UNUSUAL HINDU GODS AND TEMPLES AND THEIR STRANGE STORIES

CHINNAMASTA — THE GODDESS WHO CUTS OFF HER HEAD

Chinnamasta

Chinnamasta is the Hindu goddess of self-sacrifice and sexual restraint, mostly revered in Northern India and Nepal. She cuts off her own head and enjoys parading around with it while three spurts of blood flow from her open neck. If that isn’t enough, her severed head and two of her attendants drink the spurting blood. [Source: Owlcation]

Chinnamasta means “She Whose Head is Severed.' There are several myths regarding how her decapitation habit came about. According to one legend, a group of Hindu gods and demons churned the ocean to extract an elixir of immortality. Chinnamasta drank the demon's share of the spoils before decapitating herself to prevent them from reclaiming it.

According to another myth, Chinnamasta and her attendants became extremely hungry after bathing for an extended period of time. In an act of mercy, the goddess decapitated herself and allowed her attendants to drink her blood, thus satisfying their hunger.

Bullet Baba Temple, Home of Motorcycle God

Jodhpur is the home of motorcycle deity and temple that honors him — at Bullet Baba Temple on NH65 . Devotees there tie threads on he main deity, a 350cc Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycle. The temple is officially called Om Banna, but is better known as the Bullet Baba temple. temple It is in Pali, about 75 kilometers (46 miles) from Jodhpur. The deity of the roadside temple — the motorcycle — kept on a pedestal. The motorcycle belonged to local resident Om Singh Rathore who died in an accident on the highway connecting Jodhpur to Jaipur city in the 1980s. The temple is a popular rest stop spot for long-haul truck drivers who stop at the temple to offer prayers to keep them safe on India notoriously dangerous highways. [Source: Faizal Khan, BBC, November 8, 2021]

Francis Elliott wrote in The Times: “The man at the centre of the legend, Om Bana, was the son of a village chief. Relatively wealthy, he is said to have liked his liquor — right up until the night in 1988 when he rode the bike into the tree and died on the spot. Police impounded his Royal Enfield in the local station — but the bike, it seems, was not about to go quietly. “That night, all of a sudden, the engine roared into life,” says Babu Singh, the temple’s head priest. In the week that followed, stranded travellers began to report being rescued by a mysterious figure riding a Bullet. The police, disturbed by its spontaneous ignition, agreed to release the motorcycle to villagers, who returned it to the scene of the accident and made it into a shrine. [Source: Francis Elliott, The Times, February 5. 2011]

“Other than a flat front tyre, the Royal Enfield, registration RNJ 7773, appears in a serviceable condition, although no one has tried a kick-start in a long time. Instead, once a year it roars to life of its own accord, says the priest — adding that special powers are needed to be present at the correct time. The apparitions are not frequent; the last sighting was by a shepherd who received help after a breakdown about three months ago, says a villager. There are also competing versions of the legend. In one, the motorbike repeatedly “escaped” from the police station, returning to where its owner died, even after its fuel tank was emptied.

Worshippers at the Bullet Baba Motorbike Temple

Om Bana's Royal Enfield

Francis Elliott wrote in The Times: “Neha Kunwar touches the throttle and rear light, then dabs her forehead with incense ash, the “Bullet Baba” has delivered a vital emergency service. “I came here because there were problems with my engagement,” she says shyly, before breaking out into a broad smile. “But now everything has gone well and I’ve come back to give thanks.”[Source: Francis Elliott, The Times, February 5. 2011]

Each day between 5,000 and 10,000 people stop at the village of Chotila, near Pali, according to the temple’s priests; an estimate that seems plausible. Most pray for a safe journey — no small demand in a country where 15 people die on the roads every hour and drink-driving is estimated to be the cause of 40 per cent of accidents.

