The natives of Kerala worship many different types of deities, among them, lesser gods called Shastav. They are lesser only in relation to the chief triune of the Hindu Puranic pantheon: Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. Parasurama, the mythical creator of Kerala, is said to have established temples dedicated to Shastav along the western flank of the Sahyadri mountain range. Despite their common name, the deities consecrated in these different temples have different identities, stories, and divine powers. For example, the deity of the famous Sabarimala Shastav Temple is a celibate young man; the deity of Aryankavu Shastav Temple, known as Ayyan, is a young boy mounted on an elephant with his consort Prabha on his left side and Lord Shiva on his right; the deity of Kulathupuzha Shastav Temple is known as Balakan and is in the form of a child; Andavan is worshiped in Achencoil Shastav Temple as a family man with two wives, Purna and Pushkala; the deity of Sasthamkotta Temple is accompanied by his consort Prabha and son Satyaka and is believed to have a retinue of monkeys.
Apart from these famous temples, there are a host of other Shastav temples all over the state. Theories abound as to their cult — that they are tribal gods, Buddhist deities, demigods, erstwhile guardians who protect the land. All of them share a double personality as a local hero and the son of divine parents and are described by the epithet Ayyappa or its variations. According to Professor Ajit Kumar, Ayyappa and Shastav are two different deities. While mention of Shastav is found in “texts like Sri Bhagavatam, Amsumadhbhedagama, and Suprabhedagama [that] cites [sic] Shasta as Hariharaputra, a progeny of Shiva and Vishnu … Ayyappa as a deity finds no mention in Puranic, Sangam or other literary texts and possibly is an aboriginal ancestral deity associated with hunting.” Yet, interestingly, the worship of Shastav and Ayyappa in Kerala and Tamil Nadu shares striking similarities with a unique cult that was once prevalent in ancient Egypt.
Among the numerous supernatural entities revered in ancient Egypt were deified humans in a form of ancestor worship. While deifying heroic personages has been a tradition in many cultures, and ancestors were generally worshiped in Egypt through mortuary cults, deification of specific individuals to a heightened form of divinity short of greater gods was a specific form of apotheosis particular to pharaonic Egypt. These deities, whose mortal, local identities were never denied, possessed unique positions within the Egyptian pantheon as “local gods.”
Such deified people, who were typically prominent men (and women) from noble families in life, received the epithet sah, which denoted a deified dignitary in a hierarchically lower position than true gods. In Egypt, some gods were described by the adjective shta ‘religious mystery,’ to indicate their mysterious nature and power, for example, sah-shta (sah-shtav being the plural form) meaning ‘mysterious deified noble.’ The deified humans from the ruling royal family were revered even more and were called ayya ‘great.’ There was a tendency to add the deified humans to the general pantheon of gods, and in some cases even to provide them with divine parents. For example, Imhotep and his sister Renpetneferet were regarded as children of Ptah; Amenhotep I was regarded as a son of Amun and Mut; Nespameti was considered a son of Khnum and Satet.
Deities who received royal patronage got impressive stone temples for their worship. In time they became the patron gods of the locality, or of specific groups, such as hunters or fighters. Their divine powers were expected to protect their village and their devotees from harm. Prayers to such deities were addressed through a formula imakh.w khr. Julia Troche, in her doctoral thesis on this topic, argues that this formula intended to communicate something about the relationship between two individuals, a recipient and an agent, the recipient devotee being in a lower status than, and “worthy of association with,” the godly agent. In other words, the devotee “takes refuge” in the deity’s divine power.
As the cult of these deified humans grew in prominence so did the religious rituals associated with their worship, in time expanding to include large processions, feasts and other festivities of significance to the local population. Although the litany of rituals was usually specific to the deity, a ritual of lighting torches or lamps before the statue of the deified human was generally considered important for them all.
One such deity was Heqaib of Elephantine, who was an expedition leader in his lifetime during the Old Kingdom of Egypt (ca. 2900–2200 BCE), and upon his death was deified in a chapel which eventually became a prominent cult of the region during the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2000–1650 BCE). He became the patron god of expedition leaders, acting as a living god rewarding devotees with durability. He was revered as sah. He came to be called Heqaib-ayya (‘great Heqaib’). Local rulers built and enlarged his temple as his prominence and cult grew.
In light of these Egyptian customs, the Shastav of Kerala can be seen in a new, yet familiar, light. They are not mere abstract deities from the Puranas; neither are they aboriginal gods. They are what they have always claimed to be. They were real people at one time — literal ancestors — revered in life by the local populace, and transformed into deities upon death. Hence their double personalities — one mortal, the other immortal. It is because they were different people in life that they have different stories and divine attributes upon death.
It is possible that Shastav derived from the Egyptian sah-shtav ‘mysterious deified nobles,’ the [s] and [sh] exchanging positions down the centuries. Indeed, Kerala has a long tradition of deifying and worshiping their clan leaders and spiritual healers in a marked departure from Brahmanical practices. Until about the fourth century CE, ancestral cults associated with urn burials and megalith crypts formed a large part of the religious life of the native population. These were precisely the rituals that underwent the most changes under the influence of Brahmanism.
Sabarimala Shastav was no exception. Historical legends claim he was a real person named Manikantan, the son of the royal nadvazhi of Panthalam. In his youth, he fought and defeated a warrior-brigand and became a local hero, like Heqaib of Elephantine. When he died young, he was deified, likely receiving the epithet sah and ayya like Heqaib, and his royal father built him a temple atop Mount Sabarimala. He became the patron god of hunters, like Heqaib of expedition leaders. His devotees came to take refuge in his powers through the sharanam chant, just like the imakh.w khr formula of the Egyptians. The traditional ritual of lighting lamps assumed importance in his shrine; today the ritual, called makara-vilakk, is celebrated when Sirius rises in the sky on the first day of the month of Makaram.
Eventually, he was added into the pantheon of gods as a minor deity, and given godly parents, like Amunhotep I of Egypt who was regarded after death as the divine child of Amun and Mut. With Kerala’s cultural transformation under Brahmanism, and the need of the hour to unite sparring devotees of Shiva and Vishnu for the greater good, Manikantan’s godly parents transformed into Shiva and Vishnu, and he donned the mantle of the Puranic divinity Hariharasuta, killer of demoness Mahishi.
According to both Hindu Tantra and Egyptian beliefs, the deity worshiped is the deity installed, meaning if the idol atop Sabarimala is worshiped as Hariharasuta by devotees, then that is who he is, for his power comes from the faithful prayers of his devotees. Thus, whatever may be his past history, however local may be his origins, and whoever may have consecrated him atop Mount Sabarimala, today he reigns worldwide over his devotees’ hearts and minds as the powerful, eternally celibate Sabarimala Shastav, Ayyappa, son of Vishnu and Shiva, patron god of hunters, slayer of Mahishi.
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