CHAPTER VL

RITES AND CEREMONIES OF THE INDIAN PHALLIC WORSHIP, AND ITS CONNEXION WITH GENERAL RELIGIOUS MEANINGS.
Dancine formed an important part of the ceremonial worship of most Eastern peoples. Dancing girls were attached to the Egyptian and also to the Jewish temples. David, also, as we are told, “danced before the Lord with all his might.” And to every temple of any im- portance, in India, we find a Nautch, or troop of dancing girls attached. ‘These women are generally procured when quite young, and are early initiated into all the mysteries of the profession. They are instructed in dancing, and vocal and instrumental music, their chief employment being to chant the sacred hymns, and perform nautches before the god, on the recurrence of high festivals. But this is not the only, and, in peculiar senses, not the most important, and certainly not the most seductive service required of them; for besides being the acknow- ledged mistresses of the officiating priests, it is their duty to prostitute themselves, in the courts of the temples, to ali comers, and thus raise funds for the enrichment of the place of worship to which they belong.
They are always women of considerable personal attractions, and sometimes boasting the most remarkable beauty, either of face or form, and very frequently of both combined. These special allurements of counte- nance and shape are heightened by all the choice blandish- ments of dress, manner of disposal of dress (or undress),
: Indian Phallic Worship. 57
jewels, accomplishments, and art; so that they frequently receive large sums in return for the favours they grant, and fifty, one hundred, and even two hundred rupees have been known to be paid to these syrens for one night’s possession.
Nor are these usages very much to be wondered at, as these females comprise among their number perhaps some of the loveliest women in the world. All temptations are heightened by their secrecy, and by their being artfully kept back.
It has been said already, that among the classes from which a medium for sacti is selected, is the courtesan and dancing-girl grade. They are, indeed, more frequently chosen for this honour than others. A Nautch woman esteems it a peculiar privilege to become Radha Dea.on such occasions. It is an office the duties of which these adepts are, on every account, better calculated to fulfil with satisfaction to the sect of Sacteyas who may require their aid, than a more innocent and unsophisticated girl.
The worship of Sacti is the adoration of Power, which the Hindiis typify by the Yoni, or womb, the Argha, or vulva, and by the leaves and flowers of certain plants, thought to resemble it. Thus we find in the Ananda- Tantram (c. vi. verse 13) an allusion to the Aswattha, or sacred fig-tree, the leaf of which is in the shape of a heart, and much resembles the conventional form of the yoni, to which it is compared.
« Aswattha patrasadrusam Yoniaciaram chabhajanam, Tamra, rapya, suvaruaistu rachitam tal prasasyate.”
In Egypt, we learn that Zypho sometimes bore the name of Setho, “by which they mean the ‘tyrannical and overbearing Power,’ or, as the word frequently signifies,
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‘the Power that overturns all things, and that overleaps all bounds.’ ” (Plutarch, de lside et Osiride, xxxvi.)
In Ananda-Tantram, cap. vil., 148, and other passages, reference is made to Bhagamala. She appears to be the goddess who presides over the pudendum-muliebre, i.e. the deified Vulva; and the Sacti is thus personified. In the mental adoration of Sacti a diagram is framed, and the figure imagined to be seen inside the Vulva. This is the Adhé-mukham, or lower face, i.e. the Yoni, wherein the worshipper is to imagine (mantapam) a chapel to be erected. (Ananda-Tantram.) All the forms of Sacii- puja require the use of some or all of the five Makaras. They are enumerated in the Syama Rahasya. “Mudra and Maithuna are the fivefold Makéra, which take away all sin.” The five Makaras are mansa, matsya, madya, maithuna, and mudra; that is flesh, fish, wine, women, and certain mystical twistings or gesticulations with the fingers, Such are some of the peculiar features of the worship of Power (Gnosticism), which com- bined with the Linga-Puja (adoration of the Phallus), constitutes at the present day one of the most popular dogmas of the Hindiis. ,
Simon Magus is supposed to have been the founder of western Gnosticism. He it was who corrupted the Nicolaitans. (Vid. Apocalypse, ii., 6, 15.) They held sensual pleasure to be the true creed. In the Foreign Quarterly Review (pp. 159, 160), the following passage occurs :—“ The grand object of the magic of the Chris- tians in the middle ages was to obtain the command over the services of demons; such were the pursuits of witches. But these were always looked upon as criminal. The belief that men possess the power to control spirits was
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not peculiar to the Gnostic Christians. The liturgies of the Roman and Greek Churches contain several rules on these subjects.”
