ഇതിൽ കൊസാംബി ശൂദ്രകന്റെ ഈ നാടകം എങ്ങിനെ വായിക്കണം എന്ന് കാണിച്ച് തരുന്നു.
Ill AT THE CROSSROADS :
A Study of Mother-Goddess Cult Sites
3.1. THE PROBLEM
The chain of incident and action in Sudraka's deservedly popular drama Mrcchakatika
commences with a peculiar ritual on a dark night. The hero Carudatta, an impoverished
but virtuous brahmin caravan merchant, has just finished his evening prayers. At the
beginning of the first act, he asks his clownish brahmin friend Maitreya to help in the
consummation : krto maya grhadevatabhyo balih; gaccha, tvam api catuspathe matrbhyo
balim upahara. "I have completed the bali (food-) offerings to the household gods; go
thou, offer (this) bali to the Mothers at the crossroads”. This simple request leads to
rescue of the heroine Vasantasena from abduction. Here we leave the development of the
plot, to investigate the ritual,
The bali destined for the anonymous Mother-goddesses was a ball of cooked food. It
had to be offered at the beginning, of the nigh!, but the actual deposit at the crossways
need not be made by the same person who offered the prayer; another could place it on
his behalf. The context shows, however, that the crossing of two city streets would not
serve. The locus had to be some crossing on a highway (rajo marga) outside the town.
That this was an ordinary performance at the time of the play is dear from the absence of
comment either, in the play or elsewhere. The period is in some doubt, but the first four
acts of the Mrcchahatika are borrowed deeply from the fragment (Dandra-) Carudatta,
ascribed to Bhasa. This earlier play supplies the essential (and doubtless original) detail
that Carudatta was performing his divine worship on the sixth day of the (dark half of)
the lunar month : satthi-kida-devakayyassa. In both plays, the moon rises a little later,
at the end of the first act — just in the time to light the heroine on her way home when the
hero discovers that he has not even oil for a lamp in his poverty-striken home. The Mrc.
Heading is printed as siddhi-kida, but the commentator Prthvidhara reports a variant to
mean sasthi-vrata-krta-. The instruction catuspathe matrbhyo balim upahara is identical
in both dramas. So, we are justified (without joining in the Bhasa controversy) in the
assumption that the custom antedates the Gupta .period. It was widespread and generally
understood. It is, therefore, surprising that the particular ritual occurs nowhere in the
brahmin scriptures, which are otherwise so meticulous over every detail of any household
cult.
The Manusmrti (3.81-92) describes the daily Vaisvadeva food-offerings in full One of
the food-balls is specially offered to the pits = the Fathers, taken to mean the souls of
departed paternal male ancestors. The last in the series is to be placed on the ground for
dogs, outcastes, and wretches afflicted with incurable disease in punishment for some
transgression in a previous birth. There is no mention of the group of Mothers, not even
to accompany the Fathers ; and nothing whatever about the crossroads. P. V. Kane's
compendious History of the Dharmasastra gives full details of the evening bali food-
offerings (2.745ff). without reference to this particular rite; the Mothers and their bali
receive perfunctory mention in 2.217-8, in keeping with the author's general disregard for
anthropology.
Literary sources will obviously not help us much. That some rite like Carudatta's was
still current and familiar in the early 7th century should be inferred from Bana’s casual
phrase : nisasv api Matr-bali pindasy eva diksu viksipyamanasya NSP. ed. p. 223). No
mention is made of the crossroads! ; the pinja to the Mothers is to be scattered into the
outer darkness in all directions. Varahamihira's Brhatsamhita gives full details about
iconography, prognostication, and divination, without bringing us any enlightenment
upon the point in question. He says (Br. 58.56) only that each of the mother-goddesses
should be given the attributes of that god whose name she translates into the feminine ;
this is in the vedic - patriarchal tradition, where the mother-goddess is but a shadowy
consort for the male god. Special priests ’(-Br- 60.19) knew the rites of the Mothers'
Circle, mandala-krama. That such circles had a physical existence may be learned from
the Rajatarangini (1.122, 333-5, 348 ; 3.99 ; 5.55 ; cf. also 8.2776, matrgrama). The
crossroads, according to Varahamihira, bring evil repute upon any house situated near the
junction (Bj. 53.89). In Br. 51.4, the location is listed among inauspicious places, below*
the cemetery and the deserted temple.
3.2. THE MOTHERS
In spite pf Kane's silence, there is a rite which antedates the dramas cited above, and
seems to be connected with the one in question. In Keith’s words, "A very odd rite is
prescribed by the Manava school, for the evening before the last at the crossroads the
sacrificer kills a cow and dismembers it, and divides the flesh among the passers-by."
The Astakas are domestic funerary offerings, three or four in the whole year. As would
be expected from the general tenor of Aryan ritual, the Fathers are the main recipients.
The Mothers seem to have crept in as consorts, though assigned a separate direction of
the compass. The significant point is the unique Manava ritual, which would come about
the 6th-dark lunar date. Why this was at the crossroads, and to whom the sacrificed cow
was dedicated whose flesh was to be shared by every passer-by is not explained. It could
not be for evil spirits, or goblins; nor is Rudra, who also haunted vedic crossways,
graveyards, waters &c. as chief of ghosts, named. For that matter, the Satapatha Brahma
(2. 6. 2. 9) invites Rudra at a crossroads sacrifice : "graciously accept it together with thy
sister Ambika"; the conjoint nature of the offerings is emphasized, and 'explains' their
name Tryambakah, though Rudra is himself Tryambaka. Ambika means 'little mother',
and is elsewhere one of three sisters, jointly mothers of Tryambaka ! The presumption is
strong that the Manava sacrifice was for the Mothers, not as mere ancestresses, but as
separate goddesses in their own right whom it was necessary to appease, although vedic
practice did not openly enjoin this. It will be made plausible in what follows that this
practice was borrowed from the ’non-Aryan’ element in India. This would account for the
recipients of the crossroads sacrifices not being named explicitly, and for the rite
becoming standard without benefit of the grhya-sutras, as brahminism accepted more and
more aboriginal practices. Finally, it also accounts for the cross- roads, as will appear in
the penultimate sections of this note.
The Mothers could not have been simple Aryan ancestresses, as dissociation from the
Fathers shows quite clearly. There is, moreover, an ancient tradition of mothers- in-
common that cannot be reconciled with vedic father-right. It would be difficult to explain
Panini 4.1.1 15 unless mothers-in-common were taken for granted by the master
grammarian. Tryambaka, later explained away as 'with three eyes' means ‘with three
mothers'. Though this appears physically impossible to us, the legends of Jarasamdha
born of two, and Jantu bom of a hundred mothers-in-common show that there was an
undeniable tradition of many mothers with equal status, even for a single child. These
legends were meant to explain the record away when society had changed to the extent
that the original concept seemed fantastic. Jarasamdha was almost certainly a historic
king of Rajgir. However, several mothers who equally bear a child-in-common (without
any particular father) is a primitive concept in some kinds of pre -patriarchal society, and
the inexplicable notion is present; surprisingly enough, even in the Rgveda. But the pinda
offered to such Mothers would not have to be at the crossroads, because the domestic
offerings at eve are for the special deities and ancestors of the family. The Mothers of the
two dramas were independent deities of some sort.
