Lingam

“ It is remarkable that an exceptionally severe and puritanical sect should choose this emblem as its object of worship, but, as already observed, the lingam is merely a symbol of the creative force and its worship is not accomplished by indecent rites. [561] They hold that true Lingâyats are not liable to be defiled by births or deaths, that they cannot be injured by sorcery and that when they die their souls do not transmigrate but go straight to Śiva. No prayers for the dead are needed. ”

“ Amongst all the rudest tribes of India, and even throughout Rajpootana, and with the strict Jain sects who abhor Lingam worship, these still shew their parent root by devoting some fifteen days annually, after the harvests are gathered in, to the most gross form of Lingam worship, in which a complete naked image of a man, called ‘Elajee,’ is built of clay and decorated with wreaths of flowers, &c., and placed in prominent situations. ”

“ As might be expected, the members of this sect are staunch Saivites. They wear both the Brāhminical sacred thread, and the linga suspended from another thread. They revere in particular Ganapathi. The lingam which they wear they usually call the prāna lingam, or life lingam. The moment a child, male or female, is born, it is invested with the lingam; oherwise it is not considered to have prānam or life. The popular belief is that, if by some accident the lingam is lost, a man must either fast until he recovers it, or not survive so dire a calamity. ”

“ Having dressed the daughters of their nurses, or their female friends, or their female attendants, like men, they accomplish their object by means of bulbs, roots, and fruits having the form of the Lingam, or they lie down upon the statue of a male figure, in which the Lingam is visible and erect. ”

“ The Lingam and Phallic Worship. § 6.
Whilst the cult of Venus sprang up in the interior of Asia and was disseminated from thence over other parts of the world, it is in India that the Lingam ritual took its rise, a ritual more closely corresponding with the egotism of man. The idea that was early formed as the result of observation, that the man’s genitals were the determining element in the process of generation, was bound to conceive these organs themselves as being, in the prevailing system of Pantheism, under the Government of a Deity, and therefore as specially holy66. ”

“ Over the lingam, to keep it from harm, is plastered a black mixture of clay, cowdung ashes, and marking-nut juice. This coating, which is called kauthi or the cover, entirely hides the shape of the enclosed lingam. It forms a smooth black slightly truncated cone, not unlike a dark betel nut, about three-quarters of an inch high, and narrowing from three-quarters of an inch at the base to half an inch across the top.”
The Jangam cannot as a rule be distinguished from other Lingāyats. All male members of the community have a clean-shaved head, without the top-knot common to the Brāhmans. ”

“ Canarese and Telugu Lingāyats regard a Jangam as superior to the stone lingam. In the matter of pollution ceremonies the Tamil Lingāyats are very particular, whereas the orthodox Lingāyats observe no pollution. The investiture with the lingam does not take place so early among the Tamil as among the Canarese Lingāyats.
For the following note, I am indebted to Mr. C. Hayavadana Rao. " Dr. H. H. Wilson * [2] is of opinion that the word Pandāram is 'more properly Pānduranga, pale complexioned, from their smearing themselves with ashes. ”

“ They declare that there is no need for sacrifices, penances, pilgrimages or fasts. The cardinal principle of the faith is an unquestioning belief in the efficacy of the lingam, the image which has always been regarded as symbolical of the God Siva. This image, which is called the jangama lingam or moveable lingam, to distinguish it from the sthavara or fixed lingam of Hindu temples, is always carried on some part of the body, usually the neck or the left arm, and is placed in the left hand of the deceased when the body is committed to the grave. ”

“ Dulaure describes the rites of the Cochi-couris, in which the sacred water of the Ganges is first poured upon the lingam; it is then preserved to be dealt out in drops to the faithful; it is specially serviceable in soothing the last hours of the dying. The Lingam is the Phallic symbol. The water or milk sanctified by it may represent a former employment of urine, such, as will be shown, as prevailed all over Europe. The use of lingam water is perhaps analogous to that of mistletoe water, previously noted. ”