The memoirs of Scipio de Ricci, Bishop of Pistoja, reveal some remarkable facts, plainly demonstrating that sacteya ideas had found their way into the monasteries and convents of Italy in the latter part of the last century. SELLON does not seem to be aware where Sactinism (or Sactism) borders on Gnosticism, and where Gnosticism and Aphroditism pass up into exceptional mysticism; and again where this latter, which takes in the foundation of all religion, rises into and evanishes in the irradiation of Rosicrucianism—last and holiest, and the most abstruse and abstract of all—spreading and lost in celestial magic. This is the only true faith, because forbidden to all, and secret to all, in the state of flesh, for Man cannot sustain the “disclosure of God, and live.”? Under all this, Masonry (that is, authentic Masonry,) can alone live and spring. 3 According to Theodoret, Arnobius, and Clemens of Alexandria, the Yoni of the Hindiis was the sole object of veneration in the mysteries of Eleusis. (Demosthenes on the Crown.) When the people of Syracuse were sacrificing to goddesses, they offered cakes in a certain form, called purr. (Apuleius, p. 302); and in some temples, where the priestesses were probably ventrilo- quists, they so far imposed on the credulous multitude, who came to adore the Vu/va, as to make them believe that it spoke and gave oracles. The Phallic rites were so well known among the Greeks that a metre consisting of three trochees only derived its name therefrom, In the opinion of those who compiled the Puranas, Phallus was
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first publicly worshipped by the name of Bésewarra- Linga on the banks. of Cumudati, or Euphrates, and the Jews, according to Rabbi Acha, seem to have had some such idea, as may be collected from what is said regarding the different earths which formed the “ body of Adam.”
In many of the observances practised in the religious solemnities of the Hindoos, solitude is enjoined; but all the principal ceremonies comprehend the worship of Sacti or Power, and require, for that purpose, the presence of a young and beautiful girl, as the living representative of the goddess, The female, thus worshipped, is ever after denominated Yogini, i.e. attached. This Sanscrit word is, in the dialects, pronounced “Yogi or Zogee, and is equi- valent te a secular, nun, as these women are subsequently supported by alms. The word, from custom, has become equivalent with sena, and thus is exactly the same as Duti or Dutica (doo-ty-car), The books of morality direct a faithful wife to shun the society of Yogini, or females who have been adored as Sacti.
The sacti system bears a striking affinity with Epi- cureanism. It teaches materialism, and the Atomic system of chance. (Compare the Ananda-Tantram, c. xvii. with Lucretius, lib. ui.) ‘The worship of women, and the Sacta h’oma vidhi, are grounded on passages in the Veda which orthodox Brahmins regard as of doubtful authority. (Vide Rig. Vedam., bk. it, ¢. viil., sections 13, 14, 2nd attham, 8th pannam: ricks, b. 14, which contain the “ Sucla Homa Mantram,” &c.)
This worship of the Sacti is mostly celebrated in a mixed society, the men of which represent Bhanravis and Nayikas. |
The Sacti is personified by a naked girl, to whom meat
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and wine are offered, and then distributed among the assistants. Here follows the chanting of the Muntras and sacred Texts, and the performance of the Mudra, or gesticulations with the fingers. The whole terminates with orgies amongst the votaries of a most licentious description. (Wilson on Hin. Sects, vol. xviu.; As, Res. Ward on the Vaisnavas, p. 309.) This ceremony is entitled the Sri Chakra, or Purna-bisheka, the “ Ring or Full Initiation.”