“Few travellers on highway N65 dare not at least slow down and offer a passing prayer. Most stop to make a small donation to ensure a safe journey, some lighting incense, tying red thread to the bike’s handlebars and ringing the temple bells. Visiting bikers make ritual, clockwise circuits of the shrine on their machines. Occasionally bikers from farther afield make a special pilgrimage; a group from Mumbai, hundreds of miles to the south, recently visited and made an offering of a helmet. A few foreigners have begun stopping on the tourist trail from Jodhpur.

“Whatever its other benefits, the deification is clearly a boon to Om Bana’s family and the village as a whole: stalls sell pennants, incense and coconut. There is even a small hotel. Ramesh Raol, one of the pilgrims, spends 40 rupees (50p) — a fifth of his daily labourer’s wage — on his offerings. Another devotee slips a bottle of hooch from beneath his shirt and pours a capful into the temple flames. Police try to discourage the practice, but bottles of liquor are often slipped to the priests. If the tens of thousands of rupees donated each day are used for good works, then the charity is unadvertised.

Film Inspired by Bullet Baba Motorcycle

The temple inspired the film “Dug Dug”, a 107-minute Hindi language film that premiered at the Toronto film festival in 2021. According to the BBC it a scorching satire on the quirky rituals and commercialisation of religion. Narrated with simplicity, the film explores the drama and mystique that makes droves of unsuspecting people want to cling to their bizarre beliefs.

The plot goes like this: “An inebriated man driving a motorcycle on a highway is run over by a truck. Next morning, his vehicle disappears from police custody and mysteriously surfaces on the same spot where he had died. Hauled back to the police station, the motorcycle keeps returning to the roadside scene of the accident. A combination of village intrigue and superstition soon lifts the dead man into a saint and his motorcycle a deity in the desert state of Rajasthan.

“"If you believe in something wholeheartedly, it works for you," said Ritwik Pareek, the director of Dug Dug, who was born in Jaipur, Rajasthan's capital. “"In India we have so many temples, one is more bizarre than the other.. I visited the temple in Pali as a kid. My family is very religious and my grandmother used to take me with her whenever she visited temples. She was very strict about rituals.

According to the BBC “A local man selected for playing Thakur Lal, the film's character based on Rathore, left the set saying he revered Rathore too much to play him. An old Luna, an Indian moped modelled on the Italian Piaggio vélo bike, replaced Rathore's Bullet motorcycle in the film.

Rat God Karni Mata and the Temple That Honors Him

rats drinking up the Karni Mata Temple

Karni Mata Temple is a Hindu temple dedicated to Karni Mata. Located in Deshnoke, 30 kilometers from Bikaner, in Rajasthan and also known as the Temple of Rats, it is is famous for the approximately 25,000 holy black rats — called kabbas — that live, and are revered in, the temple. Many people travel great distances to pay their respects. The temple draws visitors from across the country for blessings, as well as curious tourists from around the world. Devotees at the temple explain that rats, like all living creatures, are welcome. Eating food that has been nibbled on by the rats is considered to be a "high honor". If one of them is killed, it must be replaced with one made of solid silver. Some Indians criticize the money spent feeding the rats when some people in the town are desperately short of food.

Carvings of rats decorate silver doors and marble archways the temple dedicated to the Hindu goddess Bhagwati Karniji. Bowls of grains, sweets and milk are left out for the rodents which are everywhere. "They were all around me," said National Geographic photographer James Stanfield, who was in the temple on a magazine assignment, "While I was shooting pictures, the rats gnawed holes in my camera bag, and even chewed the insulation from my strobe lights, shorting them out." [Source: Thomas Canby, National Geographic, July 1977]

According to legend, Laxman, Karni Mata's stepson (or the son of one of her storytellers), drowned in a pond in Kapil Sarovar in Kolayat Tehsil while he was attempting to drink from it. Karni Mata implored Yama, the god of death, to revive him. First refusing, Yama eventually relented, permitting Laxman and all of Karni mata's male children to be reincarnated as rats. The story behind rats at the temple is different according to some local folklore. According to this version, a 20,000 strong army deserted a nearby battle and came running to Deshnoke. Upon learning of the sin of desertion, punishable by death, Karni Mata spared their lives but turned them into rats, and offered the temple as a future place to stay. The army of soldiers expressed their gratitude and promised to serve Karni Mata evermore. [Source: Wikipedia +]

