Lingam

Traditional flower offering to a lingam in Varanasi

The lingam (IAST: liṅgaṃ, linga, ling, Shiva linga, Shiv ling, meaning sign, symbol or mark) is an abstract or aniconic representation of the Hindu deity, Shiva, used for worship in temples, smaller shrines, or as self-manifested natural objects.[1][2] In traditional Indian society, the linga is seen as a symbol of the energy and potential of Shiva himself.[3][4]

The lingam is often represented as resting on yoni (Sanskrit word, literally "origin" or "source" ), a symbol of Durga.[5]

Definition

A 10th-century four-headed stone lingam (Mukhalinga) from Nepal

The lingam is a column-like or oval (egg-shaped) symbol of Shiva, the Formless All-pervasive Reality, made of stone, metal, or clay. The Shiva Linga is a symbol of Lord Shiva – a mark that reminds of the Omnipotent Lord, which is formless.[6] In Shaivite Hindu temples, the linga is a smooth cylindrical mass symbolising Shiva. It is found at the centre of the temple, often resting in the middle of a rimmed, disc-shaped structure, a representation of Shakti.[3]

Origin

Lingodbhava Shiva: God Shiva appears as in an infinite Linga fire-pillar, as Vishnu as Varaha tries to find the bottom of the Linga while Brahma tries to find its top. This infinite pillar conveys the infinite nature of Shiva.[7]

Terracotta Shiva Linga figurines found in excavations at Indus Valley Civilization site of Kalibangan and other sites provide evidence of early Shiva Linga worship from circa 3500 BCE to 2300 BCE.[8][9]

Anthropologist Christopher John Fuller wrote that although most sculpted images (murtis) are anthropomorphic, the aniconic Shiva Linga is an important exception.[10] Some believe that linga-worship was a feature of indigenous Indian religion.[11]

There is a hymn in the Atharvaveda that praises a pillar (Sanskrit: stambha), and this is one possible origin of linga worship.[11] Some associate Shiva-Linga with this Yupa-Stambha, the sacrificial post. In the hymn, a description is found of the beginning-less and endless Stambha or Skambha, and it is shown that the said Skambha is put in place of the eternal Brahman. The Yupa-Skambha gave place in time to the Shiva-Linga.[12][13] In the Linga Purana the same hymn is expanded in the shape of stories meant to establish the glory of the great Stambha and the supreme nature of Mahâdeva (the Great God, Shiva).[13]

The Hindu scripture Shiva Purana describes the origin of the lingam, known as Shiva-linga, as the beginning-less and endless cosmic pillar (Stambha) of fire, the cause of all causes.[14] Lord Shiva is pictured as emerging from the Lingam – the cosmic pillar of fire – proving his superiority over the gods Brahma and Vishnu.[7] This is known as Lingodbhava. The Linga Purana also supports this interpretation of lingam as a cosmic pillar, symbolizing the infinite nature of Shiva.[7][12][13][15] According to the Linga Purana, the lingam is a complete symbolic representation of the formless Universe Bearer – the oval-shaped stone is the symbol of the Universe, and the bottom base represents the Supreme Power that holds the entire Universe in it.[16] A similar interpretation is also found in the Skanda Purana: "The endless sky (that great void which contains the entire universe) is the Linga, the Earth is its base. At the end of time the entire universe and all the Gods finally merge in the Linga itself." [17] In yogic lore, the linga is considered the first form to arise when creation occurs, and also the last form before the dissolution of creation. It is therefore seen as an access to Shiva or that which lies beyond physical creation.[18] In the Mahabharata, at the end of Dwaraka Yuga, Lord Shiva says to his desciples that in the coming Kali Yuga, He would not appear in any particular form, but instead as the formless and omnipresent.

Historical period

A Shiva lingam worshipped at Jambukesvara temple in Thiruvanaikaval (Thiruaanaikaa)

According to Shaiva Siddhanta, which was for many centuries the dominant school of Shaiva theology and liturgy across the Indian subcontinent (and beyond it in Cambodia), the linga is the ideal substrate in which the worshipper should install and worship the five-faced and ten-armed Sadāśiva, the form of Shiva who is the focal divinity of that school of Shaivism.[19]

1008 Lingas carved on a rock surface at the shore of the Tungabhadra River, Hampi, India

The oldest example of a lingam that is still used for worship is in Gudimallam. It dates to the 2nd century BC.[20] A figure of Shiva is carved into the front of the lingam.[21]

