Blog Archives
Yoni
Originally uploaded by *Gabisa Motonia
Yoni In Hinduism this is the female organ of all creation.
In Hindu temple art female genitalia are often emphasized to symbolize the Great Mother’s crucial meta-physical role in giving birth to all that is.
F. A. Marglin notes that, on a more personal scale, the yoni is said to invigorate the male through sexual intercourse.
Popular Hindu Indian folk belief maintains that during intercourse vaginal fluids enter the male generative organ, symbolically known as the linga (roughly parallel to the phallus of the Western mythos). This mingling of bodily fluids is believed to give the male his wife’s spiritual power (shakti).
Ancient Kings thus had several concubines as their divine right–this not only for the gratification of lust but also, so the belief goes, for an increase in spiritual power.¹
As the yoni and especially sexual-erotic scenes appearing on Hindu temple engravings are often interpreted by outsiders as an inferior, crass type of spiritual representation, Hindus (and Jungians) tend to say that those who see it that way are merely projecting their own shadow.
The yoni is sometimes depicted as a triangle with apex facing downwards. V. K. Chari says
These geometrical figures have symbolic meanings: the triangle with the apex turned upwards (called vahni kona or cone of fire) may represent male energy, the one with the apex turned downwards female energy (yoni), the matrix of creation, and so forth-which the adept are to meditate upon.²
» Jung (Carl Gustav), Linga, Siva
—
¹F. A. Marglin in The Encyclopedia of Religion. Eliade, Mircea (ed). New York: 1987, Collier Macmillan, Vol. 15, pp. 530-535.
²V. K. Chari, “Representation in India’s Sacred Images: Objective vs. Metaphysical Reference” in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 65, No. 1, 2002: 52-73, pp. 65-66.
Add to this, report errors, suggest edits or voice your opinion by posting a comment
