A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s3.59

v1.c5.s3.59

Fourthly, Khandoba, though the recognized god of the Marāthās, is pre-eminently the god of the Rāmosīs and Dhangars. The former declare that Khandoba, before he attained divinity, was a Lingāyat Vānī. Mackintosh describes how the Rāmosīs, before setting out to commit robbery or dacoity, always made a vow to Khandoba that if the expedition was successful they would make him a suitable offering. On their way home with the loot the Rāmosīs invariably dispatched one of their band to offer one, two or five rupees to the god.⁶ Oomiah Nāik (Uma Nāyak), the famous Rāmosī freebooter, who was hunted down by Bombay troops and hanged in 1832, gave to the Jejuri temple a large portion of the sum obtained by looting the Government treasury at Bhāmburda in February 1824.¹ One of Uma’s associates was a Vāghe (male devotee of Khandoba) named Khandu; and when in 1828 Uma was summoned to a formal interview with the British officer in command of the cavalry operating against him, he borrowed for the occasion the āftābgīrs, horns and other insignia from the temple at Jejuri.² It is well known that the Rāmosīs recognize the binding power of an oath taken on the turmeric (bhandar), the vegetable abode of Khandoba³; and the war-cry of their marauding gangs in old days was ‘El-kōt, El-kōt,’ which is a synonym of Khandoba, signifying ‘70 million’ (from Kanarese yelu kōt)—an allusion to the number of the demon hosts of Mani slain by the god in the form of Mārtand. By the Dhangars also Khandoba is specially revered, and is represented in his usual equestrian form, not only with Mālsubāī his wife in front, but also with his mistress Bānāī, a Dhangar woman, behind him. Khandoba’s love for Bānāī (Bān (arrow) and āi (mother) = quiver ?) forms the theme of a Dhangar tale, which appears to enshrine some reminiscence of marriage by capture.⁴ The great temple at Jejuri contains minor shrines of Hegadi, a Dhangar, and Pradhān, a Lingāyat Vānī, who are supposed to have been Khandoba’s ministers, and Hegadi, according to Dhangar belief, was the brother of Khandoba’s mistress, Bānāī. The shrines of Mālsubāī and Bānāī are situated respectively at the top and bottom of the hill occupied by the Jejuri temple; the god, it is said, having been forced to put his mistress’ shrine at the foot of the hill in order to appease the jealousy of Mālsubāī.⁵ It is not easy to determine what facts, if any, underlie these details of the Khandoba cult. Prima facie the tale looks like an attempt to co-ordinate the ancient connexion between the Dhangars and their tribal god with the reverence paid to him by later sectaries of a higher social status. It is sufficient for the present theme to point to the close relationship between this early tutelary deity and the ancient tribe of Dhangars or graziers, who offer stone sheep to Bānāi, the god’s mistress, in the hope that their flocks and herds will multiply.¹ One might hazard the conjecture that Bānāi herself is the primeval earth-goddess, whose sexual commerce with a male god of fertility was regarded as imperative for the welfare and safety of her devotees.