Page5_1 Brahm Atma, would so be designated the first, or primal creator, for breath was the first to be recognised as the sign of life. As a type, breath was represented by the feather, the sail, etc. in the Egyptian mythology. The god of breath was Khneph, later adopted by the Christians and transformed into the Holy Spirit, the power of inspiration, or insufflation (breathing into) to give life. It should be noted here that the deity Brahm is neither masculine nor feminine. For more on this subject, refer to NG 1, where the origins of these natural types are given.
Page5_2 It is true that the antiquity of the lingam would be of a remote period, yet in his proposal of a religious history of India, Sellon neglects the power, reverence and respect likewise accorded the yoni, which, chronologically, would have more than likely been worshipped first as the true origins of fatherhood pertaining to the function of the penis in intercourse remained largely unrecognised, at least until a more recent period.
Page6_1 The three gunas represent three phases in the alchemical working, the last, tamas, being inertia, the sluggish black phase, or darkening period. See any treatise on Indian alchemy.
Page6_2 The relationship of the Trimurti with regards to one another is admirably expressed by Kalidasa in his famous epithet:
In those Three Persons the One God was shown—
Each First in place, each Last alone—not one alone;
Of Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, each may be
First, second, third, among the Blessed Three.
(Birth of the War God, Canto 7—Griffith's translation, 1853, p. 73.)
Page8_1 See Ridley Scott, Phallic Worship, p. 148, who gives the quote in full:
'There can be no doubt of its [i.e., phallicism's] universality at the period of the Mohammedan invasion of India. The idol destroyed by Mahmud, of Ghizini, was nothing more than a Linga, being according to Mirkhond [Mir Khavand, the son of Mahmud and author of The Rauszat-us-Sofa, 15th C.], a block of stone of four or five cubits long, and proportionate thickness. It was, in fact, one of the twelve great Lingas then set up in various parts of India, several of which, besides Someswara, or Somanáth, which was the name of Siva, demolished by Mahmud, were destroyed by the early Mohammedan 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 and sixth centuries of the Christian era.'
Page15_1 As such, it typifies the Axis Mundi, or pillar of the world around which all of Maya revolves. The Tree, Mount, Pillar, Pole and finally Lingam, are all one and the same, based on identical typology wherever the symbols are found.
Page15_2 Water and Air, or Breath, the two truths of procreation.
Page17_1 Scott, Phallic Worship, pp. 114-16, discusses the symbolism of the ark, a symbol also adopted by the Arkite trio; Bryant, Faber and Davies. Scott has this to say; having related the beliefs of Sellon regarding the argha, he quotes him, 'there would also now appear good ground for believing that the ark of the covenant, held so sacred by the Jews, contained nothing more or less than a phallus, the ark being a type of the argha or Yoni.' (Article, 'On Linga Puja,' in Memoirs, 1.) But see Sellon's footnote 8 where this is discussed in greater detail. It would appear from the comparison of these two sources that he had written both around the same period when his ideas were fully evolved.
Page17_2 Pudendum muliebre, literal translation—'the womanly parts of shame' in Victorian times.
Page22_1 For representations of Kali in her various manifestations, see any good book on Hindu mythology.
Page23_1 Human sacrifices have been rare in India, especially to Kali. It is more often than not a goat that is sacrificed in her honour; this is certainly the case in Bengal.
Page24_1 Cited by Massey.
Page51_1 Quoted by Lysebeth, p. 271.
Page52_1 Ibid.
Page53_1 Ibid.
Page54_1 Ibid., p.272.
Page55_1 See Lysebeth, p. 272. Quoting Kularnava Tantra, M.P. Pandit's translation.
Notes
Note8_1 This is also quoted in Scott, op. cit., p. 166.
Note13_1 Scott, on pp. 114-15, has this to say, and cites the same authority as Sellon, Lieutenant Wilford:
'By Greek mythologists, the mystical boat was called the cup of the sun, in which, it was claimed, Hercules, the son of Jupiter, sailed the ocean. The Greeks, by whom the notion of an avatara, or descent of a god in human form, had not been generally recognized, considered those as the suns whom the Hindus envisaged as incarnate rays or portions of their several deities. Jupiter was the Iswara of the Hindus, and the Osiris of the Egyptians; and Hercules was an avatara of the same divinity, who is figured among the ruins of Luxorein, in a boat, which eighteen men bear upon their shoulders.' (See Asiatic Researches, 3, 363.)
And continues:
'In further reference to the argha, Lieutenant Wilford says that the Hindus consider it to be an emblem of the earth, and of the mysterious Yoni. It signifies a vessel, cup or dish, in which fruits and flowers are offered to deities, and ought to be in the shape of a boat; though we may see many that are oval, circular or square. A rim round the argha represents the Yoni, and the navel of Vishnu is commonly denoted by a convexity in the centre, while the contents of the vessel are symbols of the Lingam.'
