Generally, whenever we are confused about something, especially an important matter, we seek advice from an expert. Therefore, I thought it would be worthwhile to mention what Hindu experts say about the Shiva lingam.
1. Swami Vivekananda was a renowned Indian Hindu monk who introduced the philosophy of Vedanta and yoga to the western world. He was no doubt an expert in Hinduism.
At the Paris Congress of the History of Religions, Mr. Gustav Oppert, a German pundit, read a paper on the origin of the Shâlagrâma-Shilâ. He traced the origin of the Shâlagrâma worship to that of the emblem of the female generative principle. According to him, the Shiva-Linga is the phallic emblem of the male and the Shâlagrâma of the female generative principle and thus he wanted to establish that the worship of the Shiva-Linga and that of the Shâlagrâma - both are but the component parts of the worship of Linga and Yoni!
The Swami repudiated the above two views and said that though he had heard of such ridiculous explanations about the Shiva-Linga, the other theory of the Shalagrama-Shila was quite new and strange, and seemed groundless to him. Swami said that the worship of the Shiva-Linga originated from the famous hymn in the Atharva-Veda Samhitâ sung in praise of the Yupa-Stambha, the sacrificial post. In that hymn, a description is found of the beginningless and endless Stambha or Skambha, and it is shown that the said Skambha is put in place of the eternal Brahman. As afterward the Yajna (sacrificial) fire, its smoke, ashes, and flames, the Soma plant, and the ox that used to carry on its back the wood for the Vedic sacrifice gave place to the conceptions of the brightness of Shiva's body, his tawny matted-hair, his blue throat, and riding on the bull of Shiva, and so on - just so, the Yupa-Skambha gave place in time to the Shiva-Linga and was deified to the high Devahood of Shri Shankara. In the Atharva-Veda Samhita, the sacrificial cakes are also extolled along with the attributes of the Brahman.
In the Linga Purâna, the same hymn is expanded in the shape of stories, meant to establish the glory of the great Stambha and the superiority of Mahâdeva. Again, there is another fact to be considered. The Buddhists used to erect memorial topes consecrated to the memory of Buddha; and the very poor, who were unable to build big monuments, used to express their devotion to him by dedicating miniature substitutes for them. Similar instances are still seen in the case of Hindu temples in Varanasi and other sacred places of India where those, who cannot afford to build temples, dedicate very small temple-like constructions instead. So it might be quite probable that during the period of Buddhistic ascendancy, the rich Hindus, in imitation of the Buddhists, used to erect something as a memorial resembling their Skambha, and the poor in a similar manner copied them on a reduced scale, and afterward, the miniature memorials of the poor Hindus became a new addition to the Skambha. One of the names of the Buddhist Stupas (memorial topes) is Dhâtu-garbha, that is, "metal-wombed.” Within the Dhatu-garbha, in small cases made of stone, shaped like the present Shalagrama, used to preserve the ashes, bones, and other remains of the distinguished Buddhist Bhikshus, along with gold, silver, and other metals. The Shaligram-Shilas are natural stones resembling in form these artificially-cut stone-cases of the Buddhist Dhatu-garbha, and thus being first worshipped by the Buddhists, gradually got into Vaishnavism, like many other forms of Buddhistic worship that found their way into Hinduism.
On the banks of the Narmadâ and in Nepal, the Buddhistic influence lasted longer than in other parts of India; and the remarkable coincidence that the Narmadeshvara Shiva-Linga, found on the banks of the Narmadâ and hence so-called, and the Shaligram-Shilas of Nepal are given preference to by the Hindus to those found elsewhere in India is a fact that ought to be considered with respect to this point of contention. The explanation of the Shalagrama-Shila as a phallic emblem was an imaginary invention and, from the very beginning, besides the mark. The explanation of the Shiva-Linga as a phallic emblem was brought forward by the most thoughtless and was forthcoming in India in her most degraded times, those of the downfall of Buddhism. The filthiest Tântrika literature of Buddhism of those times is yet largely found and practiced in Nepal and Tibet.
The thing he mentioned about Yupa-Stambha sounds correct, but what he said about the shape of the Shiva lingam being inspired by Buddha stupa does not sound correct as we have discussed in Chapter 4.9. Also in the Mahabharata, it is mentioned that Lord Krishna and Arjuna worshiped Lord Shiva in the form of the Shiva lingam.
2. Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (born Robert Hansen) was a renowned Shaivite monk.
