The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c9.147.4

v1.c9.147.4

It is out of the question, therefore, to suppose that a general prevalence of vice would of itself, without the authority of priests and scriptures, suffice to lead to the defilement of holy temples. A religious sanction for it must be sought, and this, I believe, occurs in the fact of most of the temples on which the offensive figures are shown being dedicated to the mystical adoration of the phallic emblem. From a very early period in the history of religion, the phallic element has held a prominent place in the mind of man. Most of the leading religions of the ancient world—the Egyptian, the Chaldean, the Assyrian, and the Mosaic—manifested it in some form or other; and in primitive unsophisticated states of society, when philosophical conceptions of the mystery of generation "had not yet given to the various parts and members of the human body, those names which constitute the special vocabulary of obscenity of the present day, many symbols and representations were not only held inoffensive, but sacred", and their presence on ancient monuments, therefore, cannot be a matter of surprise.