Religious life at the popular level
Clearly many of the people of the “urban” period were affected very little or not at all by the “classical” forms of religion articulated in the texts. There were, for example, people living in villages oriented by the agricultural cycle, and tribal peoples only marginally being assimilated into urban life.
It is most difficult to reconstruct the religious life of such communities for several reasons. For example, while certain practices found today in “folk” settings may have “ancient” roots, it is difficult to ascertain precisely how far back these go. Further, certain practices cited in the texts of the period may have had their roots in folk settings, but are already in the process of being assimilated into Hinduism. Nonetheless, some scholars - for example, A. L. Basham and P. V. Kane - do speculate as to some of the forms that “popular religion” was taking in this period.Religious practices at the popular or folk level may well have included the following features. Worship of goddesses in local villages seems highly likely. Each such goddess would have been seen as protectoress of land and village and the one who controlled the forces of nature, including diseases. These village goddesses were probably pacified in a special way (as they are today) at the coming of the rainy seasons in order to avert diseases and assure fertility of the land.40
Goddesses would have been worshiped with flowers, peacock feathers, and wine but also by the sacrifice of animals, especially buffaloes, goats, sheep, and chickens.41 The spilling of blood would satisfy and empower the goddess, invoke her protection, and keep the land fertile. Rituals associated with buffalo sacrifice were intimated in this period: a buffalo demon identified as a fierce asura known as Mahisa was mentioned in the Mahabharata and by the name Dundubhai in the A'amayana.’2 That this buffalo demon was slain by a goddess who came to be associated with Durga, is suggested by terra-cotta representatives of a four-armed goddess riding a lion and slaying a buffalo.43 In addition, both A.
L. Basham and P. V. Kane believed that the sacrifice of human beings was probable in some settings.44 Goddesses were probably represented by a stone or simple clay effigy set up under a tree thought to be sacred.45 Such trees as the pipal, banyan, or asoka were ascribed special sacrality and/or the power to help women bear children.Ritual life in villages was no doubt oriented by the seasons, especially the monsoons and the agricultural cycle. Ritual bathing in rivers in spate is attested in some sources datable to this period as are the collective dances of young women in praise of the deity.46 Snakes were apparently venerated as symbols of both death and fertility and may have been given offerings at the start of the rainy season.47 Anthills may have been respected as the houses of snakes.48
As suggested by the references to the buffalo demon, a belief in demonic beings was probable - these demons would have been thought to control certain distinctive forces or to have appeared at inauspicious times. In addition, any number of gods would have been understood to offer protection or preside over particular areas or functions. The names of some of these gods appeared in the epic literature - one such example was Visakha who was eventually assimilated into the person of Skanda.49 Goddesses, gods, and demons alike were considered able to possess people.50
There are also indications that a number of stories appearing in the epic literature had folk variants, suggesting either that the classical stories had folk antecedents or were given nuances reflecting later “folk” settings. This was the case, for example, with accounts of Arjuna found in Rajasthani, Garhwadi, and Tamil traditions wherein Arjuna was said to have married a princess of the underworld and where, in the course of providing a funeral for his father, Pandu, he had to fetch back the hide of a rhinoceros.51 Similarly, Draupadi, heroine and wife of the five Pandava brothers, was described in various ways in later folk variants.
Among other things, in these variations, she was depicted as a destructive virgin goddess, born of fire, taking on a gypsy disguise; she was associated with fire walking and was given temple guardians, such as Potturaja, the buffalo king.52In addition, we have already alluded to some of the probable influences that “folk” culture had on “classical” forms of religious practice of this period. This would have included the role of village dramas in disseminating various tellings of the Ramayana stories and in the classicization of drama itself. “Folk” deities were co-opted into the “high gods” of the period, including, no doubt, most of the teriomorphic forms of Visnu’s avatars. Images and stories drawn from popular life found their way into both Hindu and Buddhist iconography and hagiography from the yaksis found in stupa lintels to the episodes ascribed to the life of the Buddha in the Jataka Tales. Stories ascribed to the Hindu gods as recorded eventually in the Puranas similarly made use of motifs found at the popular level. Even the emerging ritual life associated with temple and icon probably reflected in some way practices present in the “folk” landscape.
These practices and others illustrate the ways in which common folk acted out their religious orientations at a level relatively unaffected by the elite. Some of these practices can still be found in rural settings even as some of them were “domesticated” and made part of the purview of “classical” Hinduism and Buddhism.