Stories about Posts: Vedic Variations Around the Hindu Goddess

STORIES about POSTS \ Vedic Variations around the Hindu Goddess \ \ By Madeleine Biardeau \ The University of Chicago Press \ Copyright © 2004 The University of Chicago\ All right reserved.\ ISBN: 978-0-226-04595-5 \ \ \ \ \ Chapter One \ The Little Brother of the Goddesses of Andhra \ Although there are gods in the Indian countryside who cannot go unnoticed in the landscape, this is certainly not the case with Potu Raju. He is so inconspicuous, so unspectacular, that it is possible to attend a buffalo sacrifice without ever noticing his presence or his function. Village informants themselves would doubtless not have thought to mention him were they not asked about him. However, it is not-or it is no longer-the case that they would mention him with reticence. The truth is rather that they know little about him and that only professional narrators from the Asadi caste are in a position to tell his story. As to the ritual, they are probably more capable of performing it than describing it.\ Regardless of the conditions in which this study was conducted, the main difficulty stems above all from the very physiognomy of popular religion. In its rites and myths, in its plastic representations, it is infinitely more diversified than the learned religion because it is less codified, or-let us say it, although it prejudges the conclusion-more distant from the learned norms, even if it is inspired by them. When one undertakes to center a study on an ultimately secondary figure in this popular religion, there is the risk that appearances of multiplicity would increase and that a unity would be harder to find. One comes up against a dilemma. If one writes a monograph on the religion of a village, for example, one can scarcely go beyond a meticulous and deferential Geertzian ethnography, since the absence of comparison would rule out any larger mapping, or any discrimination between the general and the particular. Should one wish, on the contrary, to unify the diversity, one may be led to arbitrary simplification, passing over in silence aberrant cases that one would determine to be just that. This is even more the case for so ubiquitous yet protean a divinity. It is indeed here that we must place our wager: if there is meaning, one must reach at least in depth a certain unity underlying the multiplicity, for one moves within one and the same culture, and in this case in one and the same regional subculture, wherein the categories that obtain must be identical. Thus, rather than being a question of choice between the accidental and the essential,_ it is a matter of fording the same structure underlying the different phenomena observed. If, as will be the case, one is able to give greater importance to a particular mode of representation of Potu Raju, this is not because it is of greater frequency than all the others, but precisely because it enables one to discover the principle of unity behind them.\ A. Representations and Elements of Ritual\ Potu Raju has no sanctuary of his own but he has, without fail, a place in front of the goddess. Even, by way of exception, should he have a small shrine of his own beside a goddess's, he also stands watch before her (Chilakalapudi, Krishna Dt., Bandar Tk.). This blunt assertion would, however, initially appear to be misleading. First, he is not found in front of just any goddess, but only before the goddess whom villagers title gramadevata, the "(protective) divinity of the village" whose sanctuary is on the outer boundary of the village's inhabited zone (at least in theory, since sometimes a settlement is displaced or expanded without the temple being transferred to the new boundary). The gramadevata is also the customary beneficiary of the buffalo sacrifice. There are traditionally seven goddesses, seven sisters, who perform this function in Andhra, and Potu Raju is their younger brother. It is as such that he stands before one or the other of his sisters as guardian. But Potu Raju the guardian is matched by another Potu Raju, apparently independent and sheltered beneath a pipal and a margosa, or only one of them, the sole remaining witness to an original pairing of these two trees. One will see, however, that this Potu Raju's link to the goddess is established at the time of his sister's festival and of the sacrifice of the buffalo. Moreover, the site is not an arbitrary one: residents always describe it as the center of the village.