The village gods of south India

Front matter

L.'*1 vision \rA_2_00l

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF INDIA

EDITED BY

Preface

The material for this account of the village gods of South India has been gathered almost entirely from my own observation and inquiry. I have been able to get little help from books, as this is, I think, the first attempt at dealing systematically with this aspect of Indian religion. It does not pretend to be anything like an exhaustive account of all the various rites and ceremonies observed in the worship of the village deities. The variety of ritual and ceremonial in the different districts of South India is almost endless, and I have not attempted in this book to give an account even of all the various ceremonies that have come within my own knowledge. Perhaps it would be more correct to call the book ‘ An Introduction to the study of the Village Gods of South India’. I believe, however, that all the main types of this particular form of Hinduism are included in the following pages, and that enough has been said to enable the reader to get a fairly complete idea of its general character and to

PREFACE compare it with similar forms of religion in other parts of the world.

I have to acknowledge the kindness of the Editor of the Nineteenth Century and After for allowing me to reprint in Chapters IV. VI, and VII portions of articles contributed by me to that Magazine. Mrs. Whitehead, Miss Stephen, the Archdeacon of Madras, and other friends have most kindly supplied me with the drawings and photographs used for the illustrations ; and the Government of Madras has generously allowed me to use the plates for some of the illustrations, which have previously appeared in a bulletin that I wrote some years ago for the Madras Museum.

A Glossary of Indian Terms and several Indices have been included in order to facilitate reference to the large amount of unfamiliar detail which the book contains.

HENRY MADRAS.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

Introduction . . . . .11

I. Leading Features of the Religion . 14

Introduction

The worship of the village gods is the most ancient form of Indian religion. Before the Aryan invasion, which probably took place in the second millennium b.c., the old inhabitants of India, who are sometimes called Dravidians, were a darkskinned race, with religious beliefs and customs that probably did not greatly differ from those of other primitive races. They believed the world to be peopled by a multitude of spirits, good and bad, who were the cause of all unusual events, and especially of diseases and disasters. The object of their religion was to propitiate these innumerable spirits. At the same time, each village seems to have been under the protection of some one spirit, who was its guardian deity. Probably these village deities came into being at the period when the people began to settle down in agricultural communities. We may see in them the germs of the national deities which were so prominent among the Semitic races and the great empires of Egypt, Nineveh, and Babylon. Where the family developed into a clan, and the clan into a tribe, and the tribe into a nation, and the nation into a conquering empire, the god of the family naturally developed into an imperial deity. But in ancient India, before the coming of the Aryans, the population seems to have been split up into small agricultural and pastoral communities. There were no nations and no conquering empires. And it was not till the Aryan invaders had conquered North India and had settled down in the country, that there was in India any growth of philosophic thought about the world as a whole. The problem of the universe did not interest the simple Dravidian folk. They only looked for an explanation of the facts and troubles of village life. Their religion, therefore, did not advance beyond a crude animism and a belief in village deities. Later on, after the Aryans had overrun a large part of India, and the Brahmans had established their ascendency as a priestly caste, the old Dravidian cults were influenced by the superior religion of the Aryans, and strongly reacted on them in turn.

The earliest Indian philosophical systems arose in the sixth century b. c. under the stimulus of the desire to escape from transmigration. Two of these developed into new religions, hostile to Hinduism, namely Jainism and Buddhism, while others remained in the old faith. All exercised a profound influence on the thought of India and also modified religious practice in certain respects. On the other hand, the crude ideas and barbarous cults of the omnipresent aboriginal tribes, constantly pressing upon the life of the Aryans, found entrance into their religion at many points. Thus the old polytheistic nature-worship of the Rigveda, with its animal sacrifices offered in the open air, and its simple, healthy rules for family and social life, was gradually transformed into a great mass of warring sects, holding philosophical ideas and subtle theological systems, and condemning animal sacrifice, yet worshipping gross idols, and bound by innumerable superstitions. Caste arose and became hardened into the most rigorous system of class

INTRODUCTION distinctions that the world has ever seen, inspired and justified by the doctrine of transmigration and karma.

