Dionysus/Murugan-Son of Shiva

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Dionysus and Kataragama: Parallel Mystery Cults

 

by Patrick Harrigan

 

"Then only will you see it, when you cannot speak of it; for the

knowledge of it is deep silence and suppression of all the senses." --

Hermes Trimegistus (Lib. x.6)

 

"This never happened but it always is." -- Saloustios (circa 360 CE)

 

 

Table of Contents:

 

I.God of Many Faces

II.A Parallel Study: The Cult of Pattini

III.Ptolemy's map of Taprobane

IV.Dionysus and Shiva

V.Gods of Feminine Power

VI.Dionysus and Kataragama Skanda

VII.Lord of the Underground Dream World

VIII.Lords of Water, Life and Fertility

IX.Gods of Play and Drama

X.Lords of the Labyrinth

XI.Gods of Abusive Epithets XII.References

 

Introduction: A God of Many Faces

 

In the dry jungle of remote southeastern Sri Lanka lies Kataragama or

Katir-kamam, the (place of) 'light and love-passion', a shrine complex

of exceptional antiquity and sanctity that attracts many thousands of

Buddhist, Hindu and even Muslim devotees year round, particularly during

the fortnight-long Aesala festival in July-August, when a small casket

believed to contain the secret of the god's birth -- nay, the god

himself -- is taken out in solemn yet joyful torchlit procession

nightly, escorted by his women-votaries and troupes of riotous dancers

representing the animal, human, chthonic and heavenly spheres. An

archaic spirit of paradox, fertility, rejuvenation and play, the

Kataragama god also preserves an essential soteriological dimension as

the Divine Psychopomp who guides his followers beyond the Portals of

Death into an unconditional realm of freedom from the tyranny of the

pairs of opposites (Sanskrit: dvandva).

 

A host of local indigenous, Sinhalese, Tamil and Islamic legends purport

to explain the origin, character and exploits of the Kataragama god,

whose reputation for sacred or mysterious power extends far beyond his

immediate forest domain. Broadly speaking, scholars and cult-adherents

alike identify him with the ever-popular Tamil hill god Murukan ('Tender

One'), who arose before the dawn of history and has long been considered

as the Dravidian counterpart or expression of the pan-Indian wargod

Skanda-Kumara, 'son' of the great mountain-dwelling god Shiva. Skanda,

tutelary god of warriors, kings, yogis and scholars and (as Guha, 'The

Hidden') patron of all secret knowledge and covert activities, once quit

his home on Mount Kailasa in the trans-Himalaya and, according to

various traditions, made his way south in a series of exploits

culminating at Kataragama with his secretive courtship and marriage to

the indigenous Vedda maiden Valli, which is the theme and substance of

the Aesala mystery rites. Local tradition insists that Skanda-Murukan

has remained in Kataragama ever since, ruling unseen over his domain as

Kali Yuga Varada, the boon-granting divinity par excellence of the Kali

Yuga, the recurrent cosmic era of tumult and quarrel -- our own

present-day world.

 

Due to its isolation on the social and geographical margin of Sri Lankan

society, Kataragama has long been insulated from the mainstream of

religious change affecting Sri Lanka and South India. As Heinz Bechert

has firmly established, this has enabled Kataragama to preserve archaic

institutions attested in the ancient literature that have long since

died out elsewhere in the subcontinent, such as the persistent tradition

of the Four Guardian Deities common to Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka who have

always included a war-like 'Red God' (Tamil: Ceyon) identified with

Murukan and Kataragama Deviyo respectively.1 From what has been said

here and from what follows, it is hardly surprising that informed

Western observers should readily identify Skanda-Murukan with Dionysus

or Bacchus, the ancient Eurasian god of paradox, fertility, drama,

epiphany and the dissolution of boundaries. Alain Danielou draws

attention to the close similarities between the two deities and

concludes that the 'Indian Bacchus' of the Greeks was none other than

Skanda.2 Cultural anthropologist Agehananda Bharati earlier made the

specific observation that Kataragama Skanda is a "Dionysian god".3

 

Fred W. Clothey, in his landmark study The Many Faces of Murukan,

cautiously endorses the possibility of a common origin of the ecstatic

cults of Dionysus and Murukan in the megalithic culture of the Anatolian

plateau and western Iran of ca. 1500 B.C.4 Apart from these, however, no

study has ever probed beneath Kataragama's teeming surface to uncover

supporting evidence to associate the surviving cult of Skanda-Murukan in

Sri Lanka with the cult of Dionysus which flourished in Western Asia and

the Mediterranean world from remote antiquity until the third century

AD, when it was forcefully suppressed by Rome.

 

In this study, I propose to demonstrate, using structural and thematic

analysis as well as historical evidence and my own field observations,

how Kataragama actually embodies the survival into the twenty-first

century of one of humanity's most archaic religious traditions long

considered to be extinct -- the initiatic mystery religion. Astonishing

as this conclusion may appear to scholars, there are ample grounds for

such an identification, which may be said to be inherent in the very

structure of Kataragama itself. As such, Kataragama represents an

extraordinary paradigm spanning both archaic and modern worldviews and

over two thousand years of human history. How could such a remarkable

phenomenon pass unnoticed by millions of pilgrim-observers and

generations of scholars and what implications may follow for our

understanding of ancient and modern cultures the world over? This study,

although not exhaustive, presents an overview of the evidence and an

outline of the reasoning behind this hypothesis.

 

(extensive article continued)...