From Gentoo to Hindoo: Ziegenbalg’s Genealogy of Hindu Gods and Goddesses

Paper Presented at the Indo-Portuguese Conference held on 11-13 February,

2013.

David Smith’s Hinduism and Modernity argues that both keywords in

the title are complexly evolved entities, which however tend to

get reified and simplified in the attempts to essentialize and

give meaning to these.1 In the second part of his book, he looks

at the development and understanding of Hinduism from two

external perspectives – the Islamic view and the European one. It

is significant that he uses the category European instead of

Christian, but that is a separate subject. One of the issues that

he as well as other scholars touch upon is about how Hinduism

itself gets redefined and invented in a sense because of the

encounters with European travelers, Orientalists, missionaries,

East India Company officials and colonial administrators from the

late 16th century onwards. Although there have been severe

critiques of this position, the consequences of the encounter

with this ‘external’ force cannot be written off.

1 Smith, David, Hinduism and Modernity, Blackwell, 2008, p. ix.

In this paper, I examine European accounts of Hindu gods and

goddesses, beginning with the Portuguese accounts of the 16th

century and ending with 20th century British accounts of

peninsular India. The manner in which deities, pantheons and

cults inform the understanding of Hinduism in these writings, the

insights into the society that existed at the time of composition

of these works, and the source of knowledge of the religious

beliefs and customs will be discussed.

The present paper attempts to foreground representations of the

brahmanical religion by some critical Portuguese travelers of the

16th -17th centuries in the larger context of representation of

brahmanical religion by other European writers in pre colonial

India. This comparative reading helps us locate one of the key

components of the contemporary debate about the origins of

Hinduism. In my historiographical survey of work on the

brahmanical religion and specifically its pantheons, I was struck

by the fact that the earliest attempts to document and/or

enumerate forms of worship, classify deities and analyze the

tradition appeared in the travel, missionary and colonial

accounts that began to surface from the 16th century. This paper

will focus on the terms of reference to, and the representation

of, the brahmanical religion in India.

I

One of the major debates in the religious history of India is

about when the concept of Hinduism appeared, and the European

writings on India from the 16th century are very much implicated

in the discussions. David Lorenzen has shown that the term

‘Hinduism’ occurs for the first time in the early 19th century,

and that it gained currency only in the latter part of the same

century.2 Various scholars have shown how despite stray

references, it is the British colonial efforts to make sense of

the motley of sects, traditions and rituals that led them to the

meta term Hinduism. As John Stratton Hawley, a vociferous

proponent of the view that Hinduism was invented by the British,

succinctly put it, “Hinduism – the word and perhaps the reality –

was born in the 19th century, a notoriously illegitimate child.

The father was middle-class and British, and the mother, of

2 Lorenzen, David N., ‘Who Invented Hinduism?’, Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1999, 41:4, p. 631.

course, was India. The circumstances of the conception are not

altogether clear.”3

Lorenzen points out the significance of Raja Rammohan Roy’s

comment in 1817 that “The doctrines of the unity of God are real

Hinduism, as that religion was practiced by our ancestors, and as

it is well known at the present day to many learned Brahmins.”4

However, to argue on this basis that Hinduism itself was an

invented category, imposed from outside is refuted by the author.

Although Lorenzen doesn’t explicitly say so, Rammohan Roy’s

picking up of this category could be seen as an engagement with

an idea already well in circulation. While scholars like Hawley

recognize Hindu as an ethno-geographical concept, widely known

before the British colonial period, they ignore or refuse to

recognize the religious connotation of the term. Lorenzen, on the

other hand, would argue that the term Hindu emerges as a self-

conscious form of expression in the medieval period of Indian

history, because of the entry of Islam and rulers who followed

the Islamic tradition.5 In fact, the Purṇas are seen as

3 Cited in Lorenzen, p. 633.4 Ibid, pp. 631-25 Ibid, p. 631.

providing all the ingredients that went into the making of Hindu

identity.

David Smith carries forward Lorenzen’s argument by seeing the

conceptualization present from antiquity even if not articulated

in the current form. For Smith, “essentialism is an important

part of Hinduism… The Hindu essence implies techniques to reach

it, just as eating salt implies the process of extracting salt

from water, but the goal is highlighted rather than the path… A

common metaphor for essence is butter produced from milk. The

essence of the male is the semen slowly distilled within, so

easily lost. The essence of the female is her female power, her

shakti, expressed inher milk and her menstrual blood. The Brahman

is the essence of the caste system, the mouth of the organic

cosmic giant… Everything behaves in accordance with its essential

quality. Life is the expression of inner substance, of milk and

semen; the spiritual is the expression of the inner essence,

formless consciousness.”6

6 Smith, David, Hinduism and Modernity, Blackwell, New Delhi, 2003, pp. viii-ix.

II

The term Gentoo appears first in Portuguese accounts with

reference to the brahmanical religion from the 16th century.

