LINGA or Lingam is the symbol or form under which the Hindu deity Siva is principally worshipped. There are various kinds of linga, to all of which worship is offered. As usually seen in British India, the lingam is a round conical stone, rising perpendicularly from an oval shaped rim cut on a stone platform. The salunkha is the top of the litigant altar, and the pranalika is a gutter or spout for drawing off the water poured on the lingam. The liegam is the Priapus of the Romans, and the phallic emblem of the Greeks ; and the oval rim-like lines sculptured or drawn around it is the yoni or bhaga, symbolical of the female form, as the lingam represents that of the male. The effigies worshipped in Tibet are known to the Chinese as Hwan-hi-Fuh, i.e. Buddhas of Delight.
In British India, for at least 1500 years, the lingam has been the object under which Siva is worshipped by his folloWers, in this instance as a regenerator, whilst the yoni or bhaga is regarded as emblematic of his sakti or consort Parvati. These two emblems represent the physiological form of worship followed by the great Saiva sect ; and the worship of Siva, under the type of the lingam, is almost the only form in which that deity is now reverenced. About two-thirds of all the Hindu people, perhaps 80,000,000 of souls, worship these emblem idols. They are con spicuous everywhere, in all parts of British India from the Himalaya to Ceylon. Throughout the whole tract of the Ganges, as far as Benares, in Bengal, the temples are commonly erected in a range of six, eight, or twelve on each side of a ghat leading to the river. At Kalna is a circular group of 108 temples, erected by a raja of Bard wan. Each of the temples in Bengal consists of a single chamber, of a square form, sur mounted by a pyramidal centre. The area of each is very small, the linga of black or white marble occupies the centre ; the offerings are presented at the threshold. This worship is unattended by any indecent or indelicate cere monies, and it would require a very unusual imagination to trace any resemblance in its symbols to the objects they are supposed to represent. The Vedas do not seem to inculcate this form of worship ; their ritual was chiefly, if not wholly, addressed to the elements, and par ticularly to fire ; but the lingam is undoubtedly one of the most ancient idol objects of homage adopted in India, subsequently to the ritual of the Vedas. The worship of the linga is the main purport of the Skanda, Saiva, Bramadanda, and Linga Puranas.
In the Saiva Purana and in the Nandi Upa Purana, Siva is made to say, ' I am omnipresent, but I am especially in twelve forms and places.'
These are the twelve great lingas, viz. at Scannath, Pattan, Mallikarjuna, near the Krishna, Malta Kala Omkara, all three at Ujjain ; Amareswara, Vaidhya, at Deo-garh in Bengal, liamisseram, at Dra Charam in Rajamundry, at Benares, on the banks of the Gumti, at Kedarnath in the Himalaya. That at Benares is called Viveswara, Lord of All.
The idol destroyed in A.H. 415 by Mahmud of Ghazni, is said to have been a linga. It was a block of stone of four or five cubits long, and of proportionate thickness. Sonnerat says the lingam may be looked upon as the phallus or the figure representing the virile member of Atys, the well beloved of Cybele, and the Bacchus which they worshipped at Hicropolis. The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans had temples dedicated to Priapus, under the same form as that of the lingam. The Israelites worshipped the same figure, and erected statues to it.
Scripture (1 Kings xv. 13) informs us that Asa, son of Rehoboam, prevented his mother Maachah from sacrificing to Priapus, whose image he broke. The Jews caused themselves to be initiated into the mysteries of Belphegor, a divinity like the lingam, whom the Moabites and Midianites worshipped on Mount 12hegor ; and which worship, in all appearance, they received from the Egyptians. When Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and built them high places, and images, and groves on every high hill and under every tree, the object was Baal, and the pillar, the lingam, was his symbol. It was on his altar they burned incense, and sacrificed unto the calf on the fifteenth day of the month, the sacred monthly period, the amavas of the Hindus. The calf of Israel seems the bull Nandi of Bal Iswara or Iswam, the Apis of the Egyptian Osiris, and throughout all British India a sculp tured stone hull, called Nandi, the velum or con veyance of Siva, is seated with its face looking towards the lingam. According to Colonel Tod, the lingam is identical with the Arabic idol Lat or Alhat. The worship reached France, doubtless with the Romans, and the figure of the lingam is still to be seen on the lintel which surrounds the Circus at Nismes, as well as on the front of some of their ancient churches, particularly on that of the cathedral of Toulouse, and on some churches at Bourdeaux. Plutarch says that the Egyptian god Osiris was found everywhere with the Priapus exposed. Ptah-Sokari is also so represented, and images of that kind were called Ptah-Sokari Osiri.