative decency of the hieroglyphics; and the deluded 
 people were cajoled by mummery and mystery that became less 
 
12 PHALLISM. 
 
 and less understood, and therefore, perhaps the more reverenced. 
 We have said in most cases, for in Egypt and Greece the gross- 
 ness of phallism is known only in the remains of antiquity ; in 
 India it doubtless exists, but divested of obtrusive or conspicuous 
 indelicacy; and too true it is that among Christians was the 
 primeval infamy of the symbol and usage most tenaciously 
 retained.* 
 
 According to M. Sonnerat, the professors of this worship were 
 of the purest principles and the most unblemished conduct ; and 
 however offensive the idea may have proved to Europeans, it 
 seems never to have entered into the heads of the Indian people 
 that anything natural could be grossly obscene, " a singularity," 
 observes Sir W. Jones, " which pervades all their writings and 
 conversation, but which is no proof of depravity in their morals." 
 
 The student of this subject, whatever he may think of the 
 apparently ridiculous and indecent ceremonies connected with it, 
 will be forcibly struck with its almost universal presence in 
 byegone ages, phallic monuments and emblems literally abounding 
 in countries where anything religious has ever been professed. 
 No doubt extravagances have been committed by many who 
 have written upon the matter, resulting in the pretended dis- 
 covery of images of the phallus in the most unlikely ornaments 
 and parts of buildings erected for far different purposes, but the 
 fact remains that such objects, of every conceivable size, have 
 been met with by thousands in places where sex-worship was 
 practised, and apparently entering into the composition of eccle- 
 siastical furniture and symbols used in the rites of religion of a 
 more intellectual character. Leaving out of the case altogether 
 such things as could only by the widest stretch of the imagination 
 on the part of people anxious to sustain a theory be set up 
 as phallic, we shall find especially, though not exclusively, in 
 eastern nations full evidence of the vast extent to which the 
 worship in question prevailed. In the course of this treatise we 
 shall have occasion to call attention to some of the objects whose 
 reputedly phallic character seems to us very far-fetched, if not 
 altogether absurd, but we have no doubt whatever that the early 
 religions of Egypt, India, Assyria, Greece, Spain, the Teutonic, 
 Scandinavian, and other nations, most decidedly embodied as 
 essential features, the worship of the sexual organs, the emblems 
 of which are found by thousands. What, however, shall we say 
 
 * Bees. 
 
PHALLISM. 13 
 
 of the imagination which so runs to riot in seeking the typical 
 and emblematic that the mouth of a cave, a fissure in the rocks, a 
 perforation worn by the action of the waves, a promontory of 
 land projecting from a continent, and even the human tongue 
 protruded from the mouth, are regarded as figures either of the 
 male or female organs, or of both in union ! Yet so it is, and a 
 cleft in the rock at the extremity of a bold headland in Barbary, 
 called Malabar Point, is a celebrated Yoni, and passing through 
 it is, and has been immemorially, a regenerating process. 
 
 Even England is not free from this superstition, and cases in 
 both ancient and modern times are on record in which children 
 have been passed through clefts in trees in order to cure them of 
 their physical disorders- and it is a fact borne witness to by Dr. 
 Borlase, the author of the History of Cornwall, that there is a 
 stone in the parish of Mardon, with a hole in it fourteen inches 
 in diameter, through which many persons had crept for the 
 relief of pains in the back and limbs, and through which also 
 children had been drawn to cure them of the rickets. 
 
 By a singular coincidence, while the above was penning in 
 reference to passing children through clefts in trees as a curative 
 process for physical ailments, a report of such a case was actually 
 printing in the London Standard newspaper, so that here in 
 England, in the month of September, 1888, the strange practice 
 still survives. A correspondent of the above paper writes on the 
 27th of the month that such a case had come under his notice 
 more than thirty years ago, while resident in Rio Janeiro, and 
 that it was the only one he had heard of till the present one. 
 Now some years back the practice was by no means uncommon 
 in some parts of England, particularly in Sufiblk ; but; as Moor 
 remarks in his Oriental Fragments, in comparison with India 
 there was a considerable difference, in the latter country the 
 process being regarded as spiritual, while in England, in 1834, it 
 had become exclusively corporeal. More than a hundred years 
 ago we find CuUum, in his Antiquities of Hawstead, writing : — 
 "There is no place properer than this where I may mention 
 a custom which I have seen twice practised within a few years, 
 namely, that of drawing a child through a cleft tree. For this 
 purpose a young ash tree was each time selected, and split 
 longitudinally about five feet. The fissure was kept wide open 
 by my gardener, while the friend of the child, having first 
 stripped him, passed him thrice through it, always head foremost. 
 As soon as the operation was performed the wounded tree was 
 
H PBALLISU. 
 
 bound up with packthread, and as the bark healed the child was 
 to recover. The first of these young patients was to be cured o£ 
 the rickets, the second of a rupture," similar to the case reported 
 in the Standard. " About the former," continues CuUen, " I had 
 no opportunity of making any enquiry, but I frequently saw the 
 father of the latter, v/ho assured me that his child, without any 
 other assistance, gradually mended, and at last grew perfectly 
 well." 
 
 The author of the Hindoo Fragments, further says: — "The 
 subject was recalled to my recollection by my bailiff when 
 walking through a plantation in Woodbridge. I observed him 
 rather minutely inspecting a young ash tree ; and also looking, I 
 saw it had a straight seam or scar, three feet or more in length. 
 On my endeavouring to trace the cause, he told me that a child 
 had been passed through the tree split and opened for the 
 purpose, to cure its rupture. The tree is not now so thick as 
 one's wrist, and was not, when the ceremony was performed, 
 above an inch in diameter. The impression is that as the tree 
 heals of its wound, so will the child's ailment be removed. Great 
 confidence seems to be placed in the mysterious efficacy of the 
 process." 
 
PHALUSM. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Variations of Detail — T?ie Egyptian Khem — Grovnng Coarseness 
 cfihe Egyptian Idea — Sivearing by the Phallus — Welsh Customs 
 — The Hermaphroditic Element — Eocpressive Character of the 
 Phallus — Phallic Emhlems in Modem Times — Herodotus and 
 the Bacchic Orgies — Priapus in Boma and Greece — Maachah a 
 Worshipper of Priapus — Horace's Satire on Priapus — Belphegor 
 — Excesses during the loorship of Priapus — Soman Priapus 
 derived from the Egyptians — Catullus on the tvorship of Priajyus 
 — Various Priapian Forms — Phallism in various countries — 
 St. Augustine — St. Foutin and Priapus — French Phallism — 
 Neapolitan Festivals — Maypoles in India and England. 
 
 ALTHOUGH we shall have no difficulty in showing the 
 similarity of pagan systems in all parts of the world, 
 indicating to a very great extent a common origin, we are quite 
 aware that in matters of detail considerable variations have 
 ensued. The act or principle of which the phallus was the type 
 was represented by a deity to whom it was consecrated, and in 
 different nations this deity was known by various names. Thus, 
 in Egypt wc find Khem, the generative principle, supposed to be, 
 indeed generally regarded as, the same as the Grecian Pan. 
 VKhem," says Wilkinson, "from his character as a god of 
 generation, was naturally looked upon as the deity to whose 
 influence everything was indebted for its procreation, and for the 
 continuation of its species ; and we therefore frequently find in 
 the sacred sculptures of Egyptian temples, the emblematic 
 representation of a king breaking up the soil with a hoe, in the 
 presence of this god, as if to prepare it for his beneficent influence. 
 And this allegorical mode of worship was ofiered him, as well in 
 his character of Khem as when under the name of Amunra 
 Generator, which was one of the forms of the Theban Jupiter. 
 In the form of the god of generation originated, no doubt, the 
 Greek and Homan custom of placing their gardens under the 
 protection of Priapus, though instead of an abstract notion of the 
 generative influence, they, as in many other instances, merely 
 attached to it an idea according with the grossnesa of their 
 imagination." 
 
 Diodorus says that his god was held in great veneration by 
 
16 PHALLISM. 
 
 the Egyptians, who not only set up images and statues in every 
 temple, but built a city in Thebides after his name, called by the 
 inhabitants Chemmin, or Cham, which is by interpretation Pan's 
 city. 
 
 The phallic worship of ancient Egypt appears to have been 
 characterised by certain notions of propriety which, in after years 
 and in other countries, were altogether regarded as superfluous. 
 Thus it was, in Egypt, the masculine members only which they 
 attempted to depict, and which formed such conspicuous features 
 in their statues and temples. "Their phallic exhibition," says 
 Bonwick, " was coarse, however, but forcible, and they, the 
 Egyptians, were the most natural in their portrayal. Nothing 
 could be plainer than the Ammon Generator, Ptah embryonic, 
 and ithyphallic Osiris. The generative force and activity of 
 deity could have no more striking a symbol." 
 
 An allusion was made in an early page to the subject of 
 eastern oaths, and it was pointed out that the putting the hand 
 upon the thigh was really putting it upon the private member, 
 and was the most solemn form of oath it was possible to take. 
 Nor has that custom yet died out in Egypt, for we are assured 
 by modern travellers that the Arabs, when desirous of forcibly 
 emphasising their words, or of giving unusual solemnity to them, 
 frequently so place their hands. A case in point has been quoted 
 occasionally by various writers from a letter of the Adjutant- 
 General Julian to a member of the Institute of Egypt (from the 
 Memoires sur VEgypte, publics pendant lea Campagnes de Bonor 
 parte), in which an Egyptian, who has been arrested as a spy 
 and brought before the General, finding that all his protestations 
 of innocence were not understood, uncovered himself and seized 
 his private organ in his hand, again in a dramatic fashion 
 affirming an oath that he was not what they took him to be. 
 
 Antiquarians say that some similar custom once prevailed in 
 the northern parts of Europe, and that an ancient Welsh law, 
 still extant, proves such to have been the case. This decree, 
 from the laws of Hoel the Good, enacted that in a case of the 
 forcible carnal knowledge of a woman, if the injured party 
 desired justice on the offender, she must, when swearing to his 
 identity, lay her right hand upon the relics of the saints, and 
 with her left one grasp the member of the accused. As showing 
 the antiquity of this practice amongst the Egyptians, Caylus 
 gives in his Yol. 6 a plate representing Osiris grasping hia 
 phallus while taking an oath. 
 
PHALLISM. 17 
 
 The more carefully ancient pagan systems of religion are 
 regarded, the more evident will it become that sex-worship lay at 
 the basis of all. "The hermaphroditic element of religion is 
 sex-worship. Gods are styled 'he-she.' Synesius gives an in- 
 scription on an Egyptian deity : — 'Thou art the father and thou 
 art the mother — Thou art the male and thou art the female.' It 
 was a son of Mercury and Venus that loved the nymph Salmacis, 
 who, embracing him, begged the gods to make them one, and so 
 a being hermaphroditic was formed."* 
 
 We get, it must be observed, in this phallus of Egyptian 
 theology, two ideas practically, though they are nominally one. It 
 exhibited the creative or regenerative power of deity, and the 
 production of Mfe from death, the renewal of being in other 
 forms — in fact, resurrection. So it was painted on the ancient 
 coffin, and cut upon the tomb. It was intended to convey to the 
 onlooker the idea of immortality ; to remind him that though 
 the body was inanimate and dead, the spirit still survived. As 
 Mariette Bey said, " These images only symbolized in a very 
 expressive manner the creative force of nature, without obscene 
 intention. It was another way to express Celestial Generation, 
 which should call the deceased to enter into a new life ! 
 
 " The existence of a Creator could be illustrated by a potter at 
 the wheel. But there was a much more expressive form familiar 
 to them, indicative of cause and effect in the production of births 
 in the tribe, or in nature around. In this way the phallus 
 became the exponent of creative power, and, though to our eyes 
 vulgar and indecent, bore no improper meaning to the simple 
 ancient worshipper."t 
 
 Say what we will, think what we may of sex-worship, however 
 repulsive to our modern refined and cultivated tastes it may 
 appear, it was not only one of the most ancient forms of worship 
 but was the most natural way of expressing the idea of creation 
 and human dependence upon Providence, of the principle of 
 renewal and reproduction. And it is not by our modern 
 standards its decency or indecency is to be judged ; the people 
 and their times must be taken into due and reasonable consider- 
 ation as we should do in endeavouring to form a just estimate of 
 customs and language once common in our own land. Strangely 
 enough, many of the ancient symbols belonging to this worship 
 have been retained by ourselves to this very day, and are to be 
 found adorning some of the noblest churches of our land. The 
 • Bonwick. t Bonwick. 
 
 C 
 
IS PHAI.LISM. 
 
 pinnacles of the beautiful church in the Temple are regarded by 
 scholars and antiquarians as such relics — " perfectly intelligible 
 to the poetic mind of the Hindu," remarks Bonwick, "yet con- 
 veying no thought to the Londoner, who would be shocked 
 enough if the primitive symbol had been retained. Our love of 
 what is old, our reverence for what our fathers used, makes us 
 keep still in the church, and on the very" altar cloths, symbols 
 which would excite the smile of an Oriental, and lead him to 
 wonder why we send missionaries to his land while cherishing 
 his faith in ours." 
 
 In allusion to Egypt and this phallic worship, Herodotus says : 
 " To Bacchus, on the eve of his feast, every Egyptian sacrifices a 
 hog before the door of his house, which is then given back to the 
 swineherd by whom it was furnished, and by him carried away. 
 In other respects the festival is celebrated almost exactly as 
 Bacchic festivals are in Greece, excepting that - the Egyptians 
 have no choral dances." 
 
 He further says that in celebrating these orgies they fabricated 
 certain obscene images, a cubit in height, so artificially contrived 
 with nerves that the pudenda, equal in magnitude to the rest 
 of the body, might be moved at pleasure, and these images the 
 women carried about in procession, singing all the time the praises 
 of Bacchus, and dancing to the sound of the flute. He adds that 
 it was Melampus who first introduced among the Greeks the 
 sacrifices in honour of Bacchus, the pomp of the phallus, and all 
 the other ceremonies of that Egyption superstition. 
 
 Aristotle traces the origin of comedy to the ribaldry and the 
 improvised jokes customary at these festivals. 
 
 In ancient Rome, Greece, and certain parts of Italy, phallism 
 assumed the form of the worship of Priapus. There was a town 
 of Mysia, on the Propontis, of this name, whose origin was some- 
 what obscure ; according to some it being a colony of Miletus, 
 while others regarded it as a settlement of Cysicus — anyhow, it 
 derived its name from its worship of the god Priapus. 
 
 Priapus is also a term sometimes applied to the genital parts 
 of men, viz., the penis and testes. The name took its rise from 
 Priapus, a fabulous deity particularly adored at Lampsacus, the 
 place of his birth, who for the extraordinary size of his parts was 
 exceedingly revered by the women. From the scriptures and 
 profane history we learn that Maachah, the queen and mother of 
 Asa, had made and consecrated a grove to Priapus, at whose 
 sacrifices she presided. In I. Kings, 16, and II. Chroniclos, U, 
 
PHALLISU. 19 
 
 we are informed that Asa dethroned his mother for this, destroyed 
 and burnt the idols, and cut down the groves. 
 
 The Boman poets appear to have held very light notions about 
 this god, and did not scruple to heap upon him both ridicule and 
 abuse. Horace's Eighth Satire, Book I., is an imaginary com- 
 plaint of Priapus about the incantations of sorceresses. It opens 
 with: — "Formerly I- was the trunk of a wild fig-tree, an useless 
 log, when the artificer, in doubt whether he should make a stool 
 or a Priapus of me, determined that I should be a god." 
 
 Priapus, among the Romans, was the god of the gardens and 
 orchards, in which they placed his statues. Horace continues : — 
 " Henceforward I became a god, the greatest terror of thieves 
 and birds : for my right hand restrains thieves, and a bloody- 
 looking pole stretched out from my frightful middle : but a reed 
 fixed upon the crown of my head terrifies the mischievous birds, 
 and hinders them from settling in these new gardens." 
 
 Priapus is supposed by some to have been the same as Belphe- 
 gor, the idol of iniquity mentioned by St. Jerome, and his 
 •worship is said to have been brought to Lampsacus, whence it 
 passed into Greece and Italy. The mythology of the Greeks and 
 Romans with regard to this god is as follows : — Although authors 
 are not unanimous with regard to its parentage, yet it is most 
 generally allowed that he was the son of Bacchus and Venus. 
 Juno, it is said, being jealous of that goddess, contrived by her 
 enchantments that he should be brought into the world quite 
 monstrous and deformed. On this account Venus removed him 
 out of her sight, and sent him to be educated at Lampsacus. 
 Having afterwards become the dread of husbands, he was 
 banished from that town ; but the inhabitants, afflicted with a 
 secret distemper, recalled him, and from that time he was made 
 the object of public veneration, a temple was built for him, and 
 sacrifices were instituted in his honour. Under this fiction is 
 wrapped up the history of the propagation of the worship of this 
 god from Egypt to Lampsacus, agreeably to an observation 
 sanctioned by the authority of Herodotus, that the birth of a 
 god in any country means only the introduction of his worship 
 in that same country. Accordingly, PriapuS was reported tp be 
 the son of that Bacchus, or Dionysus, who made the conquest .of 
 Jndia, and who was the same with Osiris; and Vends, 'his 
 mother, was the same with Isis. This Egyptian queen, it has 
 been said, had introduced after the death of her husband tha 
 infamous ceremony of the phallus. 
 
20 FHALLISM. 
 
 It has been noticed that, in all probability, it was very late 
 before Priapus was known by either Greeks or Romans, since 
 Hesiod and Homer say nothing of him. 
 
 The Abb^ Banier affirms that the above is the whole mystery 
 of Priapus, who was represented in the gross obscenities of the 
 worship of the phallus. The excesses committed on the occasion 
 of the feast of this god are far too gross to allow of anything like 
 a minute description, for they were characterised by every 
 species of debauchery, and drunkenness, and lewdness, which 
 could suggest themselves to the inflamed imaginations of the' 
 riotous and half-maddened votaries. 
 
 Boissart gives a print from a bas-relief which represents the- 
 principal feast of Priapus, and shows the wild extravagances 
 indulged in by the infuriated celebrants. It was on such 
 occasions that the heathen publicly rendered adoration and divin& 
 honour to those parts of the human body which are not only th& 
 lawful organs of generation, but are the instruments of exciting- 
 and gratifying the most impure passions. Figures of these were- 
 carried about in procession by the women, and hymns of glorifi- 
 cation and praise were sung to them. St. Augustine has. 
 described these things, for which revelation, says Banier, he had 
 reasons which subsist no more ; in only very brief outline, there- 
 fore, do we attempt to convey an idea of the true nature of th& 
 subject. 
 
 The Romans appear to have got their worship of Priapus from 
 the Egyptians, who, under the form of Apis, the sacred bull, 
 worshipped the generative power of nature ; and as the syllable- 
 jiri or pre signifies,, in the Oriental tongue, principle, production, 
 or natural or original source, the word Priapus may be translated 
 principle of production, or of fecundation, of Apis. The same- 
 symbol bore among the Romans the names of Tutunus, Mutinus, 
 and Fascinum. The latter, signifying a charm against evil- 
 influences, explains why it was put over gateways and doors, just 
 as the horse-shoe is by some people in the present day, and hung 
 around the necks of children as a preventative against witchcraft. 
 It was also worn by barren women, in the belief that it would, 
 conduce to fruitfulness. For a like purpose votive oflerings were- 
 often made in the temples, and great numbers of small ones in 
 bronze and porcelain have been found at Pompeii and Her- 
 culaneum, and in Egyptian tombs. The Lampsacus previously 
 mentioned seems to have been the most celebrated of the places, 
 where the worship of Priapus was practised, chiefly on account. 
 
PHALLISM. 21 
 
 of the extreme indecency of the rites. Catullus writes thus : 
 
 " To thee I dedicate this green retreat, 
 Priapus, sacred be the shade to thee : 
 Whether some grove, or Lampsacus, thy seat, 
 Detain thy steps, O sylvian deity ! 
 Thou who in towns that deck the shelly coast 
 Of much-famed Hellespont art worshipp'd most." 
 