Etymologically derived from the word gentio, it could variously

refer to those who were pagan, gentile or native.7 In the

Portuguese context, it is believed to refer to those of noble

descent, and hence, this may have been the earliest usage. The

Roteiro or Journal of Vasco da Gama’s voyage written by a member

of his expedition in 1498 CE gives us one of the earliest

European first-hand accounts of the native religious traditions.8

We are told of the entry of the captain-major (Vasco da Gama) in

a palanquin into the city of Calicut, and his visit to “a large

church”, “the body of the church is as large as a monastery, all

built of hewn stone and covered with tiles. At the main entrance

rises a pillar of bronze as high as a mast, on the top of which

was perched a bird, apparently a cock. In addition to this, there

was another pillar as high as a man and very stout. In the centre

of the body of the church rose a chapel, all built of hewn stone,7 Lorenzen, p. 639.8 Jackson, AV Williams, History of India, Volume 9, Historic Accounts of India by Foreign Travellers Classic, Oriental , and Occidental, 1907; Chapter 6 – ‘The Portuguese Navigator Vasco Da Gama at Calicut and His Reception by the Zamorin’, p. 205.

with a bronze door sufficiently wide for a man to pass, and stone

steps leading up to it. Within this sanctuary stood a small image

which they said represented Our Lady. Along the wall, by the main

entrance, hung seven small bells.”9 Joan Pau-Rubies comments that

this description reveals the expectations of the Portuguese to

find Christians in India, and is “evidence of the interpretation

of experience, when direct linguistic communication was not yet

possible”.10

The most discussed accounts of the Portuguese in current

historiography relate to the Vijayanagara empire, and the names

of Domingo Paes (c. 1520 CE) and Fernando Nuniz/ Nunes (c. 1536

CE) were made familiar to scholars in the important work of

Robert Sewell A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of

India published in 1900.11 Paes, a soldier (or a horse trader?),

in his “Of the Things which I saw and contrived to learn

concerning the kingdom of Narsimga, etc.’ gives an account of the

9 Ibid, p. 210.10 Pau-Rubies, Joan, Travel and Ethnology in the Renaissance, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 165-6.11 Sewell, Robert, A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagara; A Contribution to the History of India,

city of Darcha, which is identified with Dharwar.12 He is

particularly taken with a monument “such as can seldom be seen

elsewhere”, a pagoda “so beautiful that another as good of its

kind could not be found within a great distance”.13 He describes

a round temple made of a single stone covered with sculptures and

floral ornamentation, a porch with pillars, and an enclosure wall

surrounding it with three entrance gates. There are many idols

that are worshipped, which take male, female and animal forms.

The main idol in the Darcha temple was an elephant headed man

with trunk and tusks and three arms on each side. He is a hungry

god, and is fed well, while women dance before him. The daughters

of these dancing women are also said to belong to the temple. 14

At the city of Bisnaga (Vijayanagar), Paes mentions two temples

on either side of the northern gateway of the palace, where sheep

were slaughtered everyday while the jogi or priest blows a horn,

and then blood is offered to the idol.15 An annual festival

involving the pulling of a ‘triumphal car’ is also described.

Although there are temples on every street, the “principal and12 The Vijayanagar Empire: Chronicles of Paes and Nuniz, (translated and edited by Robert Sewell) reprinted by Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, 1991.13 Chronicles of Paes and Nuniz, p. 240.14 Ibid, pp. 240-1.15 Ibid, pp. 254-5.

