written history. Through the unravelling of
extinct tongues, however, the monumental records of the ancient nations
of the globe have been deciphered, and the system of religious symbolism
in use among them is now understood.

A small volume by various writers, printed in London some years ago,
entitled A Comparative View of the Ancient Monuments of India, says:

"Those who have penetrated into the abstruseness of Indian mythology,
find that in these temples was practiced a worship similar to that
practiced by all the several nations of the world, in their earliest as
well as their most enlightened periods. It was paid to the Phallus
by the Asiatics, to Priapus by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, to
Baal-Peor by the Canaanites and idolatrous Jews. The figure is seen on
the fascia which runs round the circus of Nismes, and over the portal of
the Cathedral of Toulouse, and several churches of Bordeaux."

Of the Lingham and Yoni and their universal acceptance as religious
emblems, Barlow remarks that it was a "worship which would appear to
have made the tour of the globe and to have left traces of its existence
where we might least expect to find it." In referring to the "sculptured
indecencies" connected with religious rites, which, being wrought in
imperishable stone, have been preserved in India and other parts of the
East, Forlong says that when occurring in the temples or other sacred
places they are at the present time evidently very puzzling to the pious
Indians, and in their attempts to explain them they say they are placed
there "in fulfilment of vows," or that they have been wrought there "as
punishments for sins of a sexual nature, committed by those who executed
or paid for them." It is, however, the opinion of Forlong that they
are simply connected with an older and purer worship--a worship which
involved the union of the sex principles as the foundation of their
god-idea.

Regarding the cause for the "indecent" sculptures of the Orissa temples,
the same writer quotes the following from Baboo Ragendralala Mitra, in
his work on the Antiquities of Orissa.

"A vitiated taste aided by general prevalence of immorality might at
first sight appear to be the most likely one; but I can not believe that
libidiousness, however depraved, would ever think of selecting fanes
dedicated to the worship of God, as the most appropriate for its
manifestations; for it is worthy of remark that they occur almost
exclusively o