What we now call Hinduism, therefore, is a strange medley of the most diverse forms of religion, ranging from the most subtle and abstruse systems of philosophy to primitive forms of animism. At the same time, the primitive forms of Dravidian religion have been in their turn greatly modified by Brahman influence. For the most part, the same people in town and village worship the village deities and the Brahman gods. There are a few aboriginal tribes in some of the hill tracts who are still unaffected by Brahman ideas or customs, but in the vast majority of the districts the, worship of the village deities and the worship of Siva and Vishnu go on side by side; just as in China Confucianism and Taoism are not rival religions, but complementary creeds.

To the student of comparative religion the study of the weird rites and ceremonies connected with the propitiation of the village deities is interesting, because it reveals many points of contact with primitive forms of religion in other lands, and also because it enables the student to see these primitive religious ideas in very different stages of development. To the Christian the study has a still greater interest, because, amid all their repulsive features, these rites contain instinctive ideas and yearnings which find their satisfaction in the highest truths of Christianity.

Chapter I Leading Features Of The Religion

The worship of the Village Deity, or grama-devata, as it is called in Sanskrit and in Tamil, forms an important part of the conglomerate of religious beliefs, customs, and ceremonies which are generally classed together under the term Hinduism. In almost every village and town of South India may be seen a shrine or symbol of the grama-devata, and in every village the grama-devata is periodically worshipped and propitiated. As a rule this shrine is far less imposing than the Brahmanical temples in the neighbourhood ; very often it is nothing more than a small brick building three or four feet high, or a small enclosure with a few rough stones in the centre ; and often there is no shrine at all ; but still, when calamity overtakes the village, when pestilence or famine or cattle-disease makes its appearance, it is to the village deity that the, whole body of the villagers turns for protection. Siva and Vishnu may be more dignified beings, but the village deity is regarded as a more present help in trouble, and is more intimately concerned with the happiness and prosperity of the villagers.

(a) The origin of this form of Hinduism is lost in antiquity ; but it is certain that it represents a pre- Aryan cult of the Dravidian peoples, more or less modified in various parts of South India by Brahmanical influence ; and some details of the cere-

Plate I

Rude Sup, ini; at foot of Tree with bare Stone as Symbol

LEADING FEATURES OF THE RELIGION 15 monies seem to point back to a totemistic stage of religion. The normal function of the grama-devata is the guardianship of the village, but many of them are believed to have other powers, especially in relation to disease and calamity. It is probable that a large proportion of these gods have been reverenced for centuries ; but many are of quite recent origin. Some were originally people who were murdered, or who during their lifetime were feared for their power or their crimes, or women who died in childbirth. It is easy to observe a deity in the making even at the present day.

A District Superintendent of police in the Telugu country told me that in 1904, at a village some twelve miles from Ellore, twro little boys, minding cattle in the fields, thought they heal’d the sound of trumpets proceeding from an ant-hill. They told the story in the village, and at once the people turned out and did jpuja, i. e. worship, to the deity in the ant-hill. The fame of the deity’s presence spread like wild-fire far and ivide, and the village became the centre of pilgrimages from all the country round about. Every Sunday as many as 5,000 people, men and women, assembled before the ant-hill, and might be seen prostrate on their faces, rapt in adoration. The incident illustrates the ease with which a local cult springs up in India and suddenly becomes popular over a large district.

Another instance came to my notice a few years ago at Bezwada. A small boy, the son of well-todo parents, was murdered near the town for the sake of his ornaments, and thrown into the canal. The body was discovered and placed under a tree near the bank of the canal, at a place where three roads meet. A little after, a small shrine, about a foot and a half high, was built by the parents under a tree to the spirit of the murdered boy. Then some one declared that he had made a vow at the shrine and obtained his desire. The fame of the shrine at once spread, the spirit of the boy rose quite to the rank of a minor deity, and a local worship speedily sprang up and became popular. When I last saw the shrine, it had been enlarged, and had become about twice its original size.