Debates around Lingam as phallic symbol

In 1825 Horace Hayman Wilson's work on the lingayat sect of South India attempted to refute British notions that the lingam graphically represented a human organ and that it aroused erotic emotions in its devotees.[22][23]

Monier-Williams wrote in Brahmanism and Hinduism that the symbol of linga is "never in the mind of a Shaiva (or Shiva-worshipper) connected with indecent ideas, nor with sexual love".[24] In contrast, Jeaneane Fowler believes the linga is "a phallic symbol which represents the potent energy which is manifest in the cosmos".[2] Some scholars, including David James Smith, believe that throughout its history the lingam has represented the phallus; others, including N. Ramachandra Bhatt, believe the phallic interpretation to be a later addition.[25] M.K.V. Narayan distinguishes the Siva-linga from anthropomorphic representations of Shiva, and notes its absence from Vedic literature, and its interpretation as a phallus in Tantric sources.[26]

At the Paris Congress of the History of Religions in 1900, Ramakrishna's follower Swami Vivekananda argued that the Shiva-Linga had its origin in the idea of the Yupa-Stambha or Skambha, the sacrificial post, idealized in Vedic ritual as the symbol of the Eternal Brahman.[12][13][27] This interpretation was in response to a paper read by Gustav Oppert, a German Orientalist, who traced the origin of the Shalagrama-Shila and the Shiva-Linga to phallicism.[28] According to Vivekananda, the explanation of the Shalagrama-Shila as a phallic emblem was an imaginary invention. Vivekananda argued that this explanation of the Shiva-Linga as a phallic emblem was brought forward by the most thoughtless, and was forthcoming in India in her most degraded times, those of the downfall of Buddhism.[13]

According to Swami Sivananda, the view that the Shiva lingam represents the phallus is a mistake.[16] The same sentiments were also expressed by H. H. Wilson in 1840.[29] Diana Eck believes that translators of Shiva Purana erroneously translated linga as "phallic emblem". She compares the mistranslation "as inadequate as it would be an interpretation of the Christian Eucharist that saw the rite first and foremost as ritual cannibalism, eating the body and drinking its blood".[30]

According to Hélène Brunner,[31] the lines traced on the front side of the linga, which are prescribed in medieval manuals about temple foundation and are a feature even of modern sculptures, appear to be intended to suggest a stylised glans, and some features of the installation process seem intended to echo sexual congress. Scholars such as S. N. Balagangadhara have disputed the sexual meaning of lingam.[32]

Naturally occurring lingams

Lingam in the cave at Amarnath

An ice lingam at Amarnath in the western Himalayas forms every winter from ice dripping on the floor of a cave and freezing like a stalagmite. It is very popular with pilgrims.

Shivling, 6,543 metres (21,467 ft), is a mountain in Uttarakhand (the Garhwal region of Himalayas). It arises as a sheer pyramid above the snout of the Gangotri Glacier. The mountain resembles a Shiva linga when viewed from certain angles, especially when travelling or trekking from Gangotri to Gomukh as part of a traditional Hindu pilgrimage.

