South-Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses c11.s1.7

c11.s1.7

Kālā-Pidāri and Durgā-Paramēśvarī of four arms are names of village goddesses which occur in early Chōla inscriptions. The shrines of these are generally termed tirumurram.³ But sometimes, when they are structures, well endowed and patronized like the other orthodox Hindu temples, they are called *srikōyil*. Four varieties of the goddess Pidāri are known from the records of Rājarāja I of the first quarter of the eleventh century A.D., viz., Punnaitturainangai, “the goddess (living on a river bank), in a grove of *punnai* trees,” Poduvagai-ūr-udaiyāl, “the village deity common to all (classes),” Kuduraivattam-udaiyāl “the deity surrounded by (clay) horses,” and Tiruvāl-udaiyāl, “the deity of the sacred banyan tree.”