Meaning of Muria

[N. Ganesan]

Kond people are Dravidian speakers, Ultimately their name, koND is
related with goND, another central Dravidian speakers in Central
India. Like kOn2Ar in tamil, these all could refer to herders.

Muria also have a Drav. mother tongue, and they are a sub-group within
Gonds. They wear a head gear made up of bison horns and conch shells.
Conch bangles and cowrie shells were important in IVC, and conch shell
cutters are major priests in old Tamil literature whose original title
pArppAr in later periods goes to Vedic experts.

What does Muria signify? In Tamil, the cognate is mUriyar(=strong
people). The online Tamil lexicon: mUri 1. strength; 2. greatness;
3. antiquity;  4. old age; 5. buffalo; 6. ox, bullock; 7. taurus of
the zodiac; 8. hump; For example, the bow broken by Rama to win
Sita's hand is called "mUri vil"(=strong bow) in old literature.

Murias exhibiting buffalo cults would have named themselves as "strong
people". In Tamil and Skt. literature, we read that Mahisha (asura) is
very strong. The mUr-khambam(merkhamb) post where the buffaloes are
tied for sacrifice refers to mahisha myth. In the goddess (ultimately
proto-durga) temples, the post where buffalo is sacrificed if forked,
indicative of the horned mahiSa, and after the sacrifice, the victim's
blood is smeared on the "post" to reinforce the mahiSa identity.

Compare the parallel name "basava" (1) bull 2) man of basavi-devadasi
group) in Kannada. In tamil, vacavan2 is cognate of kan. basava. and
vacavan2 = poli-kALai, steer bull used for "covering" to impregnate.
This vacavan2/vayavan2  is formed from vayam = strength
(Cf. kuyavan2/kucavan2 'potter').

Compare Tamil Lexicon (OTL) entries:

vayam 01 1. power, might; 2. victory, conquest

viRal 01 1. victory; 2. bravery; 3. strength; 4. greatness;
5. distinctive excellence; 6. physical expression of emotion

In Kannada, devadasis are basavis, and tamil sangam
texts call dancing women as viRalis. Both have the
same meaning, "strong women" which has to do with their
auspicious ritual power to convert inauspicious/uncontrolled
things into auspicious/controlled. Karnataka custom of marrying
basavi devadasis to bulls (Nandin) in temples may have ancient
antecedents. I've seen Wendy Doniger relating Rishyashringa
myth with Enkidu bull-man tamed by a prostitute,
and Parpola connecting the unicorn of IVC seals (motif
borrowed from Mesopotamia) with Rishyasringa myth. I think
the basavi devadasi marrying basava bulls may ultimately be related.
Like Karnataka, Tamilnadu has the custom of marrying
devadasis to stones (called nATTukkal), and let's see
how people adapt when high govt. authorities and Chr.
missionaries want to ban the ancient tradition:
<<<
"But by far the the most sorrow laden hour was spent in
the village from which the little child was taken to
the temple near our home ... they chained her fair
young body to the cold and cruel stone ... married
her to the god" (Carmichael 1907).
In the 1920s, interim legislation was passed forbidding
the dedication of minors. This meant that if a girl
were to be dedicated before puberty some other type of
ceremony had to be devised. The need for dedication
before puberty was a very real concern for the isai
vellala [farmers of music -NG] community who introduced
a practice known euphemistically as the "Rose Garland
Ceremony"(rOjA-pU-mAlai). This consisted of a rose garland,
with the symbol of the marriage, the pottu, hidden in it,
being placed around the neck of the young girl to be
dedicated. Dedication continued, usually in secret
from the authorities, but with the knowledge of the temple
authorities and the local townsfolk and villagers
(Amrit Srinivasan 1984).
>>
(p. 30, A-M. Gaston, Bharata Natyam: From temple to theater,1997).

Muuriya/Muria also means buffalo, bull, strong man, just as
basava/vacavan2 in South Dravidian. Ultimately, mUriyar, buffalos,
and basavis are sacrifices in one sense.

Regards,
N. Ganesan

In a thread, Proto-Siva started by me in 1996, I've been
educated by scholars including M. Rabe and M. Witzel.

There, on 3 Dec 1996 AmitaSarin at aol.com wrote:
<<<
Has anyone ever noted the similarity between the Proto-Siva on the
Indus seals and the Bison-horn Maria?  The headdress of the seated
figure is exactly like those worn by the Maria Gonds in Central India.
It is composed of bison horns with a long tuft of peacock feathers
between them.  Although these tribes now live in the jungles of
Central India, their ancestors probably lived all over the
sub-continent, perhaps even in the Indus Valley in the third
millenium B.C.>>
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