\ 1. Representations\ His most common representation consists of a small wooden post of varying height, roughly twenty to sixty centimeters, erected in front of a sanctuary or beneath a tree. The shaft of the post is eight-sided or round up to a sort of ring that stands out in relief between two horizontal grooves (plates 1 through 4). Above the upper groove, the post ends in a sort of conical or faceted knob, depending on the form of the shaft, and more or less oblong from case to case. In Andhra, this characteristic form can only be that of Porn Raju. The post is, moreover, always hewn from the same wood, that of the garrri tree, a fact that is all the more remarkable since the sami seems to be a very rare species in the region.\ If such a post is immediately identifiable, it should also be recognized that in Andhra hardly any deity other than Porn Raju is found before the door of a gramadevata's sanctuary. A classical Kalabhairava in that location is recognized by villagers as Porn Raju (plate 5). Such is the case in Mandapaka (Krishna Dt., Tanuku Tk.) where the god stands before Ellaramma; or in Nunna (Krishna Dt., Gannavaram Tk.) on the small dirt track that leads to the sanctuary of Ganganamma (buried during the monsoon rains and unearthed at the time of the festival, or to satisfy the ethnographic curiosity of a visitor), where the god has four arms and holds a trident and sword in the right hands and an hourglass drum and severed human head in the left, while a dog at his side appears to be licking the head. These sculptures were probably brought from elsewhere, at least in the case of the strange and very beautiful Ganganamma in Nunna, whose little open-air sanctuary is by no means affluent. The villagers' instinct is sound, for Bhairava is the established Ksetrapala, the guardian of temples to all deities according to the agamic literature. But the classical Bhairava is not to be found facing the deity at the door to her sanctuary; he is only there as a substitute for the "usual" form of Porn Raju. However, a simple standing stone' can also serve the purpose, as for example at Satuluru (Guntur Dt., Narasaraopet Tk.) before the sanctuary of Poleramma, who is herself represented by a bas-relief in stone; or again at Badvel (Cuddapah Dt., Badvel Tk.) before another Poleramma; or even at the large Ellamma temple in Mannuru (Cuddapah Dt., Rajampet Tk.) where the erected stone is embedded in a square platform roughly one meter high. Porn Raju can also have a human form, that of a warrior when the bas-relief is sufficiently distinguishable (as at Bosedupalli [Cuddapah Dt., Cuddapah Tk.] and Mangalagiri [Guntur Dt., Guntur Tk.] before Poleramma), quite similar to the viran (hero) who guards the doors for Tamil goddesses. The Porn Raju who is entitled to his own small shrine at Chilakalapudi (cf. above) is altogether royal on his beautiful basrelief: he bears a kirita or diadem for his headdress, holds a sword in his right hand and a severed head in the left (plate 6). He is, of course, even with his diadem, predisposed to violent acts that are required for the protection of the adjacent goddess. As a dvarapala, he figures to the left of the entrance to the garbhagrha of Muttiyal Amma in Uppalapadu (West Godavari Dt., Tadepalligudem Tk.), and is also anthropomorphic, bearing a dagger, whip, and a long staff. A remarkable case is that of Ganganamma's open-air sanctuary at Uyyuru (Krishna Dt., Gannavaram Tk.) where the goddess is an aniconic stone sheltered beneath a pipal, while during the annual festival the trunk of the pipal is itself Porn Raju. Finally, standing apart from the above, there is the Makharajola (Srikakulam Dt., Sompeta Tk.) temple to Pathapatnamamma and Palapolamma, where Porn Raju is a mounted horseman (plate 7) facing the door of Pathapatnamamma's sanctuary. He has a double in the wooden post behind him that is identical to those in Andhra, although more crudely constructed; the post generally lies on the ground and is raised when animals are sacrificed. We will meet it again when discussing information pertaining to Orissa, since it is found on the border dividing that state from Andhra Pradesh. But this post is not Porn Raju; only the horseman is entitled to that name.