According to him, the upper oval part of the Shiva lingam represents Parashiva and the lower part called the peetham represents Parashakti. In the Parashiva perfection, Shiva is the absolute reality, the timeless, formless, and spaceless. In Parashakti perfection, Shiva is all-pervasive, pure consciousness, power, and primal substance of all that exist and it has form, unlike Parashiva, which is formless.
The explanation given by Sivaya Subramuniyaswami sounds correct concerning the spiritual meaning of the Shiva lingam.
3. Wendy Doniger is a famous Indologist.
According to her, the terms lingam and yoni became explicitly associated with human sexual organs in the western imagination after the widely popular first Kamasutra translation by Sir Richard Burton in 1883. In his translation, even though the original Sanskrit text does not use the words lingam or yoni for sexual organs, and almost always uses other terms, Burton adroitly avoided being viewed as obscene to the Victorian mindset by avoiding the use of words such as penis, vulva, vagina, and other direct or indirect sexual terms in the Sanskrit text to discuss sex, sexual relationships, and human sexual positions. Mr. Burton used the terms lingam and yoni instead, throughout the translation. This conscious and incorrect word substitution, states Doniger, thus served as an Orientalist means to "anthropologize sex, distance it, make it safe for English readers by assuring them, or pretending to assure them, that the text was not about real sexual organs, their sexual organs, but merely about the appendages of weird, dark people far away.
Similar Orientalist literature of the Christian missionaries and the British era, states Doniger, stripped all spiritual meanings and insisted on the Victorian vulgar interpretation only, which had "a negative effect on the self-perception that Hindus had of their own bodies" and they became "ashamed of the more sensual aspects of their own religious literature." Some contemporary Hindus, states Doniger, in their passion to spiritualize Hinduism and for their Hindutva campaign have sought to sanitize the historic earthly sexual meanings and insist on the abstract spiritual meaning only.
The terms linga and yoni indeed became widely popular after some English scholars used them extensively while translating, but they were not the first to use them. The term linga was used as a sexual organ in the Mahabharata and the Puranas first. Also, at the Parasurameswara Temple in the Gudimallam village, the Shiva lingam is clearly depicted as a male sexual organ. Therefore, we cannot blame Westerners for this, but it is also true that they stripped off the spiritual meaning behind it and insisted on it being sexual organs.
4. Mr. Devdutt Pattanaik is a famous mythologist, speaker, illustrator, and author. I am not sure if he is an expert in Hinduism, but he has good knowledge about the stories in the Hindu scriptures.
He believes that the Shiva lingam is nothing but private parts of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati. It is not even a symbol of fertility. He has written a book on this topic named “Shiva to Shankara: Giving Form to the Formless.” Intrigued by why he thinks so, I read that book, but I was very disappointed. I was expecting that he would prove it with evidence, but there is nothing like that in that book. In fact, only a 20-30% book is about the Shiva lingam. The rest of the book contains stories related to Lord Shiva. It is just a one-sided talk. It seems that he had decided what the Shiva lingam is even before starting to write the book. Following are the points he gave in support of his arguments:
According to him, in the Shiva lingam, the phallus does not point downward but points upward. This is because Shakti is on top of Lord Shiva, facing north, while he lies on his back facing south. This position is called viparita-rati or reverse copulation in Tantra. The water basin of the Shiva lingam represents the entrance of Shakti’s womb that is the world we inhabit into which Lord Shiva’s phallus, hence his energy, is being drawn. Therefore, he believes it is nothing but the sexual organs of Lord Shiva and Goddess Shakti.
But there is a story that is exactly opposite to the story of reverse copulation. This story is from the Mahabharata (Anushasana Parva – Ch. 84).
The Curse of Parvati to all Gods:
After the marriage of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati, all the gods and the sages were scared because they knew that their offspring would be extremely powerful and would end three worlds. Therefore, they requested them not to be intimate with each other. Lord Shiva accepted their request and drew up his vital seed. Since then, he is called Urdhvareta.
However, Goddess Parvati did not like this gesture of gods and cursed them that they would also be childless. Therefore, it is believed that Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati have never had sex (with one exception as mentioned in the Story of the birth of Lord Kartikeya)!
The story of reverse copulation is from the tantric texts and the second story is from the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is more authoritative than the tantric texts.
Also in the Skanda Purana (Ch. 27), there is a story that mentions when Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati were indulged in copulation, the ultimate annihilation began. Therefore, gods had to disturb their activity and put the seed of Lord Shiva into the wombs of six Krittikas to facilitate the birth of Lord Kartikeya who was supposed to kill Tarakasura.
The Skanda Purana is more authoritative than the Tantric texts.
The story of reverse copulation is most probably symbolic to Purusha and Prakriti as believed by some tantric.