Religious Environmentalism
In Tamil Nadu, the subaltern mass includes Other Backward Classes (69%), Scheduled Castes (19%), and Scheduled Tribes (1.10%), who follow a religious tradition that is deviant from the popular Brahmanical Hinduism which incorporates various tribal religious elements like polytheism, ancestor worship, animism, demonolatry, totem worship, etc.
These religious practices constitute the Tamil folk religion. Folk religious rituals are all-pervasive in a Tamil’s life. Tamil folk tradition goes back to prehistoric times, where the customs and traditions revolve around the people's emotions. Folk religious tradition is mainly animistic in the form of nature and ancestor worship, accompanied by bloody animal sacrifice and a follow-on feast (Chellaperumal 2004:136). The culture is of the folk, different from the Vedic Brahmanism, which is concerned with the worship of the puranic and text-based Hindu gods like Siva, Vishnu, and Brahma and goddesses like Parvati, Lakshmi, Sarasvati, and Durga. To understand the forms and features of folk traditions, it is important to distinguish folk religious practices from that of the Vedic Brahmanism.Folk religion refers to religious complexes of peasant and rural societies and differs from mainstream religious traditions (Eliade 1987:277-278). As far as the Indian sub-continent is concerned, its religion can broadly be divided into the Classical Hinduism (or) Vedic Brahmanism and the folk religion. The latter is very much regional, complex, and fluid in nature. In recent years, researchers have considered the folk tradition and the classical tradition as opposed to each other. They hold that the folk culture is a counter-culture (Muthiah 1998:3).
The people of each village, particularly people belonging to a particular community/ tribe, consider themselves as a separate entity having their own god/goddess and perform their own religious activities.
Thus, to the folk religion, the social group is more important than the religion (Blackburn 1985:64). Coordination and religious activities take place based on particular social groups. Thus, it is the people’s groups that administer the folk religious activities. In the Vedic Brahmanism, there is more uniformity due to textual controls. In the folk religion, there is no text to control or establish a fixed pattern (Whitehead 1921:61). In other words, the folk religion is continued by oral tradition and the prevailing changes in the relationships among the different communities.Like the pan-Indian myths, the folk religion, too, has its tales. Whereas the former myths relate to the origin of the world and the cosmic order, the folk tales are associated with mundane matters and the lives of the folk people (Whitehead 1921:64). The former is textual, and the latter is oral. The Vedic Brahmanism has prominent temples built according to the Agama texts8. The dwelling places of folk deities are a rough, shadowy ground, the bottom of a tree or a hilltop. As the representation of their guardian position, most deities have their shrines on the periphery or outskirts of the village. Hence, the villagers refer to them as ‘peripheral folk deities’ or ‘guardian deities. But the gods of the Vedic Brahmanism are found at the centre of the village (Masilamani-Meyer 2004:85).
Brahmanical temples are concerned more with the life hereafter and the life of human on the Earth. But, the folk deities are concerned only with life here and never with the life hereafter. Folk deities’ shrines have no uniformity. They live in sacred groves, under a tree or in a small brick building of various shapes and sizes, with a rough figure inside (Whitehead 1921:67). In the folk religion, images of the deities are not carved out in stones, but are mostly made of terracotta. The pusari (priest) of the folk temple is always a person other than a Brahman. Apart from pusari, a kodangi has also to be there, through whom the folk deity converses with the people.
The folk gods are generally fond of non-vegetarian food, and so animal sacrifices are offered to the folk deities. But the deities of the Vedic Brahmanism are fond of vegetarian food only (Balasubramanian 1990:45). Moreover, animism, in its broad sense of spirit worship, is the cornerstone of the Tamil folk religion, where ancestors, water bodies, and forests are worshipped.Forests occupy a crucial place in the Tamil folk religion. Forests, ranging from subtropical thorn forest to tropical montane evergreen forest, of Tamil Nadu, are worshipped as kovil kadugal (sacred groves). Sacred groves are small patches of forest left untouched by the inhabitants. They are preserved in adherence to religious and cultural traditions. The traditional practices of protecting these sacred groves owe their origin to the huntinggathering stage of the society (Gadgil & Vartak 1974). The people of this stage realising their dependence on nature and natural resources began to worship nature as god. When the felling of trees increased, they felt the need of managing the forests judiciously. Hence, they circumscribed patches of the original vegetation, treated them as sacred, and protected them reverentially. In India, sacred groves and trees continue to be important in religion, culture, and resource use systems. In all of India, there are 13,270 sacred groves: of these groves, 448 are in Tamil Nadu (Swamy, Kumar & Sundarapandian 2003:54).
In Tamil country, the villagers, both tribes and non-tribes from time immemorial, have a tradition that these sacred groves are protected by specific folk deities, who are ferocious by themselves or assisted by one or more ferocious deities. This fear of gods has played a vital role in the conservation of species diversity (Gadgil & Vartak 1974). Today ecologists say that these sacred groves are the remnants of the native vegetation of a particular region. They probably indicate the heroic efforts made by local tribal communities to protect and preserve their natural forest tracks against the attempts of more advanced settlers to clean the forests for cultivation and settlements (Swamy, Kumar & Sundarapandian 2003:53-55).