This method of adoring the Sacti is unquestionably acknowledged by the Texts, which are regarded by the Vanis as authorities for the impurities practised. The members of the sect are sworn to secrecy, and will not therefore acknowledge any participation in Sacta-Puja. Some years ago, however, they began to throw off this reserve, and, at the present day, they trouble themselves very little to disguise their initiation into its mysteries ; but they do not divulge in what those mysteries consist.
The Culanava has the following, and other similar passages ; the Tantras also abound with them.
“* Many false pretenders to knowledge, and who have not been duly initiated, pretend to practise the Caula rites: but if perfection be attained by drinking wine, then every drunkard is a saint; if virtue consists in eating flesh, then every carnivorous animal in the world is virtuous ; if eternal happiness be derived from the union of the sexes, then all beings will be entitled to it. A follower of the Caula doctrine is blameless in my sight if he reproves those of other creeds who quit their estab- lished observances. ‘Those of other sects who use the articles of the Caula worship shall be condemned to a metempsychosis during as many years as there are hairs
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of the body.” The Kauchiluas are another branch of the Sactas sect; their worship much resembles that of the Caulas. They are, however, distinguished by one peculiar rite, not practised by the others, and “ throw into confusion all the ties of female relationship, natural restraints are wholly disregarded, and a community of women among the votaries inculcated. On the occasions of the performance of divine worship, the women and girls deposit their “fulies, or bodices, in a box, each lettered and numbered, in charge of the Guru, or priest. At the close of the rites, the male worshippers take each a julie from the box, and the female to whom the letter and number appertains, even were she the sister of the man who draws the lot, is forced, by the inexorable law of the place, and of the sacred necessities of the service, to become his conjoint partner for the night in these lascivious orgies.” We are here at once reminded of the lustful solemnities practised amidst the mysteries of the temples of the Babylonians; and of the abandonment to irregular pleasure prevailing in the penetralia, where the rites of the Bona Dea, amongst the Romans, were celebrated by the outwardly accepted chastest, and most serious and well-mannered women, matrons and girls alike, of the highest quality in Rome. All these secret fes- tivals or celebrations were sacred, and most carefully covered, in all their wildest excesses, by the sanctions of religion, and, incredible as it must appear, all the solemnities of sacred incidence.
The numerous terra-cotta figures and images in ivory, to which Layard has given the general name of Venus (Kun), seem unquestionably to be impersonations of Sacti, or the female power, as the Yoni is rather obtru-
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sively represented in many of these statuettes, while the fissure and other natural appendages are absent in others. In the former, not only is the Yoni (or Ioni) portrayed, but “a certain ornament on the mons veneris is curled precisely in the same conventional manner as is seen in the beards of the male statues in the Assyrian antiquities. While, in the-latter, the true Venus, the fissure, and the appendages are omitted.” Why this prudery? ‘The appendages are the surrounding hair. One is therefore led to believe that the adoration of Sacti was a prominent feature in the Assyrian worship. And this idea is confirmed by a bas-relief of clay, found at Susa, which gives a nude female, having the yoni de- picted, and holding in her hands the Argha (originals in the British Museum). ‘The attitude of this figure, and the manner in which the Argha is placed in her hands, resembles, in a remarkable manner, the images of the
Hindu goddess, Devi.
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CHAP BRERA Vik: HEBREW PHALLICISM.
