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Synopsis Saivism and the Phallic World is a formidable treatise by any standard. Many have favoured the tome as the only standard work on the treatment of Saivik thoughts. Readers and students have welcomed the book particularly because of the broad canvas on which it has been laid, opening up vistas of comparative religious trends in history of mankind, specially drawing attention to the Siva and Tantra trends, in all types of human society, ancient and modern. But for the public appreciation it has received a heavy and ponderous book like Saivism and the Phallic World would not have entered into a second edition. In fact the publishers have done the reading public a service by venturing into this project, after the book had disappeared from popular book-shops for over three years. From the date it had been first published (1975) to date certain aspects dealt within the text called for some special brush ups. These have been included as additional notes. A typeset book of this size, inevitably, erred over certain print and other slips. The author as well as the publishers have taken great care in eliminating these errors, and redressing certain phraseologies for the sake of clarity and form. To this extent the present edition has become far more reliable. The index of the first edition had never been to an expected standard. This major deficiency has now been removed by adding a completely remodelled index, on which the author himself has worked very hard. Dr. V.N. Chibbar deserves thanks for going through this part of the work very thoroughly, and arranging the index with scientific and intellectual precision. The present work deals exclusively with an area of profound mystic enquiry of perpetual interest. The secrets of the sacred east which had so far succeeded in drawing only limited interest among interested scholars appears to have, of late, exploded a popular interest. Naturally, a study of the actual bases of Saivism involves a close study of man's preoccupations with the subject of sex on the one hand, and of divine inspiration on the other. Religions of east and west of the ancients and moderns which have left us absorbing and interesting records of man's dive into the ocean of divine mystery and which have never been found missing in claiming the supreme intellectual and spiritual application of the human mind, have been placed under a scholarly scrutiny, which makes this work a remarkable contribution to the library of comparative religion. In fact to deal with Saivism is to deal with Hinduism in all its aspects; and to deal with the vexed subject of the worship of sex-organs is to enter into the very complex arena of primitive religions, and their traditional cultural forms. This popular misconception of equating Saivism with Phallicism compels us to make a thorough study of the subject on the basis of comparative religion.