That religious wars have not been confined to more modern times,
and that among an early race the attempt to exalt the male
principle met with obstinate resistance which involved mankind in
a conflict, the violence of which has never been exceeded, are
facts which seem altogether probable. Indeed, there is much
evidence going to show that the cause of the original dispersion
of a primitive race was the contention which arose respecting
their religious faith or regarding the physiological question of
the relative importance of the sexes in the function of
reproduction; and that the general war indicated in the Puranas,
which began in India and extended over the entire habitable
globe, and which was celebrated by the poets as "the basis of
Grecian mythology," originated in this conflict over the
precedence of one or the other of the sex-principles contained in
the Deity. Although there are no records of these wars in extant
history, accounts of them are still preserved in the traditions
and religious monuments of oriental countries. In Egypt, in
India, and to a greater or less extent in other Eastern
countries, these physiological contests have been disguised under
a veil of allegory, the true significance of which it is no
longer difficult to understand. With the light which more recent
investigation has thrown upon the subject of the separation of
the original sex-elements contained in the Deity, the
significance of the following legend in the Servarasa is at once
apparent.

When Parvati (Devi) was united in marriage to Mahadeva (Siva),
the divine pair had once a dispute on the comparative influence
of the sexes in producing animated beings, and each resolved by