In the Gemara Sanhedrim, c. 30, cited by Ryland, will be found many peculiarities of the Hebrew method of dealing with the mystic side of Phallicism. |
If reference be made to chap. iv., vol. iii., of Lewis’s Origines Hebraice much curious information will be found regarding the “ Idolatry of the Hebrews,” which not only plainly shows that they adored Phallus, but goes far to confirm the hypothesis that the object of veneration in the Ark of the Covenant was the emblem itself, or a type of it. At page 23, vol. ili, we read that “the most ancient monuments of idolatry among the Gentiles, were consecrated Pillars (Lingas ?) or Columns (Obelisks), which the Hebrews were forbidden to erect as objects of divine homage and adoration.” Yet he adds, “ This practice is conceived to arise from an imitation of “facob, who took a stone and set it up,” &c. Again, “ This stone was held in great veneration in later times: by the Jews and removed to Jerusalem.” They were accustomed “ to anoint this stone,” and from the word “ Bethel,” “the place where the pillar was erected, came the word Boetylia among the heathen, which signified rude stones which they worshipped, either as symbols of divinity, or as true gods animated by some heavenly power.” Indeed it would seem not improbable that the erection of the Pillar of ‘facob actually gave rise to the worship of Phallus among some of the pagan peoples. ‘“ For,” says
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Lewis, “ the learned Bochart asserts that the Phoenicians, (at least as the Jews think) first worshipped this very stone which Jacob anointed, and afterwards consecrated others,” &c. It is to little purpose that we are reminded that the Jews were forbidden by their law to “make unto themselves any graven image,” for, as Lewis shows in the following passage, there may be exceptions to this, as to every other general rule :—“ Notwithstanding the severity of the law against the making of images, yet, as Justin Martyr observes in his book against Trypho, it must be somewhat mysterious, that God in the case of the Brazen Serpent should command an image to be made ; for which,” he says, “one of the Jews confessed he never could hear a reason from any of their doctors.”
The Brazen Serpent continued to be worshipped by the Jews, and incense was offered to that idol, till the reign of Hezekiah. “For as it is written in the law of Moses, ‘whosoever looks upon it shall live,’ they fancied they might obtain blessings by its mediation, and therefore thought it worthy to be worshipped.” The learned Dr. Jackson observes, “that the pious Hezekiah was moved with the greater indignation against this image, because in truth it never was a type of our Saviour, but a figure of his grand enemy,” &c.
Then we find the Jews relapsing into idolatry by the adoration of the Golden Calf. In regard to this Golden Calf (which was not a “Golden Calf” at all, but something very different, and of infinitely greater significance), we may recall to the reader’s attention the most important fact that it was not set up by a few schismatics, but by the entire people, with Aaron at their
head. ‘The Calf superstition was indubitably in part and eh
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incidentally a relic of what the Israelites had seen in Egypt in the worship of Apis and Mnevis, Next we have the golden calves set up by Jeroboam at Dan and Bethel. Then follows (F%udges viii. 22, &c.) the worship of Gideon’s Ephod ; for the Ephod made by Gideon with the spoil of the Midianites became after his death an object of Idolatry. (Lewis, Orig. Heb. p. 41.) We have also Micah’s Images and Teraphim. The Samaritan temple was upon Mount Gerizim. The Jews accuse the Samaritans of two instances of idolatry committed in this place; the first, that they worshipped the image of a Dove; the other that they paid divine adoration to certain Teraphims or idol gods that were hid under the mountain’ —(/did., p. 55). We learn from St. Jerome (who received it by tradition from the ancient Jews, and indeed it is so stated in Numbers, xxy. 1, 2, &c.—xxili., 28 and numerous other passages of the Old Testament,) that the Jews adored Baal-Phegor (Baal-Pheor), the Priapus of the Greeks and Romans.—“ It was,” he says, “ principally worshipped by women—‘ colentibus maxime feminis Baal- Phegor, ob obsceni magnitudinem quem nos Priapum pos- sumus appellare,’ ”
“The adoration,” observes Maimonides, the most acute and learned of the Cabalistic Doctors, “made to this idol called Pehor, consisted in discovering the mons veneris before it.’ Chemosh (probably the same as Baal- Pheor) also received the homage of the Jews, as did Milcom, Molech, Baal-berith (or Cybele), and numerous others. From all this it will be seen that the Jews fell into idolatry, and Phallic idolatry too; consequently there will not appear anything so very startling in the supposi- tion that the Ark of the Covenant contained a Phallus,
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We have seen that the Stone of Jacob was held in peculiar “veneration,” was worshipped and “ anointed.” We know from the Jewish records that the Ark was sup- posed to contain a table of stone; and if it can be demon- strated that that stone was phallic, and yet identical with the sacred name Jehovah or Yehovah, which written in unpointed Hebrew with four letters, is J-E-V-E or J-H-V-H (the H being merely an aspirate and the same as E). This process leaves us the two letters and V (or in another of its forms U); then if we place the I in the U we have the “holy of holies ;” we also have the Linga and Yoni and Argha of the Hindus, the Iswarra or “ supreme lord ;” and here we have the whole secret of its mystic and arc-celestial import, confirmed in itself by being identical with the Linyoni of the Ark of the Covenant.