greatest pagodas are outside the city”.16 Again, “Outside the

city walls on the north there are three very beautiful pagodas,

one of which is called Vitella, and it stands over this city of

Nagumdym; the other is called Aoperadinar, and this is the one

which they hold in most veneration, and to which they make great

pilgrimages.17 Sewell adds a note here that the first refers to

the beautifully sculptured Vitthalasvamin temple and the second

to the Virupaksa temple, possibly referred to by Paes as the

Hampi-rajya or royal temple.18 From the elaborate description of

this temple we get to know of the huge outer gate, the smaller

inner gate, the copper covering and gilt on the walls and roof of

the temple, the pillared hall with holes for lamps (between 2500

and 3000), the small crypt like the cinzeyro of the church, and

then finally the chapel of the idol. The principal idol is said

to have been a round stone without any shape. At the back of the

temple, near the verandahs, Paes describes a small idol of white

alabaster with six arms, holding a sword and other sacred emblems

(armas de casa), with a buffalo beneath its feet, and a large

16 Ibid, p. 256.17 Ibid, p. 260.18 Ibid, p. 260, fn. 1, 2.

animal apparently helping to kill that buffalo.19 The House of

Victory is the ritual site for the annual autumnal festivities

celebrated by the Vijayanagara rulers, which fell on 12th

September 1520. The main idol was placed in the casa or room made

of cloth on one end of the hall, with an elevated platform

holding an enthroned idol and cushions for the king in the centre

of the hall.20 The king is said to have witnessed the sacrifice

of 24 buffaloes and 150 sheep to the idol. The same ritual is

said to have been repeated every morning for nine days, and on

the last day 250 buffaloes and 4500 sheep are slaughtered.21 On

the basis of the writings of Paes, Nunes, and particularly Duarte

Barbosa, Pau-Rubies argues that the development of an

ethnographic analysis revealed in such writings “was the

intellectual creation of a colonial elite in formation whose

novel horizon was a settled, prosperous life in India,” which is

why Paes account merely seems to skim the surface of the

indigenous religion.22

19 Ibid, pp. 261-2.20 Ibid, p. 265.21 Ibid, pp. 266-7.22 Pau-Rubies, pp. 205, 227.

What we can clearly see from Paes’ account is the narration of

events that a participant observer recorded. There is nothing in

the narrative that aims at systematically examining and analyzing

that which is observed. Domingo Paes was possibly a soldier, and

accompanied the Portuguese Factor Christovo de Figueiredo to the

court of the famous Vijayanagara ruler Krishna Deva Raya. His

letter containing these observations of Vijayanagara and Hampi

was sent apparently from Goa to the celebrated Portuguese

historian Barros who lived in Lisbon, who forwarded this and

Nuniz’s account to the King of Portugal. From Sewell’s discussion

of these works, it appears that they were not very well known or

at least the European imagination of Hinduism was not coloured by

the reflections presented here. The presentation is schematic,

sketchy and incidental, rather than a sustained effort to

describe brahmanical deities and traditions. The significant

shift in recording gentile religious traditions and practices,

which Rubies calls ‘opening of the door’, can be linked to the

Catholic commitment to the missionary movement in the Counter-

Reformation phase. A second concomitant development was the

crisis of ‘imperial Catholicism’, according to Pau-Rubies.23

The work of Abraham Roger, a Dutch Calvinist who served as

chaplain in Pulicat for ten years from 1632, provides a contrast

to Paes, for his The Open Door to the Hidden Heathendom, was published

in 1651, and soon after translated into German (1663) and French

(1670).24 Roger’s work was informed by the observations and

comments of the Goanese brahmana Padmanabha. It has been pointed

out that although Roger had a proselytizing mission, his work was

as much the curiosity and concern of a scholar trained in

theology at the University of Leyden, who wanted to construct the

universal features of paganism.25 Unlike his contemporary, the

Jesuit Roberto de Nobili, who constructed the native tradition on

the basis of the Sanskritic tradition, Roger on the basis of his

observation of the Gangamma festival provided a very ‘modern’

interpretation of sacrifice in the Indian traditions, ranging

from the Vedic or higher conceptualization to the blood

sacrifices for local goddesses like Ganga. Further, for him the23 Rubies, pp. 311-2.24 Clark-Deces, Isabelle, The Encounter Never Ends: A Return to the Field of Tamil Rituals, SUNY, 25 Ibid, p. 69.

comparative framework was provided by paganism in the Roman

civilization.26

The pietistic forces in Europe with their emphasis on cross-

cultural mission challenged the nominal Christianity of the

Protestants in the late 17th century, and contributed to the

formation of the Royal Danish Mission in 1704 CE.27 The

Tranquebar Mission (Royal Danish Halle Mission) was established

at Tarangambadi near Tanjavur, which was an outpost of the Danish

East India Company from 1620 CE. Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg was the

first of the Tranquebar Protestant missionaries in India, who

wrote an interesting treatise in German in 1713 called Genealogy of

the South-Indian Gods, A Manual of the Mythology and Religion of the People of

Southern India, Including a Description of Popular Hinduism.28 For the first

time, there was an extended data collection, analysis and

understanding of the local customs, in this case related to the

Tamil speaking south India. As in the case of Rogers, here also

26 Ibid, pp. 70-71.27 Jeyaraj, Daniel, ‘Mission Reports from South India and their impact on the Western mind’, in Robert, Dana Lee (ed.), Converting Colonialism: Visions and Realties in Mission History, 1706-1914, pp. 21-42.28 Ziegenbalg, Bartholomaeus, Genealogy of the South-Indian Gods, A Manual of the Mythology andReligion of the People of Southern India, Including a Description of Popular Hinduism, Published in the Original German Text wih Notes and Additions by Rev W German, Freely Translated into English by Rv GJ Metzger, Higginotham and Co., Madras, 1869.

