Politics between gods and worshippers in Jaffna’s Hindu pantheon

By Thulasi Muttulingam

When the peninsula of Jaffna is called to mind, foremost among its iconic images to crop up are likely its colourful temples. The area was always known for its temples but currently more and more are coming up or being refurbished in multi-hued splendour. 

Shimmering temples painted all the colours of the rainbow dot the peninsula. What though are the sociological ramifications behind them? Something more than simple piety as it turns out. It is a process that Indian sociologists term ‘sanskritisation’ and local sociologists have termed ‘vellalarisation’ (imitating the dominant vellalah caste, by the other castes in a quest for social mobility).

Sanskritisation/Vellalarisation

“It is a process of elite formation,” explains Somesasundari Krishnakumar (60), lecturer in history at Jaffna University. “There are some markers of upward social mobility among people, such as economically well-paying jobs, land and prestige. Access to and control of religious and spiritual power is one such marker in this regard.”

In Jaffna, access to and control of religious and spiritual power have long remained in the hands of the dominant vellalah caste, who have denied meaningful engagement in temple worship and management to many of the oppressed castes. 

“Traditionally the oppressed castes were not even allowed entry into temples,” says S.K. Senthilvel (73), a leftist leader and activist who has fought against caste oppression for decades in Jaffna. He adds, “In the 1960s and 70s, a widespread campaign to make temples open their doors to all the castes bore fruit. Yet over time, the marginalised castes preferred to build their own temples when that became economically viable rather than competing for space in the dominating castes’ temples.”

An aspect of this is that the oppressed castes who have always had their own modes of worship to their own clan deities, have in this quest for social mobility and acceptance, sanskritised their deities and modes of worship. 

Sanskritisation is defined by sociologists as ‘the process by which castes placed lower in the caste hierarchy seek upward mobility by emulating the rituals and practices of the upper or dominant castes’.

Thus communities that once worshipped their own clan deities in the open air or under trees have now started building elaborate temples into which only Brahmin priests can enter to do pujas. The Gods they worship have unfortunately not been left out of this ‘development’ process. 

Caste identity markers

“There are many markers to identify your caste in Jaffna including the gods you worship,” explains Somesasundari Krishnakumar, Jaffna history lecturer. “Thus many of the oppressed castes have obliterated their clan deities such as Val-yakkan in the case of the paraiyar community or Annemar in the case of the pallar community in favour of sanskritised gods such as Narayanan and Murugan. This is unfortunate as the pariayar community in particular are the adi-dravidas of the region, the earliest inhabitants who appear to have worshipped a Yakkha God, who has now been erased from our collective memories and history. We are losing bits and pieces of our history through this obliteration process.”

Thiruchelvam Selvamanoharan (38), lecturer on Hindu Civilisation at Jaffna University, reaffirms her view: “The paraiyar community were one of the first communities to give up the god they worshipped. Being the most oppressed caste, they tried hard to do away with markers that could give away their caste identity. The god they worshipped denoted a strong yakkha deity (val means strong), but since he has unfortunately been erased from the people’s collective memory, not much is known about the deity, who almost certainly had some interesting historic origin in Sri Lanka.” Places where the Val-Yakkan deity was worshipped have transformed into Narayanan temples now. In the meantime, even those who have been holding out till now are in the process of changing. In Puttur currently, a Murugan temple is being built. The original deity was Annemar, worshipped by the toddy tapping (nalavar) and agricultural labourer (pallar) castes. Annemar is soon going to be replaced by Murugan and the community explains why: “We decided to upgrade our worship rituals in keeping with the upper castes in the area. Before, they wouldn’t let us take part in their temples festivals because they deemed our worship practices as degrading. We used to worship Annemar under a banyan tree here. We had annual pongal and animal sacrifice festivals which was looked down upon by the upper castes, so in 1985, we stopped the animal sacrifice. “A man from our community, with his mouth tied, would do the pujas for us while our community worshipped. But this too we have come to understand is a sin. Only a Brahmin priest who wears the sacred thread should do pujas. So we are building a big temple now, and once it’s finished, only a Brahmin will be allowed in.”

The community who are mostly agricultural labourers, have been building the temple in fits and starts as the funds are hard to come by. “Some of our people have migrated abroad and they have sent significant sums of money to build the temple, but it is still not enough. It’s been a slow process but we’ll eventually get there.”

They are not blind to the fact that the differences in worship rituals might cost their community dearly. “We’ll be collectively paying the Brahmin priest a salary of Rs. 30,000 per month. Besides that, as per agamic (Sanskritised worship) stipulations, we are building several mini sanctorums around the main temple, housing various other deities. When the Iyer (Brahmin priest) does puja at each of these sanctorums, we will have to shell out Rs. 20s afresh on his puja tray for interceding on our behalf with each deity. Thus we will pay out Rs. 60-100 per person on any given day of worship. In the meantime, we don’t pay anything to our own community priest who does the pujas for us currently. He gets neither a salary nor puja service fees.”