In Gregorie’s works {Notes and Observations upon several Passages in Scripture—gto, Lond., 1684, vol. i., pp. 120-21] is a passage to the effect that “ Noah daily prayed in the Ark before the ‘Body of Adam,’” i.e. before the Phallus—Adam being the primitive Phallus, great procreator of the human race. “It may possibly seem strange,” he says, “ that this orison should be daily said before the body of Adam,” but “it is a most con- fessed tradition among the eastern men that Adam was commanded by God that his dead body should be kept above ground till a fulness of time should come to commit it yyxbypp7p to the middle of the earth by a priest of the Most High God.” ‘This means Mount Moriah, the Meru of India.
“This body of Adam was embalmed and transmitted from father to son, till at last it was delivered up by
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Lamech into the hands of Noah.” Again, “ The middle of the Ark was the place of prayer, and made holy by the presence of Adam’s body.” [Jbid., p. 121.] “ And so soon as ever the day began to break Noah stood up towards the body of Adam, &c., &c., and prayed.”
Here come in the ideas of the Gnostics, and the super- stitions concerning “ Gallus” and the solemn “ cockcrow,” the announcement of the morn and the driving back of the darkness, its beaten and discomfited mysterious agents vanishing in the strengthening, magnificent, and yet solemn light, till at last the SuN appears on the rim of the horizon.
To return however to the tables of stone, and to the Pillar of “facob. Our modern rendering of their form is a diagram, or in other words, two headstones placed side by side. Now if we alter the position a little, allowing one to recline horizontally, surmounted by the other perpendicular, we shall obtain a complete Linga and Yoni—the “sacred Name” of the “holy of holies” before mentioned, and the Pi//ar or Mast in the Argha or boat, as represented in the Ark of the Egyptians. The treatment of the Wings of the supporting doves, or sacred birds, on each side of this ark, conveys to usa sufficiently correct idea of where the Hebrews obtained their Cherubim and Seraphim, only substituting a human head and body for the bird’s delineation.
Upon consulting the Hebrew dictionary of Gesenius we shall find the word jn (aroun) and yw (aron) sig- nifying an ark, a chest. In Genesis |. 26, the word is used as a mummy-chest or coffin for Joseph in Egypt. The ark of the covenant might, in the same way, be called the coffin. For these reasons, it is concluded that
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the object of veneration in the Ark of the Covenant of the Jews, was a Phallus. It must always be remembered, in all these symbolical and architectural variations, that figurative construction springs from two mathematical forms only. The governing form of all the classic archi- tecture is the horizontal line. Thus the Egyptian, the Grecian, the Roman, and all other classic temples are horizontal, oblong, and resemble the chest, or “ark of the Israelites.” On the contrary, the Christian archi- tecture, and that style which the Mahommedans, and the Indians and the Oriental peoples generally, have chosen as typical and indicative of their religious beliefs, takes as its keynote (as we may describe it) the upright, or the perpendicular line. The blending of these, at the inter- section or cross-point, forms, of course, the sublime figure indicative of the Christian religion, or the religion of the Cross.
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