> > Panchali amman alayams are very common around chennai....
Good info.
My whole question is : why are they worshiping these devis ? In scriptures and epics they have not been personified as gods so who instigated this worship and why ?
To my understand, they are lived on a particular village and died on some special reason, our lost thier life of a village, we can find a lot of seperate Grama Devatas, in almost all village, and behind all that we can find a interesting story.
Its a Big subject
for example even Nallathamgal is been workshiped, i have seen that places
Everyone worships thier dead forefathers. So, for one the forefathers in the family becomes the soul to be worshipped, this is a fact and had been thier since time immemorial.
Even SriKrishna, is belived to have worshipped his forefather and his Pitrs has helped him in many ways. Not to mention SriRama performing tharpanam to King Dasaratha. It is belived he has performed tharpanam at Pamba river near Sabarimala. And even today performing Tharpanam at Pamba is very auspicious.
If a religious sait or a King or chief dies, the entire community or followers revers his/her departure. As dead souls are belived to be equivalent to God, they are power to grant few boons to thier worshippers. This lead a way to worship of dead and thus evantually thier godship.
King Rama, is also belived to be a normal human being, who was brought to south india by Sage Agathya to fight Ravana, a Tamil King in Srilanka. There are text in Lanka, 'Yazhpana Vaipava Malai' and 'Agathiya Lankai' on this. And the vanara army is belived to be a tribe based out of Hampi (Previously Kishkintha). So it was rather a very human fight between Rama and Ravana in which the former won the battle. Similarly Krishna's human nature can also be zero'ed down.
This does not mean they are not incarnations, they can be but, every soul who as born in earth, strived to excel.
Shridi Saibaba, now is a god, but he may have been just a human four generations back.
So, this is my humble theory of Grama Dhevatas or any Dhevatas.
Kannadasan's Arthamulla hindu matham talks a lot of such grama devatas and nachiyars.. I read a particular excerpt in some of the hindu religious mags like Aalayam. Nanda
My family deity is "Arunchunai Katta Ayyanar." It is near Tiruchendur on the road to Tirunelveli.
The temple must be quite old. But in recent times they have renovated it like anything. In my child hood, we used to cross two big lakes in a "thoni" to reach this picturesque spot.
Last month I was there and asked the "poojaris" about the antiquity of the temple and they dont remember. According to them this temple flourished only after their family took over ( late 70's .) Prioir to that it was inside a little accessible jungle and very few people visited it hence. They said that there supposed to be some palm leaves, but they dont know who has it. To my knowledege there are no inscriptions etc.,
Does anyone know how old is "ayyanar" worship in TN? How old are these temples? Is this worship specific to selected communities ? How did it evolve ?
Its been ages since I wrote a mail to our group. lack of time. Couldnt resist this one.
Most of these Grama Devatas, have a strong story behind them. I feel, it stems from the belief that the dead watch over their family. Right from my childhood, I have been made to belive, that if I am clean and good on the days, shradams happen, then the pitr or the dead one for whom we are performing that shardam will be happy and will bless you with all success. So much so you are not supposed to make any noise that day. Everyone around will be talking so softly. My granny used to say, nadakkum podhu paadham adhira koodadhu. Thats the kind of reverence they had and want us to have for the dead. Dont you see a resemblence to the way we worship god here?
I dont know how far its true. But from my recent experiences in life of having lost my loved ones.. I would like to believe that they always are around me gaurding me and clearing up my obstacles. Its like, what they always did for me when they were alive. Whether its true or not, I like to believe it. Might sound funny. but this is what I guess is happening in these Grama Devatas. My guess is that this is the reason, these people must have become gods over a period of time. Whoever initially started worshipping must have had their obstacles taken care of or they must have had their successes. That must have made them believe strongly that these people must have some strong capabilities. Dont forget, that when they were alive, they must have done some thing great and unusal. As in the case of Kannagi and Nallathangal.
If you look as the stories of these poeple you will always see something unusual. Be it love or anger or righteousness. I remember the kind of stories my parents and grand mom used to tell me about our Grama Devata. Its like these people believed that since your roots are in that Gramam, its like your grama devata will take care of that clan wherever they are in this wide world. Again, after observing the pattern of our worship I feel, its basically, our people those days relied upon nature more than today for their livelihood. They needed some kinda strength to rely upon and been taken care of.
Even today, inspite of the volcano in Indonesia being active, there are so many people worshiping the active volcano saying its god and they believe that mother nature will take care of them. Indonesia predominantly is a muslim community. How do u think, they believe in such things. Dont u see the concept of Grama devata there... If you go back, they have our roots. and I guess that answers this attitude.
lemme know if I am making any sense... I can go on and on.. but must make some sense...
i agree with srividya_nrs on the benefits of ancestor worship. I started family deity worship (nothing elaborate but made her my single point-of-contact for the other world ;-) ). I observed that my prayers are answered faster and also it is easy to offer your prayers at her temple - I get a feeling that I am part of the temple and not someone who stands outside the ring just like in a cricket match. Similar experiences have been recounted by two of my close family members too.
There must be something (like what srividya_nrs says) that is at work. When I went there recently, an old man said he was around 10 when my great-grand-father had camped in this village for 3 months to get the temple constructed. Felt good to know that there was a mini-Rajaraja in my family who also built a temple :-)
anscestor worship is very organised in chettinad from where i hail.
jewels and clothing of the anscestor is tied in a cloth (pelai)and hung from the ceiling beam of the puja room. its taken down only on the day of the " padaippu" which is usually on the occasiion od a marriage or so.
its said even the special meal made that day has many food items reportedly the favourite of that particular anscestor.
regarding grama devathai. that particular god is supposed to control the energies of that area. for example kolavizhi amman is the grama devatha for mylapore. every festival at kapali temple has to commence with a puja here.