The Development of Hindu Iconography c9.41

Language: English

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It has already been pointed out that the Vedic and Brāhmaṇic texts mostly furnish us with material evidence concerning the beliefs and practices of the higher section of the Indo-Aryans. Thus, the view here presented to us is palpably one-sided, and our knowledge about the religious practices of the vast mass of the people and the original settlers of India is necessarily scanty. Eliot's remark that "we cannot assume that ideas or usages not mentioned in the Ṛgveda did not exist at the time when it was composed" (Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol. I., p. 53) is true to a great extent. The information supplied to us by data gleaned from it and the subsequent allied literature, is not merely negative, but also positive with regard to the customs of a certain section of the people; the practice of making images of their gods and worshipping them is not only not mentioned in them, but there is also positive evidence, as we have seen above, that in the type of religion sanctioned by them there could have been no place for it. But was it in vogue among the other vast section of the Indian people on whose customs and faith only occasional and fitful light is thrown by the above texts? We cannot be definitely sure in our answer to this question. But in the Ṛgveda, there are one or two passages which seem to have a direct bearing on it. Certain classes of people are referred to in a deprecatory manner by the hymnists in two of the Ṛk verses, one in R. V., VII. 21, 5, and the other in X.

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99, 3. In the first verse Indra is prayed to in order that the Rākṣasas may not harm the hymnist and he may kill the ferocious animals; the god is also besought not to let the Śiśnadevas approach the sacrifice (Na yātava jūjuvurno na vandanā śaviṣṭha vedyābhiḥ | Sa śardhadaryo viṣuṇasya jantormā śiśnadevā api gurṛtam naḥ); in the second one, Indra is described as having slain the Śiśnadevas, when he won the treasure of the hundred-gated fort (Anarvā yacchatadurasya vedo ghnañchiśnadevāñ abhi varpasā bhūt). These Śiśnadevas, as they are mentioned along with the Rākṣasas (yātava) in the first, and as they are looked down upon and deprecated, have been taken by many European and Indian scholars to denote the original settlers of India, the word meaning, according to them, those that have the phallus for their deity (śiśna devaḥ yeṣāṃ te). It must be said, however, that Sāyaṇa offered quite a different explanation of the term. He took it to mean those people that were addicted to sensual pleasures. The exact words used by Sāyaṇa in his commentary are—Śiśnena divyanti krīḍanti iti śiśnadevāḥ | Abrahmacaryā ityarthah—which means that Śiśnadevas are those who play with their organs of generation, i.e., those that have fallen from the vow of a Brahmacārī. He quotes Yāska in his support in this manner—Tathā ca Yāskaḥ | Sa utsahatāṃ yo viṣuṇasya jantorviṣamasya mā śiśnadevā abrahmacaryāḥ | Śiśnam snathateḥ | Api gurṛtaṃ naḥ satyam vā yajñam vā | (Nirukta, IV., 19).

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While commenting on the second passage (X. 99, 3), he uses the same explanation (Śiśnadevān abrahmacaryān); but, incidental reference may be made to his commentary on R.V., X. 27, 19, where the word śiśna occurs. The last part of the above Ṛk is—sadyah śiśnā pramināno navīyān; Sāyaṇa comments on it thus—Sadyastadānīmeva śiśnā siśnāni | śiśnam snathateriti nirvacanāt snathitṛṇi tāḍayitṛṇi rākṣasā-divṛndāni pramiṇānaḥ prakarṣeṇa hiṃsan etc. Here in this word he finds an allusion to Rākṣasas, presumably the original settlers of India deprecatingly mentioned. It is just possible that śiśna in this passage and Śiśnadeva in the two other passages quoted above denoted the same people. If this view is accepted, we find here an incidental reference to a particular religious practice of a certain section of the Indian population of the remote times. It can very well be presumed that this consisted of making sensible representations of the human phallus, which was conceived as symbolising principally the potent force at the root of creation, and worshipping them. The numerous phalli which have been discovered in the Indus Valley and which have been interpreted as the cult-objects of a people who were culturally different from the early Vedic Indo-Aryans go a great length in supporting the above conclusion. This peculiar custom of using the phalli for cult-purposes was not liked by the latter.

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Even when phallicism came to be inseparably associated with the worship of Rudra-Śiva, the orthodox Indo-Aryans who upheld the original Vedic tradition were at first tardy in its recognition. Hopkins remarks with regard to the above Vedic passages, “Phallic worship may be alluded to in that of the ‘tail gods,’ as Garbe thinks, but is deprecated.” He is quite correct in this cautious acceptance of a hypothesis put forward by various other scholars; but the other part of his remark, viz., “One verse, however, which seems to have crept in by mistake is apparently due to phallic influence (*R.V.*, VIII. 1, 34), though such a cult was not openly acknowledged till Śiva worship began, and is no part of Brāhmaṇism,” is open to criticism (*Religions of India*, p. 251). In the *Ṛk.* verse to which he refers, there is not the least allusion to anything in support of phallicism; it merely refers to the joy which was expressed by Śaśvatī, the wife of Asaṅga, in seeing her husband restored to full sexual powers as a result of the austerities practised by her. She merely describes her husband’s organ in the verse, incidentally referring to her own feelings: ‘*Anvasya sthūraṃ dadṛśe purastādanastha ūruravaramvamāṇaḥ*¹ *Śaśvatī nāryabhicakṣyāha subhadramarya bhojanaṃ vibharṣi.*’