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DEC. 6, 1872.]
ARCHÆOLOGY IN THE KRISHNA DISTRICT.
373
fernale energy and creative or productive power, as a the Saktas, and linked them as consorts of the part and distinct from, and yet intimately connected deitics, and invested them with all the attributes with, Almighty power. I have found several images most calculated to terrify and alarm. Such are of this kind which appear to be of considerable Kali, Durga, and Bhavani in the north. Such are antiquity, and the form represented is the same in the village goddesses throughout Southern India. each, a female figure with four arms holding in each In nearly every village we find some special fernale hand a sword, a mallet, a trident, and a chakra. divinity of the kind : a Poleramma, or Aukamma, These figures have been turned out of the temples. or Gangånamma. And if Brahmans and Vais'yns They are not regarded as the consorts of Vishnu frequent Vaishnava and Saiva shrines, the great bulk and Siva, and the people call ihen village goddesses, of the lowest classes confine their religious exercises and give them the names of Aukamma in one vil to the propitiation of evil in the offerings made at
the temple of some local female divinity. met with two in Bapatla (one in the chief street, It may not be out of place to mention here an the other near the kacheri), another at Dachipalli experience of my own. It will show how associanear the kacheri, and the fourth at Tenali in the tions gather, and also how the popular mind deWeavers' street, beside a collection of snake' stones lights to associate the human element with its rude and sculptured figures which re-call their Scythic conceptions of a Supreme Power. In the village of costume. There are four stones near the kacher Nandigama in the Krishna Bistrict, one early mornat Bapatla, one the female figure, a second repre- ing I was visiting the temples as I often do, and sents a full length female figure with a glory round looking for antiquities, when I came upon a new its head; on the third there are a few Telugu lettersshed in a line with two others. On inquiry I was sculptured of forins now obsolete ; on the top of inforined that this was a temple dedicated to a new the fourth stone there is represented a circle depict- village goddess named, I think, Poleramma. I was ed by & serpent having its tail in its mouth, and further informed that she was, in fact, a rayat's wife within the circle are portrayed two pairs of foot- who lately lived in the village, and was murdered prints. The circle is only about a foot in diameter; by her husband. He was tried for the offence, but on the side of the same stone are sculptured four was acquicted. The popular rustic mind at once standing figures in striking attitudes. The people conceived the idea of adopting this unhappy woman say these are Palnati Viralu, or Paload heroes. The as the personification of unsatiated vengeance. An Viralu, I may remark in passing, have a temple image was made to represent her, and in her hands dedicated to them at Karempudi in the Palnad. The was placed a sword, and she was installed hencehundred heroes are here represented each by smooth forth as the village goddess. Strange to say, an stones of the stream" well waterworn, and these are image of her husband, who is living to the present ranged round the temple. There are also some day in the village, was added and placed by her iron trophies in the temple. There is an annual side. festival held in November, which is very nuner- Perhaps the worship paid to the spirits of murously attended. It is observed exclusively by the dered persons, or those who have left behind them lower order of the people. Whether there is any an evil memory, is analogous to the belief in Euconnection really between these Viralu and the rope of ghosts haunting particular spots. It appears sculptures at Bapatla, I cannot say; but in the en- a common notion among all nations in all ages. closure of a Sivalayam, dedicated to the title of Mr. Walhouse, Judge of Mangalor, South Kanara, Agastes'varasvâmî, on the bank of the red tank at informs me that Bhuta worship is the really preGuntur, there is a stone which has a striking resem- valent cult in that district, and half the Bhutas are blance to the one at Bapatla. On the top are por- the spirits of murdered or notoriously evil-lived trayed two pairs of footprints, and on one side there persons. It assumes the character of propitiatory are standing figures. The stone has been broken. worship. New village deities are thus continually Near it there are several snake stones and other springing up. Mr. Walhouse mentions & curious stones with figures which appear to belong to a pre- instance which came under his own observation in Brahmanic age.
Trichinapali. A much dreaded dacoit was killed, Connected with the worship of the s'aktas, as the and after his death became a fashionable Bhut, and female personifications of creative power, fecundity, half the children born were named after him. So, and fertility, we have the worship of Bhu Devi, the too, Dr. Caldwell, in his Comparative Grammar of earth goddess, so general throughout Central and the Dravidian languages, relates a very curious Southern India, celebrated by the Khonds with bu- illustration of the same sentiment. In some lonely man sacrifice, and by other classes with slaughter wild spot of the Tinnevelli District there is the of cattle. We find the worship prevalent among grave of a European Officer. In life, he appears to many wild tribes and among the Pariahg. It is have made himself obnoxious to the natives, and evidently a very ancient form of religion.
to have been greatly dreaded. To this date it is a Among the lowest orders, where the densest custom to offer spirits and cigars upon his grave. ignorance prevails, the idea of deity is still inti- But to return to the idea of serpent worship, and mately associated with fear and dread, and so they its connection with the several phases of religion in have taken the personifications of female energy, India -To this day the serpent may be still round
