PHALLUS. GR. The priapus of the Romans, and the lingam of the Saiva Hindus. It is men tioned in Ezekiel xvi. 17 and Amos v. 26. Colonel Tod says that no satisfactory etymology has ever been assigned for the Hindu name of the phallic emblem. He supposes that it may be from the same primeval language that formed the Sanskrit. Phalisa, he adds, means the fructifier,' from Phala, fruit, and Isa, the god. Thus the type of Osiris can have a definite interpretation, still wanting to the lingam of Siva. Both deities presided over the streams which fertilized the countries in which they received divine honours. Osiris, over the Nile, from the mountains of the Moon in Ethiopia ; Siva, over the Indus (also called the Nil) and the Ganges, from Chandragiii, ' the mountains of the moon,' on a peak of whose glaciers he has his throne. The Greeks, who either borrowed it from the Egyptians, or had it from the same source, typified the fructifier by a pine-apple, or, as others say, the fir-cone or date seed, the form of which resembles the Sitaphala or fruit of Sita, whose rape by Ravana carried Rama from the Ganges over many countries ere lie recovered her. In liko manner, Gouri, the
fiajput Ceres, is typified under the cocoanut or Sripliala, the chief of fruit, or fruit sacred to Sri or Isa (Isis), whose other elegant emblem of abundance, the catnactunpa, is drawn with branches of the palmyra or cocoa-tree, grace fully pendent from the vase (Cutublia). The Sri phala is accordingly presented to all the votaries of Siva and Isa on the conclusion of the spring festival of Phalguna,—the Phagesia of the Greeks, the Pliamenoth of the Egyptians, and the Satur nalia of antiquity,—a rejoicing at the renovation of the powers of nature, the empire of heat over cold, of light over darkness.—Rajasthan, i. 539; 7'r. of Hind. i. 265. See Balanus; Lingam.
PlIALSA. Hist). Grewia Asiatica.
a sherbet prepared from its fruit.