THE FIEND MAHALAKSHMI
Short of stature, bent with age and nearly blind, our old gardener in Ongole still came every day to sit under the large trees in the heat of the day, or to watch others do the work which he had done during many a year. His favourite grandson frequently led him about, holding him by the hand. At other times he found his way through the garden paths alone, leaning on his staff, seldom at a loss to know where he was, for every foot of ground was known to him, every tree and shrub had been cared for by him in the years that had passed.
His memory went back to the olden times, and mingled with that which had happened in his own day were the tales which he had heard his father recount. He was distinctively one of the oldest inhabitants of Ongole.
“Tell me about Ongole when you were a boy, gardener,” I said one day.
Image: MAHALAKSHMI AND HER ATTENDANTS.
This opened the flood-gates of his recollections, and the incident which seemed to him of greatest importance and interest was given first.
“Ammah, when I was a boy, the Rajah of Goomsur was taken through Ongole by the British.”
“Why did they do that?”
“He was their prisoner. There were many soldiers who guarded him. And the men of his own household, who were with him, could do nothing. After five days they moved on to Madras.”
This Rajah of Goomsur had Mahalakshmi as his goddess. He had dedicated all his fortunes to her, and sacrificed to her all that her priests demanded. Every day she had to have the blood of two buffaloes, and much other food besides. It was said that sometimes she refused to be satisfied with anything but human sacrifice.
After he had been taken prisoner, the Rajah could do nothing more for Mahalakshmi, and she waxed angry. One day she approached him, and said :—
“You offer me nothing. What am I to do?”
The Rajah replied :—
“The English Government did me this evil. Go to them, spoil everything they have, bring cholera and smallpox to their regiments.” The goddess left him, thirsting for blood.
Great trouble and distress came upon Ongole three days after the Rajah had passed by. Never before had any one in Ongole known what cholera and smallpox were, but now they learned and trembled. The wrath of Mahalakshmi was very fierce. She slew all before her. Twelve died on the first day after she had begun her work. Many more died during the weeks that followed. No one could count them all. Not a village in the region round about was spared. So great was the thirst of Mahalakshmi for blood, that when a man fell sick he died on the spot. She let none escape.
Many were numb with terror. Others said: “If Mahalakshmi must have blood, give her the blood of beasts. Let it flow in streams! Perhaps she will spare us while she drinks it.”
Hundreds of sheep, buffaloes without number, were sacrificed. Shrines were erected to Mahalakshmi. Hands reeking with blood were raised in supplication by those who saw one after another in their households succumb. Men and women in the frenzy of excitement danced the wild dance of possession, while instruments were played all day long, and priests were busy saying mantras.
Gradually it became evident that the thirst of Mahalakshmi was quenched. She grew mild as the years passed, and sometimes men who seemed doomed escaped her hands and returned to life.
“And do you doubt,” the old gardener asked, “that these things surely took place? Look around in Ongole and in all the villages, and see the Mahalakshmi shrines. Not one of them was there before the Rajah of Goomsur passed through, when I was a boy.”
I looked up the matter, and I found that there was a curious blending of fact and superstition in the story of the old gardener. It is a fact that a rebellion took place in the State of Goomsur, about three hundred miles north of Ongole, in the year 1835. The Rajah was taken prisoner, and was brought to Madras, probably through Ongole. It is also a fact that the first epidemic of cholera in the Madras Presidency, within the memory of that generation, had broken out a few years before; so that in the perspective of later years the two events easily became identical.
It is a coincidence to be noticed that the people of Goomsur, who are Khonds and are of Dravidian origin, have a goddess called Jugah Pennu, who “sows smallpox upon mankind as men sow seed upon the earth.” When a village is threatened with this dread disease, it is deserted by all save a few persons who remain to offer the blood of buffaloes, hogs, and sheep to the destroying power. Human sacrifice was not unknown among the Khonds. The character of Jugah Pennu is very like that of Mahalakshmi, even down to the hint concerning human sacrifice. Perhaps some of those who travelled in the retinue of the Rajah brought the germs of the disease to Ongole. The terror of the weeks that followed gave to the Rajah’s sojourn and the outbreak of disease the relation of cause and effect in the minds of the people; and Mahalakshmi thus became one of the most dreaded characters in the demon-worship of Ongole.
Numberless are the fiends worshipped in the Indian villages who are thirsting for blood, or who are busy night and day maliciously planning to injure and destroy. If any one falls sick, if the crops fail, if cattle die, or harm of any kind befalls the village, it is considered the work of some evil demon, whose vengeance and hatred must be kept in check by offerings.
A Brahmin once told me: “The god Vishnu stays in his holy place, but Poleramah, Ankalamah, and a host of other fiends and demons have their eyes ever directed to this earth, and go about seeking whom they may destroy.” Though of Aryan stock, he leaned decidedly in the direction of Scythian demonolatry when he tried to explain to himself the phenomenon of positive evil. “The one supreme god,” he said, “is too good to do harm to any one. But the demons stay close to the earth, and to do evil is their delight.”
I have found in my enquiries among the Madigas that they continue to worship demons of a locality long after the reason that led to the worship is forgotten. I could only conclude that in generations past a man or woman had died under peculiar circumstances, that the spirit was thought to be restless and wandering about, and that, for some reason, a certain margosa tree had been fixed upon as its home. So, in accordance with ancient Dravidian rites, a stone was placed under the tree, painted with saffron, adorned with the usual red dots and then worshipped. Sometimes these local swamis are the spirits of good men and women, who are revered as kind and beneficent deities. But they too may turn into angry demons and refuse to defend men, if they are offended by a lack of devotion and by the paucity of offerings from the worshipper.
