The Development of Hindu Iconography c9.41.4

c9.41.4

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.*’