Article Tools

E-mail this article   Printer friendly version   Comments    [ - ] Text Size [ + ]

In the article titled ‘Batticaloa’s ancient rituals celebrate community values both in war and peace,’ (The Northeastern Monthly, July 2005) this writer drew attention to the worship of local deities such as Mariyamman, Vairavar, Kaathavarayan and others, which are not part of the Agamic Hindu tradition. These rituals are traditionally meant to invoke local deities to protect the community from disease as well as from intruders and enemies.

The rituals also focus on ‘mediums,’ who are people said to be possessed by the spirit of the deity whom they serve. The mediums go into a trance and perform various socially important functions, which are both protective such invoking the deity’s blessings to cure diseases and foretell the future, as well as propitiatory, where the medium channels the devotion and worship of the community through ritual. The rituals are very social-oriented because they make the local residents stakeholders in the community by involving them in the ceremonies rather than excluding them to a position of mere bystanders.

The significance of these rituals however is much more than that. They touch the lives of the community very intimately, while at the same time refashioning politics and power relations in very interesting ways. Though the political significance of such rituals tends to be subtle and is often submerged by other political discourses, their persistence over the centuries and the vitality of their presence even today, is something that merits a second look.

The Sri Maha Narasinha Vairavar Swami aalayam on Boundary Road, Batticaloa, is devoted to the worship of Vairavar. The temple is known to be very powerful – especially in the casting out of demonic spirits. What is also interesting is that the foundational myth of the temple is yet preserved and chanted by its poosaris (priests). As legend would have it, the idol of Vairavar that is in the temple had come from Jaffna and the stories talk about its journey through eight villages to Batticaloa through the Wanni.

Oral narratives have various functions in local communities. For instance, traditionally, Vairavar was a powerful local deity giving protection to the household. In today’s context, the community that worships at the Vairavar temple assumes a distinct local identity, which has a powerful way of binding its members. These oral traditions also do not necessarily reflect the master narrative, which, even in Batticaloa, has tended to revolve around more powerful temples of Hindu orthodoxy dominated by the Agamic Hindu tradition.

“Temples worshipping Murugan, Pillaiyar or Sivan are within the Agamic tradition. Their rituals do not include those we have at Sri Muttumariyamman or temples worshipping Kali, Kathavarayan and others,” said Sakthi K. Kumaradasan, chief priest of the Sri Maha Muttumariyamman temple, Batticaloa.

The powerful temples that conform to the Agamic tradition, are under the control of Batticaloa’s landowning classes, and reflect the splendour associated with affluence. They are also bastions of privilege for Batticaloa’s upper castes. On the other hand, the smaller temples are owned and run by other, non-hegemonic, caste groups preserving their own rituals.

Historically, various communities have felt a sense of empowerment due to the power of local deities. “The fact that Lord Siva himself was unable to resist the test Mariyamman put to him, shows how powerful Mariyamman is and that gives her worshippers too a sense of prestige,” said Jothirajah Karunenthira, Sri Maha Muttumariyamman temple’s assistant priest.

Karunenthira was referring to the Mariyamman ritual celebrated at the temple in June, where tradition has it that Mariyamman’s penance earned her a gift of 16 pearls from Lord Siva, to test mankind for their wickedness. However, according to the legend, Siva himself could not endure the test Mariyamman put to him before she returned to earth to banish evil from the world.

Similarly, Lord Siva is not portrayed in a very favourable light in the Kathavarayan kooththu that is popular in Batticaloa. Let alone the description of certain debasing aspects of his character, Siva is shown to be fearful of Mariyamman. The portrayal gives the community worshiping Mariyamman, a local deity, a sense of well being vis-à-vis the community worshipping Siva, which is popularly seen as occupying a more elevated position in the caste hierarchy.

Such legends are part of the collective memory of local communities that have withstood decades of discrimination and conflict. “…Especially in oppressed, silenced or discriminated groups, references to a shared past often facilitates the building of feelings of self-respect and greater resilience in oneself and in the group,” says Elizabeth Jelin in her book State Repression and the Labors of Memory (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2003).

Mariyamman, as much as Veerapaththiran, Kaathavarayan, Aiyappar and a host of other local deities worshipped in Batticaloa, are believed to be human beings who, due to their self-sacrifice to defend the community or village in times of war and suffering, came to be revered in posterity for their supernatural powers to protect the local public from adversity.

Some believers are of the opinion that mortals who attained deity-hood did so because of their singular piety, penance and good deeds. “The idea that human beings were elevated to the status of deities because of their spiritual powers reinforces the Hindu belief that God is within and not something ‘out there.’ These deities also have the power to protect the village and the local community,” Karunenthira said.

The deification of mortals because of their self-sacrifice bares resemblance to the cult of hero worship that was present even in ancient Tamil society, which is echoed in contemporary times by the centrality of self-sacrifice in the martial traditions of the LTTE. Though the LTTE is secular and there is no official elevation of its fallen to the status of a deity, commemorative events surrounding Great Heroes’ Day (mahvirer thinam) represent dying for the cause as an act done for the welfare and protection of the community.

The local, communal nature of deity worship manifests itself in various ways that puts these rituals at odds with the tradition of Agamic Hinduism. For instance, unlike in Agamic Hinduism, the organic form in religious worship associated with the rituals are chanted entirely in Tamil, the language the people understand, and not Sanskrit, which is seen as a vehicle transmitting hierarchical, caste-ridden values associated with Brahminism.

“The devotees understand what is going on around them – they can see and hear. There is no attempt to cloak the events in esotericism, which naturally happens when the priest chants in Sanskrit,” said Kumaradasan.

