Paganism: Pornography = Spirituality!

©Lúcio Mascarenhas.
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We are told, of the time that Christianity first was preached among the Graecian peoples, that the Greek mythology contained such obscene tales of the doings of the pagan Greek 'gods,' that contemporary society forbade their telling! At least, the Greeks had the common decency to be ashamed of these sordid immoralities of their so-called gods, really debauched demons. The development of this Essential Shame was a great moral progress and essentially prepared the Greeks for their conversion to Christianity. However, if a people cannot feel this shame, then they cannot see the errors of their ways! Who can help such people?

Not that no Indian has ever not felt this Shame. It is recorded that the king of the gods or the inders, Indra, was punished for his universal debauchery, deposed and marked with the yoni all over his body, for his sins. This is one of the Hindu gods!

Again, when the Iranians seceded from Hinduism, they alleged this debauchery of the king-god Indra as one of their reasons! These two events are ancient proofs that not all Indian consciences were dead. However, unfortunately, with the triumph of the Brahmins in India, a veil was drawn over Indian consciences, and by and large, there has been no further recorded recognition of this Essential Shame until the arrival of the Christian missionaries about half a millenia back.

Lúcio Mascarenhas
See also "Lingodbhavadri"

Question: What is the significance of the Shiva Linga?
Article by R. Shridhar in the religion column of the Times of India, Thane edition, Thane Plus supplement, September 22, 2000.

The Shiva Linga is a wide spread Indian Phallic figure. It consists of a feminine base, the yoni or vagina and a rising masculine portion, the phallus or penis. The Linga artifacts, dating from the first century BC to the third century AD are shaped like realistic phalli. Thereafter the shape becomes progressively more abstract. By mediaeval times, its observable portion, rising from the yoni, forms a round block with domed apex.

Shiva, the god of the erect phallus urdhvalinga is traced to the icthyphallic figure of the Indus Valley civilisation or to the phallic images found more generally in prehistoric India. The epics and Puranas (Books of the Ancients) tell how a great flame-phallus appeared from the cosmic waters, and from this flame Linga, Shiva emerged to claim supremacy and worship over Brahma and Vishnu, when he was castrated because he seduced sages' wives in the pine forests of the Himalays. He castrated himself because no one could castrate the supreme god. Thus, the fallen phallus of the supreme god destroyed all the worlds until it reached the yoni of his wife Uma, also called Parvati, and cooled down. All procreation of the worlds started after the worship of Yoni-Linga was restored and all the gods, including Vishnu and Brahma accepted the supremacy of Shiva.

Shiva's other form is Ardhanariswara, half-man-half-woman (god). Shiva with his consort Parvati, is always in a celestial dance of procreation and destruction of the worlds. He is not only the embodiment of Kama, the sexual lust, desire or pleasure, the force that is the basis for the evolution of diverse life forms and humans on earth, in the forms of phallus and the androgynous Ardhanariswara, but also the destroyer of Kama, when he destroyed Kamadeva, the god of sexual desire, only to restore his life at the request of Kamadeva's wife, Rati, coitus or sexual intercourse. Without the sexual desire (Kama), there is no sexual intercourse (Rati) and no procreation.

Shiva's manifestations are memorialised in the local texts of great shrines, ranging from the temple complexes of Khajuraho in the north to Madhurai in the south.

Shaivite mythology, in fact, is a rich source of Indian thinking about sexuality, social relations, ritual, cosmic process, and metaphysics. The male-female union in the form of the phallus or Shiva Linga or Yoni-Linga or the Ardhanarishwara may be visualised as a parallel to the Chinese philosophy of Yin-Yang or the complementarity of the male and the female. Metaphysically, it is also the most scientific.

©Lúcio Mascarenhas.
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