How long this worship of the Lingam has prevailed in India it is impossible to say; it is positively known to have existed for at least 1500 years, and it is estimated that about two thirds of all the Hindu people, perhaps eighty millions of souls, practise it. The idols are often described as conspicuous everywhere, in all parts of British India from the Himalaya to Ceylon. We are told that throughout the whole tract of the Ganges, as far as Benares, in Bengal, the temples are commonly erected in a range of six, eight, or twelve on each side of a ghat leading to the river, and that at Kalna is a circular group of 108 temples, erected by a raja of Bardwan. Each of the temples in Bengal consists of a single chamber, of a square form, surmounted by a pyramidal centre. The area of each is very small, the linga of black or white marble occupying the centre. What race brought the Lingam worship into India is not known, but it seems to have come from the basin of the Lower Indus through Rajputana, about the beginning of the Christian era. At Ujjain it was particularly celebrated about the period of the Mohammedan invasion, but probably long before, and one particular Linga was named Vinda-swerna; from Vindu, _drop_, Swerna, _gold_. At present there is a four-faced lingam, sometimes three-faced or tri-murti; and tri-lingam is said to be the source of the name Telinga and Telingana, the country extending north of Madras to Ganjam, and west to Bellary and Beder. The four-faced lingam is called the Choumurti Mahadeva, such as may be seen in the caves of Ellora, and of common occurrence in other districts; and a famous shrine of ek-linga, or the one lingam is situated in a defile about six miles north of Udaipur, and has hills towering around it on all sides. This ek-lingam, or one phallus, is a cylindrical or conical stone; but there are others termed Seheslinga and Kot-Iswara, with a thousand or a million of phallic representations, all minutely carved on the monolithic emblem, having then much resemblance to the symbol of Bacchus whose orgies both in Egypt and Greece are the counterpart of those of the Hindu Baghes, so called from being clad in a tiger’s or leopard’s skin, as Bacchus had that of the panther for his covering. There is a very ancient temple to Kot-Iswara at the embouchure of the eastern arm of the Indus; and there are many to Seheslinga in the peninsula of Saurashtra. At the ancient Dholpur, now called Barolli, the shrine is dedicated to Gut-Iswara Mahadeva, with a lingam revolving in the yoni, the wonder of those who venture amongst its almost impervious and unfrequented woods to worship. It is said that very few Saiva followers of the south of India ever realize the lingam and the yoni as representations of the organs of the body, and when made to apprehend the fact they feel overpowered with shame that they should be worshipping such symbols.[1] [1] See the Indian Cyclopædia.