3.1. Chindi (Caṇḍīka) Devi
We set camp in a damp building with walls in dire need of plastering at the edge of an apple orchard that stretched above us on a hill. Apple packing for wholesale markets in the plains seemed to have replaced rice planting as the agricultural activity of choice, and a quick stroll along the road soon brought the familiar fields of Karsog into sight. Our dwellings were some two kilometers away from the village of Chindi, which spread west from the temple of the goddess
Ciṇḍī (alias “
Caṇḍīka”) on the high point of the ridge.
12 Although there were no written sources to work from to construct the goddess’s history during our visit, becoming regulars in the chai shop opposite the temple helped overcome this lacuna in knowledge.
During our two weeks in Chindi, morning hours were mostly spent conducting interviews with locals and travelers at the chai shop, from whom we gathered abundant information about the site. We learned that the goddess was a form of Durgā, the undisputed ruler of the area and emphatically juxtaposed with Kāmākśā of the lower valley, whom locals equated with Kālī. This identity was evinced in her strict “vegetarianism”, that is, non-acceptance of blood sacrifices. We were also told that she was a “mountain girl” (pahāṛī laṛkī) who had originally reached Chindi via the Jalori Pass that leads into Kullu. The owner of the chai shop, an elderly woman from Lahaul who had eloped many years ago with her now-deceased husband to resettle in Chindi, was particularly proud to inform us that the goddess had never married, no doubt reverberating her own experience as a young escapee from the northern regions.
Like the answers that we had received in the valley below, the patrons and proprietors of the chai shop claimed that the goddess visited people in their dreams. Her form was almost always that of a virgin (kanyā kā rūp), who was exceedingly beautiful (khūbsūrat), wore a red dress, and was bedecked with golden jewelry. However, in certain cases, she might appear dark and horrid with flies hovering around her, a sure indication of impending death. Regardless of form, the meetings with the goddess were universally described as elusive, fleeting moments, “like the wind blowing through the bazaar (maṇḍī kī havā)”. While this input was promising insofar as it was consistent with descriptions of the goddess and celestial encounters in other parts of South Asia, our hopes of capturing on film the goddess that inhabited peoples’ minds remained rather slim. We decided to enquire further with the temple officiates.
In keeping with the structure of the “devtā system” (
Sax 2003;
Sutherland 2003), the sovereign goddess of Chindi ruled through an entourage of “god people” (
devtā log) that included a chief administrator (
kārdār), an official spokesperson or medium (
gur), and several other functionaries from the community. The charismatic medium is usually the most important of these officials in the sense that he embodies the deity in ritual activities and can be approached for help and guidance by members of the community. As we later found out, local tradition holds that the mediums of Chindi were descended from an ancestor who had been visited by the goddess many years ago (
Harnot 1991, pp. 102–3).
The story goes that the ancestor, a farmer from the village of Churag (halfway between Chindi and Mahunag), had heard a knock on the door one night, and when he opened it, he found a beautiful, lonesome girl (
kanyā) asking for assistance. He offered her food, drink, and a bed for the night, and although the child never touched her food, she did drink amply of the milk (an indication of her followers’ association with Vaiṣṇavism). After they went to bed, the goddess, impressed with her host’s kindness, appeared to him in a dream. She introduced herself as “Durgā Bhagvatī” and offered to stay and protect him and his neighbors provided they build her a temple (
Harnot 1991, p. 102).
The farmer started from his sleep and immediately went looking for the girl, but her bed was empty. He looked outside and saw nothing at first, but then heard a gentle tap of footsteps. He followed the sound all the way along the ridge until he reached the site where the temple currently stands, where the tapping suddenly stopped. Looking down towards the ground, he found a stone statue of the goddess that is now enshrined in the temple (the image was covered in cloth during our visit and so could not be made out in detail). The farmer told his neighbors about the encounter, had a temple built in her honor, and became her official spokesperson, a role that has passed in his lineage ever since (
Harnot 1991, p. 103).
