Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s4.t2.88

v2.c27.s4.t2.88

The analogy between the goddess of the spring Saturnalia, Phalguni, and the Phagesia of the Greeks, will excite surprise; the word is not derived from (φαγεῖν) eating, with the Rajput votaries of Holika, as with those of the Dionysia of the Greeks; but from phalguni, compounded of guna, ‘quality, virtue, or characteristic,’ and phala, ‘fruit’; in short, the fructifier. From φαλλός,¹ to which there is no definite meaning, the Egyptian had the festival Phallica, the Holika of the Hindus. Phula and phala, flower and fruit, are the roots of all, Floralia and Phalaria, the Phallus of Osiris, the Thyrsus of Bacchus, or Lingam of Iswara, symbolized by the Sriphala, or Ananas, the ‘food of the gods,’² or the Sitaphala of the Helen of Ayodhya.