World of Philosophy

SR No.: 007005
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan
Publication Year: 2011
Total Pages: 1002
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 30 MB

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prostrate themselves in the muddied earth. Whether in the village or at her large temples her worship is considered a "community effort."
In the later half of the twentieth, on into the beginnings of the twentyfirst century Mariyamman's worship has expanded from the villages into the cities, and her identity has grown to accommodate the differing devotees. Younger notes the diverse worshipers at the Samayapuram temple festival in the late 1970's, villagers, city dwellers, and those who held the ideologies of the "non Brahmana" politics expressed by the likes of the DMK party find support and expression in Mariyamman. The festival both affirms the long village history with its caste and kinship roots, as well as the contemporary issues of modern urban life and political identity.
In the years since Younger wrote of his visit to the Samayapuram temple it has continued to grow to be one of the wealthiest temples in south India. In and around Chennai Amman temples have been renovated while she has been recast to reflect the rising middle-class. Those temples are clean and comfortable with overhead fans. The goddess tended by Brahmin priests has become vegetarian. In these temples equipped with bourgeois comforts her beneficence often over shadows her ferocity, her foul mouth, and her riff-raff devotees. Samayapuram still has possessed worshipers "danced by the goddess" en route to the inner sanctum, but the impoverished and malformed seriously ill beggars who reside on the temple grounds have begun to be sequestered to a different private section of the temple, thus saving bourgeois pilgrims from suffering their sight. Still, she maintains the place of one who blurs the distinctions of identity, whether it be via possession, or the contemporary middle-class effort to form a multi-caste community.
Devi Means "Goddess," Devi Means "Lady"
The goddess of the Indian subcontinent is one of (if not the) oldest uninterrupted extant traditions in the world. In a generalized way she can be classified within the categories of either the beautiful, refined, dutiful wife, or the autonomous goddess who is ferocious, volatile, and often dripping with blood. There is a fluidity within these camps, the good wife creates the chaotic devis out of her rage, the wild goddess becomes tamed by her male consort. As mentioned above Mariyamman, even unmarried, is a mix of beautiful beneficence and ferocity. Her worshippers may appreciate a connection between her and Kali, but are quick to point out her other side; the Samayapuram Mariyamman for example, is young and beautiful, adorned with garlands and jewels.
All women are said to contain shakti, the power that is the goddess which animates the world. A common motif in Siva lore is that without the goddess Shakti he would be shava, a corpse. A husband is supposed to view his wife as Shakti, while she in turn is supposed to worship him as her lord.
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