Somewhat oddly, the current medium ignored this story altogether in his account of the goddess’s history. A householder in his mid-30s, Jyoti Sharma claimed to have been chosen by the goddess when he was a child. He reports having had severe problems concentrating at school as the goddess would continually call to him and occupy his mind. One night, when he was twelve, he wandered off from his bed and woke up in the goddess’s temple, after which point his identification with her was made complete. Although Sharma admitted that his role passed in the family and that he was thus a “dynastic medium” (khāndānī gur), he seemed to deem his personal connection with the goddess more important to his position than the family credentials that may have helped in establishing it.
The bond between Sharma and the goddess was particularly palpable in his skillful response to our queries. Captivating with his enthusiasm, his narrative of the goddess’s history was delivered with exceptional gusto and charisma.
13 Thus, although we had arrived unannounced, Sharma quickly accommodated our needs by seating himself in the courtyard outside the temple to recount the goddess’s tale (
Figure 4). A circle of listeners—primarily men and young boys—quickly grew around us, listening in and contributing with tales of their own. The story that Sharma presented was far richer in details and decidedly different from the one recorded in print.
According to Sharma, the goddess had migrated from Kullu via the Jalori Pass in an arduous journey that culminated in her installation on the ridge. The tale was consistent with bits and ends that we had gathered from locals in the chai shop but was delivered with an authority that far exceeded the scholarly discourses we had encountered thus far. In Sharma’s narrative, the goddess had wondrous encounters with supernatural entities and people of diverse backgrounds across the region. She travels with a familiar in the form of a cat who transforms into a tiger, turns a blacksmith who fails to build her a sickle (drāntī) into a stone, and uses her magical powers to create lakes and natural water tanks by cutting through the earth in the forest. She also subdues local demons who become her protectors. In all of these cases, the goddess comes across as a childish figure of exceptional power (śakti) who must be appropriated lest she turns wrathful.
The oral account of the goddess’s origins, which was never (to the best of my knowledge) committed to print, carried significant weight as an “official” narrative of Chindi’s history that is told by a leading member of her entourage. Sharma’s discourse whetted the appetite of his listeners, who joined his performance with additional stories of encounters with the goddess. We learned a historical tale about a devotee who had been imprisoned by the raja of Suket and saved by the goddess, who manifested in a swarm of bees that carried him to safety. More recently, a middle-aged villager recounted how the goddess had answered his prayers just as he was about to undergo brain surgery in a Chandigarh hospital. The surgeons had cut his cranium open to remove a massive tumor only to discover that the tumor had miraculously disappeared, stitched the patient back, and sent him home (
Thakur n.d. Dipu Thakur, personal communication, July 2016).
The consensus between the medium and the goddess’s followers as regards Ciṇḍī’s superhuman powers notwithstanding, their accounts of her manifestation differed strongly. For her followers, the goddess was a benign figure who answered prayers and assisted in challenges. Sharma did not openly oppose such salvific narratives, but he did place an emphasis on her tempestuous, puerile nature as a child who needs cajoling lest her temper burst and liquidate her surroundings. When we asked whether it would be possible to see the goddess at work, our hosts beamed with delight. We were invited to visit the temple some ten days hence, on the first day of the month (saṃkrānti), when the goddess would manifest her healing powers for all to see by exorcising demons from the afflicted.
Encounter 1: The Goddess as Exorcist
Saṃkrānti arrived. We made our way through a thick fog towards the temple to the beat of the
ḍhol drum that announced the happening.
14 The temple veranda and courtyard were crammed with families and a general sense of commotion emanated from inside. Stepping over the threshold, we found families, children, and couples sitting patiently on the floor at various distances from the inner sanctum, where Jyoti Sharma and a group of priests sat adjacent to the central alcove with the primary image (
mūrti) of the goddess (
Figure 5). We were free to film so long as we remained outside the inner hub of ritual activity.
