=Mitra Saptami, Bhāskara Saptami Festivals.=—In the remaining months of Aghan, or Margsir, and Pus, there are no festivals in which a state procession takes place, though in each there are marked days, kept not only by the Rajputs, but generally by the Hindu nation; especially that on the 7th of Aghan, which is called Mitra Saptami, or 7th of Mithras, and like the Bhaskara Saptami or the 7th of Magha, is sacred to the sun as a form of Vishnu. On this seventh day occurred the descent of the river-goddess (Ganga) from the foot of Vishnu; or the genius of fertilization, typified under the form of the river-goddess, proceeding from the sun, the vivifying principle, and impended over the head of Iswara, the divinity presiding over generation, in imitation of which his votary pours libations of water (if possible from the sacred river Ganga) over his emblem, the lingam or phallus: a comparison which is made by the bard Chand in an invocation to this god, for the sake of contrasting his own inferiority “to the mighty bards of old.” “The head of Is[4.22.58] is in the skies; on his crown falls the ever-flowing stream (Ganga); but on his statue below, does not his votary pour the fluid from his _patra_?” =Phallicism.=—No satisfactory etymology has ever been assigned for the phallic emblem of generation, adored by Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and even by the Christian, which may be from the same primeval language that formed the Sanskrit. Phalisa is the ‘fructifier,’ from _phala_, ‘fruit,’ and _Isa_, ‘the god.’[4.22.59] Thus the type of Osiris can have a definite interpretation, still wanting to the lingam of Iswara [600]. Both deities presided over the streams which fertilized the countries in which they received divine honours: Osiris over the Nile, from ‘the mountains of the moon,’ in Ethiopia,[4.22.60] Iswara over the Indus[4.22.61] (also called the Nil), and the Ganges from Chandragiri, ‘the mountains of the moon,’ on a peak of whose glaciers he has his throne.