When the World Becomes Female: Guises of a South Indian Goddess

8. The Goddess Served and Lost: Tatayyagunta Mudaliars

180 THE GODDESS SERVED AND LOST: TATAYYAGUNTA MUDALIARS The first year I participated in Gangamma jatara in 1992, a female, middle -aged,gracefully moving attendant was serving Cinna Gangamma in her Tatayyagunta temple. She was assisted by a male in the inner sanctum itself, and several other women were running in and out with various supplies and helping keep the temple precincts clean. A female presence and authority in a gramadevata temple was not unexpected,since gramadevatas are traditionally served by non-Brahman men or women.With the high energy of jatara rituals taking place in the temple courtyard (visiting veshams, pongal preparations , children beating the cement feet of the goddess in the courtyard, and chicken sacrifices), we paid little attention to the woman serving inside the temple. However, the next year, her absence was immediately palpable. We learned from the temple flower sellers that, in the intervening year, the Temple Endowments Department had taken over administration of Tatayyagunta temple (presumably because of the increased income generated by the jatara) and replaced the primary female attendant with Brahman male priests. The change of personnel had brought with it changes in daily and festival rituals, which now included the recitation of Sanskrit mantras, 8 The Goddess Served and Lost 181 performance of homam (fire sacrifice), and the sale of archana tickets (a puja ritual performed on behalf of an individual worshipper and his/her family and gotra lineage). Most of the women who had served the goddess in temple grounds’ upkeep and otherwise had helped to maintain some “order” in the temple (including crowd control in the long lines waiting for darshan of the goddess during the jatara) had been hired as employees of the Tattaiahgunta Devasthanam (spelling of the official name of the temple committee administering this temple) and continued their work in the temple, but they lamented the absence of the matriarch they call Amma. Her given name is Kamakoteshvari; to keep it simple and at the same time be respectful, I will call her Koteshvaramma,employing the familiar and honorific suffix -amma. I returned to Tirupati in 1995 for the jatara and was surprised to see Koteshvaramma back in the temple again, distributing prasad of sweet pongal to a large throng of women crowded in front of the inner shrine room. Women were touching her feet and taking her blessings.The flower sellers ran up to me as I entered the courtyard, exclaiming that I had returned on a particularly auspicious day, since my return coincided with Koteshvaramma ’s return.They explained that she had been absent for two years due to a court case over her family’s mirasi over the temple. But she had, they said, returned to the temple for this year’s jatara—due to “popular demand”— for the first time since she had been replaced by Brahman male priests. Jatara celebrants had complained that the male priests didn’t know how to decorate the goddess and had made her look like a Bollywood movie star.1 One of the female groundskeepers explained the sight we were witnessing: “Women touch Amma’s feet because she’s had contact with the goddess, and her family has served the goddess for generations. By touching her feet, we, too, can receive some punyam [merit] and blessings. We’ve been touching her feet for the last ten years,morning and evening,and have been blessed with children and other blessings.” Koteshvaramma stayed in the temple over ten hours that first day of her return, performing the auspicious abhishekam on the first day of the jatara, taking great care in decorating the goddess, and handing out prasad to (primarily) female worshippers. On this day, she was assisted by the male assistant whom we had seen in 1992. But one of the female devotees observing the abhishekam with us said, “Particularly for this goddess, only women should perform puja. All these men are only as *support.* Only THOSE WHO BEAR THE GODDESS 182 Amma should do the abhishekam, apply pasupu, and dress her in saris. Even if the men actually do these duties, she must stand there; at least she has to put a flower on the goddess, as if she was the one performing all this.” However, the matriarch’s return was temporary; this jatara was she last time she entered the temple. She said it was too heart-breaking to enter the temple after that (when...