The medium’s long hair, which is usually kept covered under a woolen cap, was exposed and reached well beyond his shoulders, evincing the many years that had passed since he first started serving the goddess (keeping hair uncut is one of the various restrictions that mediums are expected to follow). His expression was stern and attentive. Facing him was a young woman accompanied by a man who appeared to be her husband and the latter’s mother. The young woman was sobbing and mumbling unintelligibly.
Jyoti/Ciṇḍī: Speak! What are you? (bol, kyā cīz hai tū?)
Woman/Rākśas: (Mumbles).
Priest: Why are you harassing this girl?
Jyoti/Ciṇḍī (menacingly): Speak or be damned for a dozen years! [i.e., a very long time].
Woman/Rākśas: (Cries).
Jyoti/Ciṇḍī: Speak! What are you? Speak or I’ll curse you with the [combined] powers of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiv!
Woman/Rākśas: (Mumbles and cries).
Jyoti/Ciṇḍī: You won’t speak? Fine. I banish you for twelve years. Hark, Stand back! [casts a handful of rice from a plate next to him at the young woman’s face with force, she responds with shrill cries].
Even as this drama was unfolding, a strong heaving sound was heard from the opposite wall of the temple, where another loose-haired medium sat on a pedestal. This was Amrit Pāl, the goddess’s servant and protector. The young woman was carried over to face the pedestal before the second medium, escorted and supported by her kin. The medium was tasked with consolidating the goddess’s dictums by placing his sword on the back of the client and tying rice from the temple treasury in their hair for protection.
This type of exchange between the goddess and her aids, on the one hand, and the in-married women and their husband’s families, on the other hand, continued throughout the day in varying degrees of intensity. In some instances, the patient would burst into violent shrieks, signifying that they were utterly inconsolable, and in others, they would be more explicit about what haunted them, which almost always had to do with quarrels in the family, most often over land. Once a patient had been treated and transferred to the goddess’s deputy for the rites that solidify the deity’s ruling, the medium would double tap an iron ring that was attached to the inner sanctum’s door, signaling that the next patient come forth.
Although none of the women we saw professed to be possessed by an alien entity, it was commonly understood that they had come under the control of demons (asur, rākśas) or ghosts of various sorts (bhūt-pret) and that it was in the goddess’s power to remove these pestering entities. That Jyoti Sharma was embodying the goddess during these sessions was made explicit when a bus driver showed up (in uniform, apparently on a break from his route) to discuss a grievance unrelated to spirit possession.
The camera caught the séance when the sides were already in dialogue. The driver stood with his hands folded in namaskar halfway between the inner sanctum and the temple door. A short wooden barrier separated the inner court where exorcisms were taking place from the outer ring of participants, onlookers, and patients in waiting. The driver was closely listening to the goddess’s words, and when he spoke, it was in the normal manner with none of the signs of possession that we had observed before.
Jyoti/Ciṇḍī: Today you are taking this sum from me. It is recorded in my register for twelve years [i.e., “forever”].
Driver: Yes, Mother.
Jyoti/Ciṇḍī: Your brother took money to buy a bed, he still hasn’t repaid. Don’t forget to sort this.
Driver (growing tense): Yes, Mother.
Jyoti/Ciṇḍī: Remember, all your family history is known here. Don’t go looking here and there. Don’t visit other temples.
Driver (stirred up and angry): Mother dear, I was dissatisfied! That’s why I went to other temples. But I never abandoned you! I came here first, Mother! I was here before and, look, here I am still!
Jyoti/Ciṇḍī (sterner): Don’t go visit other temples. Don’t you go looking around!
Driver: Yes, Mother. I’m your man (i.e., devoted follower), Mother (mein terā ādmī hun, mātā). You know this.
Jyoti/Ciṇḍī: Now go.
[Driver bows his head.]