What does the local community priest himself think about all this? He just shrugs and smiles. “The educated and better employed members of our community want this change, so who am I to stand in their way? I lose nothing by it.”

He works as an agricultural labourer to support his family and took over the community’s priestly work from his uncle. “Our family have been the community priests for generations but once the big temple is built, I won’t be able to enter the sanctum sanctorum. Only the Brahmin priest can do that. I have no opinion on it either way. If this is what our developing community members want, let them have it,” he says philosophically.

 

Vellalah Practices

The brahminisation and sanskritisation of temple rituals is not confined to only the oppressed castes however. It is common among the Vellalah caste too. They too had open-air worship practices of stones and tridents under trees – worship practices in which community members including women were able to do the pujas themselves instead of depending on the intercession of a Brahmin priest. Both Somesasundari and Selvamanoharan concur that Sanskritisation as a mainstream process came to Sri Lanka due to the offices of Arumuga Navalar, the 19th century Hindu Revivalist. 

“Hindu revivalism in Sri Lanka predates Buddhist revivalism, both of which were aggressive counter-movements founded to stem the Christian Evangelism sponsored by the Colonial government,” they note.  And while Arumuga Navalar is credited with doing away with some unlikeable practices such as animal sacrifices in mainstream Sri Lankan Hindu worship, he also heavily imported Sanskritised forms of worship, such as the need for agamic temples, Brahmin priests to officiate as the intermediaries between people and their gods, and the denial of access to women and the oppressed castes to such places of worship.

“Before the advent of Hindu revivalism (circa 1840s), most of our worship practices were inclusively open-air and non-agamic,” says Selvamanoharan. “It was this style of worship that had protected Hinduism in the regions from being obliterated as the colonial powers were hostile to the practice of local religions. The Dutch in particular have left behind a legacy as being particularly intolerant and heavy-handed in this regard. They might have destroyed temples but they could not destroy the practice of worshipping stones and tridents under trees. 

“It is said that the trident (worshipped as the Vairavar deity) was multifaceted in that the outer bars of the trident could be bent to resemble a cross if the Hollanders came by. If there wasn’t enough time to do this, the men simply picked it up and pretended to be using it as a gardening tool till the Dutch soldiers went away. Post Hindu revivalism, all these Vairavars by lakes and trees became ‘gnana-vairavars’ with temples of their own.”

Women’s access to worship

“To this day on my property, I worship an amman (goddess) under a tree to whom I go up and do pujas myself. I dress her in sarees and flowers and do puja to her to my heart’s content without the intercession of a Brahmin, whom I do not feel the need for. This kind of worship however is becoming increasingly frowned upon. Arumuga Navalar wrote extensively against women doing pujas which has become mainstream thinking now,” says Somesasundari, who is from the Vellalah caste.

“Another aspect of this sanskritisation even among the dominant castes is the renaming of Kannagi Amman temples (corresponding to Pattini Devi worship in the south) as Raja Rajeswari Amman temples. Kannagi Amman worship still prevails in some areas but others have now re-cast the temples as belonging to another goddess – due directly to Navalar’s scorn of the widespread practice of venerating a chettiar caste woman,” says Selvamanoharan. 

“There are famous cases of some of these temple restructurings ending up in bitter litigation at courts, as some of the community worshippers wanted to continue praying to the same deity while others wanted to yank up the deity to a more sanskritically accepted one.” 

There are many forces at play shaping the current sanskritisation process in Jaffna according to Selvamanoharan. During the war years beginning in the eighties, the oppressed castes having recently gained mainstream temple entry, began building their own temples. Brahmin priests who would once have spurned to serve them were afraid of repercussions by the LTTE, which had made it clear that it would not tolerate overt forms of caste oppression. Refusing to serve at lower caste temples fell under this category. Since the communities paid well for their services, some of the Brahmin priests were not particularly averse to these developments anyway.

In the meantime, several people having migrated abroad who now form the diaspora, another societal function of proving to the communities back home how well they are doing abroad came into play. Sponsoring the building of elaborate temple structures including towers (gopurams) and chariots is one of the most visible and acceptable ways of doing this. Money keeps flowing in to build ever-more elaborate temple structures, with the community back home divided on whether this is a good thing or not.

“Some of our elderly people complain they preferred the old ways of open-air worship,” says K. Abirami (42), from the vellalah caste. “All I have to say to them is that we ourselves have moved from huts to small houses to bigger houses which we keep refurbishing with marble floors and decorative walls over time. Why then would we keep the God we worship under a tree? Do we not owe it first to that deity to have the best of abodes we can give him/her? I don’t even know why we are discussing this as a problem. It is not.” And so in Jaffna, while some gods are being effaced, others are gaining ascendancy with elaborate abodes and rituals to exemplify the power invested in them. A power which their worshippers hope will reflect upon them in turn.