1847.] Notes on the Antiquities of Bhopal. 74,3 



will observe that two dates occur in the inscription, the first " 159" and 

 the second " 136," and as in bad or hasty writing, an Indian " seven 1 ' 

 resembles a " one," I mention particularly that in reading the original 

 this similarity has been held in view. The two inscriptions on the step 

 and lintel of the doorway do not seem to be deserving of any notice. 



On the pedestal of the Lingam are cut in well formed letters, the 

 Sanscrit words " achinted deoj" signifying " the sign of the Incompre- 

 hensible,"* of which a transcript will be found among the inscriptions. 

 It seems to me that this short sentence should teach us much, and I 

 have long thought that " Saivism" may yet be found to have once been, 

 if it is not now, purer and more simple faith than is commonly sup- 

 posed. I would discard a Phallic correspondence and all recondite 

 regenerative meanings, as showing subsequent constructions rather that 

 original design or import. f The peasantry of the wilder parts of India, 

 still use a smooth pebble, or rounded blocks as the mark of the Divini- 

 ty, or rather as a point of direction to their senses, and they will draw 

 a trench round it on its sustaining altar of stone or tempered earth, to 

 let their oblations of water run freely away, without even considering 

 that they had formed or were worshipping the symbols of reproductive 

 energy. " Ling" in its primitive acceptation means merely, a sign, a 

 mark, and so little do the mass of worshippers know of what we con- 

 sider its philosophic import, and so dull are their minds or so gross has 

 their idolatry become, that in these days the plain pillar must often be 

 shrouded in a case representing a human countenance, to convince them 

 more certainly of the existence or place of the God. When the Brah- 

 mins quitted the Ganges, such of the tribes of Southern India as were 

 not wholly barbarous, probably professed one form or other of Buddhism, 

 with its ceremonies, and its images, and its indistinct apprehensions of 

 a Divinity, and the new conquerors, may we call them Unitarians or 



* These words have been separately read by another person as achuteddeoj or "the 

 mark of the everlasting God." There is little difference in the writing and none in the 

 meaning so far as regards the argument in the text. 



[The inscription on the Lingam is ^f^^T^ST, Aclibitya dicaja ; and on the right 



jamb of the door, ^j ^TfTSR^rnaft^ Wfff?T " Salutation t0 the son of Madhab." 

 —Eds.] 



t Did an Athenian Magistrate or a Roman Matron, think of " phalloi" as emblems of 

 fecundity or of reproduction, when the one allowed them to be borne through the streets 

 during Dionysian festivals, or when the other tied them round the necks of her children 

 as charms against evil ? 