As with the earlier exchanges, Sharma was enacting the goddess in her capacity as a regulator of the community’s social life. However, contrary to the exorcisms, the dialogue between the parties had little to do with the “expulsion” of “unnatural” forces affecting psychological discontent. Rather, the goddess and her follower were negotiating the conditions of a loan made out to the latter, most likely from the temple’s considerable earnings.
In this respect, the exorcisms that were slated to be the main ritual activity of the day were temporarily interrupted for another central function of the temple establishment, namely as a banking institution that services the community (
Singh 1989;
Thakur and Bhatt 2017). As the dialogue between the bus driver and the goddess indicates,
devtā temples can use their income to compete over clients in a bid to increase their authority. The threat that “all your family history is known here” and the demand that the client “not visit other temples” (a bus driver is exceptionally mobile and can easily improve the conditions of his loans by checking for competing offers in other temples) are thus intended to place the goddess in a position of social and political dominance.
The rituals at Chindi were revealing of the way the goddess is conceptualized by the West Himalayan Khas and of broader affinities to do with marginalized social groups writ large. Although the goddess was popularly conceived of as a virgin-child in interviews and public discourse, her actual presence when possessing her medium cast her as a “mother”. While this split may serve to substantiate the deity’s authority during ritual exchanges, it also highlights the protective powers that it purports to extend to its followers.
That the medium is a Brahmin male and his clients in-married daughters (
dhiyānī) from other parts of the hills placed our enquiries on firm anthropological ground. The exorcisms in the temple conform with a wider pattern of “ecstatic religion” that Ioan
Lewis (
1971) had famously documented in the Sudan. According to Lewis, the institutionalized nature of séance possessions in which men officiate as exorcists plays an important part in smoothening ruptures in the social fabric. Specifically, they provide socially disadvantaged in-married women with an opportunity to vocalize their otherwise suppressed criticism of conflicts and difficulties in their new surroundings through ritualized behavior that is deemed socially acceptable. As the hapless “victims” of malicious entities, the goddess’s patients are given a public platform on which to express their grievances without risking a backlash in the domestic sphere afterwards (
Lewis 1971; for other modes of “venting” in Garhwal, see
Sax 2009).
The encounters with the goddess at Chindi, where the medium and his team alternately approximated community “social workers” and moneylenders, underline the centrality of village gods to Khas social life. Embodied by the medium who had provided us with the narrative of Chindi’s arrival to the ridge some two weeks earlier, we saw how the benign goddess that is popularly conceptualized as a virgin-child transformed into an authoritative motherly figure in situations that revolve around ritual healing and economic dealings. The meetings at Chindi had thus achieved at least two of our central goals: the documentation of religious practices along “traditional” ethnographic lines and a nuanced appreciation of the way the goddess manifests in the minds and actions of her followers.
3.2. Shikari (Śikārī) Devi
After a few days of exploring the Chindi ridge and its temples, we began our ascent to the mountaintop temple of Shikari Devi (
Śikārī Devī). As her appellation implies, the goddess used to be frequented by hunters who patronized the thick forests that surround the temple in search of game, and it is said that it is impossible to succeed in a hunt without receiving her blessing (
Harnot 1991, pp. 108–9). While the conversion of the forest around the site into a wildlife sanctuary put an end to hunting, the goddess’s name and reputation remain unchanged. Today, it is primarily frequented by pilgrims from the hills and, to a lesser degree, by tourists and sightseers from outside the state.
The temple of Shikari differs from the majority of Pahari temples in several ways. As the highest peak in the region, the site was most likely the object of a mountain cult prior to its current rebranding. The pervasive association of mountain peaks with goddesses aside (
Emerson n.d., Chapter 12), the site also seems to have been the focus of bloody sacrifices that are witnessed in stone slabs known as “
barṣelas” (on account of their being in ritual use for only one year) that commemorate
satī and that are found in the back of the temple. The standard image is of a large mounted or standing warrior who is surrounded by female figures of smaller sizes (changes in size indicating rank), apparently the women of the harem who had followed the deceased to the funeral pyre, often along with their maidservants and several high-ranking officers in the departed ruler’s service (
Bindra 1982).