Deified British Soldiers and a Train Seat Reserved for Shiva

In the 1880s a British soldier was deified in Travancore, at India’s southernmost point. Offerings were made to him which according to one British traveller was “an illustration of the horror in which the English were held by the natives”. Perhaps the motive for the white man’s deification was “not horror or dislike, but pity for his melancholy end, dying as he did in a desert, far away from friends”? wrote Anna Della Subin in her book about the incident — “Accidental Gods” . [Source: Simon Ings, The Telegraph, January 7, 2022]

In February, 2020, a Hindu god was given a reserved seat on an Indian Railways train. Quartz reported: Indian Railways may just have taken the idea of pilgrimage tourism a little too seriously. It made a reservation for the Hindu god Shiva on the 82401 Kashi Mahakal Express. The train was launched by prime minister Narendra Modi from the ancient holy city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh to connect two other major religious sites dedicated to the feral deity. [Source: Manavi Kapur, Quartz, February 17, 2020]

“The train connects Varanasi to Indore and Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh. “Even a temple has been drawn on the seat to make people aware that the seat is reserved for the Lord Mahakal in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain,” Northern Railways spokesperson Deepak Kumar told Press Trust of India. Keeping with its religious nature, passengers on the train will be served only vegetarian food, while devotional music will be played on board regularly. One-way journey from Varanasi to Indore will cost Rs1,951 ($27.3), inclusive of four meals. Social media was quick to react to the launch. One parliamentarian from the opposition took the opportunity to remind Modi of the tenets of equality and secularism enshrined in the constitution.

Divine Mothers --- the Goddesses of Contagion

Small shrines dedicated to the goddesses of contagion can be found all over India, often in rural, forested areas outside village and town limits. Tulasi Srinivas, a Professor at Emerson College , wrote in The Conversation: “Collectively known as “Amman,” or the Divine Mother, the goddesses of contagion — and it always goddesses, not gods — have been called on for their services before. They have been deployed in many of the deadly pandemics India has experienced from ancient times until the the modern age.

“The goddesses act as “celestial epidemiologists” curing illness. But if angered they can also inflict disease such as poxes, plagues, sores, fevers, tuberculosis and malaria. They are both poison and cure. [Source: Tulasi Srinivas, Professor of Anthropology, Religion and Transnational Studies, Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies, Emerson College, The Conversation, June 15, 2020]

One of the first images of a contagion goddess recorded is of the demon-turned-goddess Hariti, carved and worshipped during the deadly Justinian plague of Rome that came to India via trade routes, killing between 25 to 100 million people globally. In the late 19th century, my hometown of Bangalore suffered an epidemic of bubonic plague, which required the services of a contagion goddess. British colonial documents record the repeated waves of illness that stalked the city, and the desperate pleas to a goddess named “Plague Amma.” In south India, the premier contagion goddess is Mariamman — from the word “Mari” meaning both pox and transformation. In the north of India, she is known as the goddess Sheetala, meaning “the cold one” — a nod to her ability to cool fevers.

With the widespread use of modern antibiotics, retrovirals and vaccines in the mid 20th century, traditional Hindu healing rituals became less relevant. Contagion goddesses were beginning to be forgotten and ignored. But a handful of them developed rich post-pox lives reinventing themselves for modern afflictions. Some goddesses moved on from focusing on disease alone.

“In Bangalore, a city plagued by traffic fatalities, the goddess Mariamman transformed from a cholera goddess into the protector of drivers. Now known as “Traffic Circle Amman,” the goddess’s temple sees cars and trucks line up everyday for blessings, before drivers face the deadly maelstrom of city traffic. “Other goddesses came into being to fight new illnesses. On Dec. 1, 1997, World AIDS day, a new goddess named AIDSAmma was created by a science schoolteacher, H.N. Girish, not to cure AIDS but to teach worshipers the prophylactic measures necessary to prevent the disease.

