[INDOLOGY] Brahmin Priestesses

[palaniappa at aol.com]

Dear Indologists,




The Cilappatikāram, the Tamil epic, has a character named Tēvanti/Tāvantikai.  She was a brahmin and was a friend of the heroine, Kaṇṇaki. She married Cāttaṉ, a god in human form. Eight years after marriage, he revealed to her his real nature and left her asking her to come to his temple. Accordingly, she worshipped at the temple of Cāttaṉ. At the end of the epic, when  the temple to Kaṇṇaki is inaugurated, Tēvantikai, under possession by Cāttaṉ, Tēvantikai entered a trance and danced and Cāttaṉ spoke through her. Later, the Cēra king Ceṅkuṭṭuvaṉ established a grant for worship and daily celebration at the Kaṇṇaki temple and appointed her to offer flowers, incense, and fragrances at the temple. After worshipping Kaṇṇaki, the king and others including a brahmin named Māṭalaṉ entered a separate sacrificial hall where Tēvantikai again spoke as an oracle.


It is clear that Tēvanti was being appointed as a priestess in the temple. Earlier in the epic, a priestess of the Koṟṟavai (cāliṉi) is mentioned. She belonged to the non-brahmin hunter community. She also entered a trance, danced ecstatically, and spoke as an oracle. What Iḷaṅkō, the author, seems to be doing is documenting a particular phase of transitioning of non-brahminical religious rituals to brahminical rituals in the Tamil country when brahmin females served as priestesses before being replaced by brahmin male priests. 


This proposition is further strengthened by the name Tēvanti/Tēvantikai. Iḷaṅkō names some characters with generic/class names as proper names. For example, the father of the hero, Kōvalaṉ, is called Mācāttuvaṉ, which name simply means 'the great one with caravans'. Similarly the father of Kaṇṇaki is called Mānāykaṉ, which name means 'the great one with ships'. Both refer to different types of merchants. We have to add Tēvanti/Tēvantikai also to this category of names. The name Tēvanti/Tēvantikai can be derived from Skt. *devavandhyā with the loss of 'va' due to haplology. As Tamil Lexicon show, Sanskrit vandhyā can be Tamilized as vanti or vantiyai. Also we know Skt. -yā can be Tamilized as -kai as in Skt. kanyā > Ta. kaṉṉikai and Skt. ahalyā > Ta. akalikai.  So, Skt. vandhyā > Ta. vantikai.  


Skt. vandhyā means 'barren or childless woman'. (A later Tamil text, the Tiruviḷaiyāṭal Purāṇam of Parañcōti, presents a character named Vanti, a childless woman, from Madurai.) Having childless woman as priestesses seemed to be an ancient Tamil custom. In Puṟanāṉūṟu 372, we come across such a priestess whom George Hart refers to in his translation as 'barren sacrificial priestess'.


Thus the name Tēvanti < devavandhyā seems to suggest a class of women who served as priestesses.  And brahmin Tēvanti in Cilappatikāram seems to indicate the presence of brahmin priestesses in an earlier phase of transition from non-brahmin religious ritualists to brahmin ritualists.


I would like to know if there are instances of such brahmin priestesses from other parts of India in early centuries CE.


Thanks in advance


Regards,
Palaniappan


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