 The figures of this god varied somewhat in character, though 
 the meaning, of course, was always the same. Ancient pictures 
 and sculptures have come down to us covered with these objects, 
 some of them of the most remarkable nature, but as we have 
 said, conveying the same intention. One will be seen with the 
 bead of a fawn, a human head with the ears and horns of a goat, 
 and another with only a human head and a phallus. A traveller 
 describes one that he had seen in the palace of a cardinal, a 
 statue with a phallus that had served as a sign-post. Priapus 
 would be represented sometimes with a reaping-hook in one 
 hand while his other grasped the organ, which was invariably 
 depicted of an enormous size and displaying intense energy. 
 Women could be seen publicly approaching the god and hanging 
 upon the gigantic phallus garlands, representing their lovers ; 
 nay, further, St. Augustine declares that the Roman ladies 
 thought it perfectly decorous, and even pious, for the young 
 brides to seat themselves upon the monstrous and obscene mem- 
 ber of Priapus. Lactantius mentions the same thing, explaning 
 it as done in order that the god may appear to have been the 
 first to receive the sacrifice of their modesty ; he speaks also of 
 Jutinus, before whom brides sit as an "introduction to the 
 marriage rites," and continues: — "And a thousand other fictions, 
 so that they who regarded these as objects of worship may 
 be said to be more foolish than the Egyptians, who worship 
 certain monstrous and ridiculous images. These, however, have 
 some delineation of form. What shall I say of those who 
 worship a rude and shapeless stone under the name of Terminus 1" 
 
 And so on, all over the world, the story goes ; through Egypt 
 with its Khem and Osiris, India with its Siva, Assyria with its 
 Vul, the Greeks with their Pan and Dionysus, the Teutonic and 
 Scandinavian nations with their Fricco, Spain with its Hortanes, 
 the Phoenicians with their Adonis, and the Phrygians with their 
 Attys. St. Augustine, already quoted, shows that in Rome the 
 worship of the phallus prevailed to such an extent, and with such 
 
22 PHALLISM. 
 
 new attendants and surroundings, and under such new circum- 
 stances, that it had to be finally suppressed by the authorities. 
 At the festival of Venus the Roman matrons adored the conse- 
 crated emblem in the temple on the Quirinal, and bore it thence- 
 with great pomp to the sanctuary of Venus Erycina outside th© 
 CoUine gate, where it wbs presented to the statute of the goddess, 
 and then returned to the former place. In the spring the Roman 
 rustics carried the phallus across the fields, to ensure their 
 fertility. The end of all this was the degeneration of the worship 
 to the basest level of immorality. It was made to pander to the 
 filthiest and most licentious tastes of the degraded and vicious, 
 the end being, as we have said, the compulsory abolition by the 
 senate in the interests of the state. 
 
 Mexico, Central America and Peru were found by the early 
 invaders not only to have the cross in similar forms to those 
 used in Christian countries, but an abundance of phallic symbols, 
 in addition. In Panuco the phallus was adored in the temples^ 
 and at Tlascala were worshipped both the phallus and the cteis, 
 and bas-reliefs adorned the public squares, representing, like 
 those of India, the sexual union. 
 
 In Cuzco, in front of the great temple, and in the temples of 
 Yucatan, stood phallic pillars, and monuments the object of 
 whose building is lost in antiquity, like the round towers of 
 Ireland, druidical stones, <fec., which are believed by some to 
 have a similar significance. 
 
 Leaden phalli have also been found in the river Rhone, sup- 
 posed to be the signs and tokens of some secret and licentious, 
 society. The mysterious round towers , of Ireland have been 
 supposed to have the same meaning, and their presence and 
 nature have been ascribed by some writers to the partial coloni- 
 sation of the country in remote times by visitors from India, 
 who erected and dedicated monuments in honour of the regener- 
 ative and reproductive powers of nature, under the names of Sol, 
 Phcebus, Apollo, and Budh. 
 
 Very much nearer our own times, and not very far from our- 
 own land, however, if certain writers are to be credited, do we 
 find traces of this worship. One of these says : — " The first 
 bishop of Lyons was honoured throughout Provence, Languedoc, 
 &c., as a saint, and as his name happened to be Pothin, Fhotin, 
 or Fotin, commonly pronounced by the lower orders Foutin, 
 these people, who are very apt to judge of the nature of things 
 
PHALLISM. 23 
 
 by the souud of the words by which they are designated, thought 
 St. Foutin worthy of replacing St. Priapus, and accordingly 
 conferred upon him the prerogatives of his predecessor. Saint 
 Foutin de Varailles had particular reverence paid to hira in 
 Provence, nor is this to be wondered at, since the power was 
 attributed to him of rendering barren women fruitful, stimulating 
 flagging husbands, and curing their secret maladies. It was 
 consequently the custom to lay upon his altar, as was formerly 
 done on that of the god Priapus, small votive offerings made of 
 wax, and representing the weak or otherwise afflicted parts. 
 Sanci says: — 'To this saint are offered waxen models of the 
 pudenda of both sexes. They are strewn in great numbers over 
 the floor of the chapel, and should a gust of wind cause them to 
 rustle against one another, it occasioned a serious interruption to 
 the devotions paid to the saint. I was very much scandalised 
 when, passing through the town, I found the name of Foutin 
 very common among the men.' The same saint was similarly 
 honoured at Embrun. When the Protestants took that town in 
 1585, they found, among the relics of the principal church, the 
 phallus of St. Foutin. The devotees of that town, in imitation 
 of pagan ones, made libations to this obscene idol. They poured 
 wine over the extremity of the phallus, which was dyed red by 
 it. This wine being afterwards collected and allowed to turn 
 sour, was called the holy vinegar, and according to the author 
 from wliom this account is taken was applied by women to a 
 most extraordinary purpose ; but what that purpose was we are 
 not informed." 
 
 It is reported also that the barren women of some of the 
 French villages, not many years ago, used to scrape the wooden 
 phallus of the saint, and mixing the fragments with water, 
 would swallow them, in order to give, as they supposed, efficacy 
 to their prayers that they might be blessed with children. 
 
 We have too, in addition, an account of the chapel of St. 
 Guingalais, near Brest, containing a phallus in the form of a 
 wooden beam which passed entirely through the saint's body. 
 Here, as at the former place, the women would rasp its extremity 
 and swallow the dust for a similar purpose. It is said that now 
 and again the indecent symbol would be completely worn away 
 by this process at the point ; the priests would then, by a blow 
 at the back, force it forward, so that it appeared miraculously to 
 remain always of one length, notwithstanding the scrapings. 
 
 Other French towns also possessed similar emblems, which in 
 
24 PHALLISM. 
 
 the dark ages, under the influence of a corrupt and mercenary 
 priesthood, were equally venerated. A very large phallus, 
 covered -with leather and furnished with natural appendages, 
 existed at Orange in the early part of the sixteenth century, but 
 was burnt in the public market place by the Protestants when 
 they destroyed the church of St. Eutropius. 
 
 Down to the year 1700, in the Neapolitan Carnival, it was 
 customary to carry in the public processions a wooden statue of 
 Priapus whose private member was so large as to be grossly 
 indecent, reaching as high as the idol's chin. The custom was 
 abolished afterwards by Archbishop Davanzati. 
 
 In further illustration of this point we will only add Sir 
 William Hamilton's account of certain proceedings relating to 
 Saints Cosmo and Damianus. " On the 27th of September, at 
 Isernia, one of the most ancient cities of the kingdom of Naples, 
 situated in the province called the Contado di Molise, and 
 adjoining the Aruzzo, an annual fair is held which lasts three 
 days. On one of the days of the fair the relics of Saints Cosmo 
 and Damianus are exposed. In the city and at the fair, ex-votos 
 of wax, representing the male parts 'of generation, of various 
 dimensions, sometimes even of the length of a palm, are publicly 
 exposed for sale. There are also waxen vows that represent 
 other parts of the body mixed with them, but of those there are 
 few in comparison of the number of the Priapi. 
 
 The distributors of their vows carry a basketful of them in 
 one hand, and hold a plate in the other to receive the money, 
 crying out, "Saints Cosmo and Damianus!" If you ask the 
 price of one the answer is, "piii ci metti, piit meriti" (the more 
 you give, the more you merit). The vows are chiefly presented 
 by the female sex, and they are seldom such as represent legs, 
 arms, &c., but most commonly the male parts of generation. 
 The person who was at the fete in the year 1780, and who gave 
 me this account (the authenticity of which has since been con- 
 firmed to me by the governor of Isernia) told me also that he 
 heard a woman say at the time she presented a vow, " Santo ■ 
 Cosmo, benedetto, cosi lo voglio /" (Blessed St. Cosmo, let it be like 
 this !) The vow is never presented without being accompanied 
 by a piece of money, and is always kissed by the devotee at the 
 moment of presentation." 
 
 Of course, as time has gone on, and the priestly hold over the 
 minds of the people has weakened, as men have become refined, 
 enlightened, and educated, this kind of superstition has been on 
 
PHALLISM. 
 
 25 
 
 the wane. In the ninth century the use of the phallus as an 
 amulet was so general that it was anathematised by the church, 
 and the anathema was repeated in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
 centuries, but even at the present day in some parts of Italy the 
 peasants still hang the emblem on the necks of their infants, to 
 protect them from the evil eye. Whatever goes on now, however, 
 is as nothing compared with the state of things in former days, 
 when the smiths' forges and the bakers' shops of Pompeii, and 
 other parts of Europe, bore the emblem in front of them as 
 a charm to keep away evil and ensure good luck. So numerous 
 and so univei-sal was the use of such things in ancient times that 
 Schlieman found them in abundance, at a depth of more than 
 forty feet, in the debris of the supposed Troy. 
 
 There is one thing connected with our own English customs, 
 coming down to almost the present generation, and connected 
 with this subject, which we would not pass over in silence before 
 we turn to other parts of the world and the history of more 
 remote times, viz., the May-day festival, in which the inhabitants 
 of our villages, and formerly even of London, danced around a 
 garlanded pole a.sa sort of welcome to the returning season. 
 
 This has often been quoted as a custom purely English, but 
 most erroneously, as the following will show. In the Asiatic 
 Transactions a paper by a former Colonel Pearce, dated more 
 than a hundred years ago, says : — " I beg leave to point out to 
 the society that the Sunday before last was the festival of Bha- 
 vani, which is annually celebrated by the Gopas and all other 
 Hindus who keep horned cattle for use or profit. At this feast 
 they visit gardens, erect a pole in the fields, and adorn it with 
 pendants and garlands. The Sunday before last was our first of 
 May, on which the same rites are performed by the same class of 
 people in England, where it is well known to be a relique of 
 ancient superstition in that country ; it should seem, therefore, 
 that the religion of the East and the old religion of Britain had 
 a strong affinity. Bhavani has another festival, but that is not 
 kept by any one set of Hindus in particular, and this is appro- 
 priated to one class of people. This is constantly held on the 
 ninth of Baisach, which does not always fall on our first of May 
 as it did this year. Those members of the society who are 
 acquainted with the rules which regulate the festivals may be 
 able to give better information concerning this point, I only 
 mean to point out the resembteince of the rites performed here 
 and in England, but must leave abler hands to investigate the 
 
26 
 
 PHALLISH. 
 
 matter further, if it should be thought deserving of the trouble. 
 I find that the festival which I have mentioned is one of the 
 most ancient among the Hindus." 
 
 And in the olden time this May-pole was far more than many 
 an English villager of modern times supposed. It was nothing 
 less than a great phallic emblem, the symbol of the Lord of Life, 
 around which the people rejoiced at the approaching summer, 
 and worshipped the regenerative powers of beneficent Nature. 
 
PHALLISM. 2T 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Phallic Worship of the East — Linga described — Caves of Ele- 
 phanta — Lucian and the Temple at Hierapolis — Small Linga — 
 Cerem,ony of Linga-puja — Woman at Worship described — Hindu 
 desire for children — The Temple of Nuptials — Reproach attached 
 to Barren Women — Story of Shravana and Dasaratha — The 
 Twelve Lingas — Distinction between Linga and Yoni — Argha — 
 Veneration for Stones — Story of pulluted Brahmins — The Brach- 
 mans and Fire production — Feuds between the Linga and Toni 
 Worshippers — Legend of Saii and Parvati. 
 
 IN no county on the face of the earth has phallic worship 
 prevailed so extensively, and for so long a period, as India. 
 Our Queen is said to rule there over at least a hundred millions. 
 of pure phallic worshippers, that is, above three times the popu- 
 lation of these islands ; hence, it is almost impossible to traverse 
 any part of the country without coming upon the sometimes 
 disgusting and repulsive emblems of this peculiar form of 
 devotion. In a paper read before the Anthropological Society 
 some twenty-five years ago, by E. Sellon, Esq., it was stated that 
 "it might be affirmed that there is scarcely a temple in India, 
 which has not its Lingam, and that in numerous instances this 
 symbol is tlie only form under which the deity of the sanctuary 
 is worshipped." 
 
 This lingam worship is the Indian form of phallism, and there 
 is sufficient resemblance in the forms, ceremonies and symbols of 
 both to identify them as one and the saoie. The authority 
 already quoted says : — " The Linga is 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 the latter, which calls to mind a Jew's 
 harp (the conventional form of the pudendum, muliebre), they 
 term Argha or Yoni. The former (a rounded perpendicular 
 stone), the type of the virile organ, is the Linga. The entire 
 image, to which the name Lingioni is given, is also generally 
 called Lingam." 
 
 This symbol of the regenerative power, or representation 
 of the union of the sexes, which it really is, typifying the 
 divine sacti, or active energy in union, the procreative generative 
 
28 PHALLISM. 
 
 power seen throughout nature), however, to which great venerar- 
 tion is paid, and to which much mysticism is attached, is made 
 of numerous other materials besides stone — as metals, wood, 
 -clay, (fee, and is of all manner of sizes, from a few inches to 
 many feet. They are seen sometimes of enormous extent, in the 
 caves of Elephanta, for instance, marking unequivocally that the' 
 symbol in question is at any rate as ancient as that temple, as 
 they are of the same rock as the temple itself ; both, as well as 
 the floor, roof, pillars, pilasters, and its numerous sculptured 
 figures, having been once one undistinguished mass of granite, 
 which, excavated, chiselled, and polished, produced the fine 
 cavern and forms that are still contemplated with so much 
 surprise and admiration. The magnitude of the cones, too, 
 further precludes the idea of subsequent introduction, and 
 together with gigantic statues of Siva and his consort, more 
 frequent and colossal than those of any other deity, necessarily, 
 as before noticed, coeval with the excavation, indicate his para- 
 mount adoration and the antiquity of his sect. A paper in the 
 Proceedings of the Anthropological Society states that many of 
 the lihga found in the temples are forty feet in height and 
 twenty-five in circumference. 
 
 A further instance of the great size of some of these objects 
 may be seen in Dryden's Lucian, describing the temple at 
 Hierapolis and its symbols : — " The two great phalli standing in 
 the porch with the inscription on them, 'These Phalli I, Bacchus, 
 dedicated to ray stepmother Juno.' The Greeks erect phalli to 
 Bacchus which are little men made out of wood heue nasatos, and 
 these are called neurospasta. There is also on the right hand of 
 the temple a little brazen man, whose symbol is enormously 
 disproportioned. There is also in the temple the figure of a 
 female who is dressed in man's clothes. The priests are self- 
 mutilated men, and they wear women's garments. The temple 
 itself stands upon a hill, in the middle of a city (Hierapolis, the 
 holy city near Aleppo), and it is surrounded by a double wall. 
 The porch of the temple fronteth the north, and it is two 
 hundred yards in circumference; within it are the two phalli 
 before mentioned, each about a hundred and eighty feet high. 
 To the top of one of these phallic pillars a man ascends twice 
 during the year, and he remains there seven days at a time. 
 The vulgar imagine that he converseth with the gods above and 
 prayeth for the prosperity of all Syria, which prayers the gods 
 iear, near at hand. He never sleeps during the seven days. 
 
PHALLISM. 29- 
 
 Within the temple's precincts were kept oxen, horses, eagles, 
 bears, and lions ; that are in no ways noxious to men, but may be- 
 handled freely." 
 
 " A curious manner of testifying his respect to a stepmother," 
 says the comment by Wieland and others in Tooke's version. 
 "Yet it should not be forgot that this foundation was apparently 
 instituted at a time when the reverence of the fair sex for this 
 powerful and venerable talisman was not only immensely great, 
 but likewise 'frankly and unblushingly avowed and manifested. 
 Besides, nothing can be more futile than this hypothesis of 
 making Bacchus the son of Semele, the builder of the temple at 
 Hierapolis, and nothing shallower than the arguments which the 
 Grseculi (with whom Lncian here perhaps only seems out of irony 
 to coincide) urges in its behalf. To all appearance these phalli 
 were without comparison older than the inscription, and had 
 reference to the primitive religions of that country, which 
 acknowleged only two aboriginal deities. Heaven and Earth, 
 the TJranoo and Ge of the Greeks; that is, the spirit, or the 
 vivifying principle of heaven, which by its energy and influence 
 fructifies the earth, and renders it the mother of all things. The 
 former, in those rude, and in some sense innocent ages, typified 
 under the symbol here spoken of ; and accordingly the religious 
 veneration for the phallus, which indicated, not the sexual sign 
 abstractedly, but referred to the thereby creative or generative 
 principle, and universal father, and which certainly in the early 
 ages nobody thought harm of." 
 
 Lucian further states in reference to this climbing "Others 
 believe it has reference to Deucalion, and is done in remembrance 
 of that horrible inundation which to escape men climbed the 
 highest hills and mountains. This does not appear probable t& 
 me, and I think that it is done purely in honour of Bacchus. 
 I conclude so from hence : whoever raises phalli to Bacchus, 
 uniformly places little wooden men upon them ; to what end 
 anybody else may tell. I therefore think that the living man 
 goes up merely to represent the wooden. 
 
 The manner of climbing is this : — the priest winds a long rope 
 about himself and the phallus, then sets his feet on a sort of 
 wooden peg which is driven into the phallus, projecting exactly 
 so far as to serve for a foothold by bearing against it with the 
 tips of his toes ; and thus he swarms and shoves himself up little 
 by little, at the same time raising the rope on both sides in 
 proportion as he ascends, with the motion of a coachman who 
 
30 PHALLISM. 
 
 slackens the rein as the horses urge their speed. He that has 
 never witnessed this practice may form an idea of it if he has 
 heard how, in Arabia and Egypt and other parts, they climb the 
 palm trees. "When he is at the top he lets down another long 
 and strong cord that he has with him, and draws up by it wood, 
 clotlies, vessels, and whatever materials he likes, to make a sort 
 ■of nest with, wherein he sits, and as I said, must remain seven 
 'days, during which time nnmbers of the devout come and bring 
 gold and silver (some perhaps let copper coins suffice), and laying 
 their oblations down on the ground, at the bottom of the phallus, 
 tell their names and go away. Another priest, standing near, 
 reports the name of each to him above, who says his prayers for 
 « very one by name, which he accompanies upon a kind of metallic 
 instrument that gives a very loud and shrill sound. During all 
 this time he never sleeps a wink. But enough of these phallus 
 climbers." 
 
 Linga are seen also of diminutive size, for domestic adoration 
 ■or for personal use, some individuals always carrying one about 
 with them ; and in some Brahmin families one is, or was, daily 
 constructed in clay, placed, after due sanctification by appropriate 
 ceremonies and prayers, in the domestic shrine, or under a tree 
 or shrub sacred to Siva, and honoured by the adoration of the 
 females of the household. 
 
 There is a temple to every village, and in each temple lingas 
 ■are found, generally two or three feet in height, and rising 
 conically from a broadened base. In early morning the girls 
 who are desirous of obtaining lovers and husbands flock to these 
 temples for acts of adoration — for the ceremony called " Linga- 
 puja," in which they first sprinkle the god with water from the 
 Ganges, the linga is then decorated with garlands of the tulva 
 flower, followed by gesticulation with the fingers, and the recita- 
 tion of the prescribed form of incantation, after which they rub 
 themselves against the emblem and pray the deity to make them 
 fruitful in child-bearing. 
 