Meenakshi Amman Temple

Rituals and Iconography Involving the Goddesses of Contagion

Srinivas writes: “The goddesses’ iconography emphasizes their therapeutic healing powers. Sheetala carries a pot of healing water, a broom to sweep away dirt, a branch of the indigenous Neem tree — said to cure skin and breathing disorders — and a jar of ambrosia for eternal life. Mariamman, on the other hand, carries a scimitar with which to smite and decapitate the demons of virulence and illness. [Source: Tulasi Srinivas, Professor of Anthropology, Religion and Transnational Studies, Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies, Emerson College, The Conversation, June 15, 2020]

“Contagion goddesses are not angelic and gentle, as one might expect caregivers to be. They are hot-tempered, demanding and fiery. They are deemed wilderness goddesses — highly local and traditionally worshiped primarily by lower caste, Dalit, tribal and rural folk. Some are associated with tantric practices and dark magic.

Placating the goddesses through blood sacrifice, decorative offerings and self mortification, was — and in some places, still is — a way of preparing for a pandemic in parts of India. Sometimes, painful piercings, hook swinging and self-flagellation were offered when patients recovered from illnesses, both mental and physical. Or in a sanitized version of blood sacrifice, small silver images of the patient were offered as a prophylactic against illness. Rituals have often involved variolation. A devotee would be inoculated with infected pus and the goddess invoked through possession to save them. The aim was to trigger a milder form of the illness and gain immunity.

“High caste Hindus and those who mirror high-caste practices often ignored and shunned the contagion goddesses, fearful of the blood rites, possession and the tantric rituals, which they associated with low caste worship. But these local contagion goddesses merged over time with the Divine Mother Shakti, the feminine personification of the energy behind creation. This domesticated the goddesses, making them more acceptable to bourgeois Hindus.

Goddesses of Contagion During the Coronavirus Panapemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic the contagion goddesses were re-conscripted. Srinivas writes:
“The Indian government’s quick action in instituting a stay-at-home lockdown that lasted two months prevented widespread contagion, but it also meant that people weren’t allowed to go to temples to worship the goddesses and ask for intervention. So priests offered special decorations, including garlands of acidic lemons believed to placate the goddesses. [Source: Tulasi Srinivas, Professor of Anthropology, Religion and Transnational Studies, Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies, Emerson College, The Conversation, June 15, 2020]

“The goddesses have also been recalled in posters by Indian artists that circulate through Facebook. Artist Sandhya Kumari’s rendering of “Coronavirus Mardini” — a hygienically masked Mother India attacking the coronavirus with a trident — recalled Shakti’s killing of evil, a familiar image to all Hindus. A nationalistic caption was added during reposting — “Mother India will end the Coronavirus, but it is every Indians duty to stay at home and take care of loved ones. Jai India!”

“In Kumari’s rendering, the goddess’s iconography is updated for the pandemic. The goddesses’ many gloved hands grasp sanitizer, masks, vaccination needles and other medical equipment. The coronavirus is held in chains, immovable and shorn of its virulence.

“While controversies over temples reopening dominates the news, a new deity, crafted from polystyrene and called “Corona Devi” has been installed in a temple dedicated to the pox goddess. Mr. Anilan, the priest and single devotee, says he will offer worship for “Corona Warriors” — health care workers, firefighters, and other front line personnel. Here science and faith are not seen as inimical to one another, but as working together, hand-in-glove. COVID-19 has undoubtedly increased the goddesses’ workload. And with no known cure and no viable vaccine, the contagion goddesses may well have their hands full for some time.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions” edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); “Encyclopedia of the World Cultures: Volume 3 South Asia “ edited by David Levinson (G.K. Hall & Company, New York, 1994); “The Creators” by Daniel Boorstin; “A Guide to Angkor: an Introduction to the Temples” by Dawn Rooney (Asia Book) for Information on temples and architecture. National Geographic, the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Times of London, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated December 2023