Once only my oft-repeated question as to the reason why some local swami was so faithfully worshipped brought me a satisfactory reply. I thus learned the origin of a beneficent village deity.
Not many generations past, for she is still remembered, there lived a Sudra woman, Chalkamah by name. Her father-in-law was a wealthy man. With considerable outlay of money he was digging one of those large square wells, so often seen in Southern India, which have the fountain in the centre, and the four sides terraced by stone steps, so that those who would fill their pots with water could easily descend. The diggers had gone to considerable depth, but there was no water. What should be done?
There was much talk and deliberation in the village, for a well with a plentiful supply of water is a matter of much importance in an Indian community. The general opinion was that some swami, some higher power, was withholding the water. An attempt must be made to propitiate the swami. It was decided that the owner of the well and his daughter-in-law, Chalkamah, should offer sacrifice. She was a young woman in the full strength of her prime. Her husband was still living, and she was, therefore, a woman who has power with the swamis.
They took pots, rice, saffron, incense and firewood, and descended to the bottom of the excavation. There they cooked the rice, set up three stones in the spot where the fountain should appear, painted them with saffron and made the usual red dots on the surface. They laid the rice before the stones as an offering, burned the incense, and then worshipped the three stones as if they represented the deity withholding the water.
The two worshippers came away. They had climbed half-way out of the well when Chalkamah turned back. She had forgotten the copper cup which she had used in cooking. Descending again, she stood at the bottom, and as she bent to pick up the cup, behold! the water rushed forth to meet her.
Her father-in-law, still standing half-way, called to her, “Come up quickly!” An inarticulate sound came back as an answer. Again he called, and again the same sound rose up amid the rush of water. He dropped everything in his hands and turned to the rescue of Chalkamah. He called to her again, as he began to descend. Now there was a distinct answer: “Don’t call me again!” Thus Chalkamah expired.
Many stood at the top of the well, and saw and heard all. They said, “She could have fled and escaped if she had wished!”
But the water was rising. There was great abundance for the use of the village. It was said of Chalkamah, “She must have been a holy woman or the water would not have rushed forth to meet her!” As a beneficent matri, who was supplying the village with water, she was henceforth worshipped.
A matri like Chalkamah belongs to the village. Similar worship as a household institution I found among the Madigas under the name Perantalu, meaning “a good and fortunate woman.” I was told that other castes, too, worship Perantalu. In fact, I saw the significant yellow and red markings on the door of a Sudra house.
When a woman in a Madiga family dies who has been what the Madigas consider a virtuous woman, one who was devoted to the swamis, and leaves behind her at death a husband, it is believed that she will go where she will have easy access to the gods and can intercede for the family. Widowhood among the Madigas does not mean the life of privation that makes the widowhood of caste-women so pitiful a state. Yet the Madigas think a woman leaves this world under fortunate auspices when her husband is left behind to mourn her death.
To facilitate communion with the departed one, a place on the inner wall of the house is painted yellow with saffron; red dots are made on the yellow surface, and a necklace with beads attached is fastened in the middle of it. This becomes the shrine of the family, before which they bow every day, and especially when they propose to go on a journey or enter upon any new undertaking.
It is possible that the Perantalu is a local superstition, for I have not found it mentioned in books. Yet it stands in a line with other forms of Saktism. The spirit of a highly-favoured female member of the family is credited with mysterious powers of an occult character, with a control of the secret forces of nature. It is the mother-worship of antiquity in a form that makes it a household institution.
But I would suggest that another element is present in the Perantalu as well as other species of mother-worship found among the Madigas. There is a persistent recurrence of the yellow saffron and red dots everywhere. In the worship of beneficent matris, when fiends and demons are to be propitiated, in the Matangi cult, everywhere the yellow and red markings are a necessary adjunct. Many a time I have seen a stone under a margosa tree, with the markings on the surface, and frequently a necklace of beads hung around it.
Is it not possible that this points to human sacrifice? Both Brahmanism and Buddhism were opposed to human sacrifice, yet with great pertinacity the spilling of human blood, in order to appease the gods, has endured among aboriginal tribes, even down to our own times. The British Government has had to deal with the vestiges of the cruel rites.
The Abbé Dubois, one of the keenest observers of Hindu customs, wrote at the close of last century: “Old men have told me that this horrible custom was still practised when they were young. I have visited several places where these scenes of carnage used to be enacted.” He says there is not a province in India where the inhabitants do not point out to the travellers places where their Rajahs offered up to their idols unfortunate prisoners captured in war. This was one hundred years ago.
In the Kali-Purana the god Siva lays down the rules for blood-offerings. By a human sacrifice, he says, his consort is pleased a thousand years. By the sacrifice of three human beings one hundred thousand years. Kali and Durga, both belonging to the ten great Saktis, are always represented with the evidence of their thirst for blood conspicuous in some way. Perhaps a necklace of human skulls adorns the neck, or the tongue is stretched forth to indicate the thirst for blood. Alas! for the gloom of such worship.
Of the tribe of the Matangas the poet Banabhatta wrote about the year 606 A.D., “Their one religion is offering human flesh to Durga.” Perhaps there was a time when the victims for sacrifice were allowed to escape, and in their stead a stone was painted with yellow saffron to resemble human flesh, and the red marks took the place of the blood that did not flow. It was hoped the thirsty gods would be appeased by this substitute, especially if the reeking blood of goats accompanied it.