Ixora (Mahadeu) bears also the name of Lingam. The Jogins wear the Lingam about their necks; but it would be impossible for fancy, says Picard, to invent anything more obscene, than the posture in which they represent this double figure, to whom they assiduously offer the first fruits of their meals. We ascribe to the notion the Indians entertain that everything is formed by generation, the blind devotion they pay to this Lingam, in which they confound the agent with the means he employs. It will be impossible to justify them in any manner on this head, but by considering it as a type or symbol, which still cannot but be shocking to decency and good manners; some, however, cannot help thinking that those who first invented these figures, were naturally inclined to satiate by lust, what they exhibited for the emblem of a Deity. “It cannot be denied, but that the worship which is paid to nature, may have migrated from the east into the west, together with the symbolical figures under which they represented it; we are therefore not to wonder, that the same idea should have discovered itself under different names, to people who live at a great distance one from the other; since, as they both received the object of their worship from the same source, they were under a necessity of receiving the same images with the same ceremonies. To do these people justice, nothing can better express the fruitfulness of nature than the union of both sexes, and the vigour of Priapus, whose name is very expressive; however, it is surprising that men, who, if we except some of the most brutal savages, have always paid some regard to decency, should be so lost to all sense of it, as to carry in procession with great pomp and solemnity, those parts of the body, which ought never to be revealed but in cases of the highest necessity; and expose them publicly in the roads, in houses and temples, as is the custom in India.”[10] [10] Picard, Ceremonies et Coutumes Religieuses.