Guest guest Posted August 1, 2001 Report Share Posted August 1, 2001 >"MISAchem" <taicom@g...> >Wed, 25 Jul 2001 15:40:25 +0200 >My name is Shantel. I'm from South Africa. > >I'm doing a project about Gods and Goddess and I am look for information. > >And very little information is available here in South Africa. > >I'm searching for information about the Lord Madurai Veeran & Goddess >Mariamman for a project. > Both Mariyamman and Madurai Viiran are popular village deities with low caste origins. Maari Amman, the small pox goddess is a 'tooth mother', (diagonally opposite of 'breast mothers' of the Great tradition (eg., Parvati), acc. to A. K. Ramanujan). She is variously called ReNukA, Ellammaa and so on, and is widely attested all over South India from Maharashtra southward. Her legend and association with ParazurAma occurs in Mahabharata epic, and ParazurAma legend is attested in Tamil sangam poetry. ReNukA-MAri-EllammA-MaGgalA legends: http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind0102&L=indology&P=R2086 http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind0102&L=indology&P=R2476 http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind0102&L=indology&P=R7633 http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind0102&L=indology&P=R16061 http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind0102&L=indology&P=R4999 "The marriage of a Pariah god with a Brahman woman or of a Brahman goddess with a Pariah man, a god's double parentage (one set of parents being of high caste, the other of low caste, eg., Kaattavaraayan, Maturai Viiran), and the theme of the split body (eg. the story of ReNukA) seem to be various expressions of the paradox that the deity in question is both a Pariah and a Brahman. [...] ReNukA's story is very apt. She is one of Brahma's daughters and wife of a sage. When she realizes that she has the body of an Untouchable, she does not return to her husband (probably in heaven) but remains as Maariyamman on earth, where she brings disease and death but also cures and rebirth. Although she is involved in the violence and impure activities on earth, a part of her, symbolized by her Brahman head, remains in the realm of the transcendent, the pure. " (p. 90-91, Eveline Masilamani-Meyer's Kattavarayan essay in A. Hiltebeitel, Criminal Gods and Demon Devotees: Essays on the Guardians of Popular Hinduism, SUNY, 1989.) The theme of transplants and interactions between brahmins and untouchables is a constant theme in South Indian legends. Maduraiviiran, a Cobbler, marries a high caste lady and then a famous devadasi at Tirumalai Nayakkan court in Madurai (first half of 17th century). In oral epics from Tirunelveli district, the offspring of brahmin-untouchable parents is MuttuppaTTan, and his affairs form the core. For an English translation and study, refer S. Blackburn, Singing of birth and death : texts in performance Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c1988. Recently, Prof. S. Blackburn has written about how the Tamil tradition handles the question: whether TiruvaLLuvar is an untouchable? (mentioned in Tamil works for a 1000 years). ---------- The interaction between Great and Little traditions in TiruchirappaLLi town is analyzed in, Paul Younger, A temple festival of Mariyamman, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 48, no. 4, p. 494-517, (1980). On contemporary vows to Mariyamman, see Bill Harman's article in the journal, Kolam: http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/indologie/kolam/kolam3/mariyamm.html Regards, N. Ganesan _______________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 2, 2001 Report Share Posted August 2, 2001 N. Ganesan wrote: > Both Mariyamman and Madurai Viiran are popular village deities > with low caste origins. Maari Amman, the small pox goddess is That reminds me that Shitala Mata is the small pox goddess in the north with quite a few shrines. In some cases they are visited on some traditional occasions. Small pox has been eradicated, but chicken pox is still there. The old term for plague was "marii" in Hindi. I always thought that it meant "occurrence of deaths". I wonder if the term has any connection with Maari Amman. Yashwant Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 3, 2001 Report Share Posted August 3, 2001 INDOLOGY, ymalaiya wrote: > The old term for plague was "marii" in Hindi. I always > thought that it meant "occurrence of deaths". I wonder > if the term has any connection with Maari Amman. Shiitala is an euphemism for the angry goddess. Interesting that Hindi also has marii. In Tamil, 