Talk:lingam

A view that lingam means the penis or phallus and the Shivalingam represents phallus and that the Shiva bhakta, (devotee) Hindus are phallus worshippers is increasingly gaining ground among the Indian intelligentsia. It has direct relationship with the spread of English education and corresponding erosion of knowledge of Sanskrit in India. Originally the Colonial Christian missionaries in the 19th century floated this idea to malign the Hindu religion altogether but now is the English language rendering of the Sanskrit word, “linga”, as “penis’ or “phallus”. The Sanskrit word for penis or phallus, however is Shishna.

According to Sanskrit dictionary, (Medini Koshakar), “Lingam” means sign, (mark or characteristic), conjecture, a kind of Lord Shiva’s image. In the Sanskrit literature, especially in works on religion or spirituality, the word ‘lingam’ has been used in the sense of a sign, a symbol, characteristic of something, and ‘yoni’ as source of origin. In South India. Mostly in Tamil Nadu you will find noble surnames ending with the word Lingham, to denote peity to the indivisible Hindu God Shiva. Many people there have their names like Ramalingam, Bhoothalingam, Mahalingam, ect.

Read the Hindu council of UK website about ligam. ----->[1]

Please edit that page, it's offensive to Hindu's.

We report words as they are used, even if the usage is offensive. We do not hide words simple because people may be bothered by them. The word lingam as it is used in English is correctly described on our entry. If the Hindi/Sanskrit word from which the English word originates has a different meaning, then the Hindi/Sanskrit entry should be created using a Devanagari spelling. What a Sanskrit dictionary says the Sanskrit word means has no bearing on what the English word means in English. --EncycloPetey 05:50, 18 April 2009 (UTC)