The pilgrims who visit the site climb a long set of stairs from a collection of ḍhābās and tents that serve as pilgrim’s houses (dharmśālās) before reaching the base of the goddess’s temple. Devoid of distinct architectural features, the “temple” is in fact nothing more than a cement platform with an elevated inner sanctum that is conspicuously lacking a roof. The snow that falls over the mountain in abundance during the winter is said to never accumulate within the sacred compound itself, indicating its sanctity.
The temple proper consists of a smaller concrete dais that is surmounted on the base platform. This inner section is divided into a large open area into which visitors enter and a narrow stretch at its end which houses a series of sacred images (
mūrtis) and which is separated from the “hall” by a cement railing. The images are almost entirely made of stone in different, somewhat crude styles. Instead of one central image, the temple houses a collection from the Hindu pantheon with a relatively prominent Nāginī flanked by Kālī, Durgā, Bhairav, Śani, and so forth (
Figure 6). The pilgrim’s exchange with the deities is mediated by a priest (
pujārī) who occupies the space between the cement railing and the images. As is customary in Hindu temples, visitors present gifts (flowers, cash, sweets, etc.) to the deities via the priest, who reciprocates with similar items containing the deity’s blessing (
prasād).
The history of human sacrifices and the goddess’s explicit association with hunting suggested that Shikari was perhaps not quite as “vegetarian” an entity as Chindi. There was, however, little to indicate this upon arrival. Having climbed up the ridge from Chindi for the better part of the day, our first meeting at the
ḍhābā was with a Brahmin pandit from Mandi Town. The pandit had been engaged by four young professionals to perform the “
yoginī pūjā”, a ritual service aimed at securing good brides for his clients. The dedication of the ritual to
yoginīs is consistent with the broad perception of mountain tops as abodes of “Kālī” and her attendant spirits, who are alternately called
yoginīs,
joginīs,
ḍākinīs, or
ḍāyns (
Emerson n.d.;
Negi 2012). The terms and powers associated with these entities suggest a medieval provenance in Tantrism (
Shaw 2006), but the site itself is likely to have been held sacred long before that.
Our conversation with the pandit revealed that he was a priest by profession and well versed in Sanskrit. He also professed a personal connection with the goddess, whom he claimed to frequently meet and converse with in his dreams. The goddess, he explained, appears as a child in a red dress and sits next to him to discuss this or that topic for hours before retiring. Encouraged by the auspicious presence of the goddess, we concluded to follow the pandit and his clients the next day.
We found them on the platform outside the temple early in the morning with bundles of ritual paraphernalia ready for use. The pandit oversaw the construction of an earthen altar, into which the clients’ offerings were to be poured, and arranged bekhal branches into a meticulous quadrangle pile for the fire. He gave further instructions for preparing a mix of vegetable offerings (coconut, rice, ghee, dates, etc.) in an aluminum bowl while building an elaborate yantra from flour and rice into which the deities and planets necessary for the rite were to be summoned. His slightly confused urbanite clientele did its best to follow the instructions as they assumed positions facing the altar with individual trays of offerings in front of them.
Encounter 2: The Goddess as Counselor
While the pandit was busy chanting mantras and gesturing his clients to cast ritual offerings into the fire, a second group of pilgrims made its way up the mountain.
15 Unlike the urbanites who had travelled to the temple from Mandi by car, the newcomers treaded a narrow footpath from the mountainous interior of Jhanjheli, due east of Shikari Devi. They were eight: an elderly married couple, their son and his wife, and their two daughters and baby boy, who had just had his first head shaving ceremony (
munḍā). The elderly woman’s brother accompanied the pilgrims with a goat that he led on a leash made of string. Taking care not to disturb them (we only found out about the relationship between the party members later), we observed them settling in at the edge of the platform.