They were, however, mother-goddesses in a group, without proper names. The
Amarakosa 1.1.37 does say that they begin with Brahmi, but commentators do not agree
either as to the names or the total number, which seems to have increased well beyond
the vedic, whether three as for tryambaka or the seven never-resting (? yahvi) mothers of
truth (rta), or sixteen in another early list. Two stages are combined in the Skanda myth,
the theme of Kalidasa's unfinished or incomplete Kumara-sambhava. The young god was
born (by intennediacy of the river Ganges) jointly of six mothers-in-common (the
Pleiades) with a separate head to suckle each. (Parenthetically, this might explain the
three heads of Siva tryambaka, whose image goes back to the three-faced god on a
Mohenjo-daro seal, and who must originally have had three mothers rather than three
eyes. Several confluent rivera could account for the many 'mothers' as well as the
polycephaly). Skanda (like his prototype Marduk in Babylon) was assigned the function
of killing a troublesome demon Tarafcasura, and recruited his army from goblins. He was
also joined by the Mothers — not the ones who bore him. but thousands of others, of
whom some 192 are named in the 46th chapter of the (Vulgate) Salya-parvan of the
Mahabharata. Three of the names are specially interesting. One companion-Mother is
Catuspatha- niketana, "housed at the crossroads'; another is named Catuspatha-rata
enamoured of the crossways. Even more remarkable is Putana. A demoness by this name
was killed by the pastoral child-god Krsna whom she tried to nurse with her poisonous
milk. The name cannot be a mere coincidence, for these Mothers-companion are
described as with horrifyingly sharp teeth and nails, protruding lips, all standard terms for
demonesses; and simultaneously as beautiful, eternally youthful women. THEY SPOKE
DIFFERENT LANGUAGES — clear sign of varied tribal origin. The cults were therefore
undoubtedly pre-Aryan, though in process of assimilation. It would appear that the
Mothers were easier to control through their child Skanda — invented for that special
purpose -than by the imposition of violently hostile -patriarchal cults. There is still not
enough to account for the crossroads in all this. Any explanation must take that location
into consideration, as also tiie great increase in the number of the Mothers, with or
without names.
3.3. INFORMATION FROM FIELD-WORK
It would be a simple matter to go through Bana, the Kathasaritasagara to show the
increasing strength of the Mother-goddess cult. It seems to me that this would not explain
the rite in question so efficiently as investigation in the field. The examples given here
are from Maharastra, for it has not been possible to cover sufficient ground elsewhene
with the same detail in inquiry. Similar information on the essentials should be available
in many other parts of the country, and it is to be hoped that some readers will gather it.
The mother-goddesses are innumerable; many come only in groups without individual
names. The most prominent are the Mavalaya, which are water-deities, always in the
plural, spread over the two taluqas of Maval and Paun Maval. The name means 'the little
mothers' though the termination ay a reduplicates "mothers". It is known in the region for
over 2000 years, for Mamala-hara and Mamale are inscribed on the facade of the Caitya
cave at Karle in a Satavahana charter, so that the country name Maval in fact derives
from the cult. They have no images in iconic form, being represented by numerous
shapeless little stones daubed with minium, or by red marks on the sides of a tank, or on a
rock, or on a tree by the water. They become sati asera, 'the seven Apsaras', beyond the
two taluqas, though the number even then need not actually be seven. Similarly, the
goddess Laksmi-ai in many villages is a whole set of shapeless red-coated stones,
apparently having nothing to do with Laksmi, the beautiful consort of Visnu. This is not a
cult degenerated from that of Laksmi, who is called Rakhumai in Marathi, and
represented in temples by carved images paired with her husband Vithoba or Panduranga.
It is significant that at Pandharpur, the leading spot of the Vitthala cult, she does not share
Vithoba's temple, but has a separate temple and worship of her own. The legend given for
the separation is late, while the economic reason of two separate cults supporting more
priests than one cannot be the initial one. She must have had a separate cult from the very
first, as the mother-goddess (as the termination ai shows) without a consort, originally
worshipped at Pandharpur, before the male god came upon the scene, probably from
Kanarese territory, to become identified later with Visnu. Similarly, the temples of
Khandoba, a leading rustic god in Maharasfna and his terrifying: 'wife' Mhalsa are
generally separate. It is not difficult to prove that such divine couples are sometimes
composed of deities which were actually hostile at an earlier stage, as representing the
cults of two distinct kinds of society. The food-gatherers worshipped a goddess, while the
god first appeared on the scene with pastoral life. The marriage of these Mother-
goddesses is a phenomenon of the later conjoint society, as for that matter are those forms
of human marriage without which individual maternity and paternity would be
meaningless.
Every village in the region has at least one mother-goddess cult. Often, the deity is
simply called Ai, the Mother, without any other name. Sometimes, she is named Amba-
bai, “Lady Mother", which is a step higher, and nearer to the classical nomenclature; so
also for Ladubai = the Dear Lady, and Kalubai = the Dark Lady. Beyond these, however,
there are fantastic local names not to be found elsewhere (though later identification with
Durga or Laksmi is sometimes made under brahmin influence) For example, Tukai
(Kondanpur) is comparatively rare, though she does turn up in more than one place.
Tukaram was named after her. Jakhamata should be the same as Jokhai, with whom some
people link her; the name has dear etymological connections with Yaksi, and dakini.
Women who have died in child- birth or drowned themselves are sometimes given this
cult as having turned into such a spirit or vampire. In such cases, the establishment of a
cult depends upon its being demanded by the defunct, who shows the desire by appearing
in some villagers’ dreams. A crude, red-daubed, female relief at the end of the rifle range
(beyond the Sholapur road, just outside Poona) represents such a funerary cult of a
nameless teli woman accidentally killed by a stray bullet, who would not let her relatives
in the oil-vendors' caste sleep in peace till a monument and worship was given her; recent
as the event appears to be, the annual palkhi procession used to stop at the place on its
way to Pandharpur and perfonn the mail lamp-rite as a matter of course, till the route to
Sasvad changed to the easier Diva pass. A remarkable but not unique case of absorption
may be seen a mile beyond Malavli. near the village of Devalem. The mother-goddess in
her thicket is (as usual) several lumps of stone, coated with red, but her name is sati-ai.
Fifty feet away is the actual sail monument to an unknown widow of the feudal period
whb immolated herself on the spot; but that is now called gopala-pora, the shepherd-
boys' dancing-post, because of the custom the lads have of dancing there in a group on
certain days. The primitive goddess has become identified with the sati, and the cults
have coalesced. A human
3.1 Sati monument at Ambamath; height about 45 cm.
sati may be forgotten altogether as such, though the monument remains identifiable- by
the customary (though not obligatory) bent-arm-and-hand with open fingers. If I am not
greatly mistaken, two breast-like humps (fig. 3. 1) on top of a sati stone would indicate
sahogamma: that the widow immolated heflsdf on the same pyre with her husband's
corpse; a single hump would mean that she followed her husband into the next world
some days after his cremation, on a separate pyre: anugamana. Such memorials exist at
Bolai, as elsewhere in our villages. She may be only just remembered but receive nothing
beyond a sporadic coating of red and an occasional flower, as at Devghar and Ambamath.
She may be regarded as special protectress of the village even though her name be
forgotten as usual. This last is to be seen at Pimploli, where a coconut is broken befone
her uncovered samadhi stone every Sunday, and the meat distributed as sacrament. Mr.
N. G. Chapekar in his Badlapur, (Poona 1933 ; p. 320) reports of crossroads cult for a
man of the Mahar caste supposedly killed by some feudal member of the Kulkarni
family. The spirit demanded the particular location, and receives the regular sacrifice of a
goat, fonnerly of a buffalo bull-calf, from the Kulkarnis.