\ A review of the forms assumed by Potu Raju would not be complete without mentioning the mobile Potu Raju that accompanies most of the festival processions, notably those concerned with the buffalo sacrifice. One finds, of course, an anthropomorphic utsavamurti-processional statue-of painted wood, as at the Ellamma temple in Mannuru. But the usual form is that of a pole (of indeterminate and no doubt diverse material such as bamboo), whose elongated shape obviously resembles the wooden post. It will appear in the description of the ritual, but a remarkable detail should already be noted that was mentioned only once in the course of this research, although it seems to be of too great a significance (see below) to be unique. For the annual Ganganamma festival at Siddhavattam (Cuddapah Dt., Siddhavattam Tk.), Potu Raju's pole is decorated with a human form incised with a knife, and is wrapped in a cloth.\ 2. Festivals\ When a devotee makes an individual offering of a cock or goat to the goddess, he immolates it very near Potu Raju, who faces the goddess. But it is during collective festivals that mobilize the entire village population that the role of the goddess's younger brother becomes clear. These festivals are of two kinds: an annual temple festival which, because it is costly, can be held at greater intervals (of two or three years); or a festival held when a public calamity strikes, such as an epidemic or a protracted drought. This latter includes both collective and individual sacrifices of cocks and goats. The most solemn festival, which culminates in the buffalo sacrifice, is more rare, and in certain regions (notably around Vijayavada, but not in southern Andhra) it has a particular name: kolupulu, whose plural form denotes, in fact, a multiplicity of sacrifices. In at least one case this multiplicity is clearly indicated, and one might suspect that all kolupulu include it, even if accounts do not explicitly report it.\ Considering that all the descriptions we have collected remain incomplete (and, in particular, do not include preliminary details, for which there are grounds to think that they would resemble those seen in Tamilnadu-see below), only the most detailed accounts will be presented. In some cases, it seems that an element present in one account must also be supposed in the others; in other instances, there are variants whose differences should not be disregarded. Our focus here will be on the role of Potu Raju.\ a. Festival on the Third Tuesday of Sravana 1974 at Uppalapadu\ The small temple of Pedda Muttiyal Amma is located on the roadside outside the settlement, but this is a day when the villagers come to make votive offerings of cocks to the goddess. The priest is an elderly woman from the Kapu caste (a caste of landowners dominant throughout the region) who was once possessed by the goddess, but is now too old for that. The sanctuary includes, in addition to a mandapa, a "holy of holies," the garbhagrha, where Pedda Muttiyal Amma is enthroned. She is clothed in a red sari, her left leg folded while the right leg hangs down. Standing guard at the door to the garbhagrha, to the right of the goddess, is Potu Raju in a yellow dhoti, and to the left is Cinna Muttiyal Amma, Little or Younger Muttiyal Amma, as distinct from her Big (pedda) sister in the garbhagrha.\ Having unexpectedly arrived in the morning, I attend a cock sacrifice. The offerer holds the cock while the executioner, from the Cakala (washerman) caste, severs the head with a kind of sickle-a common sacrificial implement in all of Andhra and Tamilnadu (where it is called arival)-directly over the stone used for coconut offerings to the goddess. The cock's head is placed before the goddess on the square stone that constitutes the balipitha or offering stone. Around four o'clock in the afternoon, a festival is being held on the same road but this time in a small settlement a few kilometers from the temple, whose activity must in fact have drawn several villages together. I was told that the festival was a continuation of what I had unexpectedly joined in the morning. In front of a relatively affluent-looking house, a Kapu (from the Velama landowner caste), with long loose hair and clothed in a woman's sari, represents Muttiyal Amma (Big, of course) while a Koppu Velama ("Velama with topknot") figures as Potu Raju. They are supposed to embody the goddess and Potu Raju respectively, I was told, but this did not appear to signify possession in the ordinary sense of the term, as will be seen. "Potu Raju" vehemently harangues the members of the household, enumerating Muttiyal Amma's desires. The housewife listens with a smile as her husband attempts to check the flow of demands, which he finds excessive. During this time "Muttiyal Amma" is silently seated in a chair (perhaps the only one in the