Hunting communities

It is believed that human beings existed on the subcontinent from at least 100,000 bce. That those people were the result of migrations out of Africa is plausible, though difficult to establish with certainty.

Of course, all Indian culture did not spring from these early communities, but it is important to note that hunting motifs persisted into later periods and did influence the lives of later peoples and even of certain forms of classical religion. It is possible, for example, that some (but by no means all) contemporary tribal peoples are distant relations of these early hunters. Further, hunting societies were described in some of the early literary sources dating in the early centuries ce. These societies did lend certain motifs to the mythology and symbology of later forms of religion. Several deities in the Hindu pantheon, for example, either passed through a hunt­ing stage or assumed the role of hunter at certain points in their histories. These include such deities as Vithoba, one of the most popular deities of Maharashtra; Murukan, a popular god in Tamil Nadu; Sasta and Aiyan, popular in Kerala; and Bhairava, a fierce forested “manifestation” of Siva. Further, forest animals were incorporated into mythologies of the later high gods, for example, the elephant (which became a part of the mythology of Ganesa); or the tiger often associated with powerful goddesses of later mythology. Even Narasimha (the manifestation of Visnu which is half­human, half-lion), who apparently incorporated motifs of the lion now virtually extinct in India, but once found along the Eastern Ghats, has had hunter/tribal roots in Andhra Pradesh.¹