The other distinct aspect of the ritualistic tradition is the rejection of the priestly caste – the Brahmins – as the only people who can officiate in temple ceremonies, unlike in Agamic Hinduism where it is imperative that the officiating priest is a Brahmin. In the ritual tradition the priests are not Brahmin – they are members of the local community, which runs the temple, who almost inevitably, belong to a particular caste group.“Unlike in the Brahmin tradition, here, people do not become priests because they are born into a priestly caste. Whoever expresses an interest in learning the mantras and demonstrates an expertise in doing the job could do so,” said Karunenthira.

According to sociologists, in the non-Agamic tradition it is important that the community should accept and acknowledge the person who is aspiring to become a priest. And that acceptance is only through the aspirant’s demonstration of his skills as being a genuine conduit of the power of the deity. In that sense, the process is more democratic.

While the ritual tradition has fought to preserve its individuality, Brahminism has been making inroads by using a variety of methods. This war of attrition is centuries old. It basically uses three approaches: to destroy the rituals by imposing itself as the high tradition and coercing the followers of the so-called lesser tradition to abandon that form of worship; by assimilating within itself certain aspects of the rituals and subsuming them within its own form; by subverting the rituals through giving them an Agamic twist.

A telling example of how the distinctive identity of the local deities is being subsumed by the Agamic tradition could be seen in what was repeated by Kumaradasan,: “You can equate the local deities to the gods of the Agamic tradition: Kali is Durga, Pechchi (she who speaks powerfully) is Saraswathi and Mariyammal, the most powerful, is Lakshmi.”

Sociologists believe that this exercise in equating the gods of the two traditions is a way whereby the Agamic tradition gives a universal colouration and name to local deities. Over time, they feel, the localness of Mariyamman could be lost, which would make it easier for Agamic Hinduism to assimilate the local rituals completely. Already, there are strands of Brahminism that have crept into the ceremonies associated with the rituals. Even Vairavar, originally a local household deity, is identified with Narasingar and with both Saivite and Vaishnavite worship, thereby losing his distinct local identity.

One of the telling signs of Agamic Hinduism capturing organic ritual-based worship is the way the annual ritual of the deity Periya Thambiraan is advertised in Batticaloa. The nomenclature usually used in the posters and leaflets was ‘Annual Periya Thambiraan ritual’ (Varudaanda Periyathambiraan chadangu). Today however, the advertisement reads: ‘Annual Shri Thakkayaageswara festival’ (Varudaanda Thakkayaageswara utsavam). The Sanskrit influence is plain.

“The transformation of the Tamil title into a Sanskrit one could be unconscious, but one cannot discount the influence Brahminism is having on these rituals,” said Karunenthira. “With the spread of formal education there has grown a notion that what is local, Tamil, and community-based, are barbaric or low culture. Thus the local is despised and replaced by worshipping the universal gods of Brahmin-based Hinduism.”

The inroads Brahminism is making into ritual worship can also be seen in the architecture of the temples in Batticaloa. Originally, temples where the ritual tradition was celebrated were modest, crude structures built of daub, wattle and thatch, hardly larger than shrines. Even today, the shrines for the deities such as Kali, Veerappathiran and others at the Boundary Road Vairavar temple are a few square feet in area, only large enough to hold an idol of the deity. However, the temple proper, dedicated to Vairavar, is fashioned with a moolesthanam (santum sanctorum), which is an integral part of the architecture of a Hindu temple of the Agamic tradition.

Those who believe that ritual worship should not be allowed to die through asphyxiation by Brahminism are perturbed by how perceptions about religion change with modernisation, where education has not only led to Brahminism invading temples, but local poosaris ‘becoming’ Brahmins, by changing their titles to Sanskrit-sounding ones and even officiating wearing a poonool (the mark of identification of Brahmins). In other words, due to pressure from the ‘higher tradition’ that a non-Brahmin poosari officiating in a temple ceremony is somehow uncivilised the poosari is transformed into a Brahmin aiyer.

Another source for the Brahminisation of local priesthood is the well-meaning but ignorant moves by the Ministry of Hindu Affairs to anoint poosaris officiating in the local rituals as priests of the ‘high tradition,’ by using Brahmin aiyers from India. “This is done to give recognition and status to priests officiating in the temples of local deities, but people often do not know the serious consequences of such actions,” said a sociologist who wished to remain anonymous.

The gradual moves towards embracing an orthodox, Agamic worship, complete with Brahmin priests has resulted in communities cutting themselves loose from the moorings that traditionally empowered them, which is caste-based. These groups derived their livelihood, as well as their identity, social and political power, complete with the temple and its deities, from their caste.

The worship of Vaelan, and the happenings at the Vallipuram temple at Kondavil in Jaffna become instructive in this regard. By identifying Vaelan, a local deity with Lord Skanda, there was an infusion of the high tradition with the low and the eventual assimilation of one tradition by the other.

Similarly, a depressed community in Kondavil was worshipping Valliyappar, a local deity. Over time, Valliyappar worship was seen as uncivilised and he was reinvented as Vallipura Aazhvaar. A Brahmin aiyer was brought to officiate displacing the local priesthood, and the local community lost its hold on the temple and its sense of identity by being reduced from the status of participants in the rituals, to mere bystanders.

Agamic Hinduism has made inroads into ritual-based worship by colonising the minds of local believers. As colonisation has done in other societies, it makes people despise themselves and their indigenous forms of worship as barbaric, and forces them import traditions from outside to find recognition and status. Eventually, the external element disempowers and debilitates the local community and destroys its identity.