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

Notes

281 Notes Introduction 1. A comparative vision of masculinity embracing a female component can be seen in the iconography of Shiva as Ardhanarishvara (lit., the lord who is half woman). For further discussion of Ardhanarishvara, see Goldberg 2002. 2. Left- and right-hand castes are not indigenously identified as such in Telugu, as they are in Tamil; however,Telugu caste groups share attributes of the Tamil-identified left- and right-hand castes, distinguishing between those castes associated with land and those associated with trade, cash, and mobility (Narayana Rao 1986, 142). 3. Women of left-hand castes traditionally used to wear their sari over their right shoulders, rather than over their left shoulders, as women of right-hand castes do and which has now become the standard style. V. Narayana Rao remembers a proverb that identifies the shift when left-hand-caste women began to wear their saris on their left shoulders: “For the caste, right shoulder; for the public, left shoulder”(oral communication ).The proverb suggests that left-hand-caste women wear their saris on the right for ritual,caste purposes; but when they go out into the public,they wear it on the left.Even Gangamma seems to have made the shift, and at least her two Tirupati temple images wear the sari on the left shoulder. 4. These Seven Sisters are not coterminous with the Sanskritic saptamatrikas (lit. seven mothers) who are often identified as wives of the seven rishis and the Pleiades constellation; however, the saptamatrikas share some of the qualities of the gramadevata Seven Sisters, such as “afflicting a fetus or child with disease or death” (Knipe 2005a, 322). Charles Nuckolls reports a reversed configuration of siblings in an Andhra coastal fishing village, where the gramadevata Ramanamma is the only sister of seven brothers (1993). The motif of many brothers and a single sister is common in Indian folklore, more generally (see, for example, “The Song of Subanbali” in Flueckiger 1996). 5. In a nearby village, the names listed by a Gangamma ritual specialist shifted slightly: Gangamma, Mutyalamma, Ankalamma, Yerallamma, Okalamma, Pokalamma, and Matamma. A Golla priest at the Tirupati Dhanakonda Gangamma temple distinguished the Sisters by the geographic range of their protection: “Tirupati is protected Notes to Pages 6–11 282 by four: The first is Pedda Gangamma. No, actually, it’s Ankalamma, that mahatalli [lit., great mother] is our village gramadevata. Second is Pedda Gangamma. She’s just behind her. Then there’s Veshalamma. Mutyalamma is in Giripuram. And then this one [Dhanakonda Gangamma]. For Ankalamma the railway station is the boundary [hadu]. For Veshalamma it’s from there to Balaji Nagar—you know, that’s on university road. From there to near the hill where we go up to Swamy [Venkateshvara], that’s Mutyalamma hadu. For this goddess [Dhanakonda Gangamma], from here to municipal office is her hadu. These four protect us.”Note that the goddesses are both boundary and neighborhood goddesses. 6. For example, the Gangamma who is the caste deity of the Gollas (whose “true” form is coiled jute ropes housed in a trunk) here in Tirupati is considered to be both independent of and one of the Gangamma sisters. 7. In Tamil Nadu, the most well-known of the sisters is Mariamma, who has eclipsed her lesser-known sisters; similarly, in Karnataka,Yellamma is the most important of the sisters. 8. Rigveda 10.90 similarly describes Purusha, the primordial man, with a thousand eyes—as well as a thousand heads and feet—imagery that imagines Purusha as pervading the universe before being sacrificed for the creation of the physical and social worlds. 9.This distinction is visible in the difference between the jatara ugra mukhis built in front of each sister’s temple: Cinna Gangamma’s ugra mukhi bares its teeth, whereas Pedda Gangamma’s open mouth shows no teeth. Their distinction also provides an explanation for why Cinnamma’s temple is the primary site of the jatara; she is the sister whose ugram must be most carefully calibrated and managed. 10. Venkateshvarlu explained in another conversation that Pedda Gangamma was brought to Tirupati in the fifteenth century by the poet Annamacarya from his village of Tallapaka. Cinna Gangamma came in the sixteenth century to observe Pedda Gangamma ’s jatara; she had intended to stay for just four days, but ended up never leaving. 11. Various spellings of Potu Raju are Pota Raju and (Tamil) Pottu Raja. I thank Don Handelman for our conversations over the years about the...