In my previous articles, I wrote about Kerala’s snake shrines and deified ancestors in the form of Shastav. I showed how both are related to corresponding worship rituals in pharaonic Egypt. The present article continues in the same vein, this time connecting worship of certain goddesses in Kerala to similar traditions in pharaonic Egypt.
Parasurama, the mythical creator of Kerala, is said to have consecrated one hundred and eight temples to goddess Durga along the western shores of the land when he first brought settlers from elsewhere. She was “guardian of the seas,” protecting the land and its people from evil arriving by way of the ocean. Among these temples is the Sri Kurumba Bhagavati temple, in present-day Kodungallur, renowned for its annual Bharani festival, celebrated around the turn of the agricultural new year in March-April.
The festivities, which last for twenty-eight days, are inaugurated by a member of the former nadvazhi’s family, and in bygone days, by offering of a rooster in sacrifice to the goddess. Thereafter, non-brahmin priests of the adikal community perform various rituals inside the temple that are prohibited at all other times. Nambuthiri brahmin priests who typically oversee daily temple worship, do not participate in these festivities at all. Previously, large numbers of animals, especially fowls, were sacrificed as part of the festival; however, since animal sacrifice in temples came to be banned by the Kerala Animals and Bird Sacrifices Prohibition Act of 1968, this is no longer done.
As part of the festivities, devotees, especially oracles called velichapad, many of them women, dance clutching crescent-tipped swords embellished with bells into rattles. They hurl insults at each other, sing obscene devotional songs, drink excessively, and rush around the temple clad in red, screaming, brandishing sharp swords, and scourging themselves until their foreheads bleed. In the past, many of the acts emphasized sexual expression, but these “folk rituals,” including the racy devotional songs, are actively discouraged by modern mainstream Hindu followers, dismissed as “drunken revelry” and “superstition,” although others think that the songs “break down the conventional binaries of sacred/profane, and question the moralistic attitude towards the concepts of erotica and abuse,” according to Nileena M.S., writing for The Hindu.
The devotees believe the rituals, the songs, and the alcohol are to satiate the goddess. Some followers suppose they themselves symbolize demonic spirits who incite the goddess to furious rage until no amount of blood can slake her thirst; that it is in this enraged state that she slays the evil demon Daruka. Another narrative identifies the deity as Kannagi of Silappatikaram, closely related to the Pattini cult in Buddhism. There is also a widespread notion that these rituals are “a celebration of Dalit communities or ‘a re-enactment of the violent efforts that converted the Buddhist nunnery.’”
Notwithstanding these theories, this Bharani festival is extraordinarily similar to the New Year festival of the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet as described by Herodotus in 440 BCE, and by mural paintings on the walls of the Temple of Mut unearthed in Luxor dating even earlier, to around 1450 BCE, in which the festival is depicted as one of drunkenness and sexual orgies by female priestesses of the deity. In art, Sekhmet is depicted attired in red linen with the head of a lioness, whereas Kodungallur Bhagavati is also dressed in red linen, but features only the fangs of a lioness. Sekhmet could send plagues against those who angered her as well as cure those who befriended her, similar to the Kodungallur Bhagavati’s powers in her incarnation as Vasurimala.
According to Egyptian myths, the bloodthirsty goddess once went on an angry rampage, nearly destroying all humanity, until the sun god tricked her into drinking large quantities of ocher-colored beer, which she mistook for blood. When she woke up from her drunken stupor, she was transformed into the kinder, gentler version of the goddess Hathor, and humanity was saved. The Feast of Drunkenness in honor of this myth involved copious amounts of alcohol, purportedly to appease the goddess and to establish an appropriate atmosphere for communion with the divine. Women danced holding a sistra (a metallic rattle) and menat (another kind of rattle worn on the body like a garland) in her honor. Around 2200 BCE and earlier, priestesses of goddess Hathor, often syncretized with Sekhmet, wore red scarves in her adoration.
An eye-witness account by Herodotus mentions devotees, particularly women, proceeding to the temple hurling insults at passers-by. They even exposed themselves to onlookers. At the temple, they performed various rites, which included sacrificing a great number of animals, and consuming a great quantity of wine. Sacrifices were burnt on an altar as devotees scourged themselves, cutting their foreheads with knives while shouting lamentations and prayers. These manifestly ancient rituals, more than three thousand years old, bear striking parallels to those at the Kodungallur Bhagavati’s Bharani festival today.
Like Hindu Puranic goddesses who are all considered to be aspects of divine Shakthi — the invisible power that moves the universe, the Egyptian goddesses were all related, each taking on attributes of the others under different names at different times. Thus, through the sun god Ra, Sekhmet was associated with another deity, a powerful cobra goddess of the Nile delta, under whose divine authority pharaohs ascended the throne and ruled the land. Egyptologists call the goddess Wadjet based on Late Egyptian transliteration of hieroglyphs used to represent her name, according to which, the vulture hieroglyph 𓄿 between [w] and [dj] is read as [a].