The sati and the Sati-Asara should not be confused with each other nor with a
remarkable, primitive, and dangerous mother-goddess Satavai, or Satavi. The last is now
also a term of abuse in Marathi for an unpleasant harridan. The word is derived without
question from Sanskrit sasthi, ’the sixth' whatever her original name or names were. The
goddess Satavi is to be propitiated on the sixth night after the birth of any child, with a
lamp burning through the night, and certain other articles (every one of which becomes
the perquisite of the midwife at dawn) laid out for her. Among them may be the saddle-
quern with its muller stone, but writing materials are always included. The goddess
comes in person that night to write the fate and character of the child on its forfehead in
invisible but immutable words. This is brahminised as the brahma-likhita. Men have
nothing to do with this ritual, though the power of the goddess is unquestioned. She is
herself also the sixth date of the lunar month, which is her special worship day. Skanda,
so peculiarly connected with the Mothers, is sasthi-priya, and the late Devi-Bhagvata -
Purana personifies sasthi as his wife. Finally, though Sasthi (or Sathi, Satavi) has alao
been identified with Durga, she remains unmarried in popular belief: "Mhasoba has no
wife, and Satavai no husband (dadala)". Though a Mother, the goddess tolerates no
consort. Mhasoba is the buffalo demon Mahisasura killed by Durga- Parvati, but still
regularly worshipped as a god, at times near her temple. The best example is in Poona,
where a live Mhasoba cult is to be seen at the foot of Parvati hill-temple. Satavi worship
occasionally manifests itself through the red pigment left upon some out-of-the-way rock,
(often by the noad or at a crossways, with a few trifling gifts of food and a lime cut open.
The rite is generally perfonned in the dark, by a votaress.
The extraordinary names lead one to suspect connection with some diminutive tribal
group now defunct or absorbed (without any other trace) into the general rustic
population. Some remain connected with the name of the village, e.g. Phagnai at Phagne
and Tungai at Tungi village, of which the latter may be explained as "the high place", but
the former has no plausible etymology. Others come from still more obscure sources.
Such are the Karajai at Induri, Phirangai in the old Buddhist caves near Nanoli,
(apparently to represent the great goddess Phirangabai of Kurkumbh), Warsubai beyond
Junnar, Udalai of Nenavli (near the Karsamble- Sudhagad Buddhist caves), Surajai at
Bhaja (though suraja = suralaya means 'home of the gods'; the village's patron goddess is
Jakhamata). The most famous of such unique goddesses near Poona is the Bolai or Bolhai
a mile from the village Vadem Ghodem, not far from Koregao. With her, we come, to the
full-blown primitive stage, for in spite of a temple built in the time of the Peshwas, and
endowed by the Gaekwars, she has not been brahminised beyond being labelled a 'sister'
of the- Pandavas. At least one goat is sacrificed to her every Sunday (her special day),
with additional blood-sacrifice which some devotee might consider necessary on any
other occasion.
3.2 Vetal at Chinchvad 3.3 Vaghoba (Tiger-Lord) of Pimploli Bedsa red
pigment shaded. Note limes impaled on trident.
She is still a huntress who sets out on a two-month hunting tour in winter, symbolised
by a palanquin procession at the beginning and the end.
That none of these goddesses have a male consort or ’husband’ proves their antiquity.
The reaction whose beginning is reflected in the Mhasoba cult came with the full
development of a pastoral society, as is further shown by the rare male god Bapuji Baba,
who is specially a god of the cattle, but whom women may not even approach without
grave danger. One shrine is beyond Ahire in the National Defence Academy area, and
serves five surrounding villages in common, apart from casual help to people from a
greater distance; similarly near Khanapur on the other side of the lake. Others are: in the
northwest comer of the walled enclosure of the crumbling Visnu temple at Akurdi; on the
Central Railway line near Malavli; between Induri and Mahalunge; and the Bapdeo at the
top of the old pass between Kondhwa and Sasavad is presumably the same god. The
much more popular Vetal, demonstrably later than the goddesses, is equally shapeless.
He is a Scythian- clapped head at Chinchvad (fig. 3.2) and at times simulates Siva's
phallic symbol (fig. 3.3) into which his stones can be shown to have developed in certain
cases. In general, he is also not to be approached by women. If really orthodox, his male
worshipper will avoid the touch of a woman or sound of a woman's bangles before
worship. Slightly more toletiant is the related monkey-faced god Hanuman or Maruti,
who is incurably celibate (though a powerful god among the peasantry as the Maruts
were in the days of the later vedas); but women are -allowed to worship him. The child-
god Skanda, so obviously devised to bring the Mothers and their cults under male control,
has not escaped this masculine tradition. When worshipped in Maharastra under the name
Karttika-svamin, women are forbidden to approach him. This seems to contradict the
Puranas, but it might be remembered that the nymph Urvasi, heroine of Kalidasa's
Vikramorvasiyam, was metamorphosed into a vine for trespassing into a grove sacred to
the god, and hence forbidden to women. We shall prove again, a little later, that this
marks a forgotten stage in the development of Skanda, and that the original taboo was
quite different as was the forbidden grove.
The goddesses are Mothers, but unmarried. No fatter seemed necessary to the society in
which they originated. The next step is ihown by marriage to some male god. Jogubai has
a 'husband' Mhatoba at Kothrud and Vakad. The extraordinary feature of this marriage is
that Mhatoba is really Mhasoba = mahisasura, while the wife Jogubai is Yogesvari =
Durga, whose most famous act was killing the buffalo demon. This is by no means an
isolated case, for Mhasoba is again married to Jogubai at Vir, under the name of
Maskoba. In both cases the slight change of his name is made apparently to permit the
nuptials. The Vir god was set up by immigrant shepherds, and still goes in procession
once a year to a hillock adjoining the one on which his cult is located. The hillock is still
called Tukai’s pasture’ and her little shrine there contains a crude red-daubed relief which
shows the goddess crushing a tortured buffalo — Mahisasura-mardini!
These gods are death-gods too, and the goddesses also deal out death if not placated.
They preside over epidemic disease. Devi (goddess) is simply the name for small-pox.
Mari-ai has to be worshipped to prevent death from cholera, Sitala- devi is the particular
goddess that can protect little children from small-pox, Gaura- ba from measles. The
goddesses are all usually worshipped in the towns by women (though the priests may be
men) during the nine days of the nava-ratra, beginning with the month of Asvin (October
new-moon). It is difficult to connect these 'nine nights' with the harvest; the real harvest
festivals are nearly a month later. Moreover, most of the goddesses are given special
offerings. In the villages, there are obligatory blood sacrifices, unless the cult has been
brahminised by identification with some puranic goddess, in which case the sacrificial
animal may be shown to the goddess but has to be cut up at some distance. Rarely, a
bloodless offering may be substituted. Finally, the sashti and no-moon nights are also
special in the worship of the goddesses, as 'the latter with Vetal; blood-sacrifices have
clearly been demanded (in fact are still occasionally made) on such nights. A reflection of
this custom is to be seen in the case of the greater Jogesvari of Poona, the senionnost
goddess of the city, whose image is clothed for the day and a silver mask put on, early
every morning, with one exception. The exceptional date is that of the no-moon, on
which tithi the primitive, stone-relief image underneath is left visible, and has to be given
a fresh coating of red (minium in oil) pigment — itself clearly a derivative of a still earlier
blood-rite.
