Elements of Hindu Iconography v4.c30.5

v4.c30.5

the union between Hara and Hari, Ārya, Śāsta or Hariharaputra is said to have been born. The Suprabhēdāgama very distinctly mentions that Śāsta was born of Mōhinī, the form assumed by Viṣṇu for the purpose of distributing the amṛta among the gods when it was churned from the milk-ocean, by the union with her of Hara. That this is a deity peculiarly Dravidian and has been taken into the fold of the Āryan pantheon at a later period goes without contradiction. At present Hariharaputra is treated in the Tamil country as a village deity and is mostly worshipped by the lower classes and the pūja in the temple of Hariharaputra or Ayyanār (or Ayyanārappan) is performed by a Śūdra. The Pādmasamhitā states that the pūja in the temple of Ārya should be performed by a Pāraśava; we know from other sources that a Pāraśava is an anulōma born of a Brāhmaṇa father and a Śūdra mother. But somehow Ayyanār, like the more tāmasic forms of Dēvi such as Kāḷi, which are worshipped by the lower classes in the Tamil country, is made pūja to by the Brāhmaṇas in Malabar.