About sixty years ago a Hindu widow, named Eamamma, lived between Bezwada and Hyderabad, farming some land left her by her husband. After a time she contracted immoral relations with one of her servants, Buddha Sahib. Her brother was so angry that he murdered them both. Then the cattle-plague broke out ; and the villagers connected it with the wrath of the murdered Eamamma, and instituted special rites to pacify her spirit. And now, whenever there is cattle-plague in the district, two rough wooden images about two feet high are made to represent Maddlia Eamamma and Buddha Sahib, and, with two images of local goddesses as their attendants, are put on a small wooden cart and dragged in procession at night round all the principal streets of the village, accompanied by fireworks, music, and nautch-girls (i. e. dancing-girls of loose character connected with Hindu temples). Finally, the cart is dragged to the boundary of the village lands and thrown into the territory of the adjacent village, in order to transfer to it the angry spirit of Eamamma.

Temples have been built to Plague-amma during the last ten years as a result of the prevalence of plague.

Special reverence is paid to persons who come to

Plate II

Shrine of Plague-Amjia, Bangalore : see also Plate XII

LEADING FEATURES OF THE RELIGION 17 an untimely end, e. g. to the spirits of girls who die before marriage ; but when the circumstances of their death specially strike the imagination of the general public, the reverence which is ordinarily confined to the family expands into a regular local cult.

(6) The village deities and their worship , are widely different from the popular Hindu deities, Siva and Vishnu, and the worship that centres in the great Hindu Temples.

, 1. Siva and Vishnu represent forces of nature : Siva symbolizes the power of destruction and the idea of life through death, Vishnu the power of preservation and the idea of salvation. Both these deities and the system of religion connected with them are the outcome of philosophic reflection on the universe as a whole. But the village deities, on the other hand, have no relation to the universe. They symbolize only the facts of village life. They are related, not to great world forces, but to such simple facts as cholera, small-pox, and cattle disease.

2. Then, in the second place, village deities, with very few exceptions, are female. Siva and Vishnu, and the principal deities of the Hindu pantheon, are male. Their wives, it is true, play an important part in Hindu religious, life — Kali especially, the ‘ black one ’, the wife of Siva, is the presiding deity of Calcutta, and is one of the chief deities of Bengal — but, speaking generally, in the Hindu pantheon the male deities are predominant and the female deities occupy a subordinate position. This is characteristic of the genius of the Aryan religion, but in the old Dravidian cults a leading feature was the worship of the female principle in nature. It is possible that this is due to the fact that the B

Aryan deities were the gods of a race of warriors, whereas the Dravidian deities were the goddesses of an agricultural people. All over the world, the gods of war are mostly male, while the agricultural deities are, for the most part, female ; and this naturally arises from the fact that war is the business of men, whereas, among primitive peoples, the cultivation of the fields was largely left to the women, and also from the fact that the idea of fertility is naturally connected with the female. All over Southern India, therefore, the village deities are almost exclusively female. In the Tamil country, it is true, most of them have male attendants, who are supposed to guard the shrines and carry out the commands of the goddesses ; but their place is distinctly subordinate and almost servile. One of these male deities, however, Iyenar, has an independent position. He generally has a shrine to himself, and is regarded as the night-watchman of the village. The compound of his shrine is generally crowded with clay figures of horses, great and small, on which he is supposed to ride round the village during the watches of the night, to keep off evil spirits. In the Telugu country, too, there is a being called Potu-Kazu, who figures sometimes as the brother, sometimes as the husband, of the village goddess, and sometimes as merely an attendant, but 1 have never met with him as an independent deity and have always been told that sacrifice is never offered to him alone, but only in conjunction with one or more of the goddesses.

♦ 3. Then, in the third place, the village deities are

almost universally worshipped with animal sacrifices. Buffaloes, sheep, goats, pigs, and fowls are freely

LEADING FEATURES OF THE RELIGION 19 offered to them, sometimes in thousands. In the Tamil country, this custom is curiously modified by the influence of Brahmanism, which has imbued the villagers with the idea that the shedding of blood is low and irreligious, and it is remarkable that no animal sacrifices are ever offered to Iyenar. The male attendants accept them eagerly, and take toddy and cheroots into the bargain ; but Iyenar is regarded as far too good a being to be pleased by the sight of bloodshed.