The famous stanza limpativa tamongani emphasizes the pitch dark, which is indeed
essential for the various incidents that follow in the Mrcchakatika. But a no-moon night
could not have brought out the hero's desperate poverty. The ball of food that Carudatta
offered on the 'dark-sixth' was called bali, which clearly shows that it was a substitute for
blood-sacrifices as were his Vaisvadeva offerings. Carudatta was thus following an
ancient custom that had been taken up during the centuries of assimilation with the
aboriginal population. The only feature that remains to be explained was the location of
the offering, at the crossroads.
3.4. PRIMITIVE TRACKS
The shrine of any mother-goddess without an identificatio brahmanica is outside the
village. Occasionally, and with her special permission, a representative stone may be
brought into some temple inside the village to facilitate service during the rains. Only if it
should grow widely fashionable, like the cult of Tulaja at Tuljapur, would a settlement
develop. Otherwise, finding the shrine in the middle of a town means that the place has
grown from economic causes while the cult-spot remained unchanged. The most
primitive mother-goddesses, excepting specialized water-deities like the Mavalaya and
Sati Asara, have a raw, literally "forest’ about the aniconic image. In most cases, this has
shrunk to a thicket of shruba worthless- as fuel; but occasionally, the grove is quite a
jungle.
The mother-goddess's 'forest' at Phagne, about three hundred metres long by fifty to a
hundred wide, is easily the most impressive sight in the middle Patuna valley. Not a
single branch of any living tree may be cut in spite of the shortage of firewood; the
goddess has consistently refused her permission to those greedy timber contractors who
sought to placate her by sacrifice of a goat and offerings of clothes, coconuts, and
ornaments. The Phagne elders, mostly Mulut by surname, have a tradition that they were
immigrants from Mule in Bhor state. They believe that Phagnai came with them, and that
her ’brother’ Khandoba than appeared in the river-bed (now silted up by a change of
course, but the locus is still carefully marked off). Excellent microliths are found on the
eroded hillside and ridges just behind and on either side of the -grove, which leads one to
think that some primitive goddess must have occupied the site before the immigration. It
is extraordinary that during Navaratra, all women are excluded from the grove and the
vicinity of the temple, a guard being set for the purpose. This is a general rustic tabu for
the 'nine nights' not observed in city temples. The Ila-Ila myth shows that such jungle
groves were primeval, originally never to be entered by men, under penalty of
transformation into a woman. Inasmuch as men have usurped the priesthood, this tabu
has been inverted here. But the Sisterhood, the sacred grove, tabu on male entry, and
punishment for a transgressor by his immediate initiation into the sisterhood and
necessity of living thereafter as a woman all exist in parts of Africa (as among the
Attonga). At Phagne, women may occasionally take a short cut across a corned of the
sacred grove, but the tabu is generally observed at all times, and has obviously been
inverted from an original tabu upon male intrusion.
The magnificent grove at Phagne inevitably draws the minds to the classical nemus of
Diana at Aricia which fonned the starting point of Frazer's Golden Bough. Peculiarly
interesting for us is the epithet Trivia of that goddess in the Aeneid (7.774, 778), Diana of
the crossways. Quadrivia would have been the precise equivalent of the Sanskrit, but
European mother goddesses were triple, so that the forked junction suited their
physiognomy better. Phagne, it should be pointed out, is actually at the join of two major
andient routes. One leads up the Pauna valley, the other cross- wise from Bhaja past
Tikona to Chavsar. Before the Mulshi dam was built, it was the route to the mountain
passes of Dera, Vagjai and Savasani, still the best in the region, and formerly important
enough to be dominated by the forts of Sudhagad and Korigad as well as flanked by the
enormous, ruined Buddhist cave complexes of Karsamble and Thanala. The survival of
the grove proves the existence of a vast primeval forest that stone-age man could not
have cleared with his tools, nor by fire. The low spur, now stripped bare except within the
goddess's preserve, shows an indefinitely long track (microlith) along its exposed surface.
Excellent microliths are found on the other patches of comparable high ground in and
near Phagne, also by the riverside; but no larger tools have come to notice as yet, nor
prehistoric pottery, in that locality.
The primitive origin and nature of the extant cults is shown by the injunction (as also in
the case of Vetala) that the stone must be open to the sky. Roofing it over brings grave
misfortune upon the misguided worshipper, but the goddess's consent is generally
obtained when the villagers become sufficiently wealthy. Therefore, the cults go back to
a period before houses weire in fashion, and when the "village” was on the move. But the
grove could not be moved, so that the site must have been chosen for other reasons than
proximity to a village. What reasons?
The more fashionable cult-spots are visited by a number of people out of all proportion
to the population now resident in the vicinity. Bolai, Alandi, and Pandharpur are such
examples. These local cults were, presumably, at or near places from which colonization
occurred. But the colonization was not haphazard, and these places lie demonstrably on
routes of considerable age. In the beginning, these must have been the ways for the
seasonal transhumance ('boolying') of men and herds. Even now, sheep-herders from
Ahmednagar district trace 'such a drovers’ round of about 400 miles on foot every year,
with their flocks. The routes, however, have now been modified because of extensive
fanning, and the herders are paid in measures of grain by the peasant to fold the sheep on
given plots of land for a night or two, thus fertilising the impoverished soil. The route of
pilgrimage connecting Alandi and Pandharpur is still followed seasonally (beyond the
time of pilgrimage) by a considerable vagrant population, partly because of the numerous
intennediate cult-spots it li nk s up, which make begging easier. A little investigation
shows that many of the stopping places have marked deposits of late stone-age tools, and
that the route is clearly prehistoric. Bolai certainly was on such a route, now but little
frequented because the present Poona-Ahmednagar road passes through the next parallel
valley. The natural caves at Kesnand near Vagholi are also on the abandoned trade- route,
which, connects them with Bolai. Theur was on a prehistoric route and important river-
crossing, and has one of the eight autochthonous asta-vinayaka Ganesa images that rank
over all the other Ganapatis in Maharastra at feast. Phagne is on the Pauna valley trade
route (leading past Tungi to the Sudhagad passes and Chaul harbour) that touched the
Bedsa and Selarwadi caves (locally, Ghoravdi caves). Similarly for the other examples I
have given.
It is possible to go much further in this direction. My field-work showed an unexpected
number of cult-spots on gentle hillside slopes, nearer the valley-bottom than the top of
the hill, but at a considerable distance ( 1 to 2 miles as a rule) from the nearest village and
from present sources of water. They could not have been near any village when the land
had been cleared and plough cultivation came into general use. Nevertheless, the cult is
kept up under difficulties, even when there is no shrine. Whether a temple has been built
or not, these isolated cults show one remarkable feature: the location always yields a
considerable number of microliths in far greater concentration than any other locus near
by. There are virtually no larger stone tools. Among handy examples is the Amba-bai
stone, aniconic and red-coated as usual, by the crossing of the Bombay-Poona road and
the Central railway, on the track leading to the pass for the Bedsa caves. Another is a
funerary samadhi temple near Rayari, by the Dehu area. There are plenty of others. They
are not all mother-goddesses now, but without going into detailed argument, there is
reason to believe that even some of the male gods have baen converted into their present
form from obliterated Mother-cults.
The microliths have more than local importance, being identical in size, type, material
and technique of manufacture with those discovered by A. C. Carlleyle in South
Mirzapur caves, and reported in 1885. They are known in other countries as well (V. A.
