I have written previously about various esoteric deities venerated in Kerala — Oachira Kala, the Creator’s living bull; Pambinkav, where divine snakes are worshiped; Shastav, deified ancestors; and Pazhassi, seat of the goddess of learning. Some of these deities, and particularly the temples they are worshiped in, have accompanying local legends that increase their allure beyond the usual Puranic lore. An apt example is the Panniyur Varahamurthy temple in Kumbidi, Palakkad district, in which the main idol is of Vishnu in his avatar as a varaha ‘boar.’ Whether the deity’s identity stems from the town’s name — panni meaning ‘pig’ in modern Malayalam usage — or vice versa, the local legend claims that this temple was the very first one established by the original settlers of Kerala long, long ago.
Intriguingly, another local legend claims that the Nambuthiri families entrusted with priestly worship at this temple were charged with tampering the main idol beyond recognition, leading to their social downfall. Various versions of this legend exist, differing only in minor colorful details. According to Cudalore Ramachandra Aiyar, who wrote about the legend as it was told in his time (ca. 1883), these Nambuthiri brahmins covered the idol with a red-hotel metal vessel to diminish its power. Per another legend, this time by William Logan (ca. 1887), they burned and destroyed the idol of Lord Varaha as part of a rivalry with Sukapuram Nambuthiri brahmins. In any event, the original idol first installed in the temple was destroyed and replaced with a new one, so that it is impossible now to know the true identity of the primary deity of Varahamurthy temple.
Why would the deity’s identity be in doubt? one may ask. Because, the original settlers in the region were not Hindus, and if the legend of the temple’s origins are true, they could not have consecrated a temple to the Hindu Puranic god Vishnu by any means. William Logan claims that the temple must have been founded by Vaishnavite brahmins following in the wake of conquering Shaivite Chalukya kings, whose royal emblem was the boar; however, his claim does not match the local legends at all, or indeed, any other known facts about the temple, Hindu deities, or Kerala’s actual history.
As I wrote in Pazhassi, temples existed in Kerala prior to the arrival of Hindu brahmins; they were dedicated to gods of a different religion, more ancient perhaps than those of the Hindu Puranas. Thus, if the local legends are true, it is likely that the Panniyur Varahamurthy temple existed prior to 400 CE when brahmins immigrated to Kerala, and long before the Chalukya Dynasty was even founded around 550 CE. It may also be true that the temple’s idol was reforged to the present Hindu Puranic form centuries before 1800 CE by which time the split in the Nambuthiri community on account of the priestly mischief there was already the stuff of legends.
Who could the original deity be? Very likely, another animal, perhaps even one called panni, based on the name of the region. Now, despite current usage, panni did not exclusively mean ‘pig’ in Malayalam in the past. In fact, it referred to many other animals: kadal-panni ‘porpoise,’ mullan-panni ‘porcupine,’ panni-karadi ‘brown bear,’ and panni-eli ‘bandicoot rat,’ all of them sharing a common feature: a snout. Interestingly, kinattil panni ‘animal in well’ was a form of tax levied as late as 1822 by the ruling nadvazhi on hunting parties for all wild animals caught in hunting pits, suggesting that even in the early 1800’s, the term panni referred to any animal and not just the common pig.
Indeed, panni bears a strong resemblance to the Egyptian word pnw, possibly pronounced panniu, or paniniu, a term for ‘mouse,’ and more significantly, a divine mythical mouse-deity. In fact, pnw referred to a number of snouted animals resembling mice, such as shrews, bandicoot rats, and jirds, an example of ancient Egyptian propensity to assimilate multiple species into a single representative creature, quite like the Malayalam panni that refers to a variety of animals. The divine mythical mouse deity figured in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, leading the deceased through the darkness of the netherworld, much like Vishnu in his avatar as the boar leading a trembling Bhumi Devi through dark floods. pnw was also associated with the sun god Ra, highly revered among the Egyptians during the period of the solar cult around 2400–2200 BCE. Although he did not belong to the more important pantheon of higher Egyptian gods, such as Ra, Osiris, and Amun, he was sufficiently significant that people were named after him. Thus, it is very likely that the local legends of the first consecration of the Panniyur temple are true — there was an ancient animal deity named panni after all, and a temple consecrated to such a deity by the earliest settlers would not be entirely surprising if they arrived in Kerala from across the Indian Ocean.
If the original settlers in Kerala had been the ancient Egyptians, it is possible that, in veneration of the god’s ability to lead them through the darkness and floods of their new land, they could very well have established the first temple in the land to their deity pnw-ur (likely pronounced panniyur) ‘great pnw.’ The ur in panniyur probably stands for ‘great’ rather than ‘village,’ as in the name of the deity Amandaiyur mentioned in the Thiruvalla copper plates of ca. 1100 CE. In a likely reflection of actual historical events and linguistic evolution, what started out as worship of a mythical mouse could have changed under the influence of Brahmanism to that of a divine boar.
Bibliography
“About,” Panniyoor Varahamoorthy Temple, accessed on January 14, 2021, https://www.panniyoortemple.in/about.
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