Kaval Deivam in TN

Kaval Deivam in TN
Worship of village deities is very popular in Tamil Nadu and is much ancient than Vedic worship. It dates back to the Sangam age and represents the oldes dravian way of worship. Most of these village deities have their shrines on the outskirts of the village as a representation of their village guardian position. These village deities are either represented in the form of a huge fierceful statue or as a simple stone. Most of these temples are not closed premises and simple and small worship areas. Weapons such as a trident or a lance are also associated with these shrines. We also see lots of terracotta horses and bells. Most officiating priests are non-Brahmins and derive from local lineages that had initiated the cult centers generations ago. The worship pattern is non-vedic and is associated with sacrificial offerings of food, and even animals such as chicken, goat and pig, for favors. In return the local priest might offer flowers or Veeputi (holy ash) to the worshippers. The village deities in Tamil Nadu have interesting stories behind them. Mainly these village gods come under one of the three categories.
1. Forces or elements which people were scared with. Munishswaran-muni in olden days was associated with killing people, drinking blood, doing mischievous things, brining in ill effect, etc, Karuppanaaswamy (“Karupu” means black in tamil and is associated with dark, night, etc), Katerri amman (“Katerri” means vampire), Peichi amman (“Pei” means devil), Sudalai maadan swamy (“Sudalai” means burial ground/pyre and “Sudalai maadan” means guardian of burial ground). Kali was considered as the causative force for cholera, Maari was considered as a causative force for smallpox, chicken pox, mumps and measles (Maari in Tamil means rain and since the rainfall cooled the otherwise hot area and protected people from summer sicknesses like viral infections, people started worshiping the rain goddess as Maariamman). The “Ellai amman” worshiped in many villages is actually a mile stone which demarcated the boundaries of two villages. In olden days people when they travel from one village to another village started relaxing near these stones and in due course started paying to them for safe journey. Thus, slowly these mile stones attained the position of village goddess.
2. The second category includes people who lived and lost their lives for their community and hence their community members still remembered them and worship them. This group also includes persons who were killed by injustice and hence were worshiped in order to save the village from their wrath. The worship for the fallen brave warriors is one of the popular forms of worship in early Tamil poetry2 'tolkAppijam' gives an elaborate description in six stages in the planting of stone, beginning with looking for a suitable stone and ending in the institution of formal worship. The portrait of the hero is often decorated with peacock feathers. Some poems refer to spears and shields erected around the planted stones. Offering of Naravam (toddy = alcohol) to the spirit of the fallen hero, represented in the planted stone, is mentioned in some verses. During latter period these “nadukals” became Ayyanar shrines. Other warrior gods include Madurai veeran (who lived near Madurai), Kaathavarayan (who lived near Tanjavore) and Annammar swamigal (who lived near Coimbatore). The "Thee paanch ammman” temples in northern part of TN were basically built to worship widows who were brunt with their husbands funeral pyre as part of "Saathi". “Maachani amman” temple at Polaachi was built to worship a young girl who was killed by a “Kongu” king since she unknowingly ate a mango from his garden. The “Palayanoor Neeli” was girl who was betrayed and cunningly killed by her husband and who took revenge by killing him in her next birth. Further, several love pairs who have lost their lives due to caste animosity are also being worshipped as village deities in several villages.
3. The third category is certain less spoken characters in the great epic of Ramayana and Mahabharata. Like you see lots of temples for Draupathi (Panchali) and Darmaraja (yuthistran) in the Northern parts of TN. You also see temples for Kanthari (mother of kouravas), Kunthi (mother of Pancha Pandavas) and Arravan (the son of Arjuna and the Manipuri princesses Chitrankatha) in TN.
Sanskritization of village deities:
During the bakthi movement in TN (mainly Adishankara’s Advaitha philosophy) many of these village deities slowly got enfolded into the main stream Hindu religion and thus gained the status of demi-gods. Thus, the various forms of Muniswaras were incarnated as the vedic Saptharishis and their successors (“Muni” in Sanskrit means sage and since sages were very popular during Vedic period it was easy to incarnate munishswarans as the fierceful form of sages who accompanied goddess Durga (in the form of Pachai amman) during her fight with a demon king). The Kerala Sastha became Hariharaputra and the TN village deity Ayyanar became another incarnation of Sastha or Ayyapan1. The incarnation of Sudali maadan as Siva’s son is not very popular. It was easier for the Village goddesses to get enfolded into the main stream since all of them were considered as various manifestations of goddess “Sakthi”. Thus the various forms of Kali and Maariammans were considered as various incarnations of goddess Parvathi. It was much difficult for the male counterparts to enter the mainstream since it means establishing an association with a Vedic male god. Since there were two main Vedic gods namely Siva and Vishnu, it was difficult to choose between them. For example, there is no story what so ever with respect to “Perianndavar” who is a popular family deity in north TN.
Reff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayyanar
http://www.tamilnation.org/heritage/velupillai.htm