 In Moor's Hindu Pantheon there are a large number of plates 
 illustrating this subject more fully, which the reader is advised 
 to inspect, should he desire to get a clear and definite idea of it. 
 These plates are engravings of genuine Hindu pictures, and may 
 be confidently regarded as faithful representations of the originals, 
 ■as such giving a far better notion of the nature of the different 
 ■objects than could be attained by any amount of verbal descrip- 
 tion. Plate 22 (see frontispiece) is particularly worthy of notice, as 
 
PBALLISH. 31 
 
 it represents a young and beautiful woman in the act of performing 
 the ceremony called Linga-puja. The domestic temple in which the 
 symbol is placed is called, as temples generally are, " Dewal," or 
 " Deval," from Deva, a deity, and havela, a house ; literally, a 
 house of God. The building, in English, is called a Pagoda. 
 The linga and argha are of iDlack stone with gilt edges. The 
 linga (the upright conical stone), which has mystical orange- 
 coloured lines traced on it, is crowned with encircled folds of 
 bilva flowers ; and a chaplet of three strings of them, white, with 
 yellow buds at regular distances, hangs pendent from the top of 
 the linga, falling towards the termination or spout of the argha. 
 {The bilva is a shrub consecrated to Mahadeva, who alone wears 
 a chaplet of its flowers, which are offered in sacrifice to no other 
 deity). Five lamps (pancharty) are used in puja to Siva, some- 
 times one lamp with five wicks ; the rest of the furniture consists 
 of a spouted vessel (jari) to hold lustral water brought from the 
 Oanges, for sprinkling the god ; a cup (dipa) for ghee (clarified 
 butter) for feeding the lamps ; another cup (novady) for water 
 with which to sprinkle the flowers and linga ; and a bell (gaut'ha) 
 which is rung at certain times to scare away evil spirits. 
 
 In the picture the young woman is seated upon an embroidered 
 carpet, holding a rosary of 108 beads in her hand, her attention 
 abstractedly fixed upon the deity. She is represented propitiating 
 Mahadeva in his generative character, indicated by the linga 
 inserted in its appropriate receptacle, the argha or yoni {i.e., the 
 male generative organ inserted in that of the female). She may 
 be imagined as invoking the deities, typified by their symbols, 
 for the blessing of fruitfulness ; its reverse being deprecated by 
 both sexes as the most afilicting visitation of divine displeasure. 
 
 As the Hindoos depend on their children for performing those 
 ceremonies to their manes which they believe tend to mitigate 
 punishment in a future state, they worship linga to obtain 
 fecundity. Husbands whose wives are barren send them to 
 worship linga at the temples, and it is said that the wives take 
 pretty good care that their errand shall be productive of the 
 desired effect. 
 
 The Temple of Nuptials contains two distinct apartments, one 
 considerably larger than the other, having recesses in each. This 
 room is ascended by four steps ; from the veranda it is the first 
 in rotation. The outer veranda, or gallery, is dissimilar to most 
 of those divisional front apartments in the other temples : here 
 it is divided from the back apartment by a wall, having regular 
 
32 
 
 PBALLISM. 
 
 apertures for doors, and windows for the admission of light. It 
 is different from most of the other verandas in being nearly as 
 large as the inner room. The length of this veranda is sixty-four 
 feet six inches, it is eight feet broad and twelve feet high ; whilst 
 the room is only sixty-seven feet long and nineteen feet eight 
 inches broad ; it is not, however, so high by a foot. There are 
 three small recesses in this room, two of which are six feet square, 
 and six feet high ; the third recess is exactly one foot larger in 
 the square than the others. 
 
 A few yards from this veranda and hall is another excavation, 
 having the same application as the previous one. This is a 
 larger and finer temple than its neighbour, containing a room 
 twenty-one feet square, placed in a spacious recess, forty feet six 
 inches in depth and thirty-eight feet broad. Its square room 
 contains a ling of Maha-Dev. Outside the door are colossal 
 figures, similar to those in Dhurma Linga, but only in the front 
 square ; they represent Chand and Prichand. The figures that 
 are grouped with them were called by different names to those 
 that accompany the same figures in Dhurma Linga, and are 
 proportionably small in stature, but are exceedingly well executed. 
 The chief ornaments, however, in this apartment, are two hand- 
 some and singularly-shaped pillars, and two pilasters that adorn 
 the entrance of the recess, which give a very pleasing effect -to 
 the square temple standing behind, showing itself between the 
 intervals of the pillars. The length of the hall (exclusive of the 
 recess) is one hundred and eleven feet by twenty-two feet six 
 inches. After passing the outer part, the room is contracted by 
 the recess, in which stands the temple and the scarf ; this part is 
 enriched with several figures with drapery round their middle. 
 The Brahmins, as usual, had names for them, but they were 
 generally known as servants of Kama. A traveller says: — "My 
 Brahmin cut all discussion short by affirming, with a supercilious 
 smile, they were ' Kunchnee Luq,' in other words, '■Dames des 
 plaiairs.' * 
 
 No .symbol is more venerated, or more frequently met with in 
 all parts, than the altar and ling of Siva, or Maha-Dev. Barren 
 women constantly resort to it to supplicate for children. The 
 efficacy of their prayers, and the mysteries attending them, we 
 have already dwelt upon. Sterility in a female in India is the 
 greatest possible human misfortune. A wife may be formally 
 
 * Seely. 
 
PlIALLISM. 
 
 33 
 
 repudiated on that score, nor is this the only misfortune ; the 
 young people scoff at her, her own sex avoid her, and her 
 husband upbraids her. In short, it fs supposed to be a curse 
 inflicted by the gods. There is a striking allusion to this in the 
 first chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, where it is said : — " After 
 those days Elizabeth conceived, and hid herself five months, 
 saying. Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein 
 he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men." 
 
 "The Lingham," says a traveller, "in the small temple was 
 covered with oil and red ochre, and flowers were daily strewed 
 on its circular top. This emblem is much frequented by female 
 votaries, who take especial care to keep it clean-washed, and 
 often perfume it with odoriferous oils and flowers, whilst the 
 attendant Brahmins sweep the apartment, and attend the five 
 oil lights and the bell ringing." 
 
 In illustration of tliis subject we have a story in Moor's Hindu 
 Pantheon, which in substance runs thus : — Dasaratba had three 
 wives, but was childless, and after many fruitless acts of piety, 
 &c., betook himself, almost in despair, to the jungles or forests — - 
 that is, to a life of abstinence and devotion. It happened that a 
 Erahmin, named Shravana, was at this time resorting with his 
 aged and infirm parents to a jatra, or holy fair ; and the old 
 people being faint with thirst Shravana went in search of water 
 to a hahuri, near to which Dasaratha had taken his secret stand, 
 expecting game. Hearing the gurgling of the water in Shra- 
 vana's vessel he let fly his arrow, and hastening to his supposed 
 game, discovered his unhappy error, and that he had wounded a 
 Brahmin. This he lamented deeply, but was consoled by the 
 forgiving Shravana, who desired that he might be left to die. 
 Dasaratha made known their son's fate to the unhappy parents, 
 who imprecated, in prophetic agony, a fate like his on the 
 wretched homicide. Miserable in thus having destroyed a 
 Brahmin and his parents, who sank under their affliction, super- 
 added to his constant sorrow of being childless, Dasaratha did 
 not deprecate the fate they threatened, but declared that could 
 he once behold the face of a son, now, from the sensations excited 
 by the recent scene, more than ever desired, he could die 
 contented. Distracted by his trying situation, he repaired for 
 advice and consolation to a learned Guru, named Vasishtha, who 
 directed him • how to perform the funeral rites, and what sacri- 
 fices were necessary to be made in expiation of the enormous sin 
 of slaying a Brahmin. All was done, with due extent of 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 PHALLISM. 
 
 charitable distribution, and he was further desired to take from 
 the remains of the homa a portion of certain articles, such as 
 rice, ghee, sugar, &c., aojd to make them into three cakes or 
 balls; and, with pious devotion, repairing home, to give, after 
 certain ceremonies, one cake to each of his three wives. He did 
 so : one to Kahunsilya, one to Kayosalya, and the other to 
 Kahikeya ; but the latter, knowing herself to be the youngest 
 and favourite wife, was very much put out that she had not 
 been the first complimented by her lord on his return, and 
 looking disdainfully on it as she held it in her hand, a kite made 
 a swoop and carried it off. Grievously afflicted at this, and 
 apprehensive that, the ceremonies being incomplete, her chance 
 of pregnancy was thereby forfeited, she gave way to grief and 
 lamentation, which moved her two kind sharers in their lord's 
 benevolence to give her each half of their better guarded cakes ; 
 and those respective proportions were accordingly, with due 
 anxiety and hope, severally eaten, and with due effect, for they 
 soon all proved to be with child. 
 
 Returning to the vanished cake, it is related that a married 
 Brahmany, named Anjeni, being childless, had piously performed 
 divers acts leading to fecundity, such as supplication and 
 sacrifice to Mahadeva, daily prayers and offerings to a linga, &c., 
 &c., and had by these powerful means so extorted the favoflr of 
 the generative deity, Rudra, that he promised her an incompar- 
 able offspring, and directed her to fix her eyes in profound 
 attention on the sun, holding upwards the palms of her hands (in 
 the posture of suppliant expectancy), and to eat directly any 
 substance that might, heaven directed, fall therein, calling on 
 his name. The cake that the kite had borne off from Kahikeya 
 fell in, and she ate it as ordered, and became pregnant, and in 
 due season was delivered of a son, of such surpassing prowess 
 that at his birth he ground to powder a large stone that happened 
 to be near. This child was Hanuman. 
 
 It is noticeable that like as it was in the dark ages, when the 
 superstitious flocked to certain shrines with offerings, and made 
 painful pilgrimages to them, so has it been with the Hindoos, 
 who had their favourite shrines of the Lingam. " Twelve Lingas 
 are mentioned in the Kedara Kalpa of the Nahdi-wpa-Purana 
 as being of transcendent sanctity. In this Purana Siva is made 
 to say : — ' I am omnipresent, but I am especially in twelve forms 
 and places.' Then follows a list of the twelve localities alluded 
 to, one of which, Ramasa, at Letabundha, on the island of 
 
FHALLISM. 35 
 
 Kamissarum, between Ceylon and the continent (where the 
 Linga is reported to have been set up by the god Ram, or 
 Rama) has one of the most splendid of all the Indian Temples, 
 ■with a magnificent gateway a hundred feet in height. In each 
 of these temples the only image of Siva or Mahadeva that 
 attracted devotees was a Lingam. Prom this circumstance there 
 can be little doubt that the religion of the Saivas is nothing 
 more than a gross system of phallic idolatry."* 
 
 The mention of lingam worship reminds us of tlie necessity of 
 pointing out more clearly the distinctiveness of two things which 
 are often confounded. It has been said, writers on this subject 
 generally, perhaps unavoidably, commix their speculations on the 
 linga and yoni. Crude nature is personified and called Prakriti ; 
 she is declared to be nature, or the earth, the womb of nature ; 
 she is thence anything concerning or containing, or the power or 
 sacti, of such faculties. In its first state that power was rather 
 a tendency, an aptitude, and lay dormant until excited by the 
 bija, or vivifying principle, the aura of nature, personified in 
 Siva, who in this character is called Parusha, or the primeval 
 male. Here we find nature passive and active : the power or 
 aptitude of nature is symbolised by the yoni, the vivifying 
 principle by the linga. Prakriti is found to bs one of the names 
 and forms of farvati, as Parusha is of Siva. 
 
 The faculty or power of containing, of which the Yoni is the 
 type, is also called Argha, by Hindoo mystics. -• The name is given 
 to a cup, or dish, or vessel, in which fruits and flowers are offered 
 in oblation. These vessels, they say, ought always to be boat- 
 shaped ; and so they frequently are, but sometimes round, oval, 
 or square-^mostly, however, circular. The rim of the Argha is 
 more especially the Yoni, while the contents of the vessel 
 represent the Linga, which is sometimes more ■ unequivocally 
 lio-ured by an image of Siva standing erect in the centre of the 
 Art'ha. Hence, one of his names is Arghanatha, or lord of the 
 boat-shaped vessel. 
 
 The Argha as a type of the fower of conception, excited and 
 vivified by the Linga or Phallus, Mr. Wilford f supposes to be one 
 and the same with the ship Argo, which, according to Orpheus, 
 was built by Juno and Pallas, or. according to Apollonius, by 
 Pallas and Argus, at the instance of Juno. The word Yoni, as it 
 is usually pronounced, nearly resembles the name of the principal 
 
 * Sellon. + Asiatic Researches, 3. 
 
36 PHALLISM. 
 
 Etruscan goddess ; and the Sanscrit phrase, Arghanatha Iswara, 
 seems accurately rendered by Plutarch, when he asserts that 
 Osiris was commander of the Argo, That the Sanscrit words 
 p^hala, meaning fruit, and p'hulla, a flower, had ever the sense of 
 phallus is not affirmed ; but as these are the chief oblations in 
 the Argha, and are confessed to be a representation of the Linga, 
 their sounds may easily have been so transferred. We have seen, 
 too, that Mahadeva himself, the prototype of the Linga, is some- 
 times placed erect in the Argha (several plates in Seeley's Temples 
 of Elora distinctly show this, and will at once be recognised as 
 the male and female organs united) : this is to complete a mys- 
 tical tri-union of powers ; for Vishnu, the principle of humidity 
 and of conservation, is symbolised by a convexity or embossment 
 in the centre of the Argha, over which the image of Mahadeva, or 
 the p'halla and p'hulla, as representing the Linga, or Phallus, are 
 placed. The idea that the Sanscrit p'halla or phulla may in 
 sense, as well as sound, be cognate with and the source of the 
 Greek phallus, derives strength from the fact that Mahadeva, in 
 his character corresponding with that of Jupiter Marina, or 
 Neptune, bears, like his Koman kinsman, a trident, called 
 Triphula and sometimes Triphala, denoting trifurcation and 
 triflorescence. Jupiter Triphylus is thus identified with the 
 three-eyed Siva. 
 
 We have seen that the vessel bearing the name Argha is 
 boat-shaped, and a type of the world. In the general deluge the 
 generative powers of nature, male and female, reduced to their 
 simplest elements, the Linga and Yoni, assumed this shape for the 
 preservation of mankind. Brahma, the creative power, is 
 represented to have been asleep at the bottom of the abyss ; this 
 alludes to the destruction of mankind, man being represented in 
 the abstract by Brahma. The Yoni becoming boat-shaped, the 
 Linga was the mast, and protected by Vishnu rode upon the 
 waters. It seems that everything hollow or concave, having the 
 property of containing, reminds mystics of Argha or Yoni, as 
 aspiring objects do of the Linga. Enthusiasts see these two 
 principles; that is, they say, nature passive and active, dormant 
 and revivified, everywhere and in everything, — the earth, the 
 sea, a boat, a well, a pond, the hollow of the hand, clefts in 
 rocks, excavations, caves, partake of relationship with the one, — 
 mountains, especially if insulated and conical, pyramids, cones of' 
 any sort, fire, a mast, a tree, obelisks, <fcc., — all these connect 
 themselves with ideas of Mahadeva and the Linga. The earth ia. 
 
PHALLISM. 37 
 
 typified by a boat ; the Argha of the Hindoos, and the Cimbium 
 of the Egyptians. Osiris is represented in a boat carried by 
 ™en : — In India, Mahadeva erect in the Argha refers to the same 
 allegory. All over India the Argha, and Linga of stone inserted 
 in it, is found an object of worship. 
 
 Seely says : — " To this very day, in India, I have observed on 
 the roadside, where a murder has been committed, a rude stone, 
 with the figure of a horseman with a drawn sword; or, for 
 robbery, a camel or bullock, having a pack on his back. Large 
 heaps of stones are often seen by the roadside, on which are 
 placed flags of a dirty brickdust colour. To each of these heaps 
 every pious traveller adds a stone as he passes, till the heap 
 becomes a little mound. If any of these is at all like the Linga 
 of Mahadeva, it is sure to be selected, placed conspicously 
 upright, daubed with oil and red ochre, the peculiar colour of 
 Brahma. This veneration for stones we find mention of in the 
 Scriptures, Genesis 28, v. 18 : — 'And Jacob rose up early in the 
 morning, and took the stone that he had put for hia pillow, and 
 set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it." 
 
 Caves we have noticed as types of the Yoni, from their property 
 of hollowness, of containing, and also from the shape of their 
 mouth. The most ancient oracle and place of worship at Delphos 
 was that of the Earth, in a cave, which was called Delphi ; an 
 obsolete Greek word, synonymous with Yoni in Sanscrit, it bein» 
 the opinion of devout Hindoos that caves are the symbol of the 
 sacred Yoni. This opinion prevailed also in the West, for per- 
 forations and clefts in stones and rocks were called Cunni 
 Diaboli by the first Christians, who always bestowed the appella^ 
 tion of devils on the deities of the heathen. Perforated stones 
 are not uncommon in India, and devout people pass through 
 them, when the opening will admit of it, in order to be regener- 
 ated. If the hole be too small, they put either the hand or the 
 foot through it, and with a sufficient degree of faith it answers 
 nearly the same purpose. One of the seven wonders of the Peak, 
 in Derbyshire, is called the " Devil's Cavern," but very im- 
 properly, for this wonderful cave, or at least one very much like 
 it in the Sacred Isles, and particularly noticed in the Puranas, is 
 declared to be the sacred Yoni. The cleft called Guhya-sthan, in 
 Nepal, answers fully and literally to the coarse appellation be- 
 stowed upon the other in Derbyshire by the vulgar, and is most 
 devoutly worshipped by numerous pilgrims from all parts of India.* 
 * Wilford. — Asiatic Researches, Vol. 6. 
 
38 PHALLISM. 
 
 Adoration of stones is found similarly spread through the 
 superstitious ages of all nations. The Hindoos retain it -with 
 undiminished bigotry, and -will aflSrm, and indeed go nigh to- 
 prove, that such objects, from the sacred monolithic subject of 
 the Kaaba, at Mecca, or the obelisks of Egypt, to the trilithio 
 temple at Stonehenge, with many intermediate, are no other than 
 their Linga under various forms and denominations. Clefts in 
 rocks, rent by the hand of nature, may therefore be supposed to- 
 be profoundly venerated by such enthusiasts as are Hindoo 
 mystics. One of the most celebrated in India (already noticed 
 in these pages) is at the promontory on the island of Bombay, 
 called in English, Malabar point. The promontory itself, 
 thrusting its apex into the sea, which thus forms a sandya, or 
 junction, is lingaic. In former times it was much resorted to, 
 and its sin-expelling potency much relied on, before its purity 
 and privacy were polluted and interrupted by the presence of 
 strangers, and the increasing population of the island. The 
 density of its present population, and the extending preva- 
 lence of foreign manners, have lessened the sanctity of this spot, 
 now the constant resort and abode of persons who look on tlie 
 local superstitions with an eye too rational or curious to 
 encourage their continuance.* 
 
 The passing of the diseased through clefts in the rock in 
 various places, has been curiously improved upon by the early 
 priests of India. They had rich sinners to deal with, as well as 
 poor ones, and while the cleft in the rock did very well for the 
 latter, something more costly was designed to meet the case of 
 the former ; so in certain cases of defilement, it was required that 
 an image oiE pure gold should be made of the female power of 
 nature, either in the form of a woman or a cow ; in this statue, 
 the person to be regenerated was enclosed, and obtruded through 
 the usual channel. 
 
 In Moor's Hindu Pantheon and the Asiatic Researches, Vol. 6, 
 we have recorded an interesting incident which will fairly illus- 
 trate this. There are four rivers, which were once much dreaded 
 •by religious people. It was forbidden even to touch the waters 
 of the Carmanasa, to bathe in the C'aratoya, to swim in the 
 Gandaci, and to cross the Indus. When the unfortunate Raghu- 
 Nath-Raya, or Ragoba, sent two Brahmins as ambassadors to 
 England, they went by sea as far as Suez, but they came back 
 
 • Bees. 
 
