The god Siva hearing that Vishnu had assumed this form, went to the spot, and was so overcome by the charms of Mohinee, that he was about to seize her by force: she fled, and Siva followed her; mad with lust, he pursued her till she could run no longer, when she turned, and pronouncing a curse upon him by which he became a hermaphrodite, she immediately assumed her original form, viz., that of Vishnu. Siva was so enraged, that all the gods, full of fear, arrived to soften him by praise. He at length consented to dismiss his anger on condition that the linga should become an object of universal worship. Another account of the origin of this worship is contained in some of the other puranas: At the time of a universal destruction of the world all the gods are absorbed in what is called akashu; the linga alone remains. The puranas, therefore, say that as all the gods except the linga are absorbed in the akashu, he who worships the linga, obtains the unbounded merit of embracing all the deities at once. From these stories, temples innumerable have arisen in India, and a Siva linga placed in each of them, and worshipped as a god. The worship of Siva under the type of the Linga, is almost the only form in which that deity is reverenced. Its prevalence throughout the whole tract of the Ganges, as far as Benares, is sufficiently conspicuous. 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. At Kalna is a circular group of one hundred and eight temples, erected by the Rajah 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, occupies the centre; the offerings are presented at the threshold. Benares, however, is the peculiar seat of this form of worship: the principal deity, Visweswara, is a Linga, and most of the chief objects of the pilgrimage are similar blocks of stone. Particular divisions of the pilgrimage direct visiting forty-seven Lingas, all of pre-eminent sanctity; but there are hundreds of inferior note still worshipped, and thousands whose fame and fashion have died away. If we may believe Siva, indeed, he counted a hundred Pararrdhyas in the Kasi, of which, at the time he is supposed to tell this to Devi, he adds sixty crore, or six hundred millions were covered by the waters of the Ganges. A Pararrdhya is said, by the commentator on the Kasi-Khanda, in which this dialogue occurs, to contain as many years of mortals as are equal to fifty of Brahma’s years.