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SEPTEMBER, 1881.]
LOCAL GODDESSES OF INDIA.
245
THE DIVINE MOTHERS OR LOCAL GODDESSES OF INDIA.
BY MAJOR E. W. WEST. TN a former volume of this journal' Professor temple of Amb, or AmbA Bhavani, as she 1 Monier Williams threw ont some suggestive is sometimes termed, situated in the State of remarks regarding the deities worshipped as Dánta in the north of the Mahi Kantha, attracts mothers, and I was glad to find that the opinion thousands of worshippers from all points of the which I had always held, to the effect that these compass, and a full account of it will be are aboriginal, or at least pre-Hindu deities, was found in Rás Málá,' and the Bombay Gazel. supported by such high authority. I observe, teer, vol. V, p. 432. She has a shrine at Anjar however, that no further notice has been taken in Kachh, and again in Kolhapur, we find that of the subject in this journal, and that no the most famous temple in the place, which has response has been given to the appeal made by passed successively from Jains to orthodox the learned Professor. I draw attention now Hindus, is still generally called the temple of to the subject in the hope that further informa- Ambêbai, and was probably originally dedition may be elicited, and I contribute a few cated to that pre-Aryan goddess, who is now notices of the principal seats of worship of some identified at Kolhapur with Mahalakshmi, as she of the mothers or places named after them. If is in Gujarât with Bhavåni. Some particulars my example is followed, it will be possible to about this temple will be found in Grabam's ascertain how far the worship of each goddess | Statistical Account of Kolhapur. extended, and in this way some light may Yellamma or Ellammâ is a very favourite possibly be thrown on the local distribution of goddess in the Canarese country, and judging tribes and races anterior to the Aryan invasion from the company she keeps, or rather from of India, or perhaps on the migration of Aryan the classes that worship her, she is not a very tribes and races who adopted the worship of repatable one. In a list of the wandering tribes these goddesses.
of Kolhapur given at p. 130 of the work above As far as I can ascertain, the worship of quoted, she is given as the patron-goddess of Hingl& z' seems to have been the most widely no less than three of these tribes, viz., the Domextended of all in Western India. The present baris, the Gols, and the Ganthi-chors, Admiralty Chart of the Persian Gulf shews a who earn their livelihood respectively by prostemple of Hinglå z on the Mekran coast titating girls, by making kunku and beads, and which seems to be a well-known landmark. by picking pockets. I subjoin & cutting from a Todo speaks of this as a favourite resort for newspaper regarding a temple of this goddess, pilgrims among the old Rajpûts, and also refers which I find in a note-book. Is the extraordi. to a place of the same name in Rajpatana, nary practice therein referred to still kept up? which was taken by Lord Lake's army. I remember reading of a similar practice Coming down to the Dekhan we find in the observed by women in Maisar or Kodag (Coorg) Kolhapur State a Mamlatdar's district called which is noted by Mr. R. E. Elliot in his EGadh Hingla , so named from the head- periences of a Planter, but I have mislaid the quarter station, which derives its name from a reference: shrine of the goddess. From a recent paper "A Hindu Temple in the Jat Jahagir.-A in this journals it appears that Hinglaj is the correspondent of a Mufassal paper states that favourite goddess of the Telirâjâs.
there is a temple of the goddess Ellammâ about Very nearly as extensive in range seems to & mile distant from the town of Jat, in the Jat have been the worship of Ambâ Mâta. Jahậgir. An annual fair is held in honour of this There is a temple dedicated to her in Məwad, idol at which about ten thousand people assemat Udaipur if I remember rightly. The famous ble. It has been held there for the last fourteen
Ind. Ant., vol. VII, p. 211. . It seems possible that Hinglas may have been not an indigenous, but an imported deity, introduoed by the Kshattriyus.
a Rajasthan, vol. II, pp. 5 and 572 (Madrus reprint). • Ib., p. 658. • Vol. IX, p. 280.
• To mark, I believe, that she has been brought into the Hindu Pantheon.
New edition, pp. 321 et seq.
Selection from Bombay Government Records, New Series, No. VIII, pp. 817-18.
She is the same was the RenakAdév1 of the Marath, de-ED.
