Jain Spirit 2002 10 No 12

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 38

ART & LITERATURE
KULDEVI PROTECTS
Mira Kamdar explains the importance of the kuldevi to their family, illustrating how modernity has impacted ancient heritage
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Worshipping the Kuldevi (clan goddess)
ISTIN HOIS
T WAS NOT IN GOKHLANA THAT I GOT THE STRONGEST sense of the world of my grandmother's girlhood. This happened during a trip she and I made together, just the two of us, to visit the kuldevi, the clan goddess temple of the Kamdars, Motiba's in-laws. Thinking back on that trip, I realise that Motiba was initiating me, her granddaughter, into the world of the family's women, which is also the world of the ahistorical past, the past that exists as ritual, belief and symbol; the past that flows in the blood, that is expressed in ways we are barely conscious of, more feeling than knowing what it is; the past that keeps a distinct people together as a tribe through the predations of flight, war, famine or even prosperity. Motiba's own family, the Kharas, were rather strict in their adherence to the Jain teachings of Rajachandra and his acolytes. They had little patience with non-Jain beliefs, including the worship of ancient clan goddesses. Motiba's in-laws, the Kamdars, were different, and my grandfather in particular maintained a strong attachment to the family's clan goddess. Yet, it was clear that Motiba was quite happy to take me to visit the Kamdar kuldevi temple. My grandfather, Prabhudas Kamdar, had recently passed away. Perhaps Motiba thought the time was right to introduce me to the land of my
forefathers.
The Kamdar kuldevi is Ashapura Devi, the goddess capable of realising all hopes. She is a powerful yet benevolent deity in the form of a beautiful mother seated
36 Jain Spirit September November 2002 Jain Education International 2010_03
sidesaddle upon a she-camel. True to the maternal ideal, she is tender and generous towards her children yet utterly ferocious when it comes to protecting them from harm. The priest at our kuldevi temple tells the story of the difficult migration our clan undertook, fleeing before the wrath of conversion-bent Muslims down from the steppes of Central Asia, over the deserts of Sindh and Kutch, before arriving finally in Kathiawar. "In the desert, there was no water. Mataji provided water to our tribe. We survived. The Muslims couldn't find any water, and they all died." Such are the legends the priest recites about the nurturing and protection Ashapura Devi offered to our tribe in an us-against-them world.
Until just twenty years ago, our kuldevi was worshipped in the form of some ovoid orange-painted stones that, according to legend, had been carried from place to place along the route of the tribe's migrations in an old wooden baby cradle. Today the baby cradle, full of sacred stones, sits at the feet of a gorgeous marble image of Ashapura Devi in an elaborate temple complex, but when my father was a child, it was housed in a small mud-and-thatch shrine. In those days, the village elders were personally known to my grandfather. Out of respect, he called the men bapu, father, a term of respect, and the women ba, mother. The villagers of Thorala are garasias, people of royal descent or who were rewarded by grants of land for loyal service to one of the Rajput kings of Kathi princes. As such they were to be treated with the highest respect. They had a reputation of being prone to violent disputes among themselves, a result of their war-loving nature.
As recently as the 1930s, family members used to travel from Jetpur to Thorala by bullock cart. They would leave at three in the morning and arrive three hours later, at dawn. The day before, my grandfather would send, also by bullock cart, huge barrels of laddus, sweets, and ganthiya, snacks of fried chickpea batter. They would offer these special foods to the goddess, pray to her, perform any rituals that needed to be performed, and then, once the food had received her blessing, distribute it to the villagers. In those days, my grandfather and the other most senior members of the