PHALLISM. 39 
 
 by the way of Persia, and of course crossed the Indus. On their 
 return, though men of irreproachable life, they were treated as 
 outcasts, because they conceived it hardly possible for them to 
 travel through countries inhabited by impure tribes, and live ac- 
 cording to the rules laid down in tlieir sacred books ; it was also 
 alleged that they had crossed the Attaca. Numerous meetings 
 were held in consequence of this and learned Brahmins were 
 convened from all parts. The influence and authority of Raghu 
 Nath-Raya could not save his ambassadors. However, the holy 
 assembly decreed, that in consideration of their universal good 
 character, and of the motive of their ' travelling to distant 
 countries, which was solely to promote the good of their country, 
 they might be regenerated and have the sacerdotal ordination 
 renewed. For the purpose of regeneration it was directed to 
 make an image of pure gold of the female power of nature in the 
 shape either of a woman or of a cow. In this statue, the person 
 to be regenerated was enclosed and dragged out through the usual 
 channel. As a statue of pure gold and of proper dimensions 
 would be too expensive, it was sufficient to make an image of the 
 sacred Yoni, through which the person to be regenerated was to 
 pass. 
 
 Raghu-Nath-Raya had one made of pure gold and of proper 
 dimensions : his ambassadors were regenerated, and tlie usual 
 ceremonies of ordination having been performed, and immense 
 presents bestowed on the Brahmins, they were readmitted into 
 the communion of the faithful. 
 
 Another illustration of the extraordinary prevalence of phallic 
 worship in India is supplied by the method used by the Brach- 
 mans for producing fire. Those who devote themselves to the 
 priesthood were required to kindle fire always by the process of 
 attrition. This was done on their entering the sacerdotal office 
 by means of a piece of apparatus called arani, constructed and 
 used as follows : — A piece of wooden plank, a foot long and six 
 inches in diameter, had a small conical hole, a socket, in the upper 
 side, into which was introduced the end of a pin, about a foot long 
 and an inch in diameter, the other end of which formed a move- 
 able handle ; this was held steady in the left hand of the operator, 
 who with a bow, having its string twice wound loosely round the 
 upright pin, twirled it quickly backwards and forwards with his 
 right hand. The pin and socket fitting closely, the attrition of 
 his two pieces of hard wood soon produced fire. The flat piece 
 of wood was usually laid on the ground or floor, previously 
 
40 PHALLISM. 
 
 purified by a plastering of cow dung and appropriate prayers, &c., 
 and steadied by the foot of the operator, as well as by the pressure 
 of the upright pin. Every ofiSciating Brachman, it was said, 
 ought to possess one of those machines, with which to light the 
 fire for his own funeral pile, as well as for his nuptial ceremonies 
 and the obsequies of departed ancestors, and for the performance 
 of solemn sacrifices. 
 
 Fire being so curiously, and, to the ignorant, so wonderfully 
 produced by the operation of the arani, that instrument and the 
 process, as well as the product, are objects of admiration and 
 superstition. Siva, as well as Pavaka, being one personification of 
 fire, and a cone being its type, as the form naturally assumed by 
 ascending flame, that figure was also a type of Siva. The pin of 
 the avani terminated in a cone ; but an inverted cone was a 
 symbol of Vishnu, who, as well as fire, was also a personification 
 of water, which, in its natural property of descent, assumes the 
 shape of an inverted cone. Thus this part of the arani reminded 
 the mystic of Siva, as well from the form of its termination, as 
 from its erect position ; and also of Vishnu from the position of 
 its cone ; but principally of Siva, whoso peculiar emblem the linga, 
 or phallus, was thus doubly exhibited in both form and position ; 
 while the other portion of the arani, the hollow conical receptacle, 
 was no less striking to such visionaries, as the figure of the sacred 
 Yoni, the most mysterious of forms, the symbol of the Sakti, or 
 consort of the generative Siva. 
 
 It is tL remarkable thing that in this singular kind of worship 
 feuds prevailed between Hindoo sects, as bitter as any that have 
 agitated the world in later times. There were two parties, the 
 Lingacitas and the Yonijas, the former worshipping the Linga 
 and the latter the Yoni, and these were at such variance as 
 to which was the superior in the production of a perfect offspring, 
 that frequent and terrible wars broke out between them. In 
 Vol. 3 of. the Asiatic Researches Mr. Wilford says : — " This 
 diversity of opinion seems to have occasioned the general war, 
 which is often mentioned in the Puranas, and was celebrated by 
 the poets of the West as the basis of the Grecian Mythology, 
 I mean that between the Gods, led by Jupiter, and the Giants, 
 or Sons of the Earth, or in other words between the followers of 
 Iswara and the Yonijas, or men produced, as they asserted, by 
 Prithivi, a power or form of Vishnu, for Nonnus expressly 
 declares that the war in question arose between the partisans of 
 Jupiter and those who acknowledged no other deities but Water 
 
PHALLISM. 41 
 
 and Earth : according to both Nonnus and the Hindoo mytholo- 
 gists, it began in India, whence it was spread over the whole 
 globe, and all mankind appear to have borne a part in it. 
 
 These religious and physiological contests were disguised in 
 Egypt and India under a veil of the wildest allegories and 
 emblems. On the banks of the Nile Osiris was torn in pieces, 
 and on those of the Ganges the limbs of his consort, Isi or Sati, 
 were scattered over the world, giving names to the places where 
 they fell, and where they still are superstitiously worshipped. 
 In the book entitled Maha cala sanhita we find the Grecian story 
 concerning the wanderings of Demeter, and the lamentations of 
 Bacchus; for Iswara, having been mutilated through the impre- 
 cations of some offended Munis, rambled over the whole earth, 
 bewailing his misfortune, while Isi wandered also through the 
 world, singing mournful ditties in a state of distraction. There 
 is a legend in the Servanasa of which the figurative meaning is 
 more obvious. When Sati, after the close of her existence as 
 the daughter of Dacsha, sprang again to life in the character of 
 Parvati, or Mountain-born, she was re-united in marriage to 
 Mahadeva. This divine pair had once a dispute on tho compara- 
 tive influence of the sexes in producing animated beings, and 
 each resolved, by mutual agreement, to create apart a new race 
 of men. The race produced by Mahadeva was very numerous, 
 and devoted itself exclusively to the worship of the male deity ; 
 but their intellects were dull, their bodies feeble, their limbs 
 distorted, and their complexions of many different hues. Parvati 
 had at the same time created a multitude of human beings, who 
 adored the female only, and were all well-shaped, with sweet 
 aspects and fine complexions. A furious contest ensued between 
 the two races, and the Lingajas were defeated in battle; but 
 Mahadeva, enraged against the Yonijas, would have destroyed 
 them with the fire of his eye if Parvati had not interposed and 
 appeased him ; but he would spare them only on condition that 
 they should instantly leave the country, with a, promise to see it 
 no more ; and from the Yoni, which they adored as the sole cause 
 of their existence, they were named Yavanas. 
 
 It is evident that this strange tale was invented to establish 
 the opinion of the Yonijancitas, or votaries of Parvati or the 
 Yoni, that the good shape, strength and courage of animals 
 depend on the superior influence of the female parent, whose 
 powers are only excited and put into action by the male aura. 
 But the Lingacitas maintain an opposite doctrine. There is also 
 
42 
 
 PHALLISM. 
 
 a sect of Hindoos, by far the most numerous of any, who, 
 attempting to reconcile the two systems, tell us in their alle- 
 gorical style that Parvati and Mahadeva found their concurrence 
 essential to the perfection of their offspring, and that Vishnu, at 
 the request of the goddess, effected a reconciliation between 
 them ; hence, the navel of Vishnu, by which they mean the 
 OS tincce, is worshipped as one and the same with the sacred 
 yoni. 
 
PHALLISM. 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Legend concerning Mahadeva — Diodorus Siculus on Osi7-is — 
 Ptolemy Philade/phus — The Vaishnavas — Hindoo Sects — Worship 
 of the Female Generative Principle — The Fakirs and the Hindoo 
 Women — Hold of Phallism on the Hindoo mind — Origin of 
 Phallic Worship in India — Hindoo Prayer. 
 
 MANY curious legends are extant concerning Linga, Yoni, 
 Arglii, &c., such as the following, for instance : — One day 
 as Mahadeva was rambling over the earth, naked, and with a 
 large club in his hand, he chanced to pass near the spot where 
 several Munis were performing their devotions. Mahadeva 
 laughed at them, insulted them in the most provoking and indecent 
 terms, and lest his expressions should not be forcible enough, he 
 accompanied the whole with significant signs and gestures. The 
 offended Munis cursed him, and the Linga or Phallus fell to the 
 ground. Mahadeva, in this state of mutilation, travelled oyer 
 the -world, bewailing his misfortune. His consort, too, hearing 
 of this accident, gave herself up to grief, and ran after him in a 
 state of distraction, repeating mournful songs. This is what the 
 Greek mythologists called the wanderings of Demeter and the 
 lamentations of Bacchus. 
 
 The world being thus deprived of its vivifying principle 
 generation and vegetation were at a stand, gods and men were 
 alarmed ; but having discovered the cause of it they all went in 
 search of the sacred Linga, and at last found it grown to an 
 immense size, and endowed with life and motion. 
 
 Having worshipped the sacred pledge, they cut it into thirty- 
 one pieces, each of which, polypus-like, became a perfect linga. The 
 devotees left one-and-twenty of them on earth, carried nine to 
 heaven, and one to the inferior regions, for the benefit of the 
 inhabitants of the thjee worlds. To satisfy Devi, and restore all 
 things to their former situation, Mahadeva was born again in 
 the character of Baleswara, or Iswara, the infant, but suddenly 
 became a man, under the title of Lileswara, or Iswara ("who 
 gives delight"), and after various adventures met his consort, 
 then in the character of Sami Rama (the Semiramis of the 
 
44 PHALLISM. 
 
 Greeks) who, by the sweetness of her voice in chanting her own 
 metamorphosis and that of Lileswara, attracted the notice of her 
 former and future spouse in his present character, till now 
 entirely indifferent to the female sex. The goddess soon became 
 Lileswari, and was happily reunited to her lord.* 
 
 The Hindoos insist that the black stone in the wall of the 
 Kaaba is no other than the Linga or Phallus of Mahadeva, and 
 that when the Kaaba was rebuilt by Mohammed, as they affirm 
 it to have been, it was placed in the wall out of contempt ; but 
 the newly converted pilgrims would not give up the worship of 
 the black stone, and the ministers of the new religion were 
 forced to connive at it. 
 
 With respect to the monstrous origin of Balesa (Baleswara) 
 and the thirty-one Phalli, it was suspected by the Hindoo astrono- 
 mers to be an attempt to reconcile the course of the moon to 
 that of the sun, by dividing the synodical revolution into thirty- 
 one parts, which may represent also three hundred and ten years. 
 To the event related is ascribed the origin of the Linga or Phallus, 
 and of its worship ; it is said to have happened on the banks of 
 the Euphrates, and the first Phallus, under the name of Bales- 
 wara Linga, was erected on its banks. This is confirmed by 
 Diodorus Siculus, who says that Semirarais brought an obelisk 
 from the mountains of Armenia, and erected it in the most 
 conspicuous part of Babylon. It was 150 feet high, and is 
 reckoned by the same author as one of the seven wonders of the 
 world. The Jews, in their Talmud, allude to something of this 
 kind ; speaking of the different sorts of earth of which the body 
 of Adam was formed, they say that the earth which composed 
 his generative parts was brought from Babylonia, f 
 
 From Diodorus Siculus we learn that Osiris after travelling 
 about all over the world, and becoming by his discoveries the 
 benefactor of mankind, died, and that the manner of his death 
 was kept secret by the priests in their own registers, but that 
 ■after a time it became noised abroad that he had been murdered 
 by his wicked brother Typhon, who mangled his dead body into 
 six-and-twenty pieces, giving a piece to each of his confederates, 
 so as to bring the same guilt equally upon them all. But Isis 
 with the assistance of lier son Orus, revenged his death upon 
 Typhon and his accomplices, and possessed herself of the king- 
 ■dom. She also made diligent search for the parts of her husband's 
 
 * Asiatic Researches, 4. + Asiatic Researches, 3. 
 
PHALLIBM. 45 
 
 body, which she found, all but his privy members. She then 
 fastened the pieces together, cementing the whole with wax and 
 spices, and bringing them to a figure about the size of Osiris, 
 committed it to the care of the priests, at the same time instituting 
 the mystic rites of Isis and Osiris, in honour of her murdered hus- 
 band. She then bound them over to keep her secret, giving them 
 ample reward for their services, and whenever the rites were 
 celebrated, a similar search was made for the missing parts. 
 These however had been thrown by Typhon into the Nile, be- 
 cause none of his partners would receive them, yet they were 
 divinely honoured by Isis, for she commanded an image (aidoion^ 
 of this very part to be set up in the temples and to be religiously 
 adored ; and in all their ceremonies and sacrifices to this god, she 
 ordered that part to be held in divine veneration and honour. 
 The Greeks, therefore, after they had learned the rites and cere- 
 monies of the feasts of Bacchus, and the Orgian solemnities from 
 the Egyptians, in all their mysteries and sacrifices to this god, 
 adored that member by the name of Phallus. By the order of 
 Isis, figures of the male organs were constructed, and fixed to , 
 poles", and were thus carried about during the festival. 
 
 Athenseus informs us that Ptolemy Philadelphus, at one of 
 those magnificent festivals, displayed to the Egyptians a Phallus 
 of gold, richly painted and adorned with golden crowns, a hundred 
 and twenty cubits in length, with a star of burnished gold upon 
 the top, the circumference of which was six cubits. This was 
 borne aloft, like the other idol, on a splendid car, and, like them, 
 received homage from the gazing crowd. 
 
 The Vaishnavas, in order to appropriate the creative principle 
 to Vishnu, make Brahma, whom they acknowledge as the im- 
 mediate agent of creation, to derive his origin from a Lotos, 
 which sprang out of the navel of Vishnu, whilst sleeping upon 
 the vast abyss of primeval waters ; thus Vishnu became superior 
 to Brahma, as being the cause, first, of his existence, and 
 secondly, of all created things through his agency. The Argha is 
 a vessel of copper used by the Brahmins in their puja ; its shape 
 is intended to represent the universal Mother, but in the centre 
 of it is an oval rising embossed, and by this, the Vaishnavas 
 assert, is meant the navel of Vishnu, from which all things 
 originally sprang ; and by the mystic union of these two princi- 
 ples of production it is intended to describe them as identically 
 one. The Saivas, however, insist that this omphalic rising 
 is meant as the emblem of the Linga ; hence Siva's title of Argha- 
 
46 PHALLISM. 
 
 natha, and in the Agama, Argha-Isa — both meaning the Lord of 
 the sacred vessel Argha. 
 
 Vishnu is represented in the tenth Avatar as the destroying 
 power, thus ascribing to him the attribute of Siva. 
 
 Vishnu is represented by the Vaishnavas with four arms, and 
 in each hand he bears a symbol. These symbols seem intended 
 to unite the three great attributes in him, and to express his 
 universal supremacy. The Lotos typifies his creative power (in 
 allusion to the lotos which sprang from his navel). The Sauc'ha 
 typifies his attributes of preservation, and the mace that of 
 destruction ; while the Cliacra expresses his univeral supremacy 
 (as Chacra-Varti, or Lord of the Chacra); when applied to a 
 monarch it indicates universal empire ; applied to a pundit, the 
 possession of the whole circle of science. 
 
 When the personified attributes of the Deity ceased to be 
 considered as mere hieroglyphics ; when mankind began to view 
 them in the light of distinct persons, and, attaching themselves 
 to the worship of one or of the other exclusively, arranged them- 
 selves into sects, the worshippers of Siva introduced the doctrine 
 'of the eternity of matter. In order to reconcile the apparent 
 contradiction of assigning the attribute of creation to the prin- 
 ciple of destruction, they asserted that the dissolution and 
 destruction of bodies was not real with respect to matter, which 
 was indestructible in itself, although its modifications were in a 
 constant succession of mutation ; that the power which continu- 
 ally operates these changes must necessarily unite in itself the 
 attributes of creation and apparent destruction : that this power 
 and matter are two distinct and co-existent principles in nature ; 
 the one agent, the other patient; the one male, the other Jemale ; 
 and that creation was the eSect of the mystic union of these 
 principles. 
 
 The hieroglyphic of this union was worshipped under a variety 
 of names — Bhava and Bhavani, Mahadeva and Maha Maya, <fec. 
 Thus the attribute of creation was usurped from Brahma by the 
 followers of Siva, to adorn and characterise their favourite deity. 
 
 This seems to have been a popular worship for a great lenirth 
 of time. Two sects, however, sprang up out of it. The one 
 personified the whole univei-se, and the dispensations of Pro\'i- 
 dence in the regulation thereof, with a goddess. This sect 
 retained the female symbol only, and denominated themselves 
 Sacta, as worshippers of the Sacti, or female power, exclusively, 
 which they call Pracriti, and which we from the Latin term nature. 
 
PHALLISM. 47 
 
 The other sect insisted that there was but one eternal first 
 cause ; that everything existing derived its existence from the 
 sole energy of that first cause. 
 
 In order, therefore, to express their ideas of the absolute 
 independence of this supreme power upon any extra co-operation, 
 they took for their symbol the male emblem, unconnected with 
 the female. 
 
 A third sect likewise arose, which intended to reconcile the 
 idea of the unity of godhead with that of the existence of matter 
 and spirit ; they therefore contended that the union of those two 
 principles was so mysteriously intimate as to form but one being, 
 which they represented by a figure half male and half female, 
 and denominated Hara-Gauri, and Ardhanari-Is-Wara. It is 
 probable that the idea of obscenity was not originally attached 
 to these symbols, and it is likely that the inventors tliemselves 
 might not have forseen the disorders which ,this worship would 
 occasion amongst mankind. Profligacy eagerly embraces what 
 flatters its propensities, and ignorance follows blindly wherever 
 example excites ; it is therefore no wonder that a general corrup- 
 tion of manners should ensue, increasing in proportion as the 
 distance of time involved the original meaning of the symbol in 
 darkness and oblivion. Obscene mirth became the principal 
 feature of the popular superstition, and was, even in after times, 
 extended to and intermingled with gloomy rites and bloody 
 sacrifices, a heterogeneous mixture, which appears totally irrecon- 
 cilable, unless by tracing the steps which led to it. It will 
 appear that the engrafting of a new symbol upon the old super- 
 stition occasioned this strange medley. The sect of Vishnu was 
 not wholly free from the propensity of the times to obscene rites ; 
 it had been united in interest with that of Siva, in their league 
 against the sect of Brama, as was expressed by an image called 
 Har-Heri, half Siva and half Vishnu. This union seems to have 
 continued till the time when an emblem of an abstract idea, 
 having been erected into an object of worship, introduced a 
 revolution in religion which had a violent and extended efiect 
 upon the manners and opinions of mankind.* 
 
 "The Vaishnavas are divided into many sects, whose object 
 of worship, though alike pertaining to all, is adored in a more or 
 less gross manner, according to the practice of the particular one 
 to which they belong. They comprise the Goculasthas, the 
 
 * Paterson, in Asiatic Researches, Vol. 8. 
 
48 PHALLISM. 
 
 Yonijas, the Bomani, and the Radhaballubhis, an account of 
 some of whose practices it may, perhaps, be interesting- to notice. 
 
 The Goculasthas adore Krishna, while the Bomani worship 
 Bamchunda ; both have again branched into three sects, one 
 consists of the exclusive worshippers of Krishna, and these only 
 are deemed true and orthodox Vaishanas (Krishna being an 
 avata, or incarnation of Vishnu). 
 