we find the insider’s view ascertained; but it is not one

incidental informant that we have here. Ziegenbalg talks of the

extensive correspondence he had with numerous “learned among the

heathens”.29

On the need for undertaking such a stupendous task,

Ziegenbalg explains “it was with reluctance, that we spent our

time in the inquiry into their foolish heathenism, more

especially because there occur in it many indecent and offensive

stories; but inasmuch as no one before us ever did this

thoroughly, and as we should like to work in preparation for our

successors, we were content to do the work, thinking that

herewith also a service is done to many in Europe; where

otherwise we should have regarded this as a punishment and not a

pleasure. Wise people will not make an ill use of this our work

of “hay and stubble”, nor be induced by it to do evil, but on the

contrary learn from it how much more grace God has bestowed on

them I spiritual matters, than on these heathens, and thereby be

moved to have compassion on them, and, when opportunity offers,

29 Ibid, p. xvli.

try, by every means in their power, to bring them out of their

idolatory.”30

The Genealogy consists of four Parts, with appendices for

the second, third and fourth parts. The first deals with the

Supreme or the Universal Being, Parabaravastu, structured in

three chapters related to the formless Being, Siva as material

being and Sakti as material being. Here, the highest Divine Being

is conceptualized as beyond the material, formless and

incomparable.31 The heathens reconcile idol worship with that of

the formless one because it is not possible to know the latter,

and the former are means through which they approach the

latter.32 Two texts are cited by Ziegenbalg as anti-idolatory

texts: the Sivavakya and the Tirukkural. Very interestingly, he

juxtaposes the heathens here to the Roman ones and finds that the

former have gone much ahead on the path to enlightenment.33 Siva

is described as 5 faced (here, the Saiva Siddhanta concept of

Brahma, Visnu, Rudra, Mahesvara, Sadasiva), 10 armed, white in

30 Ibid, p. xix.31 Ibid, p. 18.32 Ibid, p. 19.33 Ibid, p. 22.

colour and forehead smeared with sacred ash or Vibhuti,34 as the

linga or male genital surrounded by the female found in all

pagodas and worshipped with drink, meat, etc.35 Texts like

Tevaram, Tiruvacakam and Sivajnanabodham are considered the key

to Siva worship. The feminine counterpart of Siva, who together

form the Parabaravastu, was Sakti, green in colour, two-armed,

bejeweled, clad in red, worshipped variously as Sarvalokanayaki,

Sarvaokamata, etc.36

The second part of the Genealogy focuses on the Mummurtis,

i.e. Isvara, Vishnu and Brahma, and their families. The first

four chapters focus on Isvara, is wives Parvati and Ganga, his

elder son Vigneshvara, and his younger son Subrahmanya along with

the latter’s wives Valli and Devayanai respectively.37 The

description of Siva is largely the same as in Part one, although

Puranic myths of the Daruka forest are related to explain why the

deer and tiger skin are associated with him.38 Different places

associated with Siva (1008) are seen as loca manifestations of

34 Ibid, p. 30.35 Ibid, p. 27.36 Ibid, p. 36.37 Ibid, p. 49.38 Ibid, p. 43.

one and the same deity.39 There is description of the car

festivals in the big pagodas, with the huge six-wheeled cars

capped by a tower, carved on all sides with stories of Isvara,

dragged by 500 to 1000 devotees. The knowledge of the

Arupattumuvar or the 63 saints, festivals, annual temple

festivals such as the sacred marriage ceremony or Tirukalyanam,

and the winter bathing ritual, the Margazhi Tirumajanam, and the

Saiva Agamas are siginificant.40 Interestingly, Ganga as Siva’s

wife is given importance in Ziegenbalg’s account on the basis of

Tamil poetic and Puranic references.41 According to Ziegenbalg,

“Subrahmanya is worshipped by these heathens as if he were the

true God and Saviour,” known variously as Arumuga, Velayudha,

Guha, Kadamba, etc.42 With regard to Vishnu in the fifth chapter,

the avatara and vyuha concept are known revealing the circulation

of high philosophical ideas during the author’s time.43 Brahma

and Sarasvati find place last in this discussion of the

Mummurtis.

