[Editor’s Note: This essay is from the same title, “Goddesses in Hinduism: “All the Mothers are One”‘ by Mary Ann Beavis with Scott Daniel Dunbar included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018).]
VILLAGE GODDESSES
These have been called “Untamed Goddesses of Village India.”[1] As opposed to the pantheon of orthodox Hinduism, the village Goddesses are popular or folk deities, particularly prominent in southern India. Richard Brubaker describes them as “powerfully ambivalent deities crucial to the welfare of their village”,[2] whose worship arises out of times of crisis: floods, famines, drought, epidemics. They are regarded as both the cause of these disasters and as their cure. Some are strictly localized to a specific village, some are more regionally recognized.
Venerated physical images of the village Goddesses are often temporary, and rather crude, made specifically for their festivals. They may not be represented anthropomorphically, but by uncarved stones, trees, or small, imageless shrines.[3] Goddess festivals are held according to the mythological cycles of the various deities, but particularly when some calamity strikes. The crisis festival usually includes a blood sacrifice that represents the demonic force to be overthrown by the Goddess. The mythology of the village Goddesses often involves the theme of the injustices to women done by men;[4] they are often addressed as “Mother” (Ma), but they are not necessarily “mothers” of other deities. Perhaps this is because, for her worshippers, “She represents human survival—the well-being of their children, the continuity of life, and the success of crops dependent on favorable weather conditions as well as fertility of the soil. Their lineage should be secure for, if she is honored, people should not be bothered by barrenness or the death of children. She places humans in harmony with nature, reaffirming their connection to it.”[5]
One of the myths associated with the Tamil (southeastern India) Goddess Mariyamman (or just Amman) identifies her with a young Brahman girl who was tricked into marrying an untouchable man; when she discovers the deception, she is furious and kills herself, is transformed into a Goddess, and burns the man to ashes. Mariyamman is a rain Goddess, associated with skin diseases like chicken pox, measles, rashes, etc. Although she is a village deity, she is popular enough to have temples both within and outside villages. Her local shrines are often adjacent to an anthill that might be a cobra’s lair, and eggs and milk are offered to the snake.[6] However, as Judy Grahn notes, “among others, two notable Indian scholars, Karin Kapadia and Pupul Jayakar, have each subverted this diminutive view. Jayakar refers to Mariamma as ‘the mighty goddess’ while Kapadia, who lived with and became friends with people of the village of Auruloor in Tamil Nadu, and who calls Mariamma a ‘great goddess,’ reports that the villagers think of their Mariamma as no less than ‘the autonomous ruling power of the universe’.”[7]
Mariamma is similar to a village “pox” deity, Shitala,[8] and both are offered a rice porridge called pongal at a women-only festival held once a year. The Pongala Festival is participated in by Muslim and Christian women as well as Hindus.[9]
New Goddesses
As noted earlier, most of the prominent deities of contemporary Hinduism are not mentioned in the Vedas, the most sacred scriptures of Hinduism. The Hindu pantheon is not closed, and new deities can emerge or be added at any time. A new Goddess who has been studied quite extensively is Santoshi Ma (“Mother of Satisfaction/Contentment”), who emerged in the 1950s-1960s in central India. In her myth, she is identified as the daughter of Ganesha, son of Parvati. She is first revealed when she comes to the aid of a young woman who is abandoned and forgotten by her husband who left home to find work; the woman is left behind to be abused by her in-laws. Despite her troubles, she remains faithful to her husband, and when she observes a fast one day a week in honour of the Goddess, her husband is restored to her and they move into their own house. The release of the film Jai Santoshi Maa in 1975 popularized the Goddess, and her weekly fast (vrat). Philip Lutgendorf relates the popularity of the new Goddess, and particularly of the film, with the rise of middle class aspirations of women in the latter half of the 20th century.[10]
A more recent example of a new Hindu Goddess is the AIDS Goddess (AIDS-Amma), a village Goddess created in the late 1990s by a high school science teacher, H.N. Girish, in the south Indian village of Menasikyathana to raise social awareness of the AIDS epidemic.[11]
The Hindu Goddess and Feminism
The question of whether the Hindu Goddess is a feminist is one that has arisen in recent decades.[12] Of course, the question is deliberately stated in provocative terms that make little sense: why would the Mahadevi, or any of her many manifestations, espouse a contemporary human social movement? It has often been observed that Goddess-worshipping cultures do not necessarily correlate with high status for women.[13] As Rajeswari Sunder Rajan puts it, in India, “the divide between goddesses and women as social beings can be maintained by patriarchy without any sense of contradiction.”[14] Moreover, in India, appropriations of the Goddess/es are intertwined with political, social and religious movements and struggles, including the Indian women’s movement, which may or may not resonate with western concepts of feminism.[15]
A recent example of the political, cultural and religious entanglements that feminist appropriations of Hindu Goddesses can engender is the “Bruised Goddess” Campaign, sponsored by Save the Children India to draw attention to the gap between the Hindu reverence for Goddesses and the prevalence of violence against women in India. Here, hand-painted images of Lakshmi, Durga and Sarasvati portray the Goddesses as victims of domestic abuse: “Rendered in classic calendar art style, the goddesses are depicted in all their finery and beauty, but with disturbing bruises on their faces. The copy reads ‘Pray that we never see this day. Today, more than 68% of women in India are victims of domestic violence. Tomorrow, it seems like no woman shall be spared. Not even the ones we pray to’.”[16] The campaign has met with both approval and outrage, with various critics objecting to its potential trivializing of Goddesses,[17] promotion of domestic abuse (“Is the man about to hit his wife going to draw back his fist because he thinks she is Lakshmi incarnate? Won’t he now hit again because he thinks ‘If a goddess can be hit, why not my wife?’”),[18] orientalism,[19] and as detrimental to Hindu feminists.[20] A Times of India article quotes a range of opinions:
Poonam Singh: Are ordinary women who get hit not good enough to be put on posters? Why do we need glorified beings to represent our hurt?
