• Opening
• Teachings

Opening

Eighteen Puranas are considered main ones nowadays. The Linga Purana is one of them. It is divided into two sections; one of 108 chapters and one and 55 chapters. In the first section it is told how the linga or phallos is developed, and there are myths, legends and anecdotes among many other subjects.

The second section contains legends that glorify the phallos, and there are tellings of it as a means of gaining the ultimate goal, the supreme, attributeless Spirit. We find philosophical principles, sermons and dissertations on the glory of the phallos too.

Accordingly, the linga, or phallos, represents virile manhood far and wide. A Linga in the form of a column, often in the middle of a rimmed, disc-shaped structure, representing the phallos and vagina, is set up in many temples.

At the beginning

There could have been an older, somewhat shorter Linga Purana text than the present one, as it is told that in antiquity the Purana was made shorter to appeal better to people. At the same time, "fresh material was available which the new compilers inserted in the old corpus. The process continued till the beginning of the fifth century A.D" (1997, xvii)

In the Linga Purana, the supreme Lord is represented by a half-male and half-female form. At the beginning of Creation, the male form enters into the womb of the female form and puts the golden seed of fire and creative energy in it. This seed makes the Cosmic Egg to be born in time. Out of the Cosmis Egg the entire universe evolved. (1997, xviii-xix)

Upon request, Suta Romaharsana once said to sages gathered in the Naimisa forest, after they had asked him to recite the Linga Purana: "The Supreme Lord is the source of origin of the Creator, Brahma, and assumes the form of the Linga for sport. (v. 1-24, extract)

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Teachings

It split itself - The non-characterised, thus, becomes characterised through maya. (3.5)

Brahman itself is the universe. The non-characterised Supreme is the source of the seed, the womb and the seedless. The term Atman applies to the seed (bija), womb (yoni) and the unmanifest matter (pradhána). (3.6-9)