The Development of Hindu Iconography c9.41.3

c9.41.3

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.