+394+. In modern India the Çivaite phallicism is pronounced and important. The linga is treated as a divine power, and, as producer of fertility, is especially the object of devotion of women;[717] though Çivaism has its rites of unbridled bestialism, the worship of the linga by women is often free from impurity; it is practically worship of a deity of fertility. The origin of the Indian cult is not clear. As it does not appear in the earliest literature, it has been supposed to have come into Aryan worship from non-Aryan tribes. Whatever its origin, it is now widely observed in Aryan India, and has been adopted by various outlying tribes.[718] +395+. While it is, or was, well established in Japan, it apparently has had no marked influence on the religious thought of the people. Phallic forms abound[719] in the land, in spite of repressive measures on the part of the government, but the cult partakes of the general looseness of the Shinto organization of supernatural Powers. It is said to have been adopted in some cases by Buddhists. It appears to have been combined with Shinto at a very early (half-civilized) time, for which, however, no records exist. +396+. It is among the great ancient civilized peoples that the most definite organization of phallic cults is found. +397+. For Egypt there is the testimony of Herodotus,[720] who describes a procession of women bearing small phallic images and singing hymns in honor of a deity whom he calls Dionysos--probably Khem or Osiris or Bes; such images are mentioned by Plutarch,[721] supposed by him to represent Osiris. Both Khem and Osiris were great gods, credited with general creative power, and popular ceremonies of a phallicistic nature might easily be attached to their cults. Bes, a less important deity, seems to have been fashioned largely by popular fancy. These ceremonies were doubtless attended with license,[722] but they probably formed no part of Egyptian serious worship. The phallus was essential in a realistic image, but it appears to have been regarded simply as a physical part of the god or as an emblem of him; there is no evidence that worship was addressed to it in itself.