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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

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Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

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Sabarimala god Ayyappa has many meanings. One of his forms is a deity for women

Tamil Nadu’s village-god Ayyanar is converging with the epic mythology and pilgrimage of Ayyappa at Sabarimala. This will have long-lasting effects on both.

The gods of Hinduism carry many histories. Ayyappa of Sabarimala, one of the most dynamic South Indian deities of the past century, is no exception.

In Part 1 of this series on the deity’s history, I traced how the ancient Tamil hill-god Aiyan merged with the Sanskritic Shasta over centuries. By the 1600s, he had come to be venerated at Ayyappa’s hilltop shrine at Sabarimala and along the Malabar Coast. 

But this is just one part of the god’s story. Across the Western Ghats on the Coromandel Coast, a parallel tradition had been developing since at least the eighth century. Here, he was recognised as Ayyanar, the fierce protector-god of southern Tamil Nadu, worshipped by non-Brahmin castes. When those castes encountered Ayyappa at Sabarimala in the mid-20th century, they welcomed him with open arms. This transformed not only the devotees but, in a way, the god.

Shasta, Aiyan, Ayyanar

The ancient hill-god Aiyan is mentioned in Tamil poetry dating to the early centuries CE. Another deity, Shasta (Chathan in Tamil), also appears around this time. However, the relationship between these two figures only becomes clearer from the eighth century. Around this time, temple inscriptions across a wide geographic range—from Kanchipuram to Kanyakumari—came to identify both deities with the names Ayyanar and Ayyappa.

As with Ayyappa, these early temples to Ayyanar were consecrated by warrior aristocrats such as the Ay chiefs and worshipped by Brahmin priests. However, on the Malabar Coast, archaeological evidence suggests that this composite deity was typically integrated into the wall-niches of both Vishnu and Shiva temples. In Tamil Nadu, he had his own shrines.

However, in medieval Tamil inscriptions and bronzes, Ayyanar or Aiyan-Shasta is proportionately less represented than Shiva and Vishnu. He was not identified as their son, as he would come to be known on the Malabar Coast much later. In medieval sculpture, Ayyanar is depicted with long locks of hair and an extended left arm resting on his knee, while an extended right leg seats him on a pedestal or an elephant. Visually, he is reminiscent of a king.

Over the last several decades, a substantial body of evidence on contemporary Ayyanar worship has been gathered by sociologists in Tirunelveli in southern Tamil Nadu. The city is not far from Kanyakumari, which has a few medieval temples to Aiyan-Shasta—including one dating to the reign of Rajaraja Chola in the 11th century. Yet, the relationship between medieval Aiyan-Shasta and today’s Ayyanar raises many intriguing historical questions.

Also read: Religion was not a consistent barrier for temple or mosque entry in India. It’s caste doing

Ayyanar in southern Tamil Nadu

Ayyanar in contemporary Tirunelveli—often depicted riding a horse—is associated with local mother- or forest-goddesses, and rules over a retinue of powerful peys (often rendered as ‘demons’). He is also known as Dharma-Shasta, reflecting his association with the local social order. Unlike the Aiyan-Shasta, who was worshipped by Brahmin priests, Ayyanar’s priests today are primarily potters (Velar), who manufacture large terracotta (and now cement) horses as offerings.

The god is believed to patrol villages on horseback at night, and devotees usually make vegetarian offerings to him in return for boons. In ‘Horse Shrines in Tamil India: Reflections on Modernity’, architectural historian and critic Mark Jarzombek pointed out that Ayyanar is sometimes seen with a mix of both awe and fear. Anthropologist Lars Kjaerholm, who interviewed devotees in the late 1970s, wrote that........

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