Lingas are of all sizes and of various forms. Sometimes they are extremely minute, being then enclosed in small silver reliquaries, and worn as amulets or charms upon the breast or arm. At other times they are several inches in height, as in the domestic examples, and often have the bull Nandi carved either at the end of the yoni or at the side of the emblem. The Hindus say that the bull will intercept the evil which is continually emitted from the female sacti. Upon the erection of a new village, in setting up the Linga, they are careful to turn the spout of the yoni towards the jungle, and not upon the houses or roads, lest ill fortune should rest upon them. These Lingams are of a much larger size than those just mentioned, being generally two or three feet in height. Early in the morning around these emblems may be seen the girls of the neighbourhood who are anxious for husbands, sprinkling them with water from the Ganges; decking them with garlands of bilwa flowers; performing the mudra, or gesticulation with the fingers, and while rubbing themselves against the emblem, reciting the prescribed incantations, and entreating the deity to make them the fruitful mother of children. This is what is called the Linga puja. During its performance the five lamps are lighted and the bell frequently rung to frighten away the evil demons. Still larger Lingas than any yet mentioned are found in the temples, some of them immense—as high as forty feet and measuring twenty-five feet in circumference. These large emblems are, as a rule, Lingas only, not in conjunction with the Yoni. Colonel Sykes in his “Account of the Ellora Excavations,” (near Poonah, in the Bombay Presidency), speaking of the Bisma Kurm, says, “The first thing that meets the eye on entering the temple is the enormous hemispherical figure of the Ling (Lingam) at the end of the cave; it is always found on this scale in the arched Boodh excavations, and even at Tuneer, in a flat roofed cave, this emblem is forty-two feet in circumference, though its height is inconsiderable.”