house, a kind of throne in this context). A Cakala (washerman), who is probably the executioner of the morning, is possessed by the goddess. The scene then ends with the sprinkling of "Muttiyal Amma's" feet with water from a pot brought by the housewife. Then "Muttiyal Amma," "Potu Raju," and some Asadis (low-caste choristers) begin to dance while Madigas (leather workers) play drums. In this dance, a man carries a long pole decorated with margosa leaves and wrapped at its end with a white cloth. This pole, I was told, is Potu Raju, but the person representing him could not bear it himself as long as the god dwelt within him (Does this pertain to the Koppu Velama or the Cakala? Or to both of them?). Soon the entire group moves on-with the pole-in procession to another house. The circuit is completed in the evening at the temple where the received offerings are distributed. The last puja to the goddess is then to be accompanied by another cock sacrifice. All the actors in this procession are professionals and the ceremony is repeated every Tuesday of Sravana, the day consecrated to the Goddess. This particular form of ceremony appears to be customary in the region.\ b. Ganganamma Festival in Nunna\ A destitute sanctuary without a roof is located on the village boundary, a permanent enclosure that has either been left unfinished or allowed to fall into ruin. The goddess, in bas-relief on stone, is reminiscent in her stylized form of a srivatsa, notably as found on the oldest panels of the Eastern Calukyas, apart from the fact that she has four arms and bears the trident and hourglass drum (plate 9). In front of her, or rather on the small sloping dirt track by which one reaches her sanctuary, one finds the Potu Raju-Kalabhairava mentioned above that must be unearthed for each festival. The festival is not celebrated unless there is a calamity in the village (although it was formerly held annually). The entire village participates, but the cocks and goats brought in sacrifice are individual offerings. Once the sacrifice has been made in front of the temple, the main part of the ceremony consists of a procession around the village. Potu Raju, in the form of a pole decorated with margosa branches and carried by a Yadava (shepherd), washerman, or potter, leads the procession. The bearer dances while carrying the pole before the chariot of the goddess, who follows just behind him. The goddess, moreover, is represented only by a raised nimbus called prabha. Madigas play drums and the goddess possesses a woman from the Mutrasa caste (herb and wild honey gatherers). Each house before which the procession passes offers a coconut, rice, etc., and a pot of water decorated with margosa that one pours over "Potu Raju's" feet: the dancer with the pole is indeed considered to be possessed by Potu Raju. To explain this long excursion around the inhabited zone, it is said that Potu Raju is a "wanderer." When the procession ends, the pole is returned to a place near the Potu Raju of the temple of the principal local gramadevatas (see below), and is in fact kept inside this permanent structure where it is sheltered. We will come to this temple again in connection with the buffalo sacrifice.\ (Continues...)\ \ \ \ \ Excerpted from STORIES about POSTS by Madeleine Biardeau Copyright © 2004 by The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission.\ All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.\ Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. \ \

Pt. 1Potu RajuIThe little brother of the Goddesses of Andhra5IIHis Vedic ancestors32IIIThe post for the buffalo sacrifice in Orissa58IVReturn to Potu Raju74Pt. 2The symbol splinteredIPotta Raja103IIThe post108IIIThe Sami258

\ Journal of Religion"Biardeau should need no introduction for anglophone scholars of Indian religion. Yet this volume serves as just such a showcase. . . . What is on display in this volume is Biardeau's long-standing commitment to linking different aspects of the Indic universe: Sanskrit, Vedic studies, South Indian languages and ritual, ethnography. . . . It is no wonder that this is the volume that she felt best represented her interests and therefore wanted translated for a wider audience."—Frederick M. Smith, Journal of Religion\ — Frederick M. Smith\ \ \ \ \ \ Hindu Studies"The author is a distinguished Indologist who has written a tour de force in the field that combines ethnology and textual study. . . . This book is essential reading for any Indologist and ethnologist."\ — Carl Olson\ \ \