 As Parameswarra, Krishna is Jaganath (or Lord of the Uni- 
 verse), and represented black, the apparent colour of ether, or 
 space. The Krishna lingas are consequently also of the same 
 colour, those of Siva being white. The Lingionijas adore Krishna, 
 and Badha united (in coitu). The Badhaballubhis dedicate 
 their offerings to Badha only (as the Saeti or energy of Vishnu). 
 They worship a naked girl, presenting to her the offerings intended 
 for the goddess; in other words, the girl acts the part of Badha, 
 in the same manner that some young girl may have been selected, 
 to take the part of the Virgin Mary, in the religious plays or 
 mysteries, of the Middle Ages. When these people are travelling, 
 or on a voyage, and a female is not to be obtained for this purpose, 
 their oblations are made to the yoni {i.e. to an image of the 
 pudendum muliebre). Hence they are called also Yonijas, as 
 being worshippers of the female Sacti, or power, — in contradis- 
 tinction to the Lingayetts, or adorers of phallus. This naked 
 worship is peculiar to the Sactas, and appertains to the Tantrica 
 or black magic. 
 
 The worship of the female generative principle, as distinct from 
 the deity, appears to have originated in the literal interpretation 
 of the metaphorical language of the Vedhas, in which will, or 
 purpose to create the universe, is represented as originating from 
 the Creator, and co-existent with him as his Sacti (or bride), or 
 part of himself. The Sama Vedha, speaking of the divine cause 
 of creation says, ' He experienced no bliss, being isolated, — 
 alone. He ardently desired a companion, and immediately the 
 desire was gratified. He caused his body to divide, and became 
 male and female ; they united, and human beings were made.' " * 
 
 A remarkable phase of the kind of w^orship now under consider- 
 ation, may be seen illustrated in a plate found only in the French 
 edition, published at Amsterdam in 1728, of Bernard Picart's 
 Ceremonies ei Coutumes Religieuses. The plate in question ex- 
 hibits some of the penances and religious customs of that fanatical 
 
 * Sellon. — Anthrop. Soc. Mem. 
 
PBALLISM. 49 
 
 and disgusting body of men known as fakirs. The word fakir is 
 Arabic, and signifies poor, and is applied to a certain class of 
 religious beggars well known in India, and who have managed 
 to obtain an extraordinary command over the superstitious pre- 
 dilections of the people. These men go about entirely without 
 clothing, with long hair matted and filthy with dust plentifully 
 showered upon it in acts of devotion and penance. By their 
 extravagant self-inflicted tortures, they have obtained great repute 
 for holiness of life; they will remain sometimes buried to the 
 neck in a pit, without food or drink for many days in succession ; 
 they put fire upon their heads until they burn not only the 
 hair but the entire scalp ; they will keep a hand clasped tightly 
 upon itself till the nails actually grow into the flesh ; they will 
 carry the head thrown backwards for so long ' a time that they 
 are unable to restore it to its proper position ; they will carry an 
 arm in one position till it stifiens in its unnatural attitude and 
 cannot be put down again. Upon approaching a village in the 
 course of their wanderings, the inhabitants forsake their houses 
 and go out to meet them, competing with each other for the honour 
 of the holy men's company. It seems, however, that instead of 
 being pious and devout men, they are, for the most part, when not 
 insane, the most filthy and licentious of beings. Great as is their 
 influence and power over the people generally, it is greater still 
 over the women, who treat them with the most unreserved fam- 
 iliarity, and who seem to lay aside every shred of modesty in their 
 intercourse with them ; accordingly, in their intense desire to have 
 children, many of the females visit the fakirs, and offer a kind of 
 worship to the parts brought into action in the procreation of a 
 family. They will, without a blush, without the slightest emotion, 
 without a thought that they are doing anything unbecoming, 
 kneel in front of the naked and filthy wretch who has come 
 amongst them, take his private member in their hands, and im- 
 print upon it a kiss of impassioned fervour. By this worship of 
 the phallus they hope to win the favour of the gods, and so be 
 enabled to produce the children, whose absence is almost sure to 
 lead to ill-treatment on the part of their husbands. The extent 
 of the influence exercised by these men may be inferred from the 
 estimate in D'Herhelot Bibliotheque Orientale, that there have 
 been in India at one time, as many as two millions of them, 
 Mohammedan and Hindu. 
 
 The extraordinary hold of phallism upon the Hindoo mind, 
 and the universal prevalence of its objects of worship, are 
 
50 PHALLISM. 
 
 certainly unequalled in the case of any other religion known. 
 On the higher parts and in the centre of the earth the Hindoos 
 place a mountain standing like a column, 84,000 yojans high, 
 3,200 broad at the top, and 16,000 at the bottom. It is circular 
 and in the shape of an inverted coue. This idea prevailed once 
 in the West, for when Gleanthes asserted that the earth was in 
 the shape of a cone, this is probably to be understood only of the 
 mountain called M«ru in India. Anaximenes said that this 
 column was plain, and of stone, exactly like the Meru-pargwette 
 of the inhabitants of Ceylon, according to Mr. Joinville, in the 
 seventh volume of the Asiatic Researches. " This mountain,' 
 says he, "is entirely of stone, 68,000 yonas high, and 10,000 in 
 circumference, and of the same size from the top to the bottom." 
 The divines of Thibet say it is square, and like an inverted 
 pyramid. Some of the followers of Buddha, in India, insist that 
 it is like a drum with a swell in the middle, like drums in India, 
 and formerly in the West. Leucippus had said the same thing, 
 and the Buddhists in India gave that shape also to islands. This 
 figure is given as an emblem of the reunion of the original powers 
 of nature. Meru is the sacred and primeval Linga, and the earth 
 beneath is the mysterious Yoni, expanded and open like the 
 padma or lotos. The convexity in the centre is the os tincce, or 
 navel of Vishnu, and they often represent the physiological 
 mysteries of their religion by the emblem of the lotos, when the 
 whole flower signifies both the earth and the two principles of its 
 fecundation. The germ is both Meru and the Linga ; the petals 
 and filaments are the mountains which encircle Meru, and are 
 also the type of the Yoni ; the four leaves of the calyx are the 
 four vast regions towards the cardinal points, and the leaves of 
 the plant are the different islands in the ocean round Jambu ; 
 and the whole floats upon the waters like a boat. The Hindoos 
 do not say, like the Chaldeans, that the earth has the shape of a 
 boat, which is the only type of it. " It is their opinion," I do 
 not know on what authority, says Mr. Wilford, "that at the 
 time of the flood the two principles of generation assumed the 
 shape of a boat with its mast, in order to preserve mankind. 
 Enthusiasts among the Hindoos see these two principles every- 
 where — in the clefts of rocks, commissures of branches, peaks 
 among mountains, &c. The earth is typified by a boat — the 
 Argha of the Hindoos, the Cymbium of the Egyptains, which are 
 also emblems of the earth and of the mysterious Yoni. The Argha 
 or Cymbium signifies a vessel, cup, or dish, in which fruits and 
 
PHALLISM. 51 
 
 flowers are offered to the deities, and ought to be in the shape of 
 a boat, though we see many that are oval, circular, or square, 
 lawara is called Arghanatha (the lord of the boat-shaped vessel), 
 and Osiris, according to Plutarch, was commander of the Argo, 
 and was represented by the Egyptians in a boat carried on the 
 shoulders of a great many men, who, I think, might be called 
 with propriety Argonauts. The ship worshipped by the Suevi, 
 according to Tacitus, was the Argha, or Argo, and the type of 
 the mysterious Yoni. The Argha with the Linga, of stone, is 
 found all over India as an object of worship. It is strewed with 
 flowers and water is poured on the Linga. The rim represents 
 the Yoni and the fossa navicularis, and instead of the Linga 
 Iswara might be represented standing in the middle, as they used 
 to do in Egypt.* 
 
 To these instances given by Mr. Wilford, says Moor, of 
 mystical types arising from contemplating any ordinary aber- 
 ration of nature in the mind of an enthusiastic Hindoo, may be 
 added a fancied mystery in any regular excavation. If he dig a 
 pond the Hindoo, if a Saiva, imagines it a type of the Yoni, or 
 Devi, and cannot fully enjoy the comforts it offers him until it be 
 reunited to the other types of elemental nature. The water that 
 this Argha or Yoni encloses is a symbol of Vishnu, who is in 
 physics a personification of humidity in general ; here it is his 
 navel. After numerous ceremonies, expensive according to the 
 means of the party, a mast is, on a lucky and sacred day, inserted 
 into the centre of the mysterious Yoni, or tank; the mast 
 represents the Linga, or Siva, and now the typical reunion of the 
 original powers of nature is complete. The last ceremony of 
 placing the Linga, or mast, is commonly called the marriage of 
 the Linga and Yoni ; strictly speaking the brim of the tank is the 
 Yoni its area the Argha. In front of most temples of eminence 
 is seen a tank (some of them exceedingly beautiful), and in the 
 centre of the tank a mast, generally with wooden steps nailed up 
 its sides, in order to reach the Linga, or mast, to decorate it with 
 flowers, sprinkle it with water, or place lights on it. 
 
 " In the opinion of those who compiled the Puranas, the phallus 
 was first publicly adored by the name of the Base-warra Linga 
 on the banks of the Cumu-daoti or Euphrates. 
 
 The supposed founder of the worship (as we learn from the 
 Halakanara M.S. in Mackenzie's Collections), was Baswa Basava, 
 
 * Asiatic Researches, 8. 
 
52 PHALLISM. 
 
 or Baswapa, the son of Madijah Rajali, a Brahmin, who with his 
 wife, Madevi inhabited the town or district of Hin-guleswur- 
 parbuttee-agaharam, on the west side of Sri Saila, and both 
 devout votaries of Mahadeo, or Siva. From an inscription on 
 the great Singaleswarra Linga (one of the twelve), and also on 
 one at Keneri, carved in relievo in the rock commemorative of 
 the event, it appears that, in approval of this Puja, the great god 
 and goddess manifested themselves to those devoted followers by 
 springing, in a miraculous manner from the before mentioned 
 emblem, while the Brahmin and his spouse were in the act of 
 devotion ; and we behold in this relievo these persons in a kneel- 
 ing posture, recessed at the base of the Lingam. 
 
 But it is not only the votaries of Siva who adore their god 
 under the symbolic form of Phallus. The Viashnawas (or followers 
 of Vishnu) use the same medium. They also are Idngayets — 
 one of the essential characteristics of which is wearing the Linga on 
 some part of their persons. It is either of silver, copper,- gold, or 
 beryl ; the fascinum of the Romans, and the jettatura of modern 
 Italy."* 
 
 The gods said, " O Lord what means ought we to adopt ? " 
 Brahma replied " Propitiate by adoration the mountain born god- 
 dess, and she will then assume the form of the Yoni and receive 
 this Lingam, by which means alone it can be rendered innocuous. 
 Should you thus obtain her favourable assistance, then form a 
 vessel of the eight kinds of leaves, place in it boiled rice and 
 sacred plants, and having filled it with holy water consecrate the 
 whole with the proper prayers and invocations, and with this 
 water, repeating at the same time suitable prayers, sprinkle the 
 Lingam, After also Parvati shall have, under the form of the 
 Yoni, received the Lingam, do you erect and consecrate the form 
 of the Lingam in the Yoni (Linioni), and by adoring it with 
 oflFerings of flowers, perfumes, and such things, and by kindling 
 lamps before it, and by singing and music, propitiate Maheshwa 
 and thus will the forgiveness and favour of that god be undoubt- 
 edly obtained." Having heard these words, the gods and sages 
 hastened to implore the protection of Shiva, and the assistance 
 of Parvati, as directed by Brahma ; and these deities having been 
 propitiated, Parvati, under the form of the Yoni, received the 
 Lingam, and thus appeased its consuming fire, and in commemor- 
 ation of this event was instituted the worship of Lingam. t 
 
 * Sellon. — Anthrop. Soc. Mem. 
 t Shiva Puran, Part I. — Linga-vidhanam. 
 
PHALLISM. 53 
 
 CHAPTER V. . 
 
 Indian and Egyptian Worship compared — Hindoo Soldiers in 
 Egypt — Bruhm Atma, the Breathing Soul — Growth of Hindoo 
 Religion — Worship of Siva — Benares — The Lingayets — Character 
 of Hindoo Emblems and Ornaments — Favourable View of Hindoo 
 Emblems — Charge of Indecency against Hindooism. 
 
 SOME eighty years ago a writer in the Edinburgh Review 
 pointed out certain points of comparison between the Osiris 
 of Egypt, the Bacchus of Greece, and the Siva of India, in the 
 following terms : — " Osiris was adored in Egypt, and Bacchus in 
 Greece, under the emblem of the Phallus. It is under the same 
 emblem that he is still venerated in Hindoostan, and Phallus is 
 one of his names in the dictionary of Amara Singha. The bull 
 was sacred to him in Egypt. Plutarch assures us that several 
 nations of Greece depict Bacchus with a bull's head, and that 
 when he is invoked by the women of Elis they pray him to 
 hasten to their relief on the feet of a bull. In India he is often 
 seen mounted on a bull, hence one of his Sanscrit names, Vrish- 
 adwaja, signifying, ' whose ensign is a bull.' " 
 
 The Ganges, in like manner, is fabled by the Hindoos to flow 
 from the tresses of Siva ; hence another of his names, Gangad- 
 hara, "the supporter of the Ganges." "We conceive, by the way, 
 that Scaliger and Selden are mistaken in supposing that Siris, 
 the Egyptain name of the Nile, is synonymous with Osiris. Siris 
 seems to us the Sanscrit word saras, a, river in general, or the 
 river, from its imputed superiority. Isis is the consort of Osiris, 
 Isa that of Iswara, or Siva. The attributes of the goddesses 
 might be shown to correspond as precisely as those of their lords. 
 The attendants of Iswara resemble in their frantic demeanour 
 the furious Bacchants of the God of Naxos. It is remarkable 
 that many of the appellations by which the Greeks distinguish 
 Bacchus are also used by the Hindoos ; but instead of applying 
 them to Baghesa himself, the latter gave them to his son, whilst 
 both nations have their legends to account for them. Thus the 
 Greeks named Bacchus Dimeter, "having two mothers/' the 
 Hindoos call Skanda, the son of Baghesa, Divimati, with the 
 same signification. Pyrignes, " born from fire," and its equiva,- 
 
54 PHALLISM. 
 
 lent in Sanscrit, Agnija, are respectively Greek and Indian 
 appellations of Eacchus and Skanda. The title of Thrianbus, we 
 are told by Diodorus, was assumed by the Greek deity in his 
 triumph after the conquest of India. Tryambo, in like manner, 
 is one of the most common appellations of the Indian Bacchus, 
 but we are not aware of its signification. 
 
 A circumstance occurred some years ago which illustrates in a 
 remarkable manner the similarity of Pagan systems which we 
 have been alluding to, and as it is too well authenticated to 
 admit of doubt it is of particular value. It was this : — During 
 the expedition into Egypt against the French, thelndian soldiers, 
 who had been taken there by the Red Sea and Suez to assist in 
 the work, recognised many of the mythological forms, especially 
 the bull and some stone figures of serpents, as similar to what 
 they had in their own country. They at once made this known 
 to their officers, affirming that the people who formerly inhabited 
 Egypt must have been Hindoos ; and when they saw the temple 
 at Hadja Silsili in a state of decay they were filled with indig- 
 nation that the natives should have allowed it to fall into such a 
 condition, as they conceived it to be the temple of their own 
 god, Siva. 
 
 Again and again we have pointed out the difficulty of 
 ascertaining the origin of the worship of the native people of 
 India. It is fairly buried in antiquity, and though the various 
 theories set up and explanations offered are interesting, it cannot 
 be said that they are in any special degree reliable. That they 
 were originally worshippers of one god only is the opinion of the 
 best of scholars, and the tradition from which this is derived 
 says this deity was designated Bruhm Atma, the " Breathing 
 Soul." The early simplicity of Hindoo worship, with its com- 
 paritively few ceremonies, in the course of time became greatly 
 changed, and their god was represented in a somewhat grossly 
 physical form by a rough pillar of stone, called by them the Linga, 
 which was nothing else than the Phallus. This was their 
 representation of the procreative or regenerative power in nature, 
 and it is almost impossible to exaggerate the profundity of the 
 reverence in which it was held, and which was rendered to it in 
 worship. They supposed that all the benificent operations of 
 nature were owing to its influence — the birth of men and 
 animals, the growth and ripening of the seeds and crops, the 
 formation and perfection of the richest fruits — all were due to 
 this image. Such was the idolatry of the Hindoo in his earliest 
 
PHALLISM. 55 
 
 and simplest times j it afterwards gradually assumed a more 
 complicated character. Then what they called the Elements, 
 a heathen Trinity, were evolved from Bruhm, bearing the names 
 of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva (Creator, Preserver or Saviour, 
 and Destroyer). " On these," says Sellon, " were conferred three 
 gunas, or qualities, viz.. Rajas (passion), Sat (purity), and Tumas 
 (darkness). This is the Trimurti." 
 
 Soon after this we have the institution of Avatas and Avan- 
 taras, the greater and lesser incarnations, by which one or other 
 of the triad imparted a portion of his divine essence both to men 
 and to brutes. And then speedily came the installation of 
 innumerable gods, by the deification of all the known heavenly 
 bodies, of the elements, of the attributes of the Supreme Being, 
 of those of the Evil Spirit, until at last nearly a million gods 
 were created. Of all these none received such honour as Siva. 
 "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 
 ideas of the devil. It may therefore be concluded that the most 
 exalted notion of worship among the Hindoos is a service of fear. 
 The Brahmins say that 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."* 
 
 Siva is sometimes found depicted in the ordinary human form, 
 but this is not that in which he is usually adored. It is generally 
 as the Linga that he is found, as we have described it — a smooth 
 stone rising out of another stone of finer texture ; simulacrum 
 membri virilis, et pudendum Muliebre. 
 
 " The worship of Siva under the type of Linga is almost the only 
 form in which that deity is reverenced, and it is generally 
 regarded as 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 so-called 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. 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 Mirkond, a block of stone of four or five cubits 
 long and proportionate thickness. It was, in fact, one of the 
 
 * Wilford, in Asiatic Researches. 
 
56 PHALLISM. 
 
 twelve great Lingas then set up in various parts of India, several 
 of which, besides Somesvara, or Somnath, which was the name of 
 the Siva demolished by Mahmud, were destroyed by the early 
 Mahomedan conquerors. Most, if not all of them, also, are 
 named in works of which the date cannot be much later than the 
 eighth or ninth century, and it is therefore to be inferred, with 
 as much certainty as anything short of positive testimony can 
 afford, that the worship of Siva, under this type, prevailed 
 throughout India at least as early as the fifth or sixth century of 
 the Christian era. Considered as one great branch of the 
 universal public worship, its prevalence, no doubt, dates much 
 earlier, but the particular modifications under which the several 
 types received their local designations, and became entitled to 
 reverence, are not in every case of remote antiquity,."* 
 
 Benares appears to have been the principal locality -in which 
 this form of worship prevailed, and there were forty-seven Lingas 
 (the principal deity Siva under the name Viweswarra, being one) 
 of pre-eminent sanctity ; there were, however, hundreds of others 
 •of an inferior character worshipped, while thousands once famous 
 had fallen into oblivion. Nearly all the chief objects of pilgrim- 
 age in this place were similar blocks of stone, and it has been 
 remarked as a singular fact, that " upon this adoration of the 
 procreative and sexual Sacti ( or power ) seen through nature, 
 hinges the whole gist of Hindu faith, and notwithstanding all 
 that has been said by half-informed persons to the contrary, this 
 puja does not appear to be prejudicial to the morals of the people." 
 