Although our presence was acknowledged, it did not seem to impact the conduct of those in the temple to any significant degree. While the pandit, who had already met us the night before, was hardly surprised to find us on site, the indifference that the newly arrived pilgrims displayed towards our presence was both welcome and puzzling. It soon transpired that they had arrived on a rather pressing business and were thus occupied with concerns far greater than the unexplained presence of the camera-wielding foreigners in their midst. This unfussy attitude is also connected to the nature of Shikari Devi as a destination for pilgrims (yātrīs) from various backgrounds. In this respect, the hilltop temple provided a more open-ended setting for our enquiries than the starkly community-oriented temple at Chindi had, wherein engaging with the temple authorities was a prerequisite for filming.
A few minutes later, the pilgrims mounted the steps towards the shrine, leaving the pandit and his clients to pursue their ritual on the outer platform. The heads of the family entered first. The husband was hissing and panting as if trying to cool down, and his wife who followed him bore a countenance of grave concern. The uncle and the goat, visibly reluctant to climb the stairs, entered next and were followed by the rest of the family. Once inside the compound, the head of the family made a surprising move and entered the inner sanctum, assuming a position next to the priest. His wife faced him in supplication.
The hissing grew stronger as the husband started nodding his head in disapproval, wincing as if undergoing some kind of biting pain. While we would only comprehend the details of their conversation much later with the aid of translators from Seraj (the dialogue was in a strong local dialect of Western Pahari), it was obvious from the physical gestures and spatial setting that the husband was in fact speaking on behalf of the goddess or some other divine entity. The dialogue that ensued soon clarified the reason for the group’s visit.
Wife/Supplicant: Mother, bless and protect my family.
Husband/Śikārī: Why did you come here?
Wife/Supplicant: Look at the baby, it needs help.
Husband/Śikārī: You made a mistake. Why did you use a machine to cut its hair? We won’t allow that, neither will Kamru Nag.
16Wife/Supplicant: How are we supposed to know these things? It’s the Dark Age (Kālī Yug), we don’t know anything.
Husband/Śikārī (hissing strongly): It is very bad. Why did you do this?!
Wife/Supplicant: We apologized already. Now, fix it!
The family had thus come to amend for the ritual transgression of shaving the newborn’s head with a machine instead of the blade that is traditionally prescribed. The conversation between the deity and the wife developed further. The goddess demanded two vast sacrificial ceremonies (yajña) be made in honor of Kamru Nag over the next couple of years. The supplicant responded that she was not sure they’d have enough crops to finance such lavish ceremonies, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. The husband/goddess was adamant.
This discussion was accompanied by an exchange of substances between the goddess and her client. The goddess kept blowing into grains of rice and handed them over to the supplicant, ordering her to keep them “in the usual place” for the family’s protection.
17 The wife counted the grains and grimaced negatively whenever the number drawn proved inauspiciously even. She kept demanding more grains until gaining an auspicious seven, which slightly relaxed her state.
With the matter for which the family had gone on pilgrimage resolved, one would have expected a return to normalcy. Just then, however, something remarkably interesting happened. The goddess turned to the mistress of the house with a stern warning:
Husband/Śikārī: Someone is cheating! He is drinking in secret. You have to catch him!
Wife/Supplicant: I know. I tried. He won’t listen.
Husband/Śikārī: If he doesn’t stop then you have to beat it out of him!
Wife/Supplicant: He doesn’t listen, what can we do?
A new space seemed to have opened for addressing more pressing topics than the ritual shaving of the baby’s head. Judging by his reactions, the person who was “drinking in secret” was none of other than the couple’s son, who had shied away from most of the dealings till then and who was now actively avoiding eye contact with the party (
Figure 7). Sensing that the debate between the husband/goddess and his/her wife/supplicant was heating, the temple priest (
pujārī) broke his silence in a bid to assuage tensions over the drunkard son: “Don’t be harsh. He is family (
apne haiṅ). Just pray to the goddess to teach him manners (
shudh-buddh).”
