Page:South-Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses.djvu/249

Rh followed by four unmarried girls with swords and shields in their hands or of a form of the goddess Durga surrounded by maids with drawn swords. The Saptamātrikās of the Tantras are also counted among village deities and are, perhaps, the same as "the Seven Kanniyamār (unmarried girls)" or the "Seven Sisters." They are frequently appeased by special worship when any unforeseen and sudden illness takes hold of a man. The local fortune-teller, often a woman of the Korava caste, being consulted, says that the patient is possessed by the "sisters" while walking alone in untimely hours of the day near tanks, gardens or groves. At once the goddesses are propitiated. A temporary shrine is constructed. Seven small stones are planted in a row, near a tank, almost touching the edge of the waters, and a small shed erected over them with leaves and flowers. Coconuts, plantains, fried rice and pulse are then offered to the stones and not unfrequently also a fowl. Even Brāhmanas worship the "Seven Sisters" in this way, but when a fowl is to be sacrificed they get a Sūdra to do it. The worship is enjoined to be performed in wet cloth after bathing.

Sati-worship and the fire-walking ceremony

The practice of honouring and even worshipping women who committed sati appears to have been very old in Southern India. Kannagi, the heroine of the Tamil poem Silappadigāram, died on hearing of the unjust death inflicted upon her husband by the Pāndya king of Madura. She was thenceforth worshipped in shrines built for her throughout Southern India and Ceylon. In the latter island she is known as Pattinī and is very popular. The mother of Rājārāja I is stated to have committed sati and in consequence of this act, evidently, an image of her was set up in the temple at Tanjore. Pērantālamma, a woman who committed sati, is equally reputed in the Telugu districts. Kanyakā-Paramēsvarī who is the tutelar deity of the Vaisya (Kōmati) caste is also connected with the story of a woman entering the sacred fire. The fire-walking ceremony peculiar to the temples of village goddesses may have some connexion with sati.

The village gods are not so many in number as the goddesses. Aiyanār, Hariharaputra or Mahā-Sāstā is supposed to be, as his name implies, a son of Siva and Vishnu. When the celestial nectar was obtained by the dēvas and asuras after churning the ocean (see p. 139f, above) they quarrelled about