RAU] MITHEAS AND LINGAM-WORSHIP. ^^ 



were cut before the mythic time when Romulus drew his first encirchng 

 furrow around the Palatine Mount, and founded that petty village, which 

 was destined to become — within seven or eight short centuries — the Empress 

 of the civilized Avorld." 



The idea that the markings should have any bearing on the worship 

 of the reciprocal principles of nature is summarily dismissed by Professor 

 Simpson in a short note on page 80 of his work. He says: "Two archse- 

 ological friends of mine — both dignitaries of the Episcopal Church— have 

 separately formed the idea that the lapidary cups and circles are emblems 

 of old female Lingam worship, a supposition which appears to me totally 

 without any anatomical or other foundation, and one altogether opposed by 

 all we know of the specific class of symbols used in that worship, either in 

 ancient or modern times." 



This note is thus commented on by Mr. Rivett-Carnac: "I am sanguine 

 that, if the late Sir J. Simpson had seen the sketches of what I have called 

 the 'conventional symbols' on the shrines at Chandeshwar, and had been 

 able to compare them with some of the types figured in his work, he might 

 have been inclined to modify the opinion above extracted. The treatment 

 of these symbols is purely conventional, they bear no anatomical resem- 

 blance to anything, they are unlike many of the large, well-known, and 

 acknowledged representations of the Mahadeo and Yoni. Still they nev- 

 ertheless represent the same idea. And here it may be noticed that the 

 same argument of anatomical non-resemblance might be advanced in regard 

 to the well-known representations, common throughout India, of the mean- 

 ing of which to the initiated there is no doubt at all. To the uninitiated, 

 however, the shapes convey nothing, and I have known cases of Europeans 

 who have been many years in the country, who were quite unsuspicious of 

 what 'that jew's-harp idol,' as they called it, was intended to represent. As 

 the old priest at Chandeshwar said, 'Those who can afford it, put up a big 

 Mahadeo ; those who can't, put up these slabs.' And so also with us. The 

 rich relations or friends of the Christian may put over his grave a solid, 

 richly-carved stone cross. The grave of a poor man, if marked at all, has 

 over it perhaps two pieces of wood nailed together in the shape of a cross, 

 or a cross roughly cut on a piece of stone. The Christian church is built 