 There is a form of Linga worship which it may be well just to 
 mention here, as its name sometimes appears and may cause 
 enquiry. It is that of the Lingaytes, Lingawants, or Jangamas, 
 and the distinguishing feature of this is wearing the emblem on 
 some part of the dress or person. This is small in size and made 
 of copper or silver, and is usually hung about the neck or fastened 
 to the turban. The worshippers known under the names mention- 
 ed, like the Sapas generally, smear their foreheads with Vibhuti 
 or ashes and wear necklaces and rosaries made of the Budraksha 
 seed. The priests wear garments of a red colour, generally stained 
 ■with red ochre. There are very few of these however in Upper 
 India, and they are not often met with ; when they are seen it is 
 generally as beggars leading about a bull, the living type of 
 Nandi, the bull of Siva, decorated with housings of different 
 
 * Wilford, in Asiatic Researches. 
 
PHALLISM. 57 
 
 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 Rajendralala 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 Urijas 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 ofier a violent 
 shock to all modern sense of propriety and decency. I enquired 
 of many learned pundits at Puri, as to why such ofiensive 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 Pithviraj Rayasa mention is made of a Brahmin woman, 
 Hemavani 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 jag, a part of which 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- 
 
68 PHALLISM. 
 
 sition, that she wished to expiate her fault by a disgusting public- 
 confession. But it is scarcely to be supposed, that all the principal 
 sculptured temples of Orissa owe their indecent ornaments to a. 
 like cause, and I am disposed to think that the explanation is 
 more ingenious than true. It is much more probable that the in- 
 decent figures on the old Central Indian Temples' were due to the 
 same cause which produced them in Orissa. What that cause was, 
 it is difficult now to say with perfect certainty. A vitiated tast© 
 aided by general prevalence of immorality might at first sight- 
 appear to be the most likely one ; but I cannot believe that libid- 
 inousness, however depraved, would ever think of selecting fanes 
 dedicated to the worship of God, as the most appropriate for its 
 manifestation ; for it is worthy of remark that they occur almost 
 exclusively on temples and their attached porches, and never on 
 enclosing walls, gateways, and other non-religious structures. 
 " Our ideas of propriety," according to Voltaire, " lead us to sup- 
 pose that a ceremony" (like the worship of Priapus), "which 
 appears to us so infamous, could only be invented by licentious- 
 ness ; but it is impossible to believe that depravity of manners, 
 would ever have led, among any people, to the establishment of 
 religious ceremonies. It is probable, on the contrary, that this 
 custom was first introduced in times of simplicity, — that the first 
 thought was to honour the deity in the symbol of life which it 
 has given us ; such a ceremony may have excited licentiousness 
 among youths, and have appeared ridiculous to men of education 
 in more refined, more corrupt, and more enlightened times, but 
 it never had its origin in such feelings. Besides, vicious propen- 
 sities have, in India, been everywhere and at all times most 
 emphatically denounced, and there is no creed known in this 
 country which does not condemn it as hateful. It is out of the 
 question, therefore, to suppose that a general prevalence of vice 
 would of itself, without the authority of priests and scriptures, 
 suffice to lead to the defilement of holy temples. A religious 
 sanction for it must be sought, and this, I believe, occurs in the 
 fact of most of the temples, on which the offensive figures are 
 shown, being dedicated to the mystical adoration of the phallic 
 emblem. From a very early period in the history of religion, the 
 phallic element has held a prominent place in the mind of man. 
 Most of the leading religions of the ancient world — ^the Egyptian, 
 the Chaldean, the Assyrian, and the Mosaic, manifested it in 
 some form or other ; and in primitive unsophisticated states of 
 society, philosophical conceptions of the mystery of generation had 
 
PHALLISM. 59 
 
 not yet given to the various parts and members of the human 
 body those names which constitute the special vocabulary of ob- 
 scenity of the present day, many symbols and representations were 
 not only held inoffensive but sacred, and their presence on ancient 
 monuments, therefore, cannot be a matter of surprise." 
 
 Quoting various instances of the exhibition and adoration of the 
 Phallus, the Baboo proceeds : — " These and many other instances 
 which could be easily multiplied, were it worth while, suggest the 
 conclusion that the public exhibition of the Phallus in the early 
 ages, had nothing in it which partook of indecency. All ideas' 
 connected with it were of a reverential kind. Thousands upon 
 thousands of Hindu men, women and children, visit the Orissian 
 temples every year ; they undertake long tedious journeys in the 
 most inclement of Indian seasons ; undergo the greatest privations; 
 to have a sight of them ; and return home with the firmest con- 
 viction, that they have by the pilgrimage freed themselves of all 
 their sins, without even indulging in the nearest shadow of an 
 idea that there is anything improper or indecorous in all that 
 they have seen. The whole to them is a mystery — a mystery of 
 ancient times hallowed by age, and enveloped in everything that 
 is pure and holy, — and none attempts to lift the veil, or pry into 
 secrets, or their causes, which his ancestors for centuries left 
 untouched. You may point out the offensive character of the 
 representations before him, and create a cloud of anxiety and 
 uneasiness in his mind, but it is only a passing cloud, that soon 
 melts away before the fervour of his faith." 
 
 " It is some comparative negative praise to the Hindus, that 
 the emblems under which they exhibit the elements and operations 
 of nature, are not externally indecorous. Unlike the abominable 
 realities of Egypt and Greece, we see the Phallic emblem in the 
 Hindu Pantheon without offence ; and know not, until the inform- 
 ation be extorted, that we are contemplating a symbol whose 
 prototype is indelicate." Pictures, it is said, " may be turned and 
 examined, over and over, and the uninformed observer will not 
 be aware, that in several of them, he hais viewed the typical 
 representation of the generative organs or powers of humanity. 
 The external decency of the symbols, and the diflSculty with which 
 their recondite allusions are discovered, both offer evidence fav- 
 ourable to the natural delicacy of the Hindu character." " I am 
 not, however," says Moor in his Hindu Pantheon, prepared to 
 deny the appearance, in many instances, of strong evidence to the 
 contrary : the disgusting faithfulness of natural delineations, and 
 
€0 PHALLISH. 
 
 the combinations so degrading to human nature, observable on 
 some of the temples and sacred equipages of the Hindus, are 
 deeply offensive to common delicacy and decency. 
 
 Blavatsky the author of Isis Unveiled, speaking of the occur- 
 rence of Phallic emblems in Christian lands, says : — " We find it 
 rather unwise, on the part of Catholic writers to pour ont their 
 vials of wrath in such sentences as these : ' In a multitude of 
 pagodas, the phallic stone, ever and always assuming, like the 
 Grecian batylos, the brutally indecent form of the lingham . . . 
 the Maha Deva.' Before casting slurs on a symbol, whose pro- 
 found metaphysical meaning is too much for the modem champions 
 of that religion of sensualism par excellence, Roman Catholicism, 
 to grasp, they are in duty bound to destroy their oldest churches 
 and change the forms of the cupolas of their temples. The Mahody 
 of Elephanta, the Round Tower of Bhangulpore, the minarets of 
 Islam — either rounded or pointed — are the originals of the Cam- 
 panilo column of San Marco, at Venice, of the Rochester 
 Cathedral, and the modern Duomo of Milan. All of these steeples, 
 turrets, domes, and Christian temples, are the reproductions of 
 the primitive idea of the lithos, the upright phallus. "The 
 western tower of St. Paul's Cathedral, London," says the author 
 of the Rosicrucians, " is one of the double lithoi placed always 
 in front of every temple. Christian as well as heathen." Moreover, 
 in all Christian churches, particularly in Protestant churches, 
 where they figure most conspicuously, the two tables of stone of 
 the Mosaic Dispensation are placed over the altar, side by side, 
 as a united stone, the tops of which are rounded. The right stone 
 is the masculine, the left feminine. Therefore neither Catholics 
 nor Protestants have a right to talk of the indecent forms of 
 heathen monuments, so long as they ornament their own churches 
 with the symbols of the Lingham, and Yoni, and even write the 
 laws of their God upon them." 
 
 Much of this will, no doubt, strike our readers as not only 
 extravagant but absurd, especially the forced and unnatural mean- 
 ing given to the two tablets found in English churches, inscribed 
 with the laws of the ten commandments. It is well known, to 
 most people, that those tables contain respectively man's duty to 
 God and to his neighbour, and that it is only by a wide and wild 
 stretch of imagination, they can be made to represent the mas- 
 culine and the feminize ; the statement, however, is given to show 
 the extraordinary lengths to which men have gone in endeavour- 
 ing to recognise the phallic, everywhere in Christian or Pagan 
 ornamentation. 
 
PHALLISM. 61 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Erroneous notions about the Cross — Pagan origin of the Cross 
 
 History from monuments and tombs — Unchanging character of 
 the Cross — Real origin of the Cross — The Cross in ancient America 
 — The city of the Moon — The Maltese Cross in pre-Christian times 
 — Danish and Indian Crosses — Ancient British Crosses — A fallacy 
 by Higgins — True origin of the Christian Cross — The Crux-Ansata, 
 described^Antiquity of the same — Suggested meaning of the 
 Crux-Ansata — The key of the Nile — Supposed phallic origin — The 
 Nile-key theory examined — The Cross in ancient Scriptural times 
 -^The Crux-Ansata the symbol of symbols — The Crux-Ansata a 
 religious symbol. 
 
 Ceosses in General, and the Ceux-Ansata. 
 
 ABOUT few things, perhaps, of a religious character, have more 
 erroneous notions prevailed, than the symbol of the Cross. 
 This ornament, of every possible description, carved in wood and 
 stone or worked in various kinds of metals, precious or base, meets 
 us everywhere in the world, either as an adornment to the person 
 or as a conspicuous feature in ecclesiastical architecture, and there 
 is a pretty general impression afloat that it is of Christian origin 
 and belongs exclusively to that religion. Nothing, however, could 
 be more fallacious, and nothing more calculated to impart wrong 
 ideas of religious history, for the world abounds in monuments of 
 a cruciform character, which existed ages before the first procla- 
 mation of Christian doctrine anywhere. 
 
 Of course, as various writers have observed, the distinction 
 between the Cross and the crucifix must be duly noted, or even 
 this statement will be misapprehended; the crucifix — the Cross 
 bearing the image of a dead man — is Christian exclusively, but 
 the Cross, pure and simple, though adopted and used by Christians 
 as a memorial of the instrument by which their founder was put 
 to death, or as an emblem of their faith, dates back to very early 
 times indeed, and is common upon Pagan monuments everywhere. 
 Contemporaneous with the appearance of anything like formal 
 and systematic Pagan beliefs, no symbol, whatever it might mean, 
 was more common or sacred. In other places, we remark upon 
 the similarity of heathen creeds and practices, whether in the far 
 
62 PHALLISM. 
 
 away East or extreme West, whether the worshipper has been 
 Japanese, Hindoo, Egyptian, Greek or Biiton, and in each and 
 all alike, the cross has been found the one symbol common to all. 
 It has been described as the aboriginal possession of every people 
 of antiquity, the elastic girdle so to say, which embraced the most 
 widely separated heathen communities ; the most significant token 
 of a universal brotherhood, the principal point in contact in every 
 system of Pagan mythology. 
 
 " ' That mighty maze, but not without a plan,' to which all the 
 families of mankind were severally and irresistibly drawn, and by 
 which their common descent was emphatically expressed, or by 
 means of which each and all preserved, amid every vicissitude of 
 fortune, a knowledge of the primeval happiness and dignity of 
 their species."* 
 
 Not from written history, in the ordinary acceptation of the 
 term, so much, has this knowledge been derived, but from the 
 comparatively imperishable relics of peoples who have long since 
 passed into oblivion. Ages have rolled away into nothingness, 
 as it were, and the strifes of the world have been fought out, and 
 civilisation with its giant strides has sped along, revolutionising 
 society, and manners, and men, amidst the ever-standing monu- 
 ments of antiquity, or the silence of the desert plain, broken only 
 by the wild bird's cry or the crash of the tempest, and has reigned 
 over the grave of the fallen greatness of cities mightier than any 
 now to be met with ; but the tomb of the dead monarch, the 
 mysterious mound whose interior generation after generation had 
 looked upon but failed to explore, the wrappings of the mummy 
 five thousand years embalmed, the ruins of ancient temples and 
 palaces, statues, coins, vases, domestic implements, coffins, tumuli, 
 sepulchral galleries, have made history, if at first difficult to 
 unravel, at any rate unchangeable and reliable when once under- 
 stood, and the cross has been found in and upon all, entering 
 into the composition of the simplest as well as the most gorgeous 
 and beautiful of ornaments and structures. There was a sacred- 
 ness about it, whatever might be the occasion or circumstances 
 which gave rise to its use, that led to the most extraordinary 
 expenditure of labour, skill and wealth in its production. The 
 ambitious cravings of the worshippers were responded to by toil- 
 some work almost incredible in its magnificence and extent, and 
 by the exercise of the profoundest ingenuity of which the human 
 
 * ildin. Rev. 1870. 
 
PHALLISM. 63 
 
 mind was capable. " Populations of essentially different culture, 
 castes and pursuits vied with each other in their superstitious 
 adoration of it and in their efforts to extend the knowledge of its 
 exceptional import and virtue araongst their latest posterities." 
 Let the wonders of Elephanta and Ellora — their tremendous 
 rock-hewn caves unequalled for weird grandeur by anything else 
 owned by the world — let the great temples of Mathura and 
 Terputty of the East, let the marvels of Calleruish and New- 
 grange in the West, and the temple at Mitzla (the City of the 
 Moon) in Central America, hewn, as those of India, from the 
 solid mountain, the works of peoples intellectually and geo- 
 graphically distinct, and followers of independent and unassociated 
 deities, bear witness to the one endeavour to magnify and per- 
 petuate the same grand primeval symbol. Never was there such 
 a symbol for universal adoption and adoration ; sacred emblems 
 there were in abundance, belonging to this or that nation or 
 tribe, but the Cross was international, and we are acquainted 
 with none, whether that of St. Andrew or St. George, Maltese, 
 Greek, or Latin, but it existed in the remotest ages of antiquity, 
 and can be actually looked upon in the painted or sculptured 
 form. Strangely enough, the passing ages have brought no 
 change worth mentioning in its form. Dynasties, empires, races, 
 cities, have risen, and flourished, and fallen, the barbaric has 
 developed into the splendid and refined, and the simple and 
 unadorned has become the ornate and the beautiful, but these 
 Crosses have survived the shocks of all changes, and the very 
 thing which the sculptor of ancient Babylon and Nineveh carved 
 upon his statues, or the ancient Egyptian painted upon the coffin 
 or mummy-cloth of his sacred dead, as a symbol of his Paganism, 
 is fashioned by the modern builder in stone, or by the jeweller in 
 precious stones and gold, for the Christian temple and the orna- 
 mentation of the Gentile lady's person. 
 
 Such is the truth concerning this extraordinary symbol, and it 
 would be no advantage to the Christian religion, to which it has 
 been supposed exclusively to belong, to deny or attempt to con- 
 ceal it. Nothing is gained or lost by any party, by full and 
 complete statements in accordance with ascertained facts, and in 
 these pages we shall do our best to supply truthful accounts of 
 all that has been discovered bearing upon the subject. " Por my 
 own part," says the Rev. Baring Gould, " I see no difficulty in 
 believing that it formed a portion of the primaeval religion, traces 
 of which exist over the whole world among every people, that 
 
64 
 
 PHALLISM. 
 
 trust in the Cross was a part of the ancient faith which taught 
 men to believe in a Trinity, in a War in Heaven, a Paradise 
 from which men fell, a Flood, and a Babel ; a faith which was 
 deeply impressed with a conviction that a Virgin should conceive 
 and bear a Son, that the Dragon's head should be bruised, and 
 that through shedding of blood should come Remission. The use 
 of the Cross as a symbol of life and regeneration through water 
 is as widely spread over the. world as the belief in the ark of 
 Noah. May be the shadow of the Cross was cast further back 
 into the night of ages, and fell on a wider range of country than 
 we are aware of. 
 
 It is more than a coincidence that Osiris by the Cross should 
 give life eternal to the Spirits of the Just ; that with the Cross 
 Thor should smite the head of the Great Serpent, and bring to 
 life those who were slain ; that beneath the Cross the Muysca 
 mothers should lay their babes, trusting by that sign to secure 
 them from the power of evil spirits ; that with that symbol to 
 protect them the ancient people of Northern Italy should lay 
 them down in the dust."* 
 
 Turning for a moment from the extreme East to the West of 
 the world, we meet with the fact that when the Spaniards 
 invaded America they were overwhelmed with surprise to find 
 the sign of the cross in common use by men considered in every 
 respect to be heathens ; yet there was what they deemed only a 
 Christian emblem, and availing themselves of the opportunity 
 thereby afforded of ingratiating themselves with the natives, 
 they showed it emblazoned upon their standards and obtained a 
 reception far more cordial than they had any reason to expect. 
 So great was the veneration of these people for the sign, that it 
 had become more to them than the " Life " of Egypt or the 
 " Eternity " of India ; in short it had been set up as an idol and 
 treated with divine honours. 
 
 It has been declared by travellers and explorers to be exceed- 
 ingly difficult sometimes to distinguish between the ancient 
 Crosses and those set up by the invaders ; there are many, how- 
 ever, still standing of too great an age to belong to the designs 
 of that people. With other signs and ornaments, similar to 
 those of Europe, Egypt, India, and China, they are found 
 amongst the extensive ruins of the cities, carved upon the altars, 
 and walls of the temples. Mr. Stephens, in his work on Central 
 
 * Ancient Myths. 
 
PHALLISM. 65 
 
 America, bears witness to this, and gives a representation of one 
 of the finest he had come across. It was found carved upon the 
 wall of the ruined temple at Palenque and was about nine or ten 
 feet in height. On either side was a human figure, one of them 
 holding up a child as if he were offering it to the old Cross; 
 each of these men had crosses on their vestments. 
 
 Stephens says : — " This tablet of the cross has given rise to 
 more learned speculations than perhaps any others found at 
 Palenque. Dupaix and his commentators, assuming for the 
 building a very remote antiquity, or at least, a period long 
 antecedent to the Christian era, account for the appearance of 
 the Cross by the argument that it was known and had a 
 symbolical meaning among ancient nations long before it was 
 established as the emblem of the Christian faith." 
 
 One of the most remarkable Crosses of the Mexicans was one 
 made by the priests at the festivals, of maize and the blood of the 
 victims offered in the sacrifices. After being worshipped, this 
 image was broken up and distributed to the people who devoured 
 it as a bond of union and brotherhood. 
 
 The city of the Moon has already been mentioned (Miztla) 
 and here numerous relics of Crosses have been discovered both in 
 the possession of the people and among the ruins, chiefly pieces 
 of metal said to be tin, either cut in the shape of Crosses or 
 stamped with the emblem. Some have supposed them to be 
 coins, but it is generally supposed they were also worn as 
 amulets. Wilkinson, in his Manners and Customs of the 
 Ancient Egyptians, says that the Egyptians wore the Cross 
 about their persons; and that the Shari, an Assyrian tribe, 
 frequently had a small cross attached to a necklace or to the collar 
 of their dress, also that this custom was not peculiar to the Shari, 
 for the Rotuno, supposed to be Lydians, also wore the Cross 
 figured on their robes, traces of which may be seen in the 
 Rebo, a Northern Asiatic People resembling Parthians. These 
 instances are adduced to shew that the Cross was in use as early 
 as the 15th century before the Christian era. 
 
 It has been shewn also by various writers and travellers that 
 the Scandinavians in the far north also had the Cross, as well as 
 the Scythians, the Celts and the Cymry. In Sweden, likewise, 
 Norway, Russia, Ireland, Cornwall, <fec., cruciform excavations 
 have been found. 
 
 Mention has been made of the various forms of these Crosses, 
 the ancient and modem pantheons accurately corresponding. A 
 
'66 PHALLISH. 
 
 remarkable instance of this is seen in what is called the Maltese 
 Cross, an ornament too well known to need description. It is 
 called Maltese from the circumstance that it was represented in 
 Malta by four huge phalli carved out of the solid granite and 
 which served for the arms ; these were afterwards changed by the 
 knights of St. John into the four triangles meeting point down- 
 wards at the central globe. The adjacent island of Gozzo had 
 numerous other examples similarly formed, the work of the 
 early Fhcenician colonists; the Etruscan and Pompeian monu- 
 ments represent it in the same grossly conspicuous manner. 
 