Bodhi Cat: The bruised goddesses to me is an artistic representation of abuse of the women in our homes, on our roads etc.
Suleikha Snyder: The image of bruised goddesses is a haunting one, but it needs to take root. Hindu culture can’t worship statues while disrespecting flesh.
Abhishek Rajput: [It’s] high time to wake up. #safetyofWomen
ThePetticoatJournal: In [about] a month India spills out on streets to worship Durga, the goddess with deep cuts on her cheek & [forehead].
Archana Hindocha: Powerful! I hope the message [works].
Kushal Kamra: Its a pity on those who commit these practices … unfortunately they are the fatal product of our own society where we see every other girl with sick mentality …There is one [and] only one solution…Teach a man to be courteous and respectful to women … My mom taught me that and I will tell that to my children … Once that’s [sic] stuck in each Indian … Society will be cleansed of this evil … By a True Indian
Sonorita Chauhan: Will bruised Lakshmi, abused Saraswati, teary-eyed Durga help change anything?
Mihir Bijur: [People] want Laxmi to give them money, Saraswati to give them knowledge, Durga to protect them, But won’t respect a Girl Child.[21]
As Rita M. Gross sagely opines, the feminism of the “Hindu Goddess,” however she is conceived, ultimately rests in the needs, attitudes and aspirations of her devotees.[22]
(End of the essay)
[1] See Richard L. Brubaker, “The Untamed Goddesses of Village India,” Book of the Goddess, 145-60. See also Elinor Gadon and Rita Ray, “Village Goddesses: Vernacular Religion in Orissa,” Goddesses in World Culture, Vol. 3, 49-54.
[2] Brubaker, “Untamed Goddesses,” 146.
[3] Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses, 198.
[4] Ibid., 200-202.
[5] Gadon and Ray, “Village Goddesses,” 50.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Judy Grahn, “Mariamma: Cosmic Creation Goddess,” Goddesses in World Culture, Vol. 3, 57.
[8] Kinsley, 204, 211.
[9] See “In World’s Largest Gathering of Women, Kerala Celebrates Attukal Pongala,” NDTV, March 2, 2018. https://www.ndtv.com/kerala-news/attukal-pongala-2018-in-worlds-largest-gathering-of-women-kerala-celebrates-attukal-pongala-1818977, accessed March 8, 2018.
[10] Philip Lutgendorf, “A Superhit Goddess: Jai Santoshi Maa and Caste Hierarchy in Indian Films,” Manushi 131 (July-August 2002). http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/lutgendorf_santoshi/txt_lutgendorf_santoshi.html/, accessed March 8, 2018.
[11] “India’s temple to the AIDS goddess,” BBC News, December 2, 1999; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/545405.stm, accessed March 8, 2018.
[12] Rita M. Gross, “Is the (Hindu) Goddess a Feminist?”, A Garland of Feminist Reflections: Forty Years of Religious Exploration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 189-97: Alf Hiltebutel and Kathleen M. Erndl, eds., Is the Goddess a Feminist? The Politics of South Asian Goddesses (New York: New York University Press, 2000). See also Rita M. Gross, “Hindu Female Deities as a Resource for the Contemporary Rediscovery of the Goddess,” Book of the Goddess, 217-30.
[13] See Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, “Is the Hindu Goddess a Feminist?” Economic and Political Weekly 33,44 (October 31-November 6, 1998): WS-35.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] See Vaishna Roy, “Goddess under attack,” The Hindu (September 15, 2013, updated June 2, 2016). http://www.thehindu.com/features/the-yin-thing/goddess-under-attack/article5129205.ece/, accessed March 9, 2018.
[17] See Sudha G. Talik, “‘Bruised Goddesses’ hurt Indian feminists,” Al Jazeera, October 10, 2013. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/10/goddesses-hurt-indian-feminists-2013105104822923415.html/, accessed March 9, 2018.
[18] See Roy, “Goddess under attack.”
[19] “Abused Goddesses, Orientalism and the Glamorization of Gender-Based Violence,” The Feminist Wire, September 12, 2013. http://www.thefeministwire.com/2013/09/abused-goddesses/, accessed March 9, 2018.
[20] Talik, “Bruised Goddesses.”
[21] Karnika Kohli, “Bruised, battered goddesses feature in campaign against domestic violence,” The Times of India, September 10, 2013. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Bruised-battered-goddesses-feature-in-campaign-against-domestic-violence/articleshow/22461046.cms/, accessed March 9, 2018.
[22] Gross, “(Hindu) Goddess.”
(Meet Mago Contributor) Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D.