4. Again, the piljans, i. e. the priestly ministrants , the men who perform the puja, are not Brahmans / but are drawn from all the other castes.

It is hardly ever possible to make any general statement about any subject in India without at

1 The whole Hindu people in North India may be likened to a great step-pyramid, consisting of five stories. These are exclusive groups, marked off from each other by deep distinctions in religious and social standing and in ideal function :

Outcastes, Pafichamas (i.e. fifth- j Unclean, untouchable class men) ( aboriginals.

Foreigners are held unclean, and are called mlecchas. In South India, it is to be noticed, the farmers, artisans, and tradesmen are all classed as Sudras, and the Kshatriyas are practically non-existent. The population, therefore, is divided into, three main groups: the Brahmans of Aryan blood ; the Sudras, who are Dravidians, admitted to the temples ; and the Outcastes, who are partly Dravidians and partly still older inhabitants, not admitted to the temples.

Brahmans : priests Kshatriyas : kings and warriors Vai^yas : farmers and tradesmen

Sudras : servants

B 2 once being confronted with facts, which seem to prove that you ax-e wi-ong ; accordingly, I may mention that I have found cases where Brahmans officiate as pujarls at the shrines of village deities. I came aci-oss one such case at Negapatam ; while, at Bangalore, I actually found a case where a Brahman widow was the ministrant. But then, in these cases the Brahman pujarl never has anything to do with animal sacrifices. These are always conducted entirely by men of lower castes, and, even so. it is a degradation for a Brahman to be connected as pujarl with a shrine where such abominations take place ; but, according to the Indian proverb, ‘ For the sake of one’s stomach one must play many parts.’ Setting aside these exceptional cases, it may be stated generally that no Brahmans ai-e the priests of village deities, but that the pujarls are drawn from all other castes indiscriminate!}7, while an important part in the worship, especially that connected with the buffalo sacrifices, is even taken by Outcastes.1 As will be seen later on, the buffalo sacrifice has special features of its own, and seems to retain traces of a primitive form of worship, which may possibly have originated in totemism.

1 See note on p. 19.

Chapter II Names, Characters, And Functions Of The Village Gods

(rt) The names of village deities are legion. Some of them have an obvious meaning, many are quite unintelligible to the people themselves, and I have often failed to get any clue to their origin, even from native pandits. They differ in almost every district, and often the deities worshipped in one village will be quite unknown in other villages five or six miles off. In Masulipatam on the East Coast, in the Telugu country, the following were given me as the names of the village deities worshipped in the district, viz. Mutyalamma, the pearl goddess ( amma or amman is only a female termination) ; Chinnintamma, the goddess who is head of the house ; Challalamma, the goddess presiding over buttermilk ; Ghantalamma, the goddess who goes with bells ; Yaparamma, the goddess who transacts business ; Mamillamma, the goddess who sits under a mango-tree ; Gangamma, the water goddess, who in this district is the protectress against small-pox.

But, at a village about twenty miles from Masulipatam, I found that fifteen different goddesses were worshipped in the neighbourhood, of wTiom only four were identical with those of Masulipatam. Some were named after the villages from which they had been imported, e. g. Addankamma, the goddess from Addanki, and Pandilamma, the goddess from Pandil ; others had names derived from common objects of country life, e. g. Wanamalamma, the goddess of the tope, Balamma, the goddess of the cart, and Sltalamma, the water goddess.

In the Ellore district, farther west, the deities worshipped are chiefly Gangamma, who is sometimes called Mahalakshml (one of the names of Vishnu’s wife), and sometimes ,Chamalamma (another name of Kali, the wife of Siva), and Poleramma, the boundary goddess, and Ankamma, who is regarded as the goddess of cholera and disease generally.

Farther west than Ellore, across the hills, in the Cuddapah and Kurnool districts, the village goddess is often known simply as Peddamma (great goddess) or Chinnamma (little goddess). In many villages, however, of these districts these names are unknown, and the village deities are called Gangamma, Polamma, and Sunkalamma, &c. In some villages the village deities consist of Potu-Razu and his seven sisters, who are known by various names. In one village they were given me as Peddamma, Isondamma, Maramma, Ahkalamma, Nukalamma, Vasukota, Ellamma, and Arikamma.