 It appears in Assyria to have been the emblem chiefly and 
 essentially of royalty, for it is found portrayed on the breasts of 
 the most powerful monarchs of Babylon and Nineveh. It 
 depends with other sacred objects from the necks of many of the 
 kings, and is to be seen on the sculptures in the halls of most of 
 our museums. It represented originally the elysium of the four 
 great gods of the Assyrian Pantheon, Ra, and the first triad Ana, 
 Eelus, and Hea ; and when inserted in a roundlet was emblem- 
 atical of Sansi, or the sun dominating the earth as well as the 
 heavens. In Egypt it was sometimes the hieroglyph of goodness, 
 and among the Romans the sign of life. Amongst the former 
 people, by whom it was held specially sacred, it literally 
 abounded ; most of the monuments are constantly adorned with 
 it and we find the Ibis "represented with human hands and feet, 
 and holding the staflF of Ibis in one hand and the globe and 
 cross in the other. In addition Saturn's monogram or symbol 
 was a cross with a ram's horn, Jupiter's a cross with a horn, and 
 Venus's a circle with a cross. 
 
 It is a remarkable thing also, that in ancient times in India, 
 buildings erected for heathen worship were constructed, like 
 modern Christian Churches, in the form of Crosses ; two of the 
 principal pagodas in that country, viz., those at Benares and 
 Mathura, are thus built.* 
 
 Among the stone implements of the shell mounds of Denmark 
 are cruciform hammers, with the hole for the haft at the inter- 
 section of the arms, which are of equal length. These were 
 probably used in the sacrifice of victims to Thor, but the Cross 
 of Thor is usually represented as cramponn^e, two plain bars of 
 equal length, with short right angles at the end crossing in the 
 centres. The hammer of Thor, in form of a Cross, was some- 
 times used to bless the marriage tie. 
 
 * Maurice. — Ijid. Antiq. 2. 
 
PHALLISM. 67 
 
 Coming nearer home we find the Cross -was a common symbol 
 amongst the British, Irish and Gallic Celts. The shamrock of 
 Ireland derives its sacredness from its resepiblance to it in form ; 
 and in the mysticism of the Druids the trefoil had a peculiar 
 significance. 
 
 From all these examples, and which are but a few of many 
 that might be cited, it is evident that the Cross was a religious 
 symbol common to both Heathens and Christians, and that it 
 was used long before the introduction of Christianity into the 
 world. Its exact meaning, as we have remarked, has always been 
 and probably will remain, more or less, involved in obscurity; 
 this has been a matter of constant dispute and there is no reason 
 to expect that men will ever agree about it. It certainly seems 
 an odd fancy that it should be deemed in any way a repressenta- 
 tive of the male organs of generation, but so it has been, and 
 thus has been taken to be emblematic of the procreative powers 
 of nature. Combining this with the notion that it was the 
 symbol of eternal life, we get the general idea that it was the 
 emblem of eternally renovating life. 
 
 Respecting this matter, Higgins draws a most remarkable and 
 evidently untenable conclusion. He says : — " Nothing in my 
 opinion can more clearly shew the identity of the two systems 
 of the Christian priests and of the ancient worshippers of the 
 Sun than the fact, unquestionably proved, that the sign or mono- 
 gram used by both was identically the same. It is absolutely 
 impossible that this can be the efiect of accident." On the 
 contrary it strikes some of us that this is an absurd and unwarrant- 
 able inference. No attempt, it will be noticed, is made to shew 
 that each used the emblem as representing the same thing, 
 which it would be impossible to do, but because the emblems 
 were the same in shape it is argued that the religious systems 
 were identical. There are few people so ignorant as not to 
 know that the Cross of the Christian age refers to the instrument 
 «f death on Calvary, and to nothing else ; this is certain, 
 whatever was the origin or ultimate signification of the Crosses 
 of paganism. 
 
 The Crux-Ansata. 
 
 The most remarkable of all Crosses, and that which excited 
 
 the greatest curiosity and amount of discussion, is one common 
 
 on the Monuments of Egypt, called the Crux-Ansata, that is, 
 
 the Cross with a Handle. It consists of an ordinary Cross in 
 
68 PHALLISM. 
 
 the shape of the Greek Tau, or "P, with a ring on the top of the 
 centre, sometimes quite round, but generally of an oval shape, 
 forming a kind of handle, from which it gets its name Ansata. 
 From the time of Socrates, Sozomen, and others, for ages in fact, 
 this symbol has supplied food for the contemplation of the 
 studious aJid the antiquary, and for the exercise of the ingenuity 
 of the best of scholars. What did it mean 1 was ever the enquiry, 
 and enegetically did everyone urge his arguments who had 
 anything of a theory to offer on the subject. The Egyptian, 
 when called upon for an explanation, simply replied that it (the 
 Tau) was a divine mystery, and a mystery it has always remained. 
 Still, we are in possession of a good many facts and statements 
 relating to it, and from these we select such as may prove of 
 interest. 
 
 As we have said, the Crux-Ansata is a common figure on 
 Egyptian Monuments, and is constantly seen in the hands of 
 Isis, Osiris, and other divinities. It can be seen on the sculp- 
 tures brought from Nineveh, and is clearly marked on the ivory 
 tablets of the Palace of Nimroud ; it is also to be seen carved on 
 the walls of the Cave Temples of India. 
 
 In the year 389, when the Serapeum at Alexandria was 
 destroyed by order of Theodosius, the Christians, who then first 
 became acquainted with the meaning of the Cross among the 
 Egyptian hieroglyphics, saw in this figure which they found 
 sculptured on the stones a sign prophetic of the coming of Christ, 
 and it is said "They modelled on the same type the symbol of 
 redemption. After this time the Crux-Ansata appears occa- 
 sionally on Christian Monuments, and some have believed it to 
 be the origin of the monogram of Christ ; but that is undoubtedly 
 of an earlier date than the destruction of the temple of Serapis. 
 
 It has been contended by some that we have sound historical 
 information relative to the meaning of this symbol, that " It may 
 be considered the only hieroglyphical type concerning whose 
 import we have any certain intelligence." Certain it is that the 
 same astonishment as was exhibited by the Spaniards when they 
 discovered the Cross in America was also exhibited by the 
 Christians at a very early period in ecclesiastical history when 
 they found it frequently recurring among the hieroglyphics of 
 Egypt. Some of the priests who knew the meaning of these 
 hieroglyphics, being converted to Christianity, Dr. Clarke 
 suggests that the secret transpired. The converted heathens, 
 says Socrates Scholasticus, explained the symbol, and declared 
 
PHALLISM. 69 
 
 that it signified " Life to come ; " Huffinus said the same thing. 
 Kircha put the explanation of the Crux-Ansata in a somewhat 
 different manner, but which is said not to militate against the 
 above. 
 
 H e says it consisted of letters Phi Tau, denoting Ptha, a name 
 of Mercury ; and the name of this deity, as a conductor of the 
 souls of the dead, might well be used with reference to a state of 
 existence after death. Then Dr. Clarge proceeds to say, that as 
 every Egyptian monogram had its archetype in some animal or 
 instrument of common use, and the original of the crux-ansata 
 seeming to have been a key, we may perhaps, by attending to 
 this curious circumstance, arrive at the original of those allegori- 
 cal allusions to a key, which, with reference to a future state of 
 existence, are introduced into the Holy Scriptures. Such an 
 allusion is made in the prophecies of Isaiah, concerning the 
 kingdom of Christ (ch. 22 v. 22, " the key of the house of David 
 will I lay upon his shoulder.") Christ said to Peter, "I will 
 give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven," and the 
 author of the Book of Revelation, as if the sacred symbols of 
 ancient Egypt had suggested the image to his mind, describes the 
 Angel of the Resurrection as having in his hand a key. Also in 
 the prophecies concerning the second Advent of the Messiah, a 
 similar allusion may be noticed : " I am He that liveth and was 
 dead, and behold I am alive for evermore. Amen, and have the 
 keys of hell and of death."— (Rev. 1-18.) 
 
 Now we get from various scholars and writers, several different 
 opinions respecting the meaning of this remarkable symbol. It 
 has been frequently called the " Key of the Nile," that is to say, it 
 was the representation of the instrument used at the Nileometers 
 for allowing the waters to flow into the neighbouring canals 
 upon the rising of the river to a suitable height. This is endorsed 
 by D. Clarke, Denon, Nordon, and Pocock, and is often put 
 forward in the present day as the true explanation. Then again 
 -we have the opinion of Bishop Clogher, who thought it was an 
 agricultural implement used in the process of sowing. Jamblichus 
 thought it was the name of the Divine Being. Various Christian 
 -writers conceived the whole figure. Or at least the cross, to be 
 expressive of the life to come, deriving this opinion from the 
 explanation given of it by heathen converts who understood the 
 hieroglyphics. The figure is found to vary somewhat in different 
 localities, it sometimes being represented by a cross of four arms 
 with a circle on the top, but more commonly, as we have already 
 
70 PHALLISM. 
 
 described it, as a three armed cross with the ring in the top in 
 the middle. The circle has been set up by some as emblematic 
 of the Creator and Preserver of the world ; as the wisdom derived 
 from him who directs and governs it, is signified by the Tau, the 
 monogram of Mercury, Thoth or Theta Tau, Ptha. 
 
 Then again, others say, we may further suppose it to be the 
 venerable effigy of the supreme deity, which Apuleius informs us, 
 was not made in the likeness of any creation ; or to be the 
 phylactery of Isis, which, not unlike the thummim in the breast- 
 plate of the high-priest, signified, according to Plutarch, the voice 
 of truth. " The learned Therwart," also, says Shaw, " in a very 
 elaborate dissertation, has endeavoured to prove it to be the 
 CKus nautica, or the mariner's compass, which he supposes was 
 known to the ancients." 
 
 Many seem to have endeavoured most persistently to find a 
 Phallic origin both for the Cross simple and for the Crux-Ansata 
 particularly. They thought they saw the union of Osiris and 
 Isis, the active and passive elements in it, and Sir Gardiner 
 Wilkinson noted the remarkable resemblance of the Egyptian 
 word signifying life (6nh) to the yohni lingam of the Hindoos. 
 
 The lingam-yoni is symbolised by a perpendicular arm rising 
 from the centre of a horizontal one, thus _(_ indicating the 
 vivifying principal and the reducing principal ; reversed, this 
 becomes the famous Tau, or Cross, which was the symbol of life 
 among the Greeks, as Theta was of death, being the initial letter 
 of ihanatos (death).* The Phallic idea seems, if not originated 
 by, to have at least gained strength from the fact that the Cross 
 has been traced from the earliest period of monumental history 
 along with the equilateral triangle, the symbol of the generation 
 of all things, of the source of life, of Siva, of Osiris, and of the 
 Trinities in Unity. 
 
 One thing, at any rate, seems clear, and that is the inseparable 
 connection between the Cross and the letter Tau — " The earliest 
 form in which this letter occurs is that of a Cross, and such was 
 the meaning of Tau in our ancient customs. In the primitive 
 Hebrew, Numidian, and Greek alphabets, it was represented 
 both as a diagonal and as a rectangular Cross. In the latter 
 Greek alphabet it was the rectangular lingam-yoni symbol 
 reversed." * 
 
 There is so much difficulty about the explanation of the origin 
 and meaning of this symbol that we are better able to meet it 
 
 * Barlow. 
 
PHALLISM. 71 
 
 negatively than otherwise, and to say -what it is not rather than 
 what It is. The Phallic theory haa been declared to be "mon- 
 strous and devoid of evidence," but we are not altogether prepared 
 to denounce thus summarily such a solution, seeing to what an 
 extent Phallism prevails in the east and enters into the composi- 
 tion of the national Ornaments. There is another theory which 
 we need do little more than notice, viz., that which suggests the 
 Tau (T) represents a table or altar, and that the loup symbolises 
 a vase or an egg resting upon it. 
 
 Now some very curious things have been said about this crux- 
 ansata as the supposed Nile-Key ; we may as well say at once that 
 we do not believe it to be anything of the kind, whatever else it 
 may be, or whatever may have been its origin. Sir Gardiner 
 Wilkinson remarks, it is precisely the god Nilus who is least 
 represented with this symbol in his hand, and the Nile-Key is an 
 ascertained figure of diflFerent shape. The author of the Hindoo 
 Fragments, however, in discrediting the notion of Bishop Clogher 
 that the crux was a setting stick for planting roots and large 
 seeds, evidently leans to the Key theory. He says : — " And thus 
 was I, while pondering on these matters, amused by seeing in the 
 hands of the conservators of the city of London, vulgarly called 
 turncocks, an implement almost exactly resembling this classical 
 concern of antiquity. It is the most convenient form that the 
 tool can assume in that class of men, in their round of daily 
 exercise on the banks of the Thames of their useful occupation. 
 And so it was probably in the bands of an equally useful class 
 who had charge of the Nileometers and other matters connected 
 with the rise and distribution of the waters of Egypt. Our turn- 
 cocks call their tool a key ; and so, perhaps, did the turncocks of 
 the banks of the Nile. One of ours lost, and dug up finely in- 
 crustated, two hundred years hence, may puzzle the antiquarians 
 of the day of discovery." 
 
 This sounds plausible but the weight of evidence and probability 
 is against it. There is some resemblance certainly between the 
 tool in question, and the crux-ansata, but while the former con- 
 sists simply of a partially hollow stem with an attached handle, the 
 latter has in addition a conspicuous cross-bar. If such keys were 
 used in Egypt as are used in the London streets for regulating 
 the supply of water to the inhabitants, why are they not found 
 amongst the antiquities of that kingdom, as are other things of 
 an even more perishable nature ; instead of this the Crux-Ansata 
 
 * Barton. 
 
72 PHALLISM. 
 
 is found only in painted or sculptured forms upon statues, monu- 
 nients, and mummy cloths. But when it is called the Nile-Key 
 we are reminded that, were it really such, it would probably have 
 been found only in Egypt; whereas it has been discovered 
 amongst the remains of the ancient cities of Assyria, and in the 
 magnificent cave temples of India. A search amongst the collec- 
 tions in our museums also shews us that it is chiefly found on the 
 wrappings of mummies of persons more or less engaged, centuries 
 ago, in ecclesiastical services. It can be seen for instance in the 
 British Museum on the coverings of incense bearers and priests. 
 
 It has been observed, further, that when transferred from 
 Egypt to the alphabets of surrounding nations the Tau preserved 
 its sacred character. In Hebrew it retains its name (Thau) and 
 its meaning (a terminus, or cross); and though the figure has at 
 present undergone a change, it is curious that originally it was 
 written as the Greek Tau, and in the Samaritan alphabet as an 
 actual Cross, which is " Another stumbling-block in the way of 
 those who consider it to be an implement. \ 
 
 The more carefully the subject is considered, the more unlikely 
 does it seem that the Crux-Ansata was anything but a religious 
 emblem. In ancient times it was actually borne as an ensign, 
 like that of the latter Boman empire, or those of modern 
 princes. With the lower limb extended, it was the Egyptian 
 banner, and served as a support to the crest or device of their 
 various cities, as a lion for Leontopolis, a goat for Panopolis, &c. 
 
 Now there is one very striking piece of evidence that the Tau 
 was a religious emblem, like the Christian Cross, and that is 
 afibrded by the singular fact that a great proportion of the 
 Egyptian temples have their ground plan in its form ; also, that 
 many of the sekoi were modelled from it, and that it enters 
 largely into the general arrangement of the sepulchral chambers. 
 In addition, it has been pronounced extraordinary that the 
 Crux-Ansata should be so often seen in symbolical writingSj 
 either alone, or held in the hands, or suspended over the necks of 
 deities. Beetles and such other sacred animals and symbols as 
 were bored through and intended for amulets had this figure 
 impressed on them. Shaw, who speaks thus, declared it to be 
 the same with the " Inefiable image of Eternity " mentioned by 
 Suidas. 
 
 The Crux-Ansata is truly a wonderful and mysterious emblem, 
 we could write a volume about its history, but it is doubtful if 
 
 :|: Classical Journal. 
 
PHALLISM. 73 
 
 even then we should have satisfactorily unravelled its full 
 meaning. It is so ancient that we can hardly find the time when 
 it was not, and it is so widely distributed that we light upon it 
 in quarters most unexpected. Whatever it was, everything 
 seems to say it could not have been the supposed "Key of the 
 Nile," far earlier than that it dates, and far more important and 
 sacred was its signification. It has been described as the symbol 
 of symbols, the mystical Tau, the hidden wisdom not only of the 
 ancient Egyptians, but also of the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Mexi- 
 cans, and Peruvians, and of every other ancient people com- 
 memorated in history, in either hemisphere. As our letter "J" 
 with a roundlet or oval above, it was figured on the gigantic 
 emerald or glass statue of Serapis, which was transported, b. c. 
 293, by order of Ptolemy Soter from Sinope, on the shores of the 
 Elack Sea, re-erected within the labyrinth which compassed the 
 banks of Lake Mceris, and destroyed by the victorious army of 
 Theodosius in A. D. 389, despite the earnest entreaties of the 
 Egyptian priesthood to spare it because it was the emblem of 
 their God and of the life to come. Strangely enough, " as in the 
 oldest temples and catacombs of Egypt, so this type likewise 
 abounds in the ruined cities of Mexico and Central America, 
 graven as well upon the most ancient cyclopean and polygonal 
 walls as upon the more modern and perfect examples of masonry ; 
 and is displayed in an equally conspicuous manner upon the 
 breasts of innumerable bronze statuettes which have been disin- 
 terred from the cemetery of Jingalpa — of unknown antiquity — in 
 Nicaragua."* 
 
 So universal is the belief in the antiquity of the tau or cross, 
 that it is supposed by the best scholars to liave been the mark 
 which the children of Israel made on the door-posts of their 
 houses by order of Moses, that, in the destruction of the first- 
 born of the land of Egypt, the angel of death might see it, and 
 pass over them. It is also supposed, indeed taken for granted, to 
 be the mark of salvation, spoken of by Ezekiel (ch. 9 v. 4), to be 
 set on the foreheads of the men who were not to be slain. 
 
 Like the Christian Cross, which in so many ways has been 
 displayed in old architectural ornaments and early coins, the 
 Crux-Ausata appears in simple uncompounded state or in the 
 most complicated forms, and is the origin of those beautiful 
 scrolls called Greek and Etruscan, but which are in reality 
 
 Egyptian. 
 
 * Classical Journal. 
 
74 PHALLISM. 
 
 Evidently, we think, it was unmistakeably a religious emblem, 
 venerated equally with the modern crosses of Christianity, an 
 emblem at once the most ancient and the most mysterious of any 
 to be met with. Phallic in some way it may have been, especially 
 as it is found painted and engraved upon those parts of the 
 human body by whose action the race is multiplied and preserved, 
 and entering into the composition of figures combining the sexes 
 of both male and female. Even if we 'take this view of it, it will 
 in no way militate against the further opinion that " while the 
 Christian Cross is the record of an historical miracle, the Crux- 
 Ansauta must be considered as the memento of some predicted 
 benefit to man." 
 
PHALLISM. 75 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Hebrews and Phallism — Solomon and the Heathen Gods 
 
 Old Testament Characters — Worship in Groves — Consecrated 
 
 Pillars — Asherah and the Grove — Ashtoreth — Jetvish Lingham — 
 
 Iniquity of Solomon — Worship of Baal — St. Jerome on BaalPeor 
 
 — Jevnsh Opinion of Baal^Peor — Maachah's Idol. 
 
 THERE are some passages in the Old Testament Scriptures 
 bearing upon this subject as it relates to the people of 
 Israel, and a brief notice of the same and the matters they reveal 
 will not be out of place. To recite them they read as follows : — 
 In I. Kings, oh. 11, v. 6, "For Solomon went after Ashtoreth 
 the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination 
 of the Ammonites "; v. 33, " They have forsaken me, and have 
 worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemoshthe 
 god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of 
 Ammon." And again in II. Kings, ch. 23, v. 13, "And the high 
 places that were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, 
 which Solomon the King of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the 
 abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination 
 of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children 
 of Ammon, did the King defile. And he (Josiah) brake in pieces 
 the images and cut down the groves, and filled their places with 
 the bones of men." 
 