However, it may be that she was actually Velichath (alternatively Velicha, Velichathi, or Velichi), translated in Malayalam as ‘in the light,’ (or simply ‘light,’ or metaphorically ‘She who Reveals’) according to Old Egyptian transliteration of the hieroglyphs, in which the vulture hieroglyph 𓄿 is read as [l] instead of [a]. This interpretation comports well with the Egyptian imagery of her role as ‘Eye of the Sun.’ This name may also form the etymological root of velichapad, which has no meaning in Malayalam other than as a title of the goddess’ oracle, but which translates in Egyptian as ‘elite one of Velicha(th),’ matching its Malayalam semantics accurately.
Kerala’s Bharani festival, which marks the beginning of the hot summer, was coincidentally also the time in Egypt and elsewhere in the ancient world when festivals of the goddess of navigation were celebrated to open the sea for trade, another correspondence to the goddess’ ancient role in Kerala as “guardian of the seas.” Velichath was the patron deity of north Egypt, worshiped at an early time in Egyptian history, ca. 2900 -2200 BCE, when the kingdom was governed from Memphis. It was during this time too that Hathor-Sekhmet was worshiped as the guardian of the seas, a role that was taken over by Isis later in Egypt’s religious history.
Could it be possible that the first settlers in Kerala had a connection with these primeval deities, founding temples to one and naming priestly titles to the other? Is it possible, perhaps, that they landed on the golden sands of Malabar this early in human history, and staked their pharaoh’s claim by right of the divine snake-headed uraeus, cobra goddess of the Nile delta, ‘Eye of the Sun,’ becoming for all posterity, the original serpent worshipers of Kerala?
Bibliography
Allen, James. 2013. The Ancient Egyptian Language: An Historical Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Allen, James. 2010. Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to The Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bleeker, C. J. 1973. Hathor and Thoth: Two Key Figures of the Ancient Egyptian Religion. Leiden: Brill.
Boyle, Alan. 2006. “Sex and booze figured in Egyptian rites: Archeologists find evidence for ancient version of Girls Gone Wild.” NBC News. October 30, 2006. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15475319.
Divakar. 2013. “Kodungallur Bhagavathy Temple, Thrissur Dist, Kerala.” Bohemian Journeys. Accessed on May 12, 2020. http://bohemian-journeys.blogspot.com/2013/01/kodungallur-bhagavathy-temple-thrissur.html.
Edwards, Amelia. 1891. Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Fletcher, Joann. 2010. Exploring the Life, Myth, and Art of Ancient Egypt. New York: Rosen Publishing Group.
Gentes, M. J. 1992. “Scandalizing the Goddess at Kodungallur.” Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 51, no. 2: 295–322.
Herodotus. ca. 400 BCE. The Histories, Book 2, translated by A. D. Godley, Loeb Classical Library, 1920. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Accessed on July 16, 2020. Retrieved from https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Herodotus/2A*.html.
Horváth, Zoltán. 2015. “Ḥatḥor and her Festivals at Lahun.” In The World of Middle Kingdom Egypt (2000–1550 BC): Contributions on archaeology, art, religion, and written sources. Edited by Gianluca Miniaci and Wolfram Grajetzki, 125–44. London: Golden House Publications.
Iyer, Anantha. 1909–12. The Tribes and Castes of Cochin, 2 vols. Repr. 1981. New Delhi: Cosmo Publications.
Keralolpatthi:1868. The Origin of Malabar [In Malayalam]. Mangalore: Pfleiderer & Riehm.
Lesko, Barbara. 1999. The Great Goddesses of Egypt. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
M.S., Nileena. 2016. “This goddess loves erotica.” The Hindu. April 30, 2016. https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/nileena-ms-on-the-meena-bharani-festival-and-the-goddess-who-loves-erotica/article8537146.ece.
Menon, Padmanabha. 1924–37. A History of Kerala written in the form of Notes on Visscher’s Letters from Malabar, 4 vols. Rev. ed. 2013. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services.
Morgan, Chris. 2016. “The Egyptian Goddess Isis, Found in India.” Ancient Origins: Reconstructing the story of Humanity’s Past. April 14, 2016. https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-guest-authors/egyptian-goddess-isis-found-india-005708.
Peust, Carsten. 1999. An Introduction to the Phonology of a Dead Language. Gottingen: Peust und Gutschmidt.
Richter, Barbara. 2010. “On the Heels of the Wandering Goddess: The Myth and the Festival at the Temples of the Wadi el-Hallel and Dendera,” in Königtum, Staat und Gesellschaft Früher Hochkulturen, series 3,3: Ägyptologische Tempeltagung: Interconnections between Temples, ed. Monika Dolinska and Horst Beinlich, 155–86. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag.
Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae, Version 15, Oct. 31, 2014. Edited by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Last Accessed June 20, 2021. https://aaew.bbaw.de/tla/.
Wilkinson, John. 1878. The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians. Vols. 1–3. London: John Murray.
