Gods, Myths and Heroes - Part 17

Shiva

Today we look at an aspect of the Hindu religion that the British found shocking when they ruled India in the 1800s.

The lingam, also known as Shiva linga, is an abstract representation of the god Shiva.  Above is a stone lingam, representing the god Shiva, resting on a base representing the god Vishnu, which in turn rests on a base representing the god Brahma.  These are the three primary gods of the Hindu religion: Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer.

What's so shocking about that?  Although the form of the lingam is abstract, the lingam represents the penis of Shiva, and the yoni, which the lingam rests on, represents the vagina of his wife Parvati.

Some Hindus vehemently deny that the lingam represents a penis.  I'm no expert on the Hindu religion, but I think they're being disingenuous.  Yes, today, the lingam is an abstract representation of Shiva, but historically, it's pretty clear that it originally was a penis.

To see that, just look at the lingam statue in the Sri Kapileswara Swamy Temple, above, dating from the 3rd-1st century BC.

Chapter 12 of the 10th-11th century religious text Shiva Purana explains the lingam this way:  There were once a group of sages devoted to Shiva living in the Daruvana forest.  Shiva decided to test their devotion.  He appeared as a naked old man.  Holding his penis, he began to do perverse things.  (The text doesn't say what perverse things, so we'll use our imagination, above.)  The sages, deluded by Shiva's maya (illusion) cursed Shiva, saying "Let your penis fall on the ground."

Shiva's penis fell to the ground and started roaming around, burning everything wherever it went (above: penis art car at Burning Man 2009).

The sages asked the god Brahma what to do.  Brahma told them that they had been despicable in not welcoming a guest who was the lord Shiva himself.  Then he told them to pray to the goddess Parvati, the wife of Shiva, to hold Shiva's roaming penis.  Parvati did so in the form of a vagina, and the penis stopped wandering and burning everything.  This was the origin of the lingam.  At the end of the story, it says that by worshiping that penis, all the people were happy.

But the association of Shiva with the penis is much older than that story.  This coin of the Kushan dynasty, 130-158 AD, represents Shiva with an "urdhva linga" or erect penis.

This is an ithyphallic (erect penis) statue of Shiva from the 3rd century.

This statue of Shiva as the Lord of Dance, c. 800 AD, also has an erection.  Are we starting to see a trend?

This is Kala Bhairava, a manifestation of Shiva with an erection and a garland of skulls

Another statue of Shiva with an "urdhva linga."  

Lakulisha, above, was considered an ascetic manifestation of Shiva, and his erection is said to represent ascetic seminal retention and carnal renunciation, the opposite of eroticism.  So, if I'm understanding this correctly, it's a representation of blue balls.

This 4th century statue represents Divilinga Lakulisha, an ascetic with great spiritual powers.  And by the way, he had two penises.

In some parts of the Hindu world, the lingam is still openly associated with the penis, and penis-shaped objects are considered lucky, like these bottle openers for sale in Bali.

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There's much more to the Hindu religion, including temples with sexually explicit carvings of gay sex, but that's a subject for another time.