The sacred groves of Tamil Nadu are small in size, ranging from half hectares to 20 hectares in dry places and ranging from 200 to 400 hectares in areas where they are a part of the Western Ghat chains. These groves, the home of the local flora and fauna, represent many biosphere reserves, making them an essential part of the conservative process. The rich plant life helps to retain the sub-soil water and, during the summer months, the sacred pond in the grove is often the only source of drinking water. These groves are a unique form of biodiversity conservation and are living examples of the Indian tradition of conserving the ecology of natural heritage (see Krishna & Prabhakaran 2005). There is a decline of sacred groves due to various factors, mainly people’s non-observance of religious tradition in preserving them. State control/ownership of sacred groves through the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 and numerous state legislations like Tamil Nadu Forest Act of 1882 have deeply undermined the traditional rights of the communities. In many cases, as per the scientific management of forests, the local communities have been alienated from their traditional folk rituals linked to sacred groves. This has diminished the environmentalism instilled by the religion and has led to increased human activities such as deadwood collection, biomass gathering, lopping of tender branches, and green leaves for goats, creation of footpaths, cattle grazing, quarrying of sand and clay for brick-making, collection of wild fruits and vegetables, and also collection of plant parts for medicinal uses; all these are affecting the ecology of the sacred groves. In addition, invasion of exotic weeds has become a serious problem in the ecology of some sacred groves. Moreover, owing to modernisation and urbanisation, the sacred groves become cities and towns. For example, Katampavanam or the grove of kadampa trees has become the present Madurai city9.
The guardian deities of sacred groves are made up of clay, and people honour these deities with votive offerings of terracotta horses, bulls, or elephants to fulfil their vows.
These terracotta horses are arranged in rows under the shade of trees. The guardian deity is believed to be patrolling the grove and the surroundings every night mounted on a ghostly steed. Every year, figures of these deities must be renewed. These figures are made of clay, representing the earth, symbolising the birth of new plants, animals, and human offspring. This shows the cyclic role of the clay. The votive offerings - the horses, bulls and elephants - are always made of clay and left in the open to return to the clay/mud where they came from in course of time (Amirthalingam 1998:40). The making of terracotta is a matter of great significance, and the dedication of the horse is a major event involving the whole village irrespective of tribe and non-tribe households. The horses range in height from 12 inches to 20 feet, depending on the financial condition of the devotees (Amirthalingam 1998:47).Another dimension of the folk religious environmentalism is water conservation through kovil kammai (sacred tanks) in the drought prone plains of Tamil Nadu (Krishna & Prabhakaran 2005). Tamil Nadu is predominantly drought prone lying in the rain shadow region of the Western Ghats. The erratic nature of rainfall is the causative factor of drought. Owing to the lack of major river systems and insufficient rainfall, people of this region of India often face scarcity of water not only for their cultivation, but also for their domestic use. In spite of these difficulties, people cultivate their lands with the help of water from the irrigation tanks that are stored by way of rain harvesting and the rain fed rivers (see Krishna & Prabhakaran 2005).
The people of this region have come out with a judicious water management system based on the folk religion to avoid disputes and quarrels over sharing of water for irrigation. On the banks of almost all irrigation tanks, there is a guardian deity who brings rain to the village and increases the agricultural yield, and guards the irrigation tanks and agricultural fields (Masilamani-Meyer 2004:5).
This is a common scenario in tribal, non-tribal, or mixed villages. Besides, people believe that if anybody does the wrong of drawing more water than what is due, for his fields, he will be punished with a very meagre yield and with some hardships. It is found that most of the villages have a good water management system based on Ayyanar cult10. This wonderful water management system has helped the people to engage in agricultural activities peacefully and also share the water in a just manner11. The land owners appoint a man called neerpichi or paravai for each sluice to regulate the flow of water to the needy fields in an impartial manner. This man is afraid of the Ayyanar of the irrigational tanks and so he does not favour any landowner with more water than is necessary.To avoid wastage of rainwater, water from the catchment areas through canals is brought to the irrigation tanks. In this way, all the tanks are connected, and so the surplus water is never wasted. The tradition of letting almost all the tanks filled with water is based on the folk religious faith that Ayyanar is a god of justice, ensuring equal distribution of water. So, the tradition is being observed even today. During the rainy season, the tanks are full of water. Thus, the water is saved for the needs of the temple and it is also used as potable water by the villagers. Owing to the fear of deities, people dare not to misuse or pollute the water in the sacred tanks. From the beginning of March with the onset of summer season, water starts depleting in the sacred tanks. In the Tamil month of Panguni (March15-April 15), the sacred tanks become almost dry. Folk festivals begin in the Tamil month of Masi (February-March). The religious festivals serve the social purpose of maintaining the sacred tanks to harvest rainwater during the summer and rainy seasons12. Desilting of the sacred tanks is associated with religious ceremonies during these festival times. So, when the sacred tanks are dry, it is easier to desilt them and keep them ready to preserve rainwater. During the festivals, senkaivettu (desiltation of the sacred tank) is a part of the celebrations on a particular festival day. This clearly shows the religious fervour and their devotion to the gods with which they carry out the work of desilting as a service to the temple and the village. Thus, desilting of sacred tanks as a religious ceremony testifies that the folk religion’s role is indispensable in the maintenance and preservation of water resources for drinking purposes.
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