 We are introduced here most undeniably to a certain species 
 of the most abominable idolatry on the part of Solomon and 
 others who lived under his rule, and from certain considerations 
 which we now propose to offer, we shall probably arrive at the 
 conclusion that it partook largely of the nature of sex worship. 
 This may startle some who have been accustomed to regard many 
 of these Old Testament characters as patterns of all that is simple 
 and virtuous, but facts are stubborn things, and we are faced in 
 the passages quoted with the honest revelation of Scripture itself, 
 that Solomon was led away from his rightful undivided allegiance 
 to the God of his forefathers, and "went after Ashtoreth the 
 goddess of the Sidonians and other abominations." A mention is 
 
76 PHALLISM. 
 
 made also of the groves which had been constructed by the 
 idolators for the purpose of this unhallowed worship, and which 
 Josiah the new and righteous king cut down and destroyed. 
 
 It is an ascertained fact that ages ago the heathen carried on 
 their worship of the unknown God entirely, or almost entirely, 
 in the open air. The sun was their principal deity, and as no 
 temple could be imagined extensive enough to enclose him, they 
 adored him outside all walls of any description saying, " the 
 whole world is a temple for the sun." Even in after ages when 
 buildings for worship had been erected and were fast multiplying, 
 there were certain deities, such as Terminus for instance, who 
 were always adored in temples which were left without a covering 
 or roof. So sprang up the custom of choosing hills and moun- 
 tains, on which they thought the sacrifices were more acceptable 
 because they considered they were nearer to God. From early 
 simplicity, as we point out in another place, idolatry grew com- 
 plicated and mystical and the gods increased to an enormous 
 extent, and numberless hills were set apart and consecrated for 
 the service. Here they planted trees in thick masses and 
 avenues, forming the shady and secluded groves which we read 
 so much of in ancient historians. Chiefly, however, were such 
 places created, on account of the growing impurity of the lieathen 
 rites, and it was rather that they might indulge unmolested in 
 their carnal orgies, than from any religious convictions that they 
 resorted to the solitude of the leafy grove. Such places were 
 made to look as much as possible like natural temples or the 
 shrines of particular divinities, and by adorning the trees with 
 lights and ribbons, and dedicating certain of them to one or 
 another of the gods, they continued to foster and intensify the 
 belief that they were peculiarly sacred. In these books of 
 the Old Testament, as well as in Hebrew historians of days long 
 gone by, we get very plain statements of the Jewish failings in 
 their allegiance to God and the going of the people after other 
 deities. The temptation to construct these woods and groves 
 was too much for them in spite of all the injunctions and enact- 
 ments of their law-givers to destroy such things whenever they 
 came across them, and though they had seen the severest judg- 
 ments fall upon those who had given way to the desire, and had 
 felt the divine displeasure on account of their own idolatry, they 
 repeated again and again their preposterous idolatry and oppo- 
 sition to the law. The writings of the prophets are full of 
 denunciation of these sins, and Maimonides describes the idola- 
 
PHALLI8M. 77 
 
 troua objects which they multiplied and set up in all sorts of 
 places, public and private. Lewis says : — " The most ancient 
 monuments of idolatry among the Gentiles were consecrated 
 pillars or columns, which the Hebrews were forbidden to erect 
 as objects of divine homage and adoration. This, practice is 
 conceived to have arisen from an imitation of Jacob, who took a 
 stone and set it up for a pillar, as a monument of the divine 
 mercy to him, and to preserve the memory of the vision which 
 he had seen. This stone was held in great veneration in future 
 times, and by the Jews removed to Jerusalem ; after the destruc- 
 tion of which by Titus, they were indulged (upon that day when 
 it was taken, which was the only day they were permitted to 
 come thither) with great lamentations and expressions of sorrow, 
 to go anoint this stone. From the word Bethel, the place where 
 the pillar was erected, came the word hcetylia among the heathen, 
 which signified rude stones, which they worshipped either as 
 symbols of divinity, or as true gods animated by some heavenly 
 power."* 
 
 Now it seems very probable indeed that the erection of the 
 pillar of Jacob originated the worship of the Phallus among the 
 people of that part of the world, " for," continues Lewis, "the 
 learned Bochael asserts that the Fhcenicians, at least as the Jews 
 think, first worshipped this very stone which Jacob anointed, 
 and afterwards consecrated others, which they called hcetylia or 
 bcetyli, in memory of this stone anointed at Bethel. It is certain 
 that this idolatrous custom came very early into the world, which 
 gave occasion to Moses, not only to forbid the erecting of such 
 pillars, but to command them to be broken down and destroyed, 
 whenever they were found, because in his time they were con- 
 verted to profane uses." 
 
 The similarity between this anointing and the pouring of oil 
 upon phallic objects, as we have described, in India, both in 
 ancient and modem times, is remarkable. 
 
 It is difficult not to believe that the Hebrew grove worship was 
 anything else than the Phallic worship we have been describing. 
 Grove is the English translation of the Hebrew word Asherah. 
 As to what this Asherah was, there has been much disputing, 
 but upon some things scholars have been pretty unanimous. Dr. 
 Smith's dictionary says, "Asherah, the name of a Phoenician 
 goddess, or rather of the idol itself. Our translators following 
 
 * Origines Hebrseje. 
 
78 PHALLISM. 
 
 the rendering of the LXX. (aldos) and of the Vulg (lucus) trans- 
 lated the word by 'grove.' Almost all modern interpreters 
 however since Selden, agree that an idol or image of some kind 
 must be intended, as seems sufficiently proved from such passages 
 as II. Kings, 21, v. 7 ; and 23, v. 6, in the latter of which we find 
 that Josiah, ' brought out the Asherah ' (or as our version reads, 
 ' the grove ') ' from the house of the Lord.' " There can moreover 
 be no doubt that Asherah is very closely connected with 
 Ashtoreth and her worship, indeed the two are so placed in con- 
 nection with each other, and each of them with Baal (e.g. Judg. 
 2, V. 7, Comp. 2, v. 3, Judg. 6, v. 25, I. Kings. 18, v. 19), that 
 many critics have regarded them as identical. There are other 
 passages however in which these terms seem to be distinguished 
 from each other. Movers first pointed out and established the 
 difference between the two names, though he probably goes too 
 far in considering them as names of distinct deities. The view 
 maintained by Berthau, appears to be the more correct one, that 
 Astoreth is the proper name of the goddess, whilst Asherah is 
 the name of the image or symbol of the goddess. This symbol 
 seems in all cases to have been of wood (see e.g. Judg. 6, v. 25-30, 
 and II. Kings, 23, v. 14), and the most probable etymology of the 
 term indicates that it was formed of the straight stem of a tree, 
 whether living or set up for the purpose, and thus points us to 
 the phallic rites with which no doubt the worship of Astarte was 
 connected." 
 
 If we turn to other learned sources of information we find 
 very similar conclusions arrived at as those just mentioned, and 
 there are passages in Kitto's Cyclopsedia from which we make 
 selections, entirely in countenance with what has been stated. 
 
 " As for the power of nature which was worshipped under the 
 name of Ashtoreth, Creuser and Miinter assert that it was the 
 principle of conception and parturition — that 'subordinate power 
 which fecundated by a superior influence, but which is the agent 
 of all births throughout the universe. As such, Miinter main-; 
 tains, in his Eeligion der Bdbylonier, in opposition to the remarks 
 of Gesenius, that the original form under which Ashtoreth was 
 worshipped was the moon ; and that the transition from that to 
 the planet Venus, was unquestionably an innovation of a later 
 date. It is evident that the moon alone can be properly called 
 the queen of heaven ; as also that the dependent relation of the 
 moon to the sun makes it a more appropriate symbol of that sex, 
 whose functions as female and mother throughout the whole 
 
PHALLISM. 79 
 
 extent of animated nature, were embodied in Ashtoretb. As for 
 tbe places consecrated to her worsbip, although the numerous 
 passages in which tbe authorised version has erroneously given 
 grove are to be deducted, there are yet several occasions on 
 which gardens and shady trees are mentioned as peculiar seats of 
 (probably her) lascivious rites. As to the form and attributes 
 with which Ashtoreth was represented, the oldest known image, 
 that in Paphos, with a white conical stone, often seen on Phoeni- 
 cian remains in the figure which Tacitus describes, Miinter is 
 unwilling to consider this a Lingham symbol, nevertheless there 
 appears to be some room for disputing his opinion." 
 
 This then was what Solomon did, he went after Astaroth, the 
 impure Venus of the Sidonians ; after Milcom, the abomination 
 of the Ammonites; after Chemosh, the abomination of the 
 Moabites ; and after the murderous Moloch, the abomination of 
 the children of Ammon. " He seems," says Adam Clarke, " to 
 have gone as far in iniquity as it was possible." And all these 
 were worshipped upon what the Old Testament in 2 Kings, 23, 
 V. 5, calls " the high places before Jerusalem, which were on the 
 right hand of the mount of Corruption." 
 
 Concealed in the shadow of a feeble translation, the misdeeds 
 of the once wise king look comparatively mild and tame, but 
 exposed to the glare of a fierce and keen criticism, come out in 
 all their horribleness. " Solomon loved many strange women, 
 together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, 
 Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites, of the nations 
 concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, ye 
 shall not go into them, neither shall they come in unto you : for 
 surely they will turn away your heart after their gods : Solomon 
 clave unto these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, 
 princesses, and three hundred concubines : and his wives turned 
 away his heart."* And so he took up with the filthy and 
 abominable deities of the heathen, Chemosh, Milcom, Sun and 
 Pire, the worship of the regenerative energies of nature — the 
 worship of the impure god of love, and the Mount of Olives and 
 the front of Jerusalem were polluted with his Phallic emblems, 
 pillars and altars. 
 
 In like manner as Ashtoreth was the moon was the abominable 
 Baal the sun. " In a certain sense any argument which goes to 
 shew that Ashtoreth was the moon is also, an account of the 
 
 * Kings, XI., 1—3. 
 
80 
 
 PHALLISM. 
 
 close coniunction between her and Baal, as valid a reason for 
 Baal being the sun ; for the two gods are such exact correlates, 
 that the discovery of the true meaning of the one would lead by 
 the force of analogy, to that of the other." * 
 
 Now we are informed in the Book of Numbers (ch. 25, &o.), 
 and in many other places, also by ancient Jewish writers, that 
 the Hebrews rendered divine honours to the god Baal Peor. 
 St. Jerome who was aware of this both from scripture and from 
 tradition, mentions this and calls him the Priapus of the Greeks 
 and Romans. He says he was principally worshippe"d by women 
 " colentibus maxime fasminis JBaal Phegor, ob obcceni magnitu- 
 dinetn, quern nos Priapum possumus appellare. 
 
 Maimonides a£Srms that the adoration paid to this idol consisted 
 in discovering the moris veneris before it. 
 
 It is a very ancient tradition indeed among the Jews of all 
 ages that this idol was a particularly obscene deity, whose figure, 
 and the manner of worshipping it, was filthy and abominable. 
 
 The prophet Hosea in chap. 9, v. 10, says, " I found Israel 
 like grapes in the wilderness ; I saw your fathers as the first ripe 
 in the fig tree at her first time ; but they went to Baal Peor, and 
 separated themselves unto that shapae." Prom this the Jews have 
 always held that the god was served by an obscene act which 
 required his worshippers to be uncovered before him, as 
 Maimonides says to exhibit their secret parts ; hence the law 
 commanding the priests to wear drawers when sacrificing, and 
 their being forbidden to go up to the altar by steps lest their 
 persons should happen to be uncovered. 
 
 The Talmudists are also of opinion that the figure was grossly 
 obscene, imago virilis membri cui quotidi inequibai. 
 
 It is not to be forgotten also that from this god one of the 
 mountains of the Moabites, viz., Pehor, derives its name, it is 
 concluded therefore, that he was there worshipped, and so was a 
 rural god. Such was Priapus, and may be seen in Catullus and 
 TibuUus quoted in the proper place. 
 
 " It is evident further," says Lewis, " that fornication was in 
 a manner consecrated to this filthy deity ; the Israelites joining 
 themselves to Baalpeor, and at the same time committing whore- 
 dom with the daughters of Moab, which may be said likewise 
 of Priapus, who was made membrosior aequo only to signify his 
 lasoiviousness ; and therefore in those infamous epigrams called 
 Priapceia or Lusus in Priapum, he is called deus salax." 
 
 * Kitto. 
 
PHALLISM. 81 
 
 Kitto follows in much the same strain with " It is the common 
 opinion that this god was worshipped by obscene rites, and from 
 the time of Jerome downwards it has been usual to compare him 
 to Priapus. Most Jewish authorities (except the Targum of 
 Jonathan on Num. xxv ) represent his worship to have consisted 
 of rites which are filthy in the extreme, but not lascivious. If 
 it could be shewn that this God was worshipped by libidinous 
 rites it would be one more confirmation of the relation between 
 Baal and the sun, as then Baal Peor would be a masculine phasis 
 of the same worship as that of which Mylitta is, both in name 
 and rites, the female representative." 
 
 The more the subject is studied the blacker becomes the tale of 
 the Jewish idolatry and the more evident the fact of its being of 
 a phallic character. It is as wonderful as it is painful, to read 
 in the Books of the Kings, the amount of testimony to this effect, 
 and we are struck at once with the candour and- outspoken 
 honesty of the Sacred Historians. If we turn to I. Kings xiv., 
 24; XV. 12, 13;xxii. 46; and II. Kings xxiii. 7, we find con- 
 spicuous samples of the thing we are describing. It is said 
 that Maachah " made an idol in a grove," and Dr. Clarke com- 
 menting upon the passage, says, It is pretty evident " ( after 
 quoting Rabbi Solomon Jarchi's testimony that she made it ad 
 irtstar membri virilis, and other authorities from the Chaldee, 
 Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek) " that the image was a mere Priapus, 
 or something of the same nature, and that Maachah had an 
 assembly in the grove where this image was set up, and doubtless 
 worshipped it with the most impure rites." 
 
 It is a somewhat singular thing that the Septuagint, in many 
 places, interprets the word Baal with a feminine article, and so 
 makes it representative of a goddess as well as a god. Lewis says 
 it is difficult to discover in the Hebrew text, any reason for this 
 notion of the Judaized Greeks, for (if I mistake not) Baal in the 
 Hebrew is always masculine ; but doubtless they had learnt by 
 the Phoenician tradition, that there was a goddess as well as a god 
 of that name. Arnobius observes, that Baal was of an uncertain 
 sex, and his votaries, when they called upon hitn, invoked him 
 thus : " Hear us, whether thou art a god or a goddess ;" and the 
 reason why the heathens made their gods hermaphrodites of both 
 sexes, was to express the generative and prolific virtue of the 
 
 deity. 
 
 The facts we have just been narrating, added to others men- 
 tioned in the course of this book, shew us that Phallic worship 
 
 G 
 
82 PHALLISM. 
 
 of the most debasing character prevailed amongst the Jews in 
 the olden time, affecting even their monarch and highest nobles, 
 and leading to practices £lthy, abominable and destructive. 
 
 Since the above review of this ancient and remarkable Cult first 
 appeared in print, the copious material at hand for the further 
 development of this subject has been worked up into a highly 
 interesting series of volumes embracing the many and various 
 phases of Phallic Worship, the separate treatises being Ophio- 
 latreia ; Phallic Objects ; Cultus Arhorum; Fishes, Flowers and 
 Fire; Archaic Bock Inscriptions; Nature Worship; Mysteries 
 of the Rosie Cross ; Phallic Miscellanies; and the Masculine Cross. 
 It is not, we remark in closing, a subject belonging only to the 
 past ; Phallic worship still prevails in the East. In the temples 
 of Siva, the Phallus, crowned with flowers and surmounted by a 
 golden star, is exposed in the sanctuary, and lamps are kept 
 burning before it. Offerings of Phalli are still made in the 
 Buddhist temples by barren women, just as they were by the 
 Boman wives in the temple of Venus. These are sufficient reasons 
 for the continuance of our study, and the attempt to understand 
 the theology of our eastern brothers. 
 
 THE END. 
 
AUTHORITIES. 
 
 Knight's Worship of Priapus. 
 
 Knight's Symbolical Language of Ancient Art. 
 
 Westropp's Symbol Worship. 
 
 O'Brien's Bound Towers of Ireland. 
 
 Dean's Serpent Worship. 
 
 M'Clintock's Encyclopsedia. 
 
 Fergusson's Serpent Worship. 
 
 Higgin's Anacalypsis. 
 
 Inman's Ancient Faiths. 
 
 Petrie's Round Towers of Ireland. 
 
 Forlong's Rivers of Life. 
 
 Baring's Gould's Origin of Religious Beliefs. 
 
 Herodotus. 
 
 Moor's Hindoo Pantheon. 
 
 Moor's Oriental Fragments. 
 
 Maurice's Indian Antiquities. 
 
 Athenseus 
 
 Aristophanes. 
 
 Diodorus Siculus. 
 
 Barlow's Essays on Symbolism. 
 
 Mitra's Antiquities of Orissa. 
 
 Forbes's Oriental Memoirs. 
 
 Classical Journal. 
 
 Earth's Religions of India. 
 
 Tiele's History of Egyptian Religion. 
 
 Haslam's Cross and the Serpent. 
 
 Baring Gould's Curious Myths of Middle Ages. 
 
 Clarke's Travels. 
 
 Shaw's Travels 
 
 Lewis's Origines Hebrseae. 
 
84 AUTHORITIES. 
 
 Gorius' Etruscan Antiquities. 
 
 Sellon's Annotations of Sacred Books of Hindoos. 
 
 Renouf's Hibbert Lectures for 1879. 
 
 Bonwick's Egyptian Beliefs. 
 
 Banier's Mythology of the Ancients. 
 
 Seeley's Wonders of EUora. 
 
 Legge's Chinese Classics. 
 
 Alabaster's Modern Buddhist. 
 
 Beale's Legend of Buddha. 
 
 Edkins's Chinese Buddhism. 
 
 Hue's Travels. 
 
 Gust's Pictures of Indian Life. 
 
 Wilson's Essays on Hinduism. 
 
 Monier Williams' Hinduism. 
 
 Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus. 
 
 Burgess's Elephanta. 
 
 Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, 
 
 Faber's Origin of Pagan Idolatry. 
 
 Hislop's Two Babylons. 
 
 Pergusson's Palaces of Nineveh. 
 
 Layard's Nineveh. 
 
 Cory's Ancient Fragments. 
 
 Cory's Mythological Enquiries. 
 
 Took's Pantheon. 
 
 Oort's Worship of Baalim. 
 
 Catullus. 
 
 Tibullus. 
 
 Archeeological Soo. Journals. • • • - 
 
 Horace. 
 
 Anthropological Soc. Journals. 
 
 Asiatic Researches. 
 
 Bawlin son's Ancient Egypt. 
 
 Gumpach's Historical Antiquities of. Egypt. 
 
 Osburn's Monumental Egypt. 
 
 Osburn's Antiquities of Egypt. 
 
 Wilkinson's Ancient Egypt. 
 
 Kenrick's Ancient Egypt. 
 
 Higgins's Druids 
 
 Smiddy's Druids and Towers of Ireland. 
 
 Borlase's Antiquities of Cornwall. 
 
 Rimmer's Ancient Stone Crosses. 
 
 Tacitus. 
 
AUTHORITIES. 85 
 
 Propertius. 
 
 Lucaa's Fharsalia. 
 
 Prescott's Conquest of Mexico. 
 
 Picard'a Religious Ceremonies. 
 
 RoUins's Ancient History. 
 
 Fergusson and Burgess, Cave Temples. 
 
 Waring's Monuments and Ornaments. 
 
 Sacred Books of the East. 
 
 Oliver's Initiation into Ancient Rites. 
 
 Bhlavatsky's Isis Unveiled.