A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s3.72

v1.c5.s3.72

In Chapter IV of his *Adonis, Attis, Osiris*, Sir J. Frazer has dealt at length with the geographical distribution and origin of the system of sacred prostitution. All that need be said here is that this feature of the cult of the Marāthā god Khandoba, as also the custom of dedicating males to his service, has no parallel in northern India, and is obviously non-Aryan in character. To find any corresponding practices one has to examine the worship of ancient southern Indian earth-goddesses, like Yellamma, Māyaka, Firangāi and Ambābāi, to all of whom girls are dedicated by the well-known process of marriage to a dagger. The system is indeed a legacy of Dravidian culture, and may be assumed to have been established as one of the most serious features of their ritual among the aboriginal tribes which occupied the Deccan and Carnatic in early ages. The custom has shown extraordinary vitality. Aryan Brahmanism not only did not reject it, but lent it countenance by adopting Khandoba into the Brahmanic pantheon as an *avatār* of Siva, and by accepting the god as one of its regular household deities; Muhammadan rule in the Deccan exercised no effect upon it; and a century of undisturbed British suzerainty, with its sustained missionary and philanthropic endeavour, has failed to reduce appreciably the numbers of women who are set apart or elect to serve as the brides of Khandoba and the mistresses of men.