Smith : I A. 35.1906.185-95), and precede the age of metals. Tumuli in the nearby
Gangetic plain yielded pottery, large stone tools and microliths, but never any metal. The
Vindhyan caves and rock-shelters above do not show even the other stone tools, while
their meagre pottery seems unassociated with the microliths. Lumps of haematite found
with the tiny artifacts were used to draw pictures on the cave-walls which show that the
toolmakers possessed bow and arrow. The chains or rather tracks of microlith sites await
competent field archaeology to trace them southwards from the Gangetic tip of the great
Deccan route. However, this tip can hardly have been at Mirzapur, for the region under
the name of "southern mountain" (dakkhinagiri) was opened up not long before the
Buddha. The hostile, Aryan raiding charioteers drawn by the cave-users must have
represented the spear- head of a search for iron and other ores, which led to the settlement
of Rajgjr and eventual hegemony of Magadha.
The cult sites are not the only places in the Maharastra districts considered where
microliths are found concentrated. The find-spots follow about the same level along the
foot of the hills. The tools are not accompanied by any pottery, and there is not enough
soil left to construct a stratified sequence in most of the places. Following these microlith
groupings along the hill, however, one conclusion is unavoidable. These tools represent
the pre -metal and pre -pottery stage when the valley bottom was not cleared of jungle.
The whole assemblage is characteristic of what might be called Mesolithic cultures in the
older nomenclature, with herds and a little sporadic cultivation to eke out considerable
food-gathering, and some hunting.
Such a population had to shift from place to place. Permanent settlement could not
come before the day of cheap metals, i.e, of iron. It is difficult to imagine the use of iron
as common anywhere in the Deccan much earlier than the Mauryan conquest. There are
no convenient deposits of copper ore within easy reach of this region, and the Arthasastra
dfoes not know of southern iron. The natural route of the savages before the swampy or
forested valley bottom was opened for cultivation would gp precisely along the level
indicated, not as a thin foot-track but as a broad though irregular band with the passes as
fixed points. The annual 'crossing the boundary' just after the 'nine -nights' festival surely
marks the commencement of a primitive booly.
The groups that moved along these tracks could not have been numerous. There was no
question of their possessing land, for land-ownership is not a primitive concept. Fixed
plots are meaningless till the plough has conquered the soil. For this, the fertile bottom
lands have to be cleared for forest, and kept clear, which is not possible in our monsoon
country without iron tools in plenty. Land to the savage is territory, not property. It seems
to me that the still remembered Maharastrian custom of gamva-sai goes back to pre-
settlement times. This used to be the propitiation (at such date as the bhagat might set) of
all local deities, spirits, and goblins. The impressive feature is that every human being
had to go to live beyond thte village (residential) limits for seven or nine days, diuring
which the place would be completely deserted. After living in the fields or under trees for
the period, and performing the required worship and blood-sacrifices, the inhabitants
would return with the assurance of greater crops, less illness, and augmented general
well-being. The ceremonial of return is conceived as a resettlement. The fixed cult-spots
for pre-agricultural people would necessarily be those where their regular paths crossed,
places where they met for their pre-barter exchange with the ceremonial and communal
ritual that always accompanied it, or where several groups celebrated their periodic
fertility cults in common. Thus, the crossways are logically the original sites for the
mother-goddess cults.
3.5. THE TRADE ROUTES
This can be taken beyond the realm of mere conjecture. If the prehistoric tracks ran as
outlined above, it would be logical to find some of them developing into later trade-
routes, and into modem roads. The last is not an absolute necessity, for settlements
moved down into the valley, by the riverside, as land-dearing progressed. This shift
makes definite proof rather difficult. However, we have enough in common between old
tracks and new, particularly the passes, to prove the thesis. The great Buddhist cave
monasteries (all near mountain passes) at Karsambe, Thanala, Bhaja, Karle, Bedsa and
Junnar fix the main trade routes without any doubt, particularly when smaller
intermediate caves are li nk ed up. It is logical to expect merchants to go along the tracks
most frequented by whatever people lived there before the country was settled by find,
plough-using villages. The Buddhist monks, not mere almsmen but expert food-gatherers
(cf. SN. 239 if. and many Jataka stories), who penetrated the wilderness to preach ahimsa
and peaceful social behaviour would initially follow the same tracks, in order to reach the
greatest number of savages. Their religion insisted upon the cessation of blood-sacrifices,
and the cult-spots were the most likely places for their preaching. Therefore, these cults
and the major Buddhist caves which are obviously at the junctions of great trade-routes
should have some demonstrable'connection, never completely obliterated by the change
of routes after food production became general. In fact, this is just what we do find.
3.4 Yamai of Bedsa vihara cave; note earlier relief at upper left.
The goddess Yamai has a shallow relief image (fig. 3.4) carved into the Bedsa Vihara
cave. A goat is sacrificed to her in front of the cave in navaratra, once a year. An
occasional fowl, or more commonly coconut repays a vow or assures tranquillity to the
villager whose sleep Yamai is sure to disturb — if neglected too long — by a nightmare.
Yet she has no temple in the village, which would have been much more convenient in
the rains; the village does have temples to more civilized and commonly worshipped
deities. At Karle — again in the caves, but not the villages below — she is the traditional
family goddess of Bombay Son Koli fishermen, who come all the way to make their
vows, pay her worship, and to dedicate their children. Inasmuch as the goddess (locally
named Amba-bai and Veher-ai== Mother at the caves) has only a relief image in the
shrine just at the Caitya entrance, the ritual circumambulation is done about the great
stupa and not Yamai's 'representative' in front. The Kolis take the stupa as the goddess
herself, though unable to explain this; the child for whose birth vows are invariably made
to Yamai is ’shown’ to the stupa without fail. It is natural, as has happened in other cases,
to take a stupa (trimmed suitably, if necessary) as Siva's phallic symbol; but to take it as a
mother-goddess is extraordinary, to say the least. There is no cult in the caves at Bhaja,
because the little village has moved down into the lowlands about 50 years ago from a
site on the slope. A little further along: the route, we find Tukaram's caves at
Bhamchandar, originally natural caves but now extended by hand in most cases,
generally to make temples. No attention is paid to the fact that the mother-goddesses of
the village two miles away near the river are still located here, and given their coat of red.
The next hill
3.5 Red-coated relief of Mother-goddess (Les Combarelles, France).
Bhandara, (where Tukaram also meditated) has a good microlith site, with Buddhist
caves and a stupa, which have passed without notice by The Gazetteer and by
archaeologists. Tukaram and his special deity Vithoba have pushed out any earlier cult
that might have existed, but the microlith track is very near. The cave-temple on the
grounds of the Fergusson College, Poona (shown on the wrong hill in the old district
Gazetteer), was originally a set of monastic cells, almost certainly Buddhist. Just above
is a tiny shrine to Hanuman, originally a cult-spot for a "Pensioners' Vetala". By this
shrine are found microliths in plenty, and below the caves, much better ones in great
numbers. In all these cases, however, it is difficult to PROVE the quite plausible
existence of the cult before the monasteries were carved out.