“ But the Budhists, not content with this ordinary veneration, or with paying homage in secret to that [Pg 112] symbol of production which all other classes of idolators equally, though privately, worshipped,—I mean the Lingam,—thought they could never carry their zeal sufficiently far, unless they erected it into an idol of more than colossal magnitude—and those idols were the Round Towers. Hence the name Budhism, which I thus define, viz. that species of idolatry which worshipped Budh (i.e. the Lingam) , as the emblem of Budh (i.e. the Sun) —Budh signifying, indiscriminately, Sun and Lingam. ”

“ We are told that it is just the same with our Brahmâ-Prajâpati, with Osiris and all other Creative Gods. Quite so, when their rites are judged exoterically and externally; the reverse when their inner meaning is unveiled, as we see. The Hindû Lingam is identical with Jacob's “Pillar”—most undeniably. But the difference, as said, seems to consist in the fact that the Esoteric significance of the Lingam was too truly sacred and metaphysical to be revealed to the profane and the vulgar; hence its superficial appearance was left to the speculations of the mob. ”

“ The legend relates that in ancient times some Parihar Rajputs used to live in these jangals, feeding on roots and fruit. One of them, Vasu Patr, in digging for roots, came upon a lingam, and continuing his excavations, found an entire lingam and argha; these he cleaned and went home; there he dreamt that he was ordered to worship it; he wanted to know where he could get water for libations, when he was told that in a copse, to the north of the lingam, he would find water in a hollow. ”

“ Many Jangams are priests to Sūdras who are not Lingāyats, others are merely religious beggars, and others of them go in for trade.” In the Census Report, 1891, it is further recorded that “the full name is Jangama Lingāyat, meaning those who always worship a moveable lingam, in contradistinction to the Sthāvara (immoveable) lingam of the temples. [451] Only two of the sub-divisions returned are numerically important, Ganāyata and Sthāvara. ”

“ Subsequently Râma, pursuing Râvana, passed that way and worshipped the lingam.
Siva at last was pleased with the untiring devotion of Baiju Gwâla, and offered to give him any gift he should ask. The independent gwala replied—"What can you give me? I have enough to eat and drink. I want nothing, but if you are determined to grant me a gift, grant that henceforth my name should precede yours." From that day, the lingam known as Râvaneswara came to be known as Baijnâth.
A few miles to the north-east of Baijâth is Harlájhuri; here are a few modern temples and fragments of statues ”

“ XIX. The Lingam, Linga or Lingum (male organ-worship) , is but the reverse of the discal or oval worship. The dome everywhere is but the female idea; the minaret represents the male; and as said before, actually the colors of all our flags, red, white and blue, green and yellow, are representative of the same, or Garter Idea; the first two meaning the spiritual purity and sacrificial blood of woman; the blue already explained; the green representing the result of the union of male and female—production, fertility, growth ”

“ This representation of the union of the sexes, typifies the divine sacti, or active energy in union, the procreative generative power seen throughout nature; the earth being the primitive pudendum or yoni, which is fecundated by the solar heat, the sun—the primeval Lingam, to whose vivifying rays, men and animals, plants and the fruits of the earth owe their being and continued existence. Thus, according to the Hindus, the Linga is God and God is the Linga ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is not without importance as bearing on the antiquity of the well-known Indian legend of the Lingam-ritual; and at the same time shows clearly that those affections of the genital organs must have borne a malignant character that men could not explain to themselves otherwise than as proceeding from the wrath of a Deity, a deity who on the other hand alone possessed the power to remove these ills. ”

“ Whoever has fallen in and is carried away by the current of his desires and who is purified from his worldliness by the sacred ablution of his good sense; should worship the Siva lingam as the emblem of understanding with the offering of his knowledge of it. ”

“ Among the sixteen million worshippers of Siva, whose symbol is the Lingam, impurity is far less prevalent than among the sister sects of Hindoo religions.66-2 To the Lingayets, the member typifies abstractly the idea of life. ”

