A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s3.44

v1.c5.s3.44

Finally, let us glance at the two chief deities of the Marāthā people, Khaṇdoba and Bhavānī. Khaṇdoba, whose name is supposed to be derived from Khaṇde-aba, i.e. ‘sword-father,’ in allusion to the sword which he is usually depicted as carrying unsheathed in his right hand, is the tutelary deity of the Deccan, just as Bhāirav, whom he resembles in several particulars, is the tutelary guardian of the village.¹ His chief temples are at Jejuri in Poona District, and at Pāl in Sātāra District; the officiating priests are Guravs, a widely distributed class of temple ministrants. It is noteworthy that in most temples of Khaṇdoba the pujāris or officiating priests are not invariably Brahmans; in the Thāna District they belong to the lower castes; and of three temples in Bombay, only one has a Brahman officiant, the duties in the other two being performed respectively by a Kamāthi and a Murlī, i.e. a woman dedicated to the god.² This fact of itself would indicate that the cult of Khaṇdoba is ancient and primarily non-Brahmanic. Khaṇdoba’s peculiar connexion with the Marāthās is shown by the fact that a large portion of the temple buildings at Jejuri are gifts from the important Marāthā families of Powār, Holkar and Vinchurkar; that Shāhjī, the father of Sivājī, visited the temple in 1662 at an important moment of his life; and that it was to Jejuri that Tārā Bāi Mohite made the Pēshwā repair and swear a solemn promise in 1755. Khaṇdoba combines the position of a household god with that of guardian deity of Mahārāshtra, for he is the chief household god of all the various Hindu castes and tribes in the Poona District; and so widely-acknowledged is his position that pilgrimages are made to his temple not only by Marāthās from other districts like Khāndesh and Berār, but also by the Kolīs or aboriginal fishing-tribe of the Konkan, while new settlers in the Deccan, whether from northern India, Gujarāt or the Carnatic, are declared to join early in paying him reverence.³