It may be stating the obvious that Hinduism as a way of life and different ways and versions of Hindu life and worship are steeped in eroticism of every conceivable form and constructible type:

A case in point is what I recall as some lines on goddess Saraswathi in a Sanskrit lesson in my school days. It was something like this: Sangeetham Api Sahithyam Saraswathya Sthana Dwaya. Its English rendering would be Music and Literature are Saraswathi’s two breasts. This has to be related to the fact that traditionally Saraswathi embodied learning.

The annual Saraswathi Puja when devotees refrain from reading and writing (if they know these) and offer whatever they consider as important books and written material for worship at home or at a nearby temple for a certain number of days is the climax of the devotion to Saraswathi. Considering this, it is no wonder that Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, HRD Minister of the A.B. Vajpayee-led NDA regime got infatuated with Saraswathi and tried to foist Saraswathi Vandana on the nation, of course, without specifying in which vital part of Saraswathi’s persona education, for which Joshi was anointed as union minister, was concentrated.

What may not be obvious is this time-honored `divine and daily eroticism’ codified in several ways, as for instance, in Vatsyayan’s illustrated Kamasutra, may soon be under the Patent Rights of the MNCs engaged in the money-spinning high-tech internet porn industries, for among other things, mapping the highways and byways of sex, keeping in view the need for fast sex and holding out the promise of ultimate orgasm to a population put on the fast track devoid of normal family and social life by the rapid and ruthless pace of globalisation.

Considering that the so-called gods’ chosen men in India have been in gay abandon in their socially illicit and illegitimate sexual exploits and escapades as pederasties, pedophiles, rapists, seducers of both men and women, all on the pretext of bestowing gods’ blessings on the gullible devotees and `washing away’ their sins [see for instance the Website of concerned former devotees of Sai Baba], it is not only Hinduism’s eroticism that will be grist to the MNC mills but also the gullible devotees seeking instant Nirvana through the ongoing and fast increasing cyber chicanery.

In this context it will be of interest to know how sex is not only embodied in the worship of deities and the fake godmen claiming to represent them, but also imbibed by the persona of the devotees themselves.

As an aside to this, it is important to know the clear religious division between Shaivites and Vaishnavites — the former as worshippers and followers of the Shiva or Shaivite cult, and the latter as worshippers and followers of the Vishnu or Vaishnavite cult. The Shaivite cult can be traced to at least the 7th century AD and to the philosophy of Adi-Sankara. I am not sure about the history of the spread of Vaishnavism, unwittingly though, Mahatma Gandhi had a lot to do with it through his famous Vaishnava Janato prayer, which has had a direct link with Rama, as an incarnation or avatar of Vishnu, a claim which has been causing havoc in the country for at least the last three decades.

Turning to the Shaivite cult, I had quoted a social anthropologist in my article Religion Under Globalization, which appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly of March 27- April 2, 2004, which is reproduced with additional information in my latest book Religion, Caste and State:

With Hindu gods and goddesses accounting for about one-fourth (330 million) of India’s human population, the superabundance of myths can be socially satiating and subliminal, as for instance the belief that to gaze on the phallic emblem of Shiva standing in his temple is as beneficial as a vision of every god and goddess separately.

The above quote gives the impression that Shaivism is pan-Indian, though it is primarily in Peninsular India. However, it needs to be recalled that even Adi-Sankara’s teachings and philosophy were as protest against Sanskritic Hinduism as embodied in Brahminical intellectual and social hegemony.

The protest has continued in one form or another till this day. Probably the Lingam cult has to be related to the protest movement Veerashaivism in the 12th century AD in present day Karnataka by what the Lingayats would term as Basaveswara (Basava god). It was a movement to establish ritual and social practices parallel to, but countering, Hinduism. It became another hierarchical institution with all the trappings of the caste system. I wonder how many people know that among the Lingayats, namely the followers of Veerashaivism, women wear thread across their body with a lingam (Shiva’s phallus) on it.

A more revealing part of the mythology of the Lingam cult is that god Shiva was so aroused, but desperate and angry because Parvati was not with him for his immediate sexual satiation that he was about to pluck and throw his phallus and testis at the universe. Sensing that this would destroy the entire cosmos Parvati appeared from nowhere offering her Yoni (vagina) to Shiva. I remember having read this in an article in one of the international journals on religion.

A close look at any Shiva temple will reveal that the idol installed is not of Shiva’s phallus alone, but of that phallus firmly placed in a yoni. Probably as characteristic of the Hindu patriarchal society, Shiva’s lingam or phallus is remembered also by adding `lingam’ or `linga’ to a number of Hindu names, whereas Parvati’s fire-fighting and `cosmos-saving’ operation, leave alone Parvati, is not remembered by naming men or women after her yoni or vagina, though I do not know if it had a unique name.

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