“My thoughts are flowers and ashes, In my breast’s fane enshrined, My breath, too, is therein it, A linga unconfined: My senses, too, like incense Rise, and like bright lamps shine, There, too, my soul leaps ever A dancing god divine.” This, is my opinion, is one of the finest stanzas penned by Sivavakkiar. The drift of it is this:—You popular Hindus, you have your temples,—you have your flowers, and sacred ashes,—you have your phallus, or emblem of divine creative power,—you have also your incense and lamps, and you have your divine dancer, Siva. I, too, have my flowers and ashes, but they are of the mind! I, too, have my linga, but it is my breath or spirit. I, too, have my incense and lamps, but they are my five senses. And I, too, have my deity leaping in divine sport within me, but that is my soul. In a word, mine is the true spiritual worship. “Here the sage speaks of his body as a metaphorical temple (using language similar to that employed in the New Testament, ‘Ye are the temples of the Holy Ghost’); then he likens his thoughts to flowers and ashes, which are used in the services of temples; lastly, he declares that his breath or spirit—which as a part of universal life has no bound or limit—is the true _linga_, creative, and a part of the creation, of his own being.” * * * * * The serious consequences of adopting erroneous principles, even such as are commonly called metaphysical ones, seemingly the most remote from practice, is perhaps in nothing more apparent than with respect to the ideas which were in early ages entertained concerning _nature_, when its attributes came to be objects of worship. As there must be a concurrence of male and female powers for the production of all living creatures, it was supposed that, in the great productive powers of nature, there must be both male and female qualities. The Egyptians had this idea, and accordingly several of their principal deities were said to be both male and female. Having little idea of delicacy, they represented those powers by the figures of the parts of generation. The constant exhibition of these figures in their religious worship could not but lead to much lewdness, first as an act of religion, acceptable to their gods, and then in common life; though this might be far from the intention of those who formed the plan of the popular worship.