Hargrave Jennings

“ This is the sublime, the hallowed symbol that eternally occurs in oriental mythology, and in truth not without reason, for it is itself a lovely prodigy. Throughout all the northern hemispheres it was everywhere held in profound veneration, and from Savary we learn that the veneration is yet continued among the modern Egyptians. And we find that it still continues to receive the respect if not the adoration of a great part of the Christian world, unconscious, perhaps, of the original reason of this conduct. ”

“ Say, can I do anything for you?’ Brahma smiling, replied,—‘I have been sent by the gods to discover the head of this wonderful lingam which fills the three worlds, but I have not been able to reach it. What, therefore, shall I say to them when I return; for, if I falsely assert that I have seen its top, they will require witnesses to attest the truth of it? Do thou, then, with this ketaki, give testimony to what I shall declare.’ Surabhi and the ketaki tree consented to act as Brahma desired ”

“ The Hindus profess exactly the same opinion. “They would readily admit the truth of the Gospel,” says a very learned writer long resident among them, “but they contend that it is perfectly consistent with their Shastras. The Deity, they say, has appeared innumerable times in many parts of this world and in all worlds, for the salvation of his creatures; and we adore, they say, the same God, to whom our several worships, though different in form, are equally acceptable if they be sincere in substance.” ”

“ The worship of Bhairava, still prevails amongst the Saktas and the Jogis; but in upper India, at least, the naked mendicant, smeared with funeral ashes, armed with a trident or a sword, carrying a hollow skull in his hand, and half intoxicated with the spirits which he has quaffed from that disgusting wine-cup, prepared, in short, to perpetrate any act of violence and crime, the Kapalika of former days, is now rarely, if ever, encountered. ”

“ If he call me an unlucky wife, why did he marry me? When a person’s fate is bad, they say his forehead is on fire. Why does he call me unlucky? Is not his own forehead on fire, and are we not suffering through his bad fate? True, I have neither a beautiful form, nor excellent qualities, nor conduct, nor honour, nor wisdom, nor learning, nor property, nor race, nor brother, nor friend, nor father, nor mother, nor relations, nor ornaments; but, look at his form; he covers himself with the ashes of the dead ”

“ Asher was the supreme god of the Assyrians, 20the Vedic Mahadeva, the emblem of the human male structure and creative energy. The same idea of the creator is still to be seen in India, Egypt, Phœnicia, the Mediterranean, Europe, and Denmark, depicted on stone relics.
To a rude and ignorant people, enslaved with such a religion, it was an easy step from the crude to the more refined sign, from the offensive to a more pictured and less obnoxious symbol, from the plain and self-evident to the mixed, disguised, and mystified, from the unclothed privy member to the cross. ”

“ Thus we find a close relationship between the various mythologies of the ancient nations, and by a comparison of the creeds, ideas, and symbols, can see that they spring from the same source, namely, the worship of the forces and operations of nature, the original of which was doubtless Sun worship. It is not necessary to prove that in primitive times the Sun must have been worshipped under various names, and venerated as the Creator, Light, Source of Life, and the Giver of Food. ”

“ India, beyond all other countries on the face of the earth, is pre-eminently the home of the worship of the Phallus—the Linga puja; it has been so for ages and remains so still. This adoration is said to be one of the chief, if not the leading dogma of the Hindu religion, and there is scarcely a temple throughout the land which has not its Lingam, in many instances this symbol being the only form under which the deity of the sanctuary is worshipped. ”

“ India, China, and Egypt have furnished the world with a genus of religion. Time and culture have divided and modified it into many species and countless varieties. However much the imagination was allowed to play upon it, the animus of that religion was sexuality—worship of the generative principle of man and nature, male and female. ”

“ Very little judgment is needed to understand that the tendency of practices thus appealing to the most easily excited of the animal passions would be downward rather than upward, that instead of growing pure and free from the taint of lustful desires, the almost inevitable fruit would be impurity and licentious indulgence; it is not likely therefore that the more respectable worship of early India would be the product of the gross practices of the other nations we have named. We can see clearly enough, we think, the origin of this worship resting upon the highest aspirations of the human soul. ”

“ We ascribe to the notion the Indians entertain that everything is formed by generation, the blind devotion they pay to this Lingam, in which they confound the agent with the means he employs. It will be impossible to justify them in any manner on this head, but by considering it as a type or symbol, which still cannot but be shocking to decency and good manners; some, however, cannot help thinking that those who first invented these figures, were naturally inclined to satiate by lust, what they exhibited for the emblem of a Deity. ”

“ NATURE AND SEX WORSHIP Sex Worship has prevailed among all peoples of ancient times, sometimes contemporaneous and often mixed with Star, Serpent, and Tree Worship. The powers of nature were sexualised and endowed with the same feelings, passions, and performing the same functions as human beings.
Among the ancients, whether the Sun, the Serpent, or the Phallic Emblem was worshipped, the idea was the same—the veneration of the generative principle. ”

