South-Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses c10.s3.34

c10.s3.34

The worship of Jyēshthā appears to have been once quite familiar in the Tamil country. Like the shrines of Pidāri, her shrines were also exempted from taxation, as stated in early Chōla records. From an inscription on a pillar in the rock-cut temple of Subrahmanyasvāmin at Tirupparangunram near Madura, we learn that about the eighth century A.D. a shrine for the goddess Durgā and one for Jyeṣṭhā were caused to be made in that temple.¹ At Kukkanūr in the Nizam's Dominions, there is a celebrated Brahmanical temple dedicated to Jyeṣṭhā. In Southern India her worship nowadays is much neglected, if not altogether avoided, she being supposed to be the goddess of misfortune and poverty.