The most interesting complex is at Junnar, where many trade routes met. There are four
major groups of caves about the decaying city. Of these, the Ganesa Lena group has some
minor goddess, overshadowed by the modem shrine of the elephant- headed god (one of
the autochthonous asta-vinayakas ) built into one of the larger caves. Ganesa was, after
all, admitted into the Mahayana pantheon, so that it would not do to insist that the caves
were an older cult-spot in spite of the special importance given to this Ganesa. The Tulaja
caves have a modem image of the goddess Tulaja similarly inserted. But on Manmodi
hill, we find the unique and primitive goddess
3.6 Stylized Mother-goddess, engraving on bone; European stone age.
Manmodi being worshipped in one of the caves, and we do know that the name is at
least as old as the caves. One of the inscriptions mentions the Order resident at
Manamakuda which is Manmodi when it is remembered that ka would be softened to a in
the prakrit style of pronunciation. The goddess, unlike Tulaja and Ganesa, is not found
elsewhere, in any context. The actual worship to-day is offered simultaneously to three
post-Buddhist images identified by the authors of the Gazetteer at those of the Jain
tirthamkaras Adinath, Neminath, and their attendant goddew Ambika. All three together
are called Manamodi (sometimes Ambika), and so worshipped without distinction by the
villagers. The name has the literal meaning ’Neck-breaker, and is reminiscent of the
goddess Kavada-dara (’Skull Splitter') eight miles away in the adjoining Ar valley.
Even more interesting is the fourth major group at Junnar, of the caves that run along
the side of the cliff topped by Sivaneri fort. The stronghold derives its name from
Sivabai. a primitive goddess in one of the former Buddhist caves (close to a dining hall
donated by or for the Yavana Cita) within the outer fortification. The very popular local
goddess is alone-, without a consort. Her modem (Buffalo-demon- trampler) image might
have been modelled after a human stage-actress, but for the supernumerary arms. The
original aniconic image, red-coated and painted with oculi. was smashed by some bigoted
vandal one night in 1947, but is still duplicated in flour, The Sanskrit word Siva denotes
more than one plant, among them the sacred sami tree; it also means 'jackal'. Though the
priests I met were aware of no connection with Siva, the Amrakosa does give Siva or Sivi
as one of Parvati names. The connection is less logical than would appear at first sight, as
the stanza also calls her Bhavani, Sarvani, and Rudraaji. The vedic Rudra = 'dreaded'
perhaps grew later into Siva which means "blessed’; but Bhava and Sarva are two other
quite distinct vedic gods. The primitive goddess of the high place was variously assigned
as wife to more than one Aryan god, and then the 'husbands’ were identified with each
other. Had the cult been set up by Pasupatas, who broke into north Indian Buddhist
monasteries, the male god would have had an image, and even the goddess a better one
than a shapeless lump of stone. These caves enter modem history in 1629-30. A Marathi
noble, engaged in the dangerous game of trading allegiance between the Muslim
kingdoms of Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, and Delhi, left his pregnant wife at Junnar to look
after herself. The high-born lady, too proud to go back to her own people and conscious
of the husband's cooling sentiments (he took another wife a couple of years later) took
refuge in the fortress, and prayed to the goddess for the birth of a second son. The answer
to the appeal made in such parlous times was a son named, as the bakhars tell us, after
the goddess — the famous Maratha king Sivaji. Bhavani remained his patron goddess for
life, presumably after the brafiminical identification of the Amarakosa with Siva.
The monastic caves were mostly patronized and liberally endowed by merchants, many
from distant places, as we learn from their inscriptions. In fact, they were, in the days of
their glory, not only vary important customers, but also great banking and supply houses
for the traders. Their sites were located according to the junction of primitive tracks,
which became crossways on the major trade routes. A further incentive for the monks to
choose such a location was the proximity of savage cults because it was a principal
mission of the Order to put an end by persuasion to all ritual killing. This is very neatly
brought out by the archaic Buddhist Suttanipata (SN). The monk is enjoined not to enter
a village or town except to beg his food. His stay for the night should be on a hill, in a
cave, under a solitary tree outside the village, or by a corpse-enclosure (susana; cf. SN
958). Now these were precisely the places where the most gruesome rites were practised.
Indeed, the monk is explicitly warned: "He should not be frightened by those who follow
strange cults, even when their most dreadful practices are witnessed. These and other
perils should be sustained by one who pursues the beneficent way” (SN 965)'. The
Buddha himself set the example by spending nights by the cult-spots and converting
bloodthirsty cacodemons to whom sacrifices were made (SN 153-192), while the
economic success of early Buddhism was due to its successful protest against the vast,
ever-increasing vedic animal-sacrifices. The primeval cults returned when the caves were
deserted. In some cases as at Manamodi. even the original name of the goddess is
recognizable. The mark of Buddhism was not erased completely, however. The two
special goddesses in the Junnar caves tolerate no blood-sacrifice watever. At Karle, the
sacrificial beast may at most be shown to the goddess Yamal’ s surrogate, but the actual
killing has to be done at a considerable distance.
The Order introduced fundamental economic changes. Indian Buddhist monasteries
were responsible for agrarian settlement (as was the case in parts of China) whether
directly or through the merchants associated with the cave monasteries and the trading
tribal chiefs who turned into kings. But it will not be denied that the monasteries
remained tied to the specialized and concentrated long-distance "luxury" trade of which
we read in the Periplus. This trade died, out, to be replaced by general and simpler local
barter with settled villages. Tlie monasteries, having fulfilled their economic as well as
religious function, disappeared too. The people whom they had helped lead out of
savagery (though plenty of aborigines survive in the Western Ghats to this day), to whom
they had given their first common script and common use of iron, and of the plough, had
never forgotten their primeval cults.
We may take one more example, from a different region. The Buddha’s birth is in Pali
literature as having taken place in a sacred sola grove called Lumbini- (Jataka.
Avidierenidana: Lumbini-vanam nama mangala-sala-vanam; the translation ’garden’ is
unjustified). His mother was then supposedly on her way to her parents’ home at
Devadaha from Kapilavastu, which latter town must be placed at Piprahva on the Nepal
frontier because of the find of the famous relic casket (fig. 3.7) in the Sakyan stupa to the
Buddha. The Asokan pillar found near Padaria inside the Nepal frontier excuses the bali
tax to Lummini village because ’Buddha Sakyamuni was bom here’. The nearest modem
village is over a mile from the site, though there is no question of hill and valley in the
wide alluvial plain, and no reason for the village to have moved. The locality is still
named Rummin-dei, the termination being the shortened form of devi, 'goddess’. The
little shrine by the Asokan pillar wherein Maya was depicted at the time of the nativity
was attributed to Rummindei by the villagers. So the ’Buddha’s mother was worshipped
even at the turn of the
3.7 The Piprahva vase, presumably containing relics of the Buddha at Kapilavastu.
century as the goddess Lumbini or Ruipmini, with the red pigment and occasional blood
sacrifices that disgusted pious Buddhists, my father among them. The picture is quite
clear, knowing what we do. Maya made for the grove of the goddess, which was on the
main route (from Savatthi or Devadaha to Kapilavastu and ultimately to Kusinara, Vesali,
Patna, and Rajgir). It was, moreover, at the crossing of two routes, the other going to the
chief Koliyan town Rama-gama nine yojanas to the east, as Fa-hsien reported. She must
have felt her time coming on, went to pay homage to the goddess, and to receive her
special protection. The protection turned out to be inadequate, for Maya died on the
seventh day after giving birth to her incomparable son; but she was herself identified with
the goddess and receives her worship. The parallel to the Sati-ai and Jakhai above is
clear, white the mother's death is suspiciously close to the perilous path night after the
child's birth. The commentary Papanca-sudani on MN. 101 reports that Devadaha was
the village adjoining the Lumbini grove, and was in fact so named because of the lotus-
pond used for Sakyan consecration ceremonies. The tradition is uniform and uncontented
that Maya bathed in this sacred puskarni just beforo her delivery — an act whose special
significance now becomes clear.
