Why worship of fertility symbols

Most people worship fertility symbols for centuries,but never ponder over it where this worship came from in their religions .Lets, discuss today its origin.

It is not only Hindus which worship fertility symbols but in ancient times almost all countries worship this fertility deity.Symbols of fertility in ancient mythology have a history as long as the creation of first myths.Primarily,the myths were about description of the worlds creation.They depicted how the trees,the man,the sun,and all the other things came into existence.This part of the mythology belonged to the time in which the man was bewildered and frightened in the expansive world and wanted to give meaning to the extensive environment around him.However,with the progress of science and rationality,less attention was allocated to this part of the mythology.Today,to validate new discoveries,a return to mythological roots is required.Throughout the study of mythology of ancient civilisations,we understand that most of myths and vaunted goddesses are the ones that are mainly connected with fertility and muliebrity.

The old belief considered earth fertile,reproductive and nurturing like women,and all creatures were safe in her nurturing arms.Woman is the director of life,birth giver and feeder of the off spring.In terms of power ,Woman is like the goddess of earth.

Our predecessors perceived earth as the woman or mother and sky was representative of male gender or father in their belief.Women give birth to children just as the earth gives life to plants.Women feed the children and the earth does the same.Therefore,the magic of women is the magic of earth.In other words,they are joined together.The power that creates and feeds the creatures is truly a feminine force. Ancient people connected the concept of female gender with the earth.Ancient, considered Women as the source of life and liveliness due to their child bearing ability.Soil was considered as female and seed was the embryo formed by sky and rain ,the sexual intercourse of sky and earth.It resembled plowing of the farmer which was similar to the penis that goes into the womb of the earth and fertilises.

It is the most ancient of the superstitions of the human race,that it has prevailed more or less among all known people in ancient times,and that it has been handed down even to a very late and Christian period.

The earth was looked upon as the mould of nature,as the recipient of seeds,the nurse of what was produced in it’s bosom ,the sky was the fecundating and fertilising power.An analogy was suggested in the union of the male and female.

These comparisons are found in ancient writers.The sky ,Plutarch; an ancient writer before 2000 years ago says,appeared to men to perform the functions of a father,as the earth those of a mother.The sky was the father,for it cast seed into the bosom of the earth,which in receiving them became fruitful and brought forth,and was the mother.

Columella another ancient writer has related,in his treatise on agriculture,the loves of nature,or the marriage of heaven and earth,which takes place in the spring of the year.

These ideas bear a prominent part in the religious creeds of several nations.In Egypt, the deity or principle of generation was khem,called the father,as the goddess Maat ,Is that of mother.The office of Khem was not confined to the procreation and continuation of the human species,but extended even to the vegetable world ,over which he presided,when we find his statue accompanied by trees and plants,and kings offering to him herbs of the ground,cutting the corn before him,or employed in his presence tilling the land,and preparing it to receive the generating influence of the deity.

Among the Assyrians ,the supreme god, Bel, was styled the pro creator, and his wife, the goddess Mylitta, represented the productive principle of nature, and received the title of the queen of fertility. Another deity, the god Vul, the god of the atmosphere is styled the beneficent chief, the giver of abundance,the lord of fecundity.On Assyrian cylinders ;he is represented as a Phallic  deity.With him is associated a goddess Shala,whose ordinary title is Sarat,queen,the feminine of the word Sar   which means chief.

In phoencian mythology Uranus( heaven )weds Gaia (the earth) and by her becomes father of Oceanus,Hyperon,lapetus,cronos,and other gods.  In conformity with the religious ideas of the Greeks and Romans Virgil describes the products of the earth as the result of the conjugal act between Jupiter( the sky )and Juno (the earth).

In the month of April,when the fertilising powers of nature begin to operate and its productive powers to be visibly developed ,a festival in honour of Venus took place at Rome,in it the phallus was carried in a cart,and led in procession by the Roman ladies to the temple of Venus outside the Colline gate,and then presented by them to the sexual parts of the goddess.

We find similar ideas in the religious creeds of America and of the remote islands of the Pacific Ocean.According  to the Indians of Central America, Famagostad and Zipaltonal ,the first male and the second female ,created heaven, earth, man and all things.The Tahitans imagined that everything which exists in universe was  named Tarataihetounou, the  other Tepapa, they were supposed to produce continually and by connection the days and months.Those islanders supposed that the sun and moon,which are gods,had begotten the stars,and that the eclipses were the time of their copulation.

A New Zealand myth says we have two primeval ancestors: a father and a mother.They are  Rangi and Papa,(heaven and earth).The earth,out of which all things are produced ,is our mother,(THE PROTECTING AND OVERULLING HEAVEN IS OUR FATHER).

A Dogon creation myth also considered earth as female who was raped by first male and gets pregnant and gives birth to everyone.

Hawaiian creation myth was that in the beginning there was only endless darkness.out of this darkness two beings were born. The male ;Kumulipaand the female Poele. These two created all the creatures.

Egyptian creation myth also believed that Geb :The Earth and Nut; the sky produced all things in universe. Nut produced rain for Geb,and Geb made things grow on earth.

