Goddess Ellammaa

[RM. Krishnan]

At 04:55 PM 2/3/01 +0000, you wrote:


>In Karnataka and in temples like Periyapalayam
>in AP near Madras,

Periayapalayam is in TN only. The Goddess is now-a-days called Bavani
Amman. In the Month of Adi, especially all the four days of Adi VeLLi, it
is a sea of humanity. Huge numbers of Tamilians (irrespective the caste
origins, including Brahmins) visit there and fulfill their vows. The vow
could be for anything like marriage, getting cured from various kinds of
'Ammai', getting well in life. etc. It must have been a tribal practice for
centuries in the ThoNdai maNdalam region of the North Tamilnadu. The temple
situated on the banks of the river AraNi is slowly getting brahminized, as
elsewhere.

Still the original practice of devotees, after taking bath in the river,
(now-a-days, the river is dry most of the times; hence people pail water
from the dug-out pits in the river bed) going around the temple three times
and wearing neem leaves is still going on. People also bring goats and
domestic fowl as offerings and leave and sacrifice them here. Thousands
also make 'Pongal' here. Some also cook the slaughtered animals by the
wayside and offer to guests and relatives who have assembled there, along
with the Pongal. The temple appears to be a 'Pallipadai, if you look at
Sanctum Sanctorum.  It is a place to be visited during the month of Adi.

In Tamilnadu, as elsewhere in India, the tribal temples slowly get
converted to brahminized practices; initially half way with the uneasy
practice of braminized customs and non-braminized customs existing side by
side with a paNdAram offering Araththi to the godess. After some number of
years (this could be even few decades), the brahmin priest takes over from
the paNdAram. Gradually the non-brahmin customs gets modified. For example
the tribal practice of a goat sacrifice will get changed to a bumpkin
breakage (with kunkum paste mimicking blood) Earlier paNdAram would have
poured/sprayed water over the goat and showed Araththi. Now the Brahmin
priest would be spraying water placing camphor over the bumpkin, after
kunkum is smeared over. The bumpkin with burning camphor would be used for
Araththi to ward of evil and it would be broken outside of the temple.

Eventually yAgam and other fire offerings of Brahmins would come along. The
tribal practices will get stopped completely.

With Regards,
irAma.ki.

>girls not wearing clothes but only neem
>leaves visit ellamma temple on festive days. Devadasis are
>dedicated in modern Karnataka at the ellammaa temples.
>
>In Tamil, the root "el-" means bright, light, auspicious.
>ellavan2 = 'sun, moon'. 'ellappa nAvalar' was a
>famous poet. 'ellALan' was a Tamil king of Lanka
>mentioned in Sinhala chronicles like Mahavamsa.
>reNu means pollen which is yellow like turmeric,
>paddy and gold, all auspicious substances. In the sanskritization
>from ellammaa, the meaning 'light, auspicious' is
>translated and rendered as reNukA.
>
>Would be grateful for publications dealing with legends of
>the goddess ellamma/reNukaadevi,
>N. Ganesan