Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Página 671

A SYMBOL OF PROCREATION
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our terrors and our fears, and grants
our desires.'
It is incredible, it is impossible to believe, that in invent-
ing this vile superstition the religious teachers of India
intended that the people should render direct worship to
objects the very names of which, among civilized nations,
are an insult to decency. Without any doubt the obscene
symbol contained an allegorical meaning, and was a type,
in the first instance, of the reproductive forces of nature,
the generative source of all living beings. For the rest,
the litigant offers an incontestable analogy to the priapus
of the Romans and the phallus of the Egyptians.
The
fact is, all the founders of false religions had need to appeal
to the baser senses, and to flatter the passions of their
proselytes in order to attract them to their foolish doctrines
and blind them to their impostures.
What I have just said about the lingam applies also to
the namam 1 another emblematic and not less abominable
symbol, which is not unlike the Baal-peor or Belphegor of
the Moabites.
One sees figures of the lingam, not only in the temples
dedicated to Siva, but also on the high-roads, in public
places, and other frequented spots.
beings.
It disperses
us the object of
all
,
VlGNESHWARA.
This divinity bears also the names of Ganesa, Pillayar,
Vinayaka, &c. He is venerated by Hindus of all sects,
and his cult is universal. One comes across his idol every-
where in temples, schools, chuttrams, public places, forts,
on the high-roads, near wells, fountains, tanks in short,
in all frequented places.
It is taken into houses, and in
all public ceremonies Ganesa is always the first god to be
worshipped. He is, as I have said before, and as his name
implies, the god of obstacles, and by reason of this a Hindu
—
;
begins every serious undertaking by seeking to propitiate
him.
He is represented under a hideous form, with an elephant's
head, an enormous stomach, and disproportioned limbs, and
1
Part
I,
Chapter IX.