3.6 THEJATAKAS
This section is devoted mainly to supplementary information from the Buddhist
Jatakas, because the collation of literary sources with archaeological discovery and living
tradition is a major purpose of the present note. The reason for giving the Jataka birth-
stories a separate section, rather than scatter the information as footnotes throughout the
chapter, is their age and unitary redaction, older in any case and nearer to the life of the
common people than the Kathasaritsagara, for example. In their present form — namely
Fausboll's standard edition., reference being made by the letter J, followed by the
number of the Jataka — these stories have apparently been retranslated into Pali from a
compendium of tales extant primarily in the Simhalese at that time. The source of the
latter lies in northern documents brought to the south by the early monks. The later
redaction is attested by reference to the coconut nalikera in J. 466,535, and 536. In the
first and the third of these, it is mentioned among other trees as the sign of a fertile place.
In the second, the useless wealth of the miser is compared to a coconut found by a dog.
The nut itself was well known on the Andhra coast only by the -1st century BC, and on
the western coast not later than 120 AD. The Jatakas may therefore be taken as
influenced by conditions during the Satavahana period, and their historical detail
infiltrated by such tradition as was then extant. Social conditions had changed
considerably in some cases from the time of the Buddha; the rise of Buddhism is itself
testimony for the change. In what concerns us, however, it will be possible to select fairly
reliable details.
It is essential in each case to ask whether the particular detail is indispensable to the
original story or not, and whether the setting is unmistakably southern, such as could not
have existed at the time of the Buddha in Bihar. Whenever independent northern
confirmation is possible, the tale may be taken as very old, and its nucleus pre-
Buddhistic. Thus, for example, the late word lanca for a bribe taken by an official is
specialized to the Jataka complex; but bribes existed much earlier. Some of the
observances that are 'explained' by the stories are certainly old. For example, the tabu on
garlic for Buddhist nuns in the 'present' story of J. 136 could not have been imposed by
the Buddha himself. The use of an Udumbara-wood seat at a royal consecration, with
sprinkling by water out of a conch-shell could hardly originate in a boar's prowess and
cunning, as in J. 281, Yet both customs existed. The naga cobra-demon Manikantha of J.
253 reminds us of the Central Indian Mani-naga cult which is found in numerous
medieval copper-plates, and apparently still exists (even at Rajgir); this is unlikely to
have been a mere Ceylonese interpolation. Fa-hsien recorded the special respect paid to
the patron naga at the great Samkasya monastery (as at some others: fig. 3.8); the huge
naga himself appeared as a small
3.8. Naga above cell-door, Thanala
white snake on certain special days to receive the monks' innocuous offerings. On the
other hand, it is difficult to account for casual mention of killing monkeys and eating
monkey- flesh, even by a brahmin (J. 528, J 5 16, and J. 177), .particularly as the well-
known brahmanical precept panca panca-nakha bhakkha repeated in J. 537 would make
monkey -flesh tabu. The lowest Indian forest-tribes (including some Kathkaris).. do kill
and cat monkeys even now, while the Jataka performance is reported as in outlying
villages, paccantagame ; but the idea would horrify most Indian?.
Traders setting out on their travels (J. 19) made animal sacrifices to some deity, and
vowed to make more if the journey were profitable; the vows were regularly fulfilled.
Apparently, such deities were associated with some tree outside the village, sometimes in
a grove or the dense jungle. In J. 1 13, men make the sacrifices to the yakkhas at cross-
ways ( caccara-raccha ) with fish, flesh, and wine in bowls or sherds; this resembles the
sacrifice to Rudra and the goblins. (In J. 77, king Pasenadi of Kosala is terrified by
sixteen ominous dreams in a single night; the brahmins advise him to make extensive
blood sacrifices ( yanna ) at every crossways. The location is not specially prominent in
this source, but major crossroads were most favoured for meritorious public works (J.
3 1), and sentenced criminals were flogged publicly at crossings). In fact, the yakkhas
often ate human beings (among them unwary traders) who entered certain localities
which Vessavana as the chief of the demons had assigned to a particular yakkha or
demoness. Many Jatakas narrate how the Bodhisattva converted such goblins to a simpler
diet and kindlier way of life, which has to be interpreted to mean that human sacrifice
went out of general fashion (except among forest tribes) before the time of the Buddha.
The specially cruel warrior-king makes sacrifice of ksatriya prisoners to a Nigrodha
{Ficus Indica) tree's deity in J. 353 in order to take the besieged city of Taxila. The
captive's eyes were plucked out, sides ripped open, entrails hung: on the tree, blood to the
level of five fingers poured out by the trunk (or five finger-marks drawn in blood like the
‘Five Pandavas’ of rustic shrines), and the five kinds of human flesh (organs) specially
offered to the deity. In J 537, the Nigrodha tree outside the market-town of
Kammasdamma received very similar sacrifice, but was afterwards railed off, with the
right to simpler ’principal’ offerings. The historical existence of this Kammiasadamma in
Kuru-land {Delhi-Meerut) is attested by the Buddha Gotama's having preached there
(Digha- Nihdya 15 and 22 as well as Majjhima-N. 75 & 106). This custom of establishing
cults for tamed demons as senior recipients of reasonable sacrifices is further confirmed
by J. 398 where Makhadeva, a demon of the same kind of tree, is set up to receive
sacrifice outside the city gate; and similarly by J. 6, /, 155, &c. However, human sacrifice
continued as a desperate expedient, obligatory for some purposes. The king in J. 481
orders a brahmin to be sacrificed at the foundations of a city gate — a custom which
survived in slightly changed fonn to the 1 8th century. It is certain that the monks in the
south knew earlier versions of these stories, which were further encouragement to preach
against the animal-and perhaps the human sacrifices that were made to goddesses near
cave-sites. But the deity would be given a less gruesome cult, not far away, like Fa-
hsien’s naga at Samkasya.
Professional armed guides who could be hired to see the caravan through dangerous
wilderness still existed when J. 265 was drafted. This is in the tradition of the Jaiminiya
Brahmma 2.423-4, where such guides over limited stretches of territory are mentioned
(cf. W. Rau: Staat und Gesellschaft im alien Indien; Wiesbaden 1867. p. 30, p, 52).
Among the various low professions that contemporary brahmins followed (J. 495, stanzas
255-6), is that of convoying the caravans, arms in hand: asi-cammam gahetvana khaggam
paggahya bramana / vessa-pathesu tiithanti, sattham abbdhayanli ca. They are called
sama gopa-nisadehi, which passed the commentator's and translators' comprehension,
being equated to 'shepherds and barbarians'. The actual meaning is quite clear from the
Jdminiya Brahnwna passages; these brahmins are like those who guard (caravans) against
the forest-savages'. The caravaneers ran the danger of attack in the wilderness, from
brigands whose presence would be later discovered by the pasana-muggara that they had
abandoned (J. 76, 83, 414). The word is taken as a compound for 'sticks and stones', but
ayo-muggara means iron mace and pasana-muggara must denote (as probably in J. 220
also) 'stone-headed mace', say the hafted celt whose use by jungle folk was still known or
remembered when the Jatakas were first set down, but apparently forgotten by the time of
the revision, and certainly unknown to the commentators.
