The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c11.63

v1.c11.63

**Reply to the eight objection :** Little need be said in reply to the last objection. It would not be logical to argue that the character of a god must necessarily be dependent on the social condition of his worshippers, and that his attributes are inevitably the reflex of those of the latter. Such a line of argument, if carried to its legitimate conclusion, would lead to such absurdities that few will care to accept it. Śiva's character is doubtless not a refined one. But there is nothing in it to make him inevitably the creation of an aboriginal myth. The poetical requirements of a good myth may be supplied, and is more likely to be better supplied by a cultivated Aryan mind than by a barbarian, and there is nothing to show that the Aryan civilization was such as could not tolerate such a god. None will assign to the Hindus a higher intellectual status than what was occupied by those who followed the cult of Priapus, and, therefore, there is nothing *a priori* to make the conception of Śiva impossible in the case of the Aryan people of this country.