The Hindu Gods in a South Indian Village by Diane P. Mines (in, Everyday Life in South Asia, 2010)

The Hindu Gods in a South Indian Village: Diane P. Mines (pp. 226-237)
226

Diane, P. Mines and Sarah Lamb (Eds.), 2010, Everyday Life in South Asia, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indian University Press, pp. 219-248

Author Diane, P. Mines is starting to describe the Indian village society from the caste perspectives. For the author, the person position is defined and determined by the caste hierarchy and location of Birth. The individual and social position is defined and determined by these parameters-  

Position in the Caste hierarchy
Location of Birth (Social, Cultural and Caste)
Amount of land ownership
Social position in terms of Pure Caste - Impure Caste
The population size of that particular caste

Food behaviour (Vegetarian and Non-Vegetarian for MN Sriniwas who coined the term Sanskritisation)

Part of the Great Tradition or Little Tradition (Theory given by Anthropologist Robert Redfield, during conducting fieldwork in indigenous society and culture of Yucatan in the 1930s)

[227] Brahmanical Tradition considers as Great Tradition

The village has three kinds of Gods:
1) God,
2) Village God, and
3) Fierce God (ghost)
 
Brahmanical Temple

Why this is called Brahminical Temple?

Brahmanical Temple mainly consisting the god from great tradition or god from Sanskritic Tradition

What is Agraharam?
The meaning of Agraharam is Brahmin and Twice-Boran caste who comes first in the social hierarchy.

[228] Womb-Room in the temple means Garbhgraha, where God and Goddess use to “live” or their statute use to establish.

[229] Krishna, Ganesh, Murukan - Temples are part of the Great Tradition, they are considered as local Gods.

#PLEASE-NOTE Ganesh was a local God of Maharastra, he was part of the “little tradition” but become popular and part of the “great tradition” after popularized by Tilak.

The Indian temples are nothing less than historical data. Because every temple in India is caring forward to their history. These temples are a caring history of culture, architecture, which were in the power, which society was ruling, and sometimes also the ideology of the current society.

[230] Village Goddesses

In South India very few people are worshipping the Brahmanical Temple (a great tradition), most of them are worshipping the local village temple, except those who live in Delhi, Bambai, Chennai, and other big/ metro cities.

You can also observe these phenomena in your locality, or village, that after getting higher education, power, money, success people switch from worshipping tradition God and Goddess (little tradition) to the modern (great tradition) one.

[231] Most of the villagers are worshipping the village goddess. The village goddess is also considering as the ancestor of the villagers.

[232] Fierce God

The Fierce God lives outside of the village

Unlike the village goddesses and unlike Brahmanical deities, fierce gods are not paraded through the streets in processions nor are they generally brought inside the house for worship.

In the wealthy and upper-caste residential area, the Brahmanical temples are prioritized.

[233] How Fierce God Born?

Fierce God is born out of death from violence and murder in the village. These are part of the unnatural death. This means the Fierce God is not born out of natural death.

Fierce God not living in the village, they use to live outside of the village in open space, not in the temple.

[237] The local God of the little tradition inhabits their (villagers’) houses, bodies, and lives. God eats what they (villagers’) eat, God possesses them, God fills them with energy and can also cause them illness if displeased. 

Anil Kumar | Student of Life World

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