Elements of Hindu Iconography v3.c19.182

v3.c19.182

The worship of Jyēṣṭhādēvi appears to be very old. The *Bōdhāyana-Gṛihya-Sūtras* contain a chapter dealing with the worship of this goddess. One of the Śrī-vaishṇava Āḷvārs (saints), called Toṇḍar-aḍippoḍi, meaning the dust of the feet of God's devotees, refers in derision to the worship offered to this goddess by people in the vain hope of acquiring the fulfilment of their desires, while there is the great god Viṣṇu, the conferor of all boons, whom they forget altogether. We know of several temples in which the image of this *dēvi* is still seen to be occupying a corner, though not receiving any worship; in many other temples the image of this goddess is pulled out of the seat and thrown away; and even educated people do not understand what this rejected piece of sculpture is intended to represent. Strange stories are concocted in modern times in connection with the image of Jyēṣṭhādēvi; and they are introduced into *Sthalapurāṇas*. In a place called Naṅgapuram in the Trichinopoly District there is a Śiva temple belonging to the Chōḷa period. It is known to have been built in honour of a Chōḷa princess. The first part of the name of the village means a maiden, referring evidently to Ariñjigai, the Chōḷa princess. The people of this village point out an image of Jyēṣ- ṭhādēvi and assert that it represents a Chōḷa princess who was born with the face of a jackal. The story is that the king, feeling sorry for the deformation of his child prayed to god that her jackal-face might be removed from her. Then his god appeared to him in a dream and told him that if he built a temple for Śiva in the village of Naṅgapuram, and made his daughter visit and worship the god set up in it, she would immediately lose the face of the jackal and obtain instead the normal face of a woman. This, they say, happened accordingly; and in proof of the correctness of the story, they direct our attention to the figure with the bull's face sitting on the right of Jyēṣṭhādēvi and say that it is the princess before she visited the temple and lost her jackal-face and that the figure to the left of this is the lady as she became after she offered worship to Śiva in the newly constructed temple (Cf. Pl. CXXI). They, however, give no explanation at all regarding the central figure.