This last has some interest because of the missile discus (fig. 1.17) depicted in the
Carlleyle-Allchin caves (MAN 58. 1958 .207; pp. 153-5) in Mirzapur. Among unusual
weapons, the Jatakas report the axe-adze ( vasi-pharasukam ; J 186), and take-down
models of the sword and of the compound ibex-hom bow (J. 181). The 'razor-edged
wheel-weapon’ khuradharam cakkavudham occurs in just two places: the preamble to all
Jatakas whtere the Adversary Mara (equated to Namuci in J. 536; SN 439, and "Krsna"
too as "dark demon") hurls one at the Buddha about to reach enlightenment; it turns into a
flower gartand without causing hurt. Secondly, we find it in the Vasudeva-Kamsa story,
J. 454. Otherwise, the sharp wheel is barely mentioned, and then only as a magic
instrument of torture, e.g. J. 104, where it revolves upon the head of some overgreedy
wretch. In as much as the Mirzapur charioteer as depicted holds the wheel he is about to
throw by its rim, it follows that the whole rim was not sharp ; on the other hand, its
revolving painfully upon the head of the damned would mean that there were sharp
blades along the spokes as well,
3.9 Sketch map of Sakyan territory; note two Rummin-dei shrines.
whether or not any part of the rim had a cutting edge. The date of the cave- painting
should be about 1000-800 BC, for the region was settled apparently under the name
Dakkhinagiri (J. 39, J, 268; SAT. 4th sutta) by the time of the Buddha, who preached
there.
This brings us to the question of Rummin-dei. P. C. Mukerji (Antiquities in the Tarai,
Nepal; Arch. Sur. Ind. Imp. Ser. XXVI, pt. If Calcutta 1901) made a careful report
correcting A. Fuhrer's supposed exploration (reported in : Buddha Sakyamunis Birthplace
in the Nepalese Tarai, Allahabad 1897, later withdrawn from circulation). He notes that
the deity is a ’local goddess of some celebrity', which apparently means that the name
occurs in several localities. His map actually shows another Rummin-dei in Indian
territony, about 5 miles S. by W. of frontier post no. 66. (See also fig. 3.9). The shrine at
the Buddha's birthplace (p. 34) received and perhaps still receives 'offerings of eatables,
goats and fowls’. An alternative local name for the same goddess is Rupa-devi, apparently
in reference to her beautiful appearance. Though this is not found in the Jatakas, we do
find there an obscure word rummi applied specially to the appearance of a grim ascetic (J.
488, gatha 118: also Fausboll 6.194). The derivation might be from the Sanskrit rumra,
but not from rukmin. So, there is an excellent chance of the name Lumbini having
originally been the adjective rummini for some dread goddess, gruesome and beautiful at
the same time, like so many tribal Mothers. The Suttanipata says that the Buddha was
born 'in a village of the Sakyans, in the Liupbini janapada : Sakyanama game janapade
Lumbineyye (SN 683). This line in the oldest surviving Buddhist document interchanges
the names of the village and its janapada, but must be taken as it stands. The janapada
undoubtedly continued to be named after the goddess Lumbini in local parlance long
after the Sakyans had been massacred by Vidudabha. The parallel is with the county
name Maval after the goddess Mamala, seen in the Mamala-hara at Karle from
Satavahana inscriptions. The plural aniconic representation holds in both cases. The
actual Lumbini goddess 'is represented by a collection of broken sculptures of antiquity',
apparently including fragments of the nativity scene (fig. 3.10). But Mukerji took the
Buddha’s mother Maya as a Koliyan, presumably after the late Mahavastu tradition. This
is impossible, for the Sakyaa were too proud to marry outside the tribe. They even fobbed
off king Pasenadi’s demand for a Sakya bride with the daughter of a slave woman. This
deceit was ultimately to cost them dear, Maya's sister Mahapajapati Gotami, the
stepmother who reared the infant Buddha, has old gathas in her name where she declares
herself to be the daughter of the Sakya Anjana and his wife Sulakkana..
At the time of the older Pali tradition, and certainly at the time of the Buddha, the
Koliyans were just emerging from their primitive tribal stage, Some were followers of the
Buddha, and received a share of his relics. Theirs was the only original relic - stupa that
remained undisturbed by Ajatasattu and Asoka, according
3.10 Fragments of relief sculpture showing the Buddha's Nativity.
to Buddhist legends. Yet, a gatha at the end of the Mahaparinibbana-sutta says that their
share of the Buddha’s ashes was worshipped at the Koliyan headquarters Rama-gama by
the Nagas, so that some Koliyans remained aborigines. The site of Rama-gama could be
located not more than 45 miles eastwards from the Rummindei pillar, probably in the
foothills; but that needs some careful archaeology, above the relic-hunters' level. The
Jatakas tell us of a quarrel between the Sakyas and then Koliya neighbours over diversion
of river-water (J. 536). Once, the Sakyas even poisoned the water, a practice then
regarded as a sin not permissible in warfare among civilized people. The mutual
reproaches in J. 536 are quite clear. The Koliyans taunted the Sakyas of having
intercourse with their sisters, like dogs and jackals. The legend of brother-sister marriage
among the Sakyans is sometimes dismissed as a bit of southern rewriting. Older Aryan
tradition permitted such marriages, e.g. among the Persians, as the story of Cambyses
reported by Herodotos shows. Moreover, a man's female first cousins would on occasion
count as his 'sisters'. On the other hand, the Koliyans seem to be accused by the Sakyans
as still keeping to their tree-totem (Kol = Zizyphus jujuba), without a real chief ( anatha )
and living more like animals than (food-producing) humans. In any case, Maya, could not
have been on her way to Koliyan territory, so that Lumbini was on a road crossing.
The name Maya cannot be translated as "dangerous illusion" in this case. A second
meaning is "love", particularly a mother's love, while Mahamaya as the great universal
Mother-goddess (. Kalika-purana 6.62-8.74) is sometimes identified with Durga. The two
other meanings ate easily explained if, at some archaic period, men were lured to their
destruction by the priestess who represented or even personified the goddess, but whose
male consort had regularly to be sacrificed in some fertility rite. Queen Maya now being
worshipped as the mother-goddess is not so incongruous as it might appear to those who
think only of Buddhism's benign message. Mahayana Buddhists paid homage to Hariti,
originally a child-eating demoness. In I-tsing's time, she was depicted near Buddhist
monastic kitchens; it should be noted that the Sivabai shrine at Junnar occupies what used
to be the kitchen of the cave- group, being adjacent to the dining-hall.
Just one more item from the Jatakas is of interest In J. 510 and 513, the demoness who
eats little children almost immediately after birth is supposed to have been a former co-
wife who made the dying wish against her rival, 'may I be reborn (a demoness) to eat
your children’. The implication is that she did not die a natural death, but is likely to have
committed suicide in her rage. This is parallel to the Jakhamata tradition. Whether the
temple of Maya was originally a cult- spot for her having died so soon after childbirth is
not dear; the structure excavated at Rummin-dei commemorates the nativity, not her
decease.
3.7. CARUDATTA’S SACRIFICE
We are now in a position to answer the query with which this note began. The
criossways were, from the stone agje, places where the Mothers were normally
worshipped by savages whose nomad tracks met at the junction. The food-ha// replaces
their blood-sacrifices, particularly on dark-sixth and no-moon nights. Carudatta was the
son of a sarthavaha, and resident of the merchants’ quarter. As sudh, he must have
known the travelling merchants’ custom (followed to this day by the few remaining
caravaneers) to salute and, if possible, sacrifice to deities passed en route, Tbe most
prominent of these wayside cults would naturally be of the Mothers at the cross-roads.
Presumably, the ritual propitiation was carried out by pious caravan merchants even
when they remained at home. However, nothing prevented any brahmin's adopting it in
the manner of the Puranas, which have been specially written to justify and even to
glorify so many primitive autochthonous rites. This was a regular mechanism for
assimilation, and acculturation.
No comments:
Post a Comment