“ In the freshness of imagination during the primitive state of society, comparisons, metaphors, and allegories, were soon changed into real entities, and mythology rapidly gained ground in men’s minds. Thus, the Puranas, by a natural poetical idea, made the sun and the moon, which witness all that is done on the earth, the spies of the divine ruler—a myth describing the all-pervading nature of their rays. In the Vedas, they are regarded as the universal witnesses of all ceremonies. ”

“ Hence we have the depraved ceremonies at the worship of Bacchus, who became, not only the representative of the creative power, but the God of pleasure and licentiousness.
The corrupted religion always found eager votaries, willing to be captives to a pleasant bondage by the impulse of physical bliss, as was the case in India and Egypt, and among the Phœnicians, Babylonians, Jews and other nations.
Sex worship once personified became the supreme and governing deity, enthroned as the ruling God over all; dissent therefrom was impious and punished. The priests of the worship compelled obedience ”

“ Sheevah, incensed at this attempt, turned the fire with indignation against the human race; and mankind would soon have been destroyed, had not Vishnu, alarmed at the danger, implored him to suspend his wrath. ”

“ The spirit in which these religious days are kept, the splendid and fascinating ceremonies connected with them, and the merry exhibitions, including savage music and indecent dancing, that form a part of the worship, cannot but captivate and corrupt the heart and overpower the judgment of youth. ”

“ The festival of Venus was celebrated towards the beginning of April, and the Phallus was again drawn in a car, followed by a procession of Roman women to the temple of Venus. Says a writer, “The loose women of the town and its neighbourhood, called together by the sounding of horns, mixed with the multitude in perfect nakedness, and excited their passions with obscene motions and language until the festival ended in a scene of mad revelry, in which all restraint was laid aside.” ”

“ But every one shall reap the fruit of his good or bad actions, and the lingam therefore shall not cease to distress the three worlds until it is resumed by that god. Do ye, therefore, adopt such means as you think best for restoring tranquility to the universe.’ The gods said,—‘But, O Lord! what means ought we to adopt?’ Brahma replied,—‘Propitiate by adoration the mountain-born goddess, and she will then assume the form of the yoni and receive this lingam, by which means alone it can be rendered innocuous. ”

“ The devotees returned about the same time from their wanderings after Prakeety. The days that followed were days of embarrassment and shame. If the women had failed in their modesty, the devotees 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 eyes often turned to where the men first saw the maid—the women, the Pandaram. ”

“ A crescent on his forehead, pourtrays the measure of time by the phases of the moon; a serpent forms a necklace to denote the measure of time by years; a second necklace formed of human skulls marks the lapse and revolution of ages, and the extinction and succession of the generations of mankind. He holds a trident, to show that the great attributes are in him assembled and united; in another is a kind of rattle, shaped like an hour glass, and I am inclined to think that it was at first intended as such, since it agrees with the character of the deity ”

“ Directly opposite to the gate of the pagoda is a stone building, raised on pillars, enclosing a well, and ending in a point; and being at the distance of twelve or fourteen feet, darkens the gateway by its shadow, until the sun rises above it: this no doubt has been contrived on purpose to raise the expectation of the people, and by rendering the sight of the idol more rare, to favour the imposition of the Brahmins. ”

“ As Darwin and his coadjutors teach, mankind, in common with all animal life, originally sprung from the sea; so physiology teaches that each individual had origin in a pond of water. The fruit of man is both solid and fluid. It was natural to imagine that the two male appendages had a distinct duty, that one formed the infant, the other water in which it lived, that one generated the male, the other the female offspring; and the inference was then drawn that water must be feminine, the emblem of all possible powers of creation. ”

“ Captain Campbell, after describing the lascivious dancing of Hindoo girls, who get their living by it, says, “that such enticements to vice should make a part of the system of any society is to be lamented: yet in all ceremonies and great occasions, whether religious worship or domestic enjoyment, they make a part of the entertainment; and the altars of their gods, and the purity of the magic rites, are alike polluted by the introduction of the dancing girls. The impurity of this custom, however, vanishes, when compared with the hideous practice of introducing dancing boys.” ”

“ The ark or chest of Osiris was attended by the priests, and was borne on the shoulders of men by means of staves. The ark when taken from the temple was placed upon a table, or stand, made expressly for the purpose, and was attended by a procession similar to that which followed the Jewish ark. According to Faber, the ark was a symbol of the earth or female principle, containing the germ of all animated nature, and regarded as the great mother whence all things sprung. Thus the ark, earth, and goddess, were represented by common symbols, and spoken of in the old Testament as the “ashera.” ”