Sisters and goddesses: Bhagavati and Mother Mary in Kerala

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Sisters and goddesses

Bhagavati and Mother Mary in Kerala

 

Legend has it that it was the apostle, Thomas, the doubting

one, who brought Christianity to Southern India - and now,

aside from the odd jealous spat, the Virgin Mary and

goddess Bhagavati are worshipped with equal fervour.

 

William Dalrymple

The Guardian [uK]

 

June 28, 2008

 

On the edge of the jungle lay a small wooden temple. It was

late evening, and the sun had already disappeared behind the

palms. The light was fading fast, and the hundreds of small

clay lamps lined up on the wooden slats of the temple all

seemed to be burning brighter and brighter, minute by

minute.

 

The oiled torsos of the temple Brahmins were gleaming, too.

They had nearly finished the evening ceremony -

surrounding the idol of the goddess Bhagavati with burning

splints as they rang bells, chanted and blew on conch shells.

The ritual prepared the goddess for sleep.

 

Only when it was over, and the doors of the inner shrine

were sealed for the night, were they able to tell me about the

goddess they served. Bhagavati is the pre-eminent goddess

in Kerala, the most powerful and beloved. In some

incarnations, it was true, she could be ferocious: a figure of

terror, a stalker of cremation grounds who slaughtered

demons without hesitation or compassion. Some of her titles

reflected this capacity: She Who Is Wrathful, She Who Has

Flaming Tusks, She Who Causes Madness. But, in other

moods, Bhagavati could be supremely benign and generous

- the caring, loving, fecund mother - and this was how her

followers usually liked to think of her. For many, she was

the deity of the land itself: the spirit of the mountains, and

the life force in the soil. In this form, Bhagavati is regarded

as a chaste virgin and a caring mother, qualities she shares

with her sister, whose enclosure lies a short distance down

the road.

 

" Yes, yes, the Virgin Mary is Bhagavati's younger sister, "

explained Vasudeva, the head priest, matter of factly, as if

stating the obvious.

 

" But, for sisters, don't they look rather different from each

other? " I asked. A calendar image of the goddess, pinned up

behind him, showed Bhagavati as a wizened hag wreathed

in skulls and crowned with an umbrella of cobra hoods. In

her hand she wielded a giant sickle.

 

" Sisters are often a little different from each other, " he

replied. " Mary is another form of the Devi. They have equal

power. " He paused: " At our annual festival the priests take

the goddess around the village on top of an elephant to

receive sacrifices from the people. She visits all the places,

and one stop is the church. There she sees her sister. "

 

" Mary gets on an elephant too? "

 

" No, " he replied. " But when the goddesses visit each other,

the sacrifice in the church is just like the one we have here:

we light lamps and make an offering. The priests stay in

their church, but the congregation of the church receives us,

and makes a donation to the temple. "

 

" So relations are good? "

 

" The people here always cooperate, " he said. " Our Hindus

go to the church and the Christians come here and ask the

goddess for what they want - for everyone believes the two

are sisters. "

 

This was something I had seen for myself ever since I had

arrived in Mannarkad, a small village 80km to the south of

the Keralan capital, Kochi. In the large courtyard of the

church - newly rebuilt and enlarged around a medieval core

- many of the worshippers were Hindu rather than Christian.

 

" I have come here from 70km away, " said KN Prakashan, a

middle-aged school teacher. " Yes, I am a Hindu, but Mary

is our holy mother. She is your mother and my mother, too.

I believe she is a powerful goddess. Every time I come, I

ask her to let the sufferings go from my life. "

 

" And does she answer your prayers? "

 

" Of course, " replied Prakashan. " It works. Otherwise I

wouldn't be coming back here. "

 

No less surprising were the Hindu customs practised by the

church's congregation. The devotees coming in and out

proudly told me that during the annual festival of Our Lady,

the pilgrims would all take a ritual bath, shave their heads

and eat only vegetarian food to purify themselves. They

would join processions under torches, banners and coloured

silk umbrellas of exactly the sort used by Hindus in their

temple processions. The church also had a reputation for its

powers of exorcism - the Christians sharing the Hindu belief

that certain rituals can rid a possessed person of an

unwanted spirit.

 

All this was mixed up with forms of devotion usually

specific to the Orthodox churches. Booths along the side of

the courtyard sold bronze plaques of arms, legs, eyes, hearts

and other body parts to place in front of a holy icon to

remind the saint to cure a particular ailment - something

practised in Greek and Syrian Orthodox churches across the

Levant.

 

The Christians seemed wholly at ease with the idea of

praying alongside Hindus. " I believe Mary is more generous

to the Hindus than she is to us, " said Thomas Daniel as he

prayed at the stone cross at the back of the enclosure. " Yes,

we also believe Bhagavati and Mary are twin sisters. "

 

" So you believe in the Hindu gods, too? "

 

" Yes, of course. Those gods are there. I go to the temple

with my Hindu friends, though I don't tell the priests. And I

participate in their festivals, though I don't give offerings. "

Thomas smiled: " This has been passed from generation to

generation... All the people of Kerala believe in all of the

gods. "

 

[....]

 

With the noise of firecrackers exploding, six cymbal

clashers clashing, 12 temple drummers drumming, and the

women of the village loudly ululating, the procession set off

up the dirt track behind the temple and into the jungle. It

was 8.30 on the morning of January 6 2008, and the goddess

Bhagavati, in the form of a silver image hoisted on to a

wonderfully caparisoned temple elephant, was setting off to

visit her devotees and relations across the village of

Mannarkad. From the top of her mount, the goddess looked

down in splendour at her devotees, her eyes bulging in her

rounded skull-like face, her skeletal teeth and fangs grinning

with pleasure. This ceremony had been carried out in the

village for hundreds of years.

 

As we walked along the village boundary, through pepper

and rubber plantations, groups of devotees were waiting for

the annual visit of their deity. Trestle tables had been loaded

with burning lamps and offerings - coconuts and bananas,

baskets of puffed rice and jaggery. Each time the elephant

stopped, offerings would be given and blessings received.

Then more firecrackers would be let off - scaring the

children and grazing goats - and on the procession would

trundle.

 

" She is the mother of the village, " said Saraswati Amma, an

old lady waiting on her verandah for the goddess, with her

grandchildren around her.

 

" In ancient times, this was forest, " said her son, Anish,

holding his youngest boy in his arms. " We needed the

goddess to guard against bad spirits. They are still here,

hiding in the forest, and we need her to keep them at bay. "

[....]

 

The site of the final sacrifice has always been located at the

back of the church, in the Christian area of the village. A

small platform was prepared, crisscrossed with bamboo,

incense sticks placed at each corner. When the goddess

drew near, the priests blew their conch shells and the

drummers increased their tempo. The camphor was lit,

Sanskrit slokas were recited, and the bamboo grid doused

with the blood-coloured guruthi.

 

" We used to sacrifice a rooster, " said one of the onlookers, a

Hindu shopkeeper named Raji. " But that is stopped now. "

 

" From time immemorial the sacrifice has taken place here

by the church, " said his wife, Susheela, " where the Devi

fought and defended the village. "

 

" I have always heard that the two Devis of the village are

sisters, " said Raji. " If you go to the temple you must also go

to the church, otherwise one of the sisters will be jealous. "

 

" It's true, " said Susheela. " They say that if you want your

prayers answered you must pray at both the temple and the

church. They say that if you light a lamp at the temple, that

light also can be seen flickering in the church, and vice

versa. The two are really one. "

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/jun/28/india?page=all