, the essence is returned to the great
Giver, as a propitiatory offering.[N]

[45] Sherwill: _The Rajmahal Hills_.

[46] Reclus: _Primitive Folk_, p. 317.

[N] Among certain peoples the blood and the semen bore a close
relationship; by certain races they were considered analogous. The
Old Testament, the Vedas, the Sagas, and many references of Greek,
Latin, Egyptian, Hindu, and Persian mythology point to this as
being conclusive.

In point of fact, the worship of the generative principle is everywhere
prevalent in India.[O] In the Lingam, or holy altar of the Brahmins, we
see a conjunction of the male and female sexual organs, while religious
prostitution, in the shape of hetarism, crowds the inner courts and
corridors of almost every temple in the land with hierodules and
bayaderes. The Vedas abound in references, either direct or indirect, to
phallic worship. Indeed, according to some authorities, the Hindu Brahma
is the same as the Greek Pan,[P] "who is the creative spirit of the
deity transfused through matter."[47]

[O] Speaking of the ceremony of priestly prelibation as it was
practiced in the Kingdom of Malabar, Forbes writes as follows: "The
ecclesiastic power took precedence of the civil on this particular
point, and the sovereign himself passed under the yoke. Like the
other women, the queen had to submit to the right of prelibation
exercised by the high priest, who had a right to the first three
nights, and who was paid fifty pieces of gold besides for his
trouble." Forbes: _Oriental Memoirs_, vol. i, p. 446; quoted also
by Letourneau: _The Evolution of Marriage_, p. 48. De Remusat says
that, in Cambodia, the daughters of poor parents retain their
virginity longer than their richer sisters simply because they have
not the money with which to pay the priest for defloration!

[P] "The people have put the idol named _Coppal_ in a neighboring
house; there she is served by priests and _Devadichi_, or slaves of
the gods. These are prostitute girls, whose employment is to dance
and to ring little bells in cadence while singing infamous songs,
either in the pagoda or in the streets when the idol is carried out
in state," writes Letourneau in _The Evolution of Marriage_,
quoting from _Letters edifiantes_. _Coppal_ was and is a
Brahminical Venus, and her worship is wholly phallic