Celtic creation myth believed that long ,long ago a great void produced a god and a goddess,named Donn and Danu.When they looked each other a sacred flame burnt into their hearts. They locked into a loving embrace from which they could not separated. After a while,Donn and Danu ,bore children.

It is thus evident that the doctorine of the reciprocal principles of nature ,or nature active or passive ,male and female,was recognised in nearly all the primitive religious systems of the old as well as the new world. Hence ,the almost universal reverence  paid to the images of the sexual parts,as they were regarded as symbols and types of the generative and productive principles in nature and of those gods and goddesses who were the representative of the same principles. The Phallus and the Cteis,( lingam and the yoni);the special parts contributing to generation and production,becoming thus symbols of those active and passive causes,could not but become objects of reverence and worship. The union of the two symbolised the creative energy of all nature ,for almost all primitive religion consisted in the reverence and worship paid to nature and its operation. 

Evidence ,that this worship extensively prevailed will be found in many countries ,both in ancient and modern times. It occurs in ancient Egypt,in India,in Syria,in Babylon,among the assyrians,in Greece,Italy,Spain,Germany,Scandinavia,and among theGawls.In  Egypt,the phallus is frequently represented as the symbol of generation.

According to Ptolemy ,the phallus was the object of religious worship among the Assyrians and also among the Persians. In  Syria ;Baal poer was represented with a phallus in his mouth, according to St.Jerome. Among the Hindus a religious reverence was paid to the Lingam and Yoni ,and among the Greeks and Romans to the phallus andCteis.Among, the Teutons and Scandinavians ,the God Frico ,corresponding to the Priapus of the Romans,was adored under the form of a Phallus ,a similar god under a similar symbol was adored in Spain ,whose name was Hortanes.

This worship still prevails at the present in a great part of India and Tibet,Thailand,South Korea haesindang,Japan,Africa.The inhabitants of Tlascala also paid worship to the sexual organs of a man and woman.In Peru,sexual representations in clay of the phallus are met with.At Hayti,according to Mr.Artaud,phalli have been discovered in different parts of the island,and are believed to be undoubtedly the manufacture of the original inhabitants of the island.In one of the Marianne islands the Pacific Ocean,on festive occasions,a Phallus ,highly ornamented,called by the nativesTinas,is carried in procession.

Among the simple and primitive races of men,the act of generation was considered as no more than one of the operations of nature contributing to the reproduction of the species,as in agriculture the sowing of seed for the production of corn,and was consequently looked upon as a solemn duty consecrated to the deity.

In those early ages,all the operations of nature were consecrated to some divinity ,from whom they were supposed to emanate,thus the sowing of seed was presided over by Ceres.in Egypt,the act of generation was consecratedto Khem,in Assyria,to vul,in India,to shiva,in Greece,in the prImitive pastoral age,to pan,and in later times,to priapus,and in Italy to mutinus.Among  the Mexicans ,the god of generation was named triazoltenti.these gods became the representatives of the generative or frutifying powers in man and nature.

Amarnath Yatra is related to worship of icy shiva linga. This was discovered by a Muslim shephered,way back in 1850 and since then it is a regular pilgrimage for devotees.Shiva lingam is formed when the water drips from the roof gets accumulated and start to freeze on the floor.These blocks of ice,stalagmites formed by dripping water are worshipped by many Hindus.This cave is surrounded by many snowy mountain.This cave has a hole on its top.Snow falls from this top and looks like an erect penis.

This sexual organ worship is not the part of their Santana religion i.e the religion of vedas.In fact Vedic religion is strongly against this worship.it is mentioned in Rig Veda 7.21.5 let our true god subdue  defeat,crush,vanquish the hostile rabble.Let not the lewd shishan deva approach our holy worship.

The Sanskrit word here is Shishan   deva which means penis worshippers.The word shishan also spelled Sisna means penis.

May He,the noble one,defy the manifold creatures,let Phallus, worshippers not penetrate  our sanctuary.

Yaska catches on what both verses clearly indicate   Phallic worshippers to whom the vedics were hostile and did not desire to have them close to their society,were no one but the Harappans .It makes clear that the Vedic people were not the phallic worshippers of any kind.Moreover,there was hostility between the Vedic and the Phallic worshippers.

Hindus adopted this linga worship from the pre- Vedic ,non aryans,which we become aware by archaeological evidence in 19^th century. Aryans came from Iran with Vedic religion and were against this worship.It were actually the inhabitants of India whom we called today as Harappans who were the linga yoni worshippers.Archaeologists  found such three symbols from these sites.Aryans,after coming India mixed with Harappans and adopted their religious views.Aryans,later,connected these symbols and harappan deity shiva Pashupati  which was thought by some scholars as fertility deity with their own Vedic god Rudra,which was considered by aryans as god of storm and death and began to start worship a new deity Rudra shiva with fertility symbols. From that day Linga Yoni  worship became part of Hindu mythology.

This is the myth behind Hindus Linga Yoni worship.