And further, in the same words as Sellon:
'This argha, as a type of the adhara-shakti, or power of conception, excited and vivified by the Lingam, or phallus, cannot but suppose to be one and the same with the ship Argo, which was built, according to Orpheus, by Juno and Pallas, and according to Apollonius, by Pallas and Argus, at the instance of Juno.' (Wilford, Asiatic Researches, 3 and 8.)
Oliver states that it was the hidden symbolism of the argha that was responsible for the rise of phallic worship:
'After the deluge, the Sun and Noah were worshipped in conjunction with the Moon and the Ark, which latter represented the female principle, and was acknowledged in different nations under various appellations of Isis, Venus, Astarte, Ceres, Proserpine, Rhea, Sita, Ceridwen, Frea, etc., while the fumen or male principle assumed the names of Osiris, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Bacchus, Adonis, Hu, Brahma, Odin, etc., which by degrees introduced the abominations of phallic worship.' (History of Initiation, 1829, quoted in Scott, ibid., p. 115)
Finally, Scott concludes:
'It is significant that the ark constructed by Noah sailed the waters for a period equal to that of woman's gestation, to wit, 284 days. At the end of this period "life issued from the ark". (Hannay, Rise, Decline and Fall of Roman Religion, London, 1925, p. 37.)
The moon and egg were both symbols of the ark from which they issued when they became parents of a new race. The ark of Noah, as a lunette, symbolized the female principle, with a Lingam, or male principle, for a mast. According to a legend of the Brahmins, it was in this form that the two principles of generation were preserved on the occasion of the universal deluge. (Oliver, op. cit.) In some instances, instead of a mast, a man standing uptight in the boat or ark, symbolized the male principle in nature.'
Note15_1 For accounts of these rites and other useful information, see Burton and Smithers, Priapeia, Cosmopoli, 1890 (conveniently republished by Wordsworth, 1995), which gives English translations of the texts usually found beneath statues of the god Priapus.
Note18_1 It is more correct to refer to them as Thugees.
Note26_1 Pp. 49-50, 1865 edition. See also Scott, op cit., p. 31. I give the quote in full here:
'The first and greatest of these, the creative or generative attribute, seems to have been originally represented by the union of the male and female organs of generation, which, under the title of the Lingam, still occupies the central and most interior recesses of their temples or pagodas; and is also worn, attached to bracelets, round their necks and arms. In a little portable temple brought from the Rohilla country during the late war, and now in the British Museum, this composition appears mounted on a pedestal, in the midst of a square area, sunk in a block of white alabaster.8 Round the pedestal is a serpent, the emblem of life, with his head rested upon his tail, to denote eternity, or the constant return of time upon itself, whilst it flows through perpetual duration, in regular revolutions and stated periods. From under the body of the serpent springs the lotus or water lily, the Nelumbo of Linnaeus, which overspreads the whole of the area not occupied by the figures at the corners. This plant grows in the water, and, amongst its broad leaves, puts forth a flower, in the centre of which is formed the seed-vessel, shaped like a bell or inverted cone, and punctuated on the top with little cavities or cells, in which the seeds grow. The orifices of these cells being too small to let the seeds drop out when ripe, they shoot forth into new plants, in the places where they were formed; the bulb of the vessel serving as a matrix to nourish them, until they acquire such a degree of magnitude as to burst it open and release themselves; after which, like other aquatic weeds, they take root wherever the current deposits them. This plant therefore, being thus productive of itself, and vegetating from its own matrix, without being fostered in the earth, was naturally adopted as the symbol of the productive power of the waters, upon which the active spirit of the creator operated in giving life and vegetation to matter. We accordingly find it employed in every part of the northern hemisphere, where the symbolical religion, improperly called idolatry, does or ever did prevail. The sacred images of the Tartars, Japonese, and Indians, are almost all placed upon it; of which numerous instances occur in the publications of Kaempfer, Chappe D'Auteroche, and Sonnerat. The upper part of the base of the Lingam also consists of this flower, blended and composed with the female organ of generation which it supports: and the ancient author of the Bhagvat Geeta speaks of the creator Brahma as sitting upon his lotus throne. The figures of Isis, upon the Isiac Table, hold the stem of this plant, surmounted by the seed-vessel in one hand, and the cross, representing the male organs of generation, in the other; thus signifying the universal power, both active and passive, attributed to that goddess. On the same Isaic Table is also the representation of an Egyptian temple, the columns of which are exactly like the plant which Isis holds in her hand, except that the stern is made larger, in order to give it that stability which is necessary to support a roof and entablature. Columns and capitals of the same kind are still existing, in great numbers, among the ruins of Thebes, in Egypt; and more particularly upon those very curious ones in the island of Philae, on the borders of Ethiopia, which are, probably, the most ancient monuments of art now extant; at least, if we except the neighbouring temples of Thebes.
Note49_1 Lysebeth, p. 271. 'The Kanchiluas' worship ... etc, the votaries inculcated.' (This quote can also be found in Wilson's Works, 1, 263, 1862 edition.)