The Rashtrakutas and their Times c20.123

c20.123

Temple worship was usually entrusted to Brahmanas; our records very often refer to settlements of Brahmana householders near the temples to look after the temple worship. But the non-Brahmana Gurava worshipper, who is now so common in the Deccan, also makes his appearance in our period. The worship in the Ramesvaram temple on the Tungabhadra was being performed by a Gurava in 804 A.D., when Govinda III had visited the place; Shivadhāri, who is expressly described as a Gurava in the record, (90) was the recipient of a grant from the emperor. In the S'iva temple at Mantrawadi in Dharwar district there were Gurava worshippers in 875 A.D., who were required to keep unbroken the vow of chastity. (91) At present the Guravas are not required to lead celibate life anywhere in the Deccan; therefore, this information supplied by our epigraph is very interesting and important. The Guravas are also mentioned in a Soratur inscription of the time of Kṛṣṇa III, (92) but their precise connection with the temple worship is not very clear from the record. The Ganga ruler Būtuga II had a pet dog; he was let loose at a mighty boar and the two killed each other in the fight. The affectionate master raised a tablet to commemorate his pet and appointed a Gurava for its worship. It would be noticed that the cases of Gurava worshippers, mentioned above, all pertain to S'iva temples, except the last one where he was appointed to perform the worship of a dog tablet. It would be, therefore, permissible to conjecture that the Guravas were originally non-Aryan, and very probably Dravidian priests, who continued to officiate at the temples of deities which were originally non-Aryan. Later on they may have been allowed to be associated with Aryan temples and gods as well.