Dravidian Gods in Modern Hinduism ly 



to the common term of "Village Deities" for these Dravidian 

 gods. Even when one god is found in many places, the people 

 never think of it as a general god with world relations, but only 

 as their local deity. 



Again, these gods are almost always propitiated with bloody or 

 animal sacrifices, but this is not the case with true Hindu gods. 

 Because of these bloody sacrifices, and also for historical reasons, 

 the pujari, or priest, is very rarely a Brahman. The Dravidian 

 deities, moreover, are commonly of the female sex, in contrast to 

 the mascuHne nature of the Hindu gods. 



In India there are exceptions to all rules, and so every one of 

 the above tests will be found to fail at times. But the whole char- 

 acter of these Dravidian deities and their worship is so marked, 

 that there is no danger of confusing the two.^ The people them- 

 selves commonly distinguish between the gods of Dravidian and of 

 Hindu origin, although they cannot tell what is the basis of their 

 classification. It is a striking phenomenon that after centuries of 

 close contact and definite efforts to amalgamate the two cults, the 

 breach seems almost as wide to-day as ever it was, as far as rites 

 and basic beliefs are concerned.^ 



5 Manual of Administration of the Madras Presidency, I, p. 70. divides 

 the deities of India into three classes: (i) Brahmanic deities, (2) Aborigi- 

 nal deities, and (3) Deities which are a combination of these two. In the 

 case of the last-named deities it is not difficult to trace their origin either 

 to Brahmanic or aboriginal sources, and to discover how the other ele- 

 ment has been added. 



« The Gazetteer of South Arcot District, I, p. 375, gives a strange in- 

 stance of an exception to the rule that these gods are female. In the town 

 of Kuvnakkam is a god named Aravan. There is a tradition concerning 

 him which is found in the Tamil version of the Mahabharata, but not in the 

 Sanskrit original, that Aravan was a man who offered his life as a sacri- 

 fice to assist the Pandavas when they were in despair because their enemies 

 had offered a white elephant. He was deified, and now men dress as 

 women at his festival, vow to marry him, and bewail him as their husband. 

 This is without doubt Dravidian, even though the god is not female. 

 Other exceptions will be noticed in the various descriptions of the deities. 



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