'mAr' = breasts. Sangam literature and CilappatikAram epic has mystic powers invested in them. Also, 'mAri' = rain in Tamil. The dedication of dancer devadasis, basavis, joginis, bhogams in 1000s throughout the ages to goddess ellammaa-maari-reNukaa temples shows that sacred dance in ancient South was associated with fertility of the people and country. Regards, N. Ganesan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 8, 2001 Report Share Posted August 8, 2001 > >My name is Shantel. I'm from South Africa. >I'm doing a project about Gods and Goddess and >I am look for information. [...] >Lord Madurai Veeran > > 1. Worship of Lord Madurai Veeran (Pooja). > 2. How is Lord Madurai Veeranworshipped? [etc.] Madurai Viiran is the god of ex-untouchable shoemaker community in the erstwhile Madurai Nayak chiefdom which nominally affirmed allegiance to Vijayanagar kings, but in reality Madurai Nayaks were independent kings in 16-18th centuries. It is said the Cakkiliars moved into Tamil lands along with Vijayanagar Nayaks, and they perform as drummers during festivities and funerals. MGR, the film hero who became Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu acted as Madurai Viiran on the screen. Many sociologists point to this creating a lasting impression among the Telugu speaking cobbler community, which helped him to win the electoral masses. Madurai Viiran legend as narrated by Dr. Jayabarathi is attached. One can see the interacting tensions between high and low castes in this story just as in Mariyamman legend. Regards, N. Ganesan -------- [A long quotation concerning Madurai Viiran by Dr. Jayabarathi, Malaysia, (bibliographic information not given) was deleted from this message.] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 9, 2001 Report Share Posted August 9, 2001 For the gist of Madurai Viiran legend, read S_India/message/5 Regards, N. Ganesan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 10, 2001 Report Share Posted August 10, 2001 D. Shulman, in The King and the Clown in South Indian myth and legend, PrincetonUP, 1985, has an analysis of the ParasurAma and ReNukA (mAriyamman) legend from both Sanskrit and Tamil purANams. See III.3 The Brahmin Warrior(I): ParazurAma, Matricide and Regicide, p. 110-128. The Tamil version by Maadhava Sivajnaana YogikaL is in Canto 45-46 of the Yogi's KanchipuraaNam. Shulman translates parazurAma story from Kaanchipuranam, Canto 45, p. 122 S_India/message/6 On Maariyamman legends, INDOLOGY/message/1449 Regards, N. Ganesan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 14, 2001 Report Share Posted August 14, 2001 An excellent analysis of the Madurai Viiran myth is VII.4 MaturaivIran, the Hero of Maturai, p. 355-365 under the chapter VII. Bandits and Other Tragic Heroes in D. Shulman, The King and the Clown in South Indian myth and poetry, 1985. p. 355 "Although its hero, MaturaivIran, lacks certain features we would expect from a South Indian bandit - he is not a member of a bandit caste, lives in towns rather than the wilderness, does not waylay travelers - he does exemplify many of the traits we have been discussing: the identification as a hero connected to disorder and violent force; the tendency to plunder and steal (both money or goods and, especially women);" p. 357 "The king took MaturaivIran into his service as a gatekeeper at the entrance to the palace, for a salary of a 1000 gold coins a month. The hero lived happily in the city; he dressed well, rode elpehants or horses, seduced chaste wives, and worshipped the god SrirankanAtar." After a war victory, the king orders 1000 beautiful devadasis, M. fell in love with veLLaiyammal, the best of them. p. 362 "For the hero, sexual abandon is the rule, with physical violence its usual corollary.[76] The major theme of forbidden sexual union (between Untouchable and high caste female)- here softened by the admission of hero's royal birth -recurs in the kAttavarAyan story and in many village myths. Here is disorder in its supreme affective symbol: the violation of the virgin by an Untouchable male, at the height of her impurity (first menses). Small wonder that the hero must pay with his life." [76] Similarly PaapaDu makes a habit of ravishing high-caste married women. The heros, like god Krishna, seducing married women is an ancient S. Indian theme in Srivaishnava Alvars and Srimat Bhagavatham. The sangam texts mentioning the low high caste social system based on purity-pollution polarity. INDOLOGY/message/1399 Regards, N. Ganesan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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