A lingam is also the basis for the formation legend (and name) of the Borra Caves in Andhra Pradesh.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Johnson, W.J. (2009). A dictionary of Hinduism (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191726705. Retrieved 5 January 2016. (Subscription required (help)).(subscription or UK public library membership required)
  2. 1 2 Fowler, Jeaneane (1997). Hinduism : beliefs and practices. Brighton [u.a.]: Sussex Acad. Press. pp. 42–43. ISBN 9781898723608.
  3. 1 2 "lingam". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010.
  4. ↑ Sivananda (1996). Lord Siva and His Worship. Worship of Siva Linga: The Divine Life Trust Society. ISBN 81-7052-025-8.
  5. ↑ Zimmer, Heinrich Robert (1946). Campbell, Joseph, ed. Myths and symbols in Indian art and civilization. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 126. ISBN 0-691-01778-6. But the basic and most common object of worship in Shiva shrines is the lingam.
  6. ↑ Das, Subhamoy. "What is Shiva Linga?". About.com. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  7. 1 2 3 Blurton, T. R. (1992). "Stone statue of Shiva as Lingodbhava". Extract from Hindu art (London, The British Museum Press). British Museum site. Retrieved 2 July 2010.
  8. ↑ Tanga, Surbhi Gupta (August 2016). "Call for an International Museum & Research Center for Harrapan Civilization, at Rakhigarhi" (PDF). INTACH Haryana newsletter. Haryana State Chapter of INTACH: 33–34.
  9. ↑ Lipner, Julius J. (2017). Hindu Images and Their Worship with Special Reference to Vaisnavism: A Philosophical-theological Inquiry. London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. p. 39. ISBN 9781351967822. OCLC 985345208.
  10. ↑ The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism and society in India, pg. 58 at Books.Google.com
  11. 1 2 Singh, Nagendra Kr. (1997). Encyclopaedia of Hinduism (1st ed.). New Delhi: Centre for International Religious Studies. p. 1567. ISBN 9788174881687.
  12. 1 2 3 Harding, Elizabeth U. (1998). "God, the Father". Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 156–157. ISBN 978-81-208-1450-9.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 Vivekananda, Swami. "The Paris Congress of the History of Religions". The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Vol.4.
  14. ↑ Chaturvedi. Shiv Purana (2006 ed.). Diamond Pocket Books. p. 11. ISBN 978-81-7182-721-3.
  15. ↑ "The linga Purana". astrojyoti. Retrieved 10 April 2012. . It was almost as if the linga had emerged to settle Brahma and Vishnu’s dispute. The linga rose way up into the sky and it seemed to have no beginning or end.
  16. 1 2 Sivananda, Swami (1996). "Worship of Siva Linga". Lord Siva and His Worship. The Divine Life Trust Society.
  17. ↑ "Reading the Vedic Literature in Sanskrit". is1.mum.edu. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  18. ↑ "Linga – A Doorway to No-thing". 18 July 2013. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
  19. ↑ Dominic Goodall, Nibedita Rout, R. Sathyanarayanan, S.A.S. Sarma, T. Ganesan and S. Sambandhasivacarya, The Pañcāvaraṇastava of Aghoraśivācārya: A twelfth-century South Indian prescription for the visualisation of Sadāśiva and his retinue, Pondicherry, French Institute of Pondicherry and Ecole française d'Extréme-Orient, 2005, p.12.
  20. ↑ Klostermaier, Klaus K. (2007). A Survey of Hinduism (3. ed.). Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press. p. 111. ISBN 9780791470824.
  21. ↑ Elgood, Heather (2000). Hinduism and the religious arts. London: Cassell. p. 47. ISBN 9780826498656.
  22. ↑ p132
  23. ↑ Rajarajan, R.K.K. (2017). "The Liṅga and Bronzes of the Perunakar Temple". Nidān: International Journal for Indian Studies. 2.1: 13–33 – via https://journals.co.za/content/journal/10520/EJC-852007d0f.
  24. ↑ Carus, Paul (1969). The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil. Forgotten Books. p. 82. ISBN 978-1-60506-556-4.
  25. ↑ Hinduism and Modernity by David James Smith p. 119
  26. ↑ Flipside of Hindu symbolism, pp. 86–87, by M. K. V. Narayan, Books.Google.com
  27. ↑ Nathaniel Schmidt (Dec 1900). "The Paris Congress of the History of Religion". The Biblical World. 16 (6): 447–450. JSTOR 3136952. doi:10.1086/472718.
  28. ↑ Sen, Amiya P. (2006). "Editor's Introduction". The Indispensable Vivekananda. Orient Blackswan. pp. 25–26. During September–October 1900, he [Vivekananda] was a delegate to the Religious Congress at Paris, though oddly, the organizers disallowed discussions on any particular religious tradition. It was rumoured that his had come about largely through the pressure of the Catholic Church, which worried over the 'damaging' effects of Oriental religion on the Christian mind. Ironically, this did not stop Western scholars from making surreptitious attacks on traditional Hinduism. Here, Vivekananda strongly contested the suggestion made by the German Indologist Gustav Oppert that the Shiva Linga and the Salagram Shila, stone icons representing the gods Shiva and Vishnu respectively, were actually crude remnants of phallic worship.
  29. ↑ Wilson, HH. "Classification of Puranas". Vishnu Purana. John Murray, London, 2005. pp. xli–xlii.
  30. ↑ Eck, Diana L. (2012-01-01). India: A Sacred Geography. Harmony Books. pp. 203, 207–209. ISBN 9780385531900.
  31. ↑ Hélène Brunner, The sexual Aspect of the linga Cult according to the Saiddhāntika Scriptures, pp.87–103 in Gerhard Oberhammer's Studies in Hinduism II, Miscellanea to the Phenomenon of Tantras, Vienna, Verlag der oesterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1998.
  32. ↑ Balagangadhara, S. N. (2007). Antonio De Nicholas, Krishnan Ramaswamy, Aditi Banerjee, eds. Invading the Sacred. Rupa & Co. pp. 431–433. ISBN 978-81-291-1182-1.

Sources

Further reading

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