Again, Kallamma or Kali is said to be the only one of the village goddesses whose name is found in the Vedas. She is an avatara, or incarnation of the eight powers of the universe. The story told about her is that a demon named Mahishasura (the buffalo demon) gave great offence to Siva, and was condemned to death. But, owing to a privilege bestowed on him by Siva himself, he could not be slain by the Trimurti 1 nor by any male deity. So the task was

1 This word is used for an image with three heads, representing Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva as a triple manifestation of the divine nature.

Plate III

Shrine and Images of Bisal-Mari : see p. 23 and Plate XIII

In the Mysore country I came across quite a different set of names for the village goddesses. At one village near Bangalore the name of the goddess was Mahesvaramma (great goddess), also called Savaramma (she who rides on horseback). Her sister Dodamma and her brother Munesvara share in the worship paid to her. At another village a goddess, called Pujamma (she who is worshipped), was shown to me. She was said to be the local goddess of the Madigas, the lowest section of the Outcastes^n the Telugu country ; but at the same time the Sudras 1 make vows to her, to induce her to ward off diseases from their homes, and then fulfil their vows by sacrificing buffaloes or thrusting silver pins through their cheeks. Annamma is the principal goddess at another shrine in Bangalore City, and in the same shrine are six other deities, Chandesveramma, Mayesveramma, Maramma (the cholera goddess), Udalamma (she of the swollen neck), Kokkalamma (the goddess of coughs), Sukhajamma (the goddess of measles and small-pox).

At some villages a little distance from Bangalore the deity was simply the grama-devata, the village goddess. In Mysore City the grama-devata is known as Bisal-Mariamma (Bisal in Canarese means sunlight, and I was told that Mari means .iakli 2 or power). The deity seems to have been originally

1 See note on p. 19 above.

2 The chief Hindu gods are held to be actionless, far withdrawn from the bustle of the universe. In each case, however, the god’s energy manifests itself in his wife, who is called, his sakti. Those Hindus who worship Kali, the wife of Siva, are called taktas. For Mari see also p. 27.

connected with sun-worship. I was told that her shrines are never covered with a roof, and one of the symbols representing the deity is a brass pot full of water with a small mirror leaning against it, called Kunna-Kannadi, i. e. eye-mirror.

There are seven Mari deities, all sisters, who are worshipped in Mysore. All the seven, sisters are regarded vaguely as wives or sisters of Siva.

In Mysore villages Mahadeva-Amma, the great goddess, and Huliamma. the tiger-goddess, are found ; and doubtless there are countless other names in the Mysore State for the many deities who are worshipped as the guardians of the villages and the averters of epidemics and other misfortunes.

It is quite probable that originally in South India the village goddesses had all quite simple names, such as Uramma or Grama-devata. both meaning village goddess, or Peddamma, great mother, and that the imagination of the villagers gradually invented special titles for their own guardian deities. But at the present time the village deities consist of a most miscellaneous collection of spirits, good, bad, and indifferent, who baffle all attempt at classification, enumeration, or explanation. A few of them, like Mariamma and Iyenar, have won their way to general respect or fear among the Tamil people, and, where Brahman influence is strong, there has been an obvious attempt, as we have seen, to connect, the village goddesses with the popular worship of Siva or Vishnu ; but it is more than doubtful whether, originally, they had anything to do with either Saivism or Vaishnavism. The stories told about them in the folklore of the people, which represent them as avataras, i. e. incarnations of Siva, were probably quite late inventions, to account for names and ceremonies whose meaning had long been lost.