The angry spirits somehow subsided and the husband/goddess asked the wife/supplicant to purify the goat with grains of rice. The wife complied and cast a couple of grains on the animal. The entire family turned its gaze towards the goat in expectation that it would shiver, a sign that it accepts to be sacrificed. It never moved.
Having concluded their dealings, the entourage exited the temple to resume the same path on which it had arrived. Once clear of the temple grounds, the troupe sat for a picnic next to a fountain. The wife’s brother decapitated the goat with a single blow and sadly mused over the lack of food in its system (“it’s a shame it died hungry”) as he dissected it into parts. The meat was packed in a bundle to be cooked later and the liver placed over an open fire. Maggi noodles and flat bread chapatis were distributed for all (including the unsolicited filming crew) along with salted pieces of liver.
The head of the family, no longer hissing and heaving, kissed and fondled the baby. The wife chewed on the liver and more food was passed around. The prodigal son picked the severed goat head from the pool of internal organs at the site of the killing. Relieved of no longer having to face his drinking habits in public, he joined the family in packing bags and preparing to depart. They left us soon afterwards.
The rituals at Shikari Devi shed further light on the beliefs and practices linked with the goddess in Seraj. As a pilgrimage site that is far removed from settled society, the hilltop shrine caters to different clients in various ways. The rituals that we witnessed were consequently far less institutionalized than those encountered at Chindi, where the goddess’s role as sovereign mandates periodic “social work” in the form of exorcism sessions and “banking services” to villagers far and wide.
Surrounded by dense forests and impressive wildlife, the hilltop shrine provides a dramatic setting on which worshippers may project their inner worlds and fantasies. The lack of a permanent community also facilitates a more individualistic approach to the deity, from the Sanskritic ritual and vegetarian offerings that were administered by the Brahmin pandit of Mandi to the seemingly “spontaneous” instance of spirit possession and blood sacrifice by the highland villagers of Jhanjheli. The dialogues between the Pahari pilgrims evince the often reported (but rarely filmed) prevalence of spirit possession in family circles as a means for resolving emotionally charged conflicts.
Our documentation illustrates how the “official” business of ritual duties (the
munḍā “shaving rite”) acts as a gateway for tackling domestic difficulties (the drunkard son). As the conversation between the husband/goddess and the spouse/supplicant makes clear, the couple had already discussed their son’s drinking habits prior to the visit to no effect. The disapproval of a third, superhuman party (the goddess) is intended to breach the impasse in domestic relations by endowing the speaker with extraordinary authority, although cases reported during fieldwork indicate that this is not always successful.
18The open-air setting of the temple and the overt discussion of family sensitivities also help ventilate tensions that could risk escalating in more quotidian circumstances. The seeming spontaneity in which the family’s most intimate issues are raised thus enables the priest to intervene and diffuse the rising tensions. Additionally, while the “offender” may have been shamed in the process, the affair is ultimately contained in a way that preserves the family’s unity.
19 That these matters unfold in the context of a private family pilgrimage and
not in an institutionalized ritual setting such as the exorcisms at Chindi is significant, for it underlines the pervasiveness of spirit possession as a method for contacting the goddess in intimate circles beyond those of the community.
Finally, similar to the exorcisms at Chindi, the goddess’s universal acknowledgement as a virgin-child seems to be limited to the realm of dreams. In practice, when her followers seek to communicate with her, the goddess is clearly addressed as a mother. The split between the benign, virginal purity of the goddess as child and the wrathful, bossy mother whose maternal care is somewhat hidden behind the overbearing menace of an omnipotent matriarch thus remains central to the conceptualization of the goddess in and outside of settled society. This is consistent with the alleged rarity of the child-goddess’s presence, whose encounters are brisk and fleeting like “the wind in the bazaar”, in the dream-worlds of her believers’ individual psyches. The goddess as mother, on the other hand, is ubiquitous, manifesting in village mediums and in family circles through the readily familiar practice of possession.