WillKill4Food
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"Aniconic" can simply mean "not forming an image," so I suppose it depends on what you mean by "image." An "image" could be any symbol, but in this context I would call an "image" a visual rendering, such as a statue of Ba'al or Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. A stone, with minimal detailing, would not be an image, but rather a mere representation. It's not a perfect description, but I have seen "aniconic" associated with lingam multiple times, so it is not my word choice. Regardless, I think you can understand the meaning of the word in this sense. I quoted Sri Swami Sivananda in a preceding post, and he explained it as follows,Stoo said:
As such, the ideal lingam is "devoid of smell, colour, taste, hearing, touch, etc." Sivananda claims that "Prakriti" (Nature) is the aforementioned "foremost" ideal lingam, but he's a religious man who, like so many others, adheres to convictions that are not necessarily coherent. From what I can piece together from Sivananda's descriptions, the lingam are to Hinduism what the crucifix is to some Christians.Swami Sivananda said:
(Some. Yes, some, but of course not all. I almost feel that such qualification is necessary because of the tangents that can sprout off from one poorly-chosen word.)
You see, I was raised in a fundamentalist Baptist church, and to them, "any graven image" meant that "idols" of Jesus were a no-no. So they considered statues of Christ on the cross (but not paintings, oddly) to be against the Second Commandment. Once, during an Easter service, somebody put a cross somewhat resembling a less-flashy Cross of Coronado up near the pulpit, and the pastor and my Deacon father had a fit. To them, the cross was okay because it wasn't Jesus himself, but showing Jesus on the cross was tantamount to idolatry.
Now, I'm not saying that Hindus see the lingam that way. Images of Siva in human form are not considered blasphemy, to my knowledge, but they are "inadequate" for worship because they do not represent the formlessness of Siva. Siva is not a mere human, so representations of Him, as beautiful as they may be, are not as meaningful as lingam, which represent his formlessness. I have not read that the stones' connection with nature also makes it an ideal lingam, but I would think that to be the case.
Food for thought, I guess.Stoo said:
I think most of my mistakes have been cleared up. I'll be the first to admit that I am no expert on India by any means, but I think a lot of the discussion in some of these threads has been based on semantics that may or may not actually contribute to the topic or even be indicative of my own sentiments. People often misunderstand the particularly meanings of a word or phrase and twist it into something different altogether.Stoo said:P.S. I have a lot to say to you in a couple of other India-related threads so, as Short Round said, "Hold on to your potatoes!"
At any rate, the research of my university's anthropology departments focuses almost exclusively on Central America, so I don't know that I'll ever get a chance to learn anything about India that didn't come from the web or some book on a shelf. That being said, books aren't always accurate, particularly books written by colonialists (and sometimes natives themselves), with both sides being occasionally biased. In the end, I am still learning, and if I am shown to be wrong, I'll admit it.
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