Alain Daniélou - The Phallus: Sacred Symbol of Male Creative Power

Greece: Ithyphallic satyr.

INTRODUCTION

I t is only when the penis (upastha) stands up straight, that it emits semen, the source of life. It is then called the phallus (lingam) and has been considered, since earliest prehistory. the image of the creative principle, a symbol of the process by which the Supreme Being procreates the Universe.

This is not a case of a symbol plucked at random but the recognition of the continuity of the process that links all the various levels of manifestation, according to cosmological theory. The phallus is really the image of the creator in mankind, and we rediscover the worship of it at the origin of every religion.

A source of pleasure, the phallus evokes divine bliss, the Being of Joy. Within the microcosm of the living being it represents the progenitor, which is always present in its work.

Contempt for this sacred emblem, as well as degradation and debasement of it, pushes man from the divine reality. It provokes the anger of the gods and leads to the decline of the species. The man who scorns the very symbol of the life principle abandons his kind to the powers of death.

PART 1

THE CULT OF THE PHALLUS

India: Youth with elongated phallus. PhotographbyLance Dane.

HISTORICAL SOURCES

T he cult of the phallus, the source of life and a symbol of virility, courage, and power, first appeared in the vast civilization that developed from India to the extreme edge of western Europe at the beginning of the Neolithic era following the end of the Ice Age about 8000 B.C. Closely tied to the bull and serpent cults, it has survived in India, with its rites and legends intact, to the present time, but its traces, symbols, and certain other cult elements can be discerned throughout not only all the civilizations of Mesopotamia, the Middle East, Egypt, and the Aegean but also those of Thrace, Italy, and the entire pre-Celtic world, including Ireland.

It is difficult to determine whether even more ancient sources existed in the immense history of humanity before the coming of our ancestor Cro-Magnon Man, which is to say before the debut of our own civilization, which thoroughly remains under its influence. The red horns that Italian drivers attach to the fronts of their trucks to avert misfortune, even today, are analogous to those used more than six thousand years ago by chariot drivers.

Among the cave paintings and carvings of the Paleolithic era, ritual representations of the feminine principle are especially noticeable. The man with the head of a bird and erect phallus of Lascaux (circa 20,000 B.C.) seems to be the exception. From the beginning of the Neolithic era, on the other hand, there are countless representations of the phallus and of ithyphallic figures, such as those of Altamira, Gourdan. and Isturits.

Jacques Dupuis has suggested in his latest book, Au Nom du Pre, that this passage from worship of the vulva to that of the phallus could be linked to the discovery of paternitysomething that is not evident in primitive civilizations.

"Since the phallus offers a kinesthetic and visual comparison to the serpent and fish, we might expect some storied recognition of the comparison, as was noted by the Abb Breuil. Since the phallus was involved in the ejection of semen and urine, we might expect some storied explanation of these processes, which could compare with the vulval connection to menstrual blood. None of these stories concerning masculine processes need involve the female, nor include a knowledge of insemination or fertilization. They could be part of a specialized masculine mythology, perhaps told at the initiation of boys or at a convocation of hunters or as part of the male shaman's repertory" (Alexander Marshack, The Roots of Civilization, pp. 330-32).

Beginning with the Magdalenian epoch (about 13,000 B.C. to about 6000 B.C) representations of the phallus multiplied. The site of Audoubert in the Pyrenees is covered with engraved phalluses. In Placard (old Magdalenian) a bone has been found on which a phallus was carved with a stream of liquid leaving the meatus. It is similar to those of successive epochs, such as the phallic baton of Bruniquel (Dordogne) or the double phallus of the Gorge d'Enfer.

From Eyzies (later Magdalenian) comes a carved bone depicting the head of a bear, with its mouth open, facing a phallus whose testicles resemble flowers. Myth and tradition associate the image of the phallus to fish, water, and serpents.

Moravia: Phallic amulet ofDolni Vestonice. Gravettianculture, 30,000 B.C.

A fish is carved on the Gorge d'Enfer phallus. In Placard the eyes of the fish have the form of testicles. In Bruniquel can be found one phallic fish after another, all very realistic, with waves representing water. In the grotto of the Trois Frres, in Arige, there are representations of masked, horned ithyphallic men wearing beast skins, who are very likely shamans, wizards, or dancers.

India is the only region where the cult of the lingamthe phallusas well as its rituals and legendary narratives has been perpetuated without interruption from prehistory to the present day. It is thanks to Indian documents, therefore, that we are able to understand the reasons justifying the existence of this cult, the philosophical conceptions that explain it, and the significance of the legends whose variants, as we will see, are to be found everywhere.

The cult of the ithyphallic god of the protohistorical civilization of India was unknown to the Aryan invaders who came out of the north about the third millennium previous to our own era. The phallus cult has no place in Vedic rituals. The god-phallus (Shisna-deva) is, however, mentioned in the Rig Veda (712.5, and 10.99.3) as well as in the Nirukta (4.29), but its worship is banned.

It is the same in the Greco-Roman world where phallic cults came from civilizations predating the arrival of the Achaeans. "A colossal rough image of the ithyphallic god Min [dates] from predynastic Egypt (circa 4500 B.C.)" (Rawson, Primitive Erotic Art, p. 14).

The conflict between the ancient cult of Shiva, the ithyphallic god of Nature, and the social religion of the Aryan or Semite invaders is illustrated in the stories of the Purnas, the "ancient chronicles" of Shaivism.

According to the Shiva Purna (Rudra Samhit, Sat Khnda, 1.22-23), the patriarch Daksha, who is preparing a Vedic sacrifice, is cursed by Nandi (Joyous), the bull, the animal kingdom's companion and personification of Shiva, whose symbol is the phallus. Nandi speaks of Daksha with disdain: