Coming back to the temples of existing forces, this is time to consider how some of the temples especially those of the indigenous people were taken over and the deity absorbed into Hinduism. The indigenous people did not have any specific form or name for their Deity. When they came into contact with learned Hindus, they gave a name for their deity. Like Vindhya Vasini in Uttar Pradesh. Sometimes they also assisted the indigenous people in installation of an idol. Since almost all the people want only a Protective deity it was either Durga or Kali.
Dear Sir,
I would like to make a few notes reg the above. In this post, am referring to a time period when indigenous temples were not ‘taken over’. Instead indigenous people themselves were part of ‘vedic’ culture. This possibly is the
Megalithic period of clan-based societies.
Shall start with the terminology and move to symbolism and mythology / history. The term “nayanmar” is apparently derived from the dravidian root “nai”, meaning dog [Source: SN Sadashivan in his book “
A Social History of India”].
The nayanmars were “hounds of Shiva”. A “nayan” was one who had dog-like loyalty to Shiva. Sadashivan writes that the terms nayan and nayar meant a “teacher” (guru) for devout Shaivites. This was the bhakti tradition.
In the warrior tradition, we find a group of Yadavas styled as Kukuras (kukura in Sanskrit means dog). More info on them is available here:
Yadava - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Well, loyalty to god apart, eating dog-meat was confined to the ‘lowest of the lows’. Here, we will speak of these ‘lowly’ people here, from mythology or hindu-history.
Harivamsa apparently is associated with a clan of dogs. The story goes that a Ikshvaku prince named Satyavrata was exiled by his father for a crime.
In the forest during a drought, Satyavrata kills a cow belonging to Vashista to save Vishwamitra’s wife and son Galava from starvation (they were obviously eating beef during this time period).
Angered by the theft, Vashista curses Satyavrata to become a man who cooks and eats dog’s meat (svapaka).
Satyavrata goes to Vishwamitra for help. But Vashista’s 100 sons get wind of this ‘kshatriya conspiracy’. They curse Vishwamitra that one day he too will become a svapaka.
Vishwamitra counter-curses Vashista’s 100 sons that they will be born for 700 lifetimes as the outcaste race of Mustikas. Vishwamitra then kills all the 100 sons of Vashista using his tapas (meditative) energy, and from then on the curse comes into effect. The story is related here:
THE VALMIKI RAMAYANA
This apparently relates to the itihasa time period when there was an intense power-struggle between the Brahmins and Kshatriyas. Manu (later) defined Svapaka as a product between a Kshatri father + Ugra mother.
In the Aitareya Brahmana (AB) of the Rigveda, Vishwamitra also cursed his own 50 sons to become svapakas after they refused to accept Sunhashepa as the eldest (adopted) son of Vishamitra. To these 50 sons, accepting Sunhashepa was like usurpation of their position.
However, these 50 sons had to live out their curse and they became the founders of the udantiya groups. The Saoras / Savara tribe is notable as the outcaste sons of Vishwamitra as mentioned in the AB. This was obviously an ancient tribal age.
In the hindu context, commentators mention that these stories indicate blurring of varna-lines in an ancient past (in the vedic age itself) to an extreme length, wherein people of ‘low origin’ moved up the varna ladder and became part of the vedic terms ‘kshatriyas’ and ‘brahmanas’.
Undoubtedly these events must have affected worship practices. As people moved up the varna ladder they may have evolved their gods, from a tribalistic form to the popular form. Like Ekanamsha became Durga / Uma.
In an ancient period of cave paintings a mother goddess was represented like this:
Kamat's Potpourri: The Mother Goddess This mother goddess was not yet Durga / Kali / Uma or even Ekanamsha at this time. But later ‘She’ came to become identified as such.
As regards ancientness of varna cross-over events, and possible time period when the 'gods' evolved, please note the list of curses and images here (Page 86):
http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=glmjo9UrP2YC&pg=PA86&dq=source+crime+outcaste+group+produced+Mbh+1.165&hl=en&ei=J5VwTbPmBoHmvQOuyK2-AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=source%20crime%20outcaste%20group%20produced%20Mbh%201.165&f=false
In the link, please note pictures showing possible cognates (cynocephalis) of svapakas in german mythology on Page 86. It is certainly an ancient period.
A possible cognate from Egyptian mythology is shown on plate 4 (page 86 of the above link). It depicts 4 dog-faced baboons worshipping the sun in the Ramses II dynasty. In that, the Egyptians merged the totemic dog and monkey within one iconic human representation as sun-worshippers. In Rigveda, Surya (sun) is described as a hound (dog) of the sky / heaven (dyaus pita).
Understandably the earliest object of worship may have been the sun / nature elements.
There may have been forced amalgamations also in the vedic period itself. The yatis (ya= to go, yat = strive) were ascetics mentioned in the atharva-veda. Indra apparently had the yatis thrown to the shalavarkas (house wolves or hyenas). Commentaries mention that the yatis were non-aryan.
In a later period the yatis merged into the mainstream vedic culture. When and how it happened we don’t know. It is a mystery. But it may even be possible that parts of the atharva-veda (after being nearly destroyed) were supplanted with Rig / Yajur oblations. It is just a speculation though. No one knows what really happened.
No one knows whom the yatis worshipped. They were renouncers and explorers. They may have even been atheist or agnostic dasyus with Krsna as their leader.
Amalgamation between cultures did happen. Idol worship is ancient. The popular gods we worship today are themselves of tribal origin. And we are the indigenous people ourselves who worshipped elements of nature and tribal gods once upon a time.
Regards.