“ When a man is initiated as a Lingāyat in after-life, the Jangam invests him with the lingam, pours holy water on to his head and mutters in his ear the sacred text, ‘Aham so aham,’ or ‘I and you are now one and the same.’ The Lingāyats are strict vegetarians, and will not expose their drinking water to the sun, as they think that by doing this insects would be bred in it and that by subsequently swallowing them they would be guilty of the destruction of life. ”

“ The male sex offered an image of the sun, centre of the active principle, and the female sex that of the moon, at the sphere whereof, proceeding downward, the passive portion of nature begins. The Lingam, unto the present day revered in the Indian temples, being but the conjunction of the organs of generation of the two sexes, was an emblem of the same. The Hindūs have ever had the greatest veneration for this symbol of ever-reproductive nature. The Greeks consecrated the same symbols of universal fruitfulness in their Mysteries ”

“ Those who wear the sacred thread seem to preponderate over the non-thread weavers in the Canarese section. To the thread is sometimes attached metal charm- cylinder to ward off evil spirits.
The following are examples of exogamous septs in the Telugu section: —
The majority of Dēvāngas are Saivites, and wear the lingam. They do not, however, wash the stone lingam with water, in which the feet of Jangams have been washed. They are not particular as to always keeping the lingam on the body, and give as an explanation that, when they are at work, they have to touch all kinds of people. ”

“ The temple appears to have been a very large one, consisting of a sanctum enshrining a large lingam, an antarala, a maha manctapa, and probably also a mandapa and portico. The temple was built of bricks picked with stone. It stood at the north-west corner of a tank. The lingam measures 5 feet 7 inches in circumference, and is 2 feet high at the apex; the argha extends 1 foot 10 inches beyond it all round; there is on the mound a fourteen-armed statue in black basalt, and a second similar one mutilated. ”

“ The great majority are cultivators. 4. Laligonda, divided into Hera (elder) and Chikka (younger) Laligonda. 5. Kāpu, Rēddi, and Vakkalīga, cultivators. The Aradhya Brāhman is termed a Lingāyat. This caste is not included in the present note. The members of it wear the sacred thread, as well as the lingam. They are strict Saivite Brāhmans, and have nothing to do with the Lingāyats proper. ”

“ Even the lowest castes are to be raised to the level of all others by the investiture of the lingam, and all Lingadhāris, or wearers of the divine symbol, are to eat together, to intermarry, and to live at unity. ”

“ At the present day, marriage is both infant and adult, and the parties to the contract have practically no choice. Widows are indeed allowed to remarry, but such marriages are regarded with disfavour by the stricter members of the sect. A Pariah or a Mala cannot be invested with the lingam, and, if he pretends to be a Lingāyat, the Jangam does not acknowledge him. The strict rules regarding meat and drink are maintained, and Lingāyats are still free from many of the ceremonies and religious performances required of other Hindus. ”

“ Mahr. Liñgā-īt, Can. Lingāyata, a member of a Sivaite sect in W. and S. India, whose members wear the liñga (see LINGAM) in a small gold or silver box suspended round the neck. The sect was founded in the 12th century by Bāsava. They are also called Jangama, or Vīra Śaiva, and have various subdivisions. [See Nelson, Madura, pt. iii. 48 seq.; Monier Williams, Brahmanism, 88.]
1673.—"At Hubly in this Kingdom are a caste called Linguits, who are buried upright."—Fryer, 153. This is still their practice. ”

“ This freedom from the narrowing influence of caste was doubtless a great incentive to the spread of the reformed religion. The lingam was to be regarded as the universal leveller, rendering all its wearers equal in the eye of the Deity. High and low were to be brought together by its influence, and all caste distinctions were to be swept away. According to Basava's teaching, all men are holy in proportion as they are temples of the great spirit; by birth all are equal; men are not superior to women, and the gentle sex must be treated with all respect and delicacy ”