Plate IV

Image of Huliamma in Village near Mysore City

(b) The characters of the goddesses vaiy considerably. The villagers do not regard them as evil spirits, but neither do they regard them as unmixed benefactors. They are rather looked upon as beings of uncertain temper, very human in their liability to take offence. At Cocanada the pujarls told me that the village goddess, who is significantly called Nukalamma from a colloquial Tamil word meaning ‘ to beat ’, causes all sorts of trouble and is dreaded as an evil spirit. But when an epidemic of cholera breaks out, they, curiously enough, install another goddess, called Maridiamma, in her place, and offer sacrifices to her instead of to Nukalamma, a proceeding calculated, one would have thought, to give dire offence.

Mahakali, i. e. great Kali, is another form or avatara of the same goddess. She is supposed to be a deity of furious temper, and to be the cause of the prevalence of cholera. She is also known as Vlra-Mahakall1 or Ugra-Mahakall,2 to denote her rage and fury.

Another deity of similarly violent temper is Angalamma, who is worshipped largely in the Coimbatore district. The idea seems to be that all who worship the Ashta Sahti, or eight powers of the universe, will attain to bliss, while the others will be destroyed by Angalamma. The people worship her to avoid falling victims to her unquenchable anger, since her main object is believed to be to devour and consume everything that comes in her way. She is said especially to have a great relish for bones !

Another deity of a very different disposition is

1 Vlra is a Sanskrit word meaning heroic.

2 Ugra is a Sanskrit word meaning fierce.

Kamachlamma,1 whose name implies that she is full of good and gracious qualities. She is reported to have been born a Brahman girl, and then to have become the avatara of one of the Ashta Sakti.

Another benevolent deity is Thuropathlamma, who is reported to have been the wife of a Rishi and a very virtuous woman ; so, in her next birth, she was allowed to be born a king’s daughter. Accordingly when Tliurupatham, King of Panchfila, offered a putlirayagam (putrayaga, i. e. a sacrifice to obtain a child) she came forth from the fire. She afterwards became the wife of the Pandavas, the five brothers famous in the great Hindu epic, the, Mahabhdrata, and is regarded as one of the Ashta Sakti.

(c) The functions of the different goddesses are not at all clearly marked in the Telugu country. The people often told me ‘ They are only different names for the same goddess ’. In some places there is a special cholera goddess, e. g. Ankamma, and in others a special small-pox goddess, e. g. Gangamma ; but as a rule the infliction and removal of epidemics and disasters is a general function of all goddesses alike. On the other hand, in the Coimbatore, Tanjore, and Trichinopoly districts of the Tamil country, where the people have been for many generations past far more influenced by civilization and Brahmanism than in the Telugu country, I found that the functions of different deities were far more differentiated and that often elaborate stories were current as to their origin and characters. For example, one of the deities worshipped in almost every village in the Tamil country is Mariamma or Mari, the goddess of small-pox, and one of the stories as to her

1 Sanskrit KamakshI, ‘the love-eyed one', an epithet of Kali, the wife of Siva.

origin runs as follows : — One of the nine great Rishis in the olden days, named Piruhu, had a wife named Nagavali, equally famed for her beauty and virtue. One day, when the Rishi was away from home, the Trimurti 1 came to visit her, to see whether she was as beautiful and virtuous as reported. Not knowing who they wei’e, and resenting their intrusion, she had them changed into little children. They naturally took offence, and cursed her ; so that her beauty faded away and her face became dotted with marks like those of the small-pox. When Piruhu returned, and found her thus disfigured, he drove her away and declared that she should be born a demon in the next world, and cause the spread of a disease, which would make people like herself. In memory of the change which Piruhu found in her, she was called Mari, i. e. changed, in the next birth. When she was put away, it is said that a washerwoman took care of her, and that in consequence she was also called Uppai (a washerman’s oven). I may remark that a totally different derivation of the word Mari was given me in Mysore.2

It is noticeable that Mariamma, the goddess of small-pox, is not found in any temples dedicated to one of the seven sisters, as she is considered superior to them in power and much worse in temper. The seven sisters are supposed to be kind and indulgent, while Mariamma is vindictive and inexorable and difficult to propitiate. The boundary goddess is worshipped in the Tanjore district under the name of Kali, and her special function is to prevent any evil coming from without into the village of which she is the guardian, while the seven sisters are 1 See p. 22, note. 2 See above, p. 23.