39 Ibid, p. 44.40 Ibid, pp. 49-50.41 Ibid, p. 57.42 Ibid, p. 64.43 Ibid, pp. 79-81.

In these parts, Ziegenbalg has focused on what we clearly

can identify as the Sanskritic tradition, having as its basis the

Tamil rendering of Vedic and Puranic ideas and concepts. However,

what is significant is that Ziegenbalg is well aware of the

localizing of these traditions, which is apparent in his

discussion of various names of Isvara at various sites, as well

as in his invoking Saiva Siddhantin and didactic literature to

elaborate on the idea of the Supreme Being.

The most fascinating part of Ziegenbalg’s work is the third

part that focuses on the Gramadevatas, tutelary deities and

demons, whom he describes as protectors of “the fields, villages,

and towns from evil spirits and to ward off all sorts of plagues,

famine, pestilence, war, conflagration and inundation, and are,

in short, regarded as beings who, though they cannot bestow

positive blessings, are able to prevent evil.”44 We are told of

the “bloody sacrifices of unclean animals, such as swine, goats,

and cocks, which are offered up by the people of the lower

orders; for the Brahmans shrink from shedding blood.” These were

mostly female deities, with some exceptions, called Ayenar

44 Ibid, p. 131.

(chapter 1), Ellamen and Mariammen (chapter 2), Ankalammen and

Bhadrakali (chapter 3), Pidari, Chamndi and Durga (chaper 4), and

Virabhadra (chapter 5), who apparently had a great influence in

the region. The epic-Puranic myth of Renuka, the wife of the sage

Jamadagni, who is beheaded by her son Parasurama on orders from

the sage is given a local flavor when it is recounted that the

Paraiahs gave her refuge, and Parasurama thereafter slew them

all. Carrying his mother’s head, the obedient son then asked for

various boons by which he gained benefaction for all those cursed

by his father. The restoration of his mother’s life is the first

of these, and the local tradition adds again that he went back to

the place where the body of his mother lay amongst the beheaded

paraiahs, and because he was not able to find her body, he

attached Renuka’s head to the body of a paraiah woman.45 We also

get to hear of practices like hook swinging that became a

contentious subject between the natives and the colonial

authorities in the 19th century.46

45 Ibid, pp. 136-7. The stone iconographic representation in the sanctum of her temples is of only the bust, representing apparently this renewal of life while at the same time not giving sacred space to the Paraiah body. See, ibid,p. 137. Also, the Paraiah woman is called Matangi in this tradition. Ibid. 46 Oddie, Geoff,

The goddess of small-pox is very interestingly represented

in the Genealogy: she is called Mari or death, Modi or the great

womb (although Z translates this as show/ enchantment), Kodi or

creeper (Z: valiant female), Vadugan Tai or mother of the

northerner, Mahaperundevi, and in the context of my own work,

most striking, as Kadukal Ammai.47 Another striking figure in

this pantheon is Bhadrakali, who according to local legend was a

wife of Isvara and was banished when she turned arrogant. She was

to be represented in dancing posture because she is once said to

have danced in emulation of Siva, who is therefore called

Peyodadi (one who danced with Pey). Among the deities found in

her temples, an image identified as Aghora represents Isvara “in

a dancing attitude having fourteen arms… in his erect locks, on

one side Ganga, and on the other the Moon”.48

In the case of Ellamman and Bhadrakali, Ziegenbalg provides

a very clear example of the indegenizing of the northern

Sanskritic, brahmanical tradition, in the form of appropriation

and assimilation of these figures. They clearly emerge from

47 Ibid, p. 139.48 Ibid, p. 142.

brahmanical mythology. However, the more well-known of the two,

and in fact revered as a deity, Bhadrakali, is divested of the

epic-Puranic context of Daksha’s sacrifice. She is simply

Isvara’s spouse. In both cases, these deities represent the

breaking asunder of patriarchal control – Renuka because she

lusts (since in the brahmanical patriarchal narratives it is the

great men and gods who are justified in lusting, abducting and

forcibly marrying the objects of their desire). Renuka does not

lust after another man, her sexual appetite is awakened.

Bhadrakali in this rendition is the wife gone astray, although we

are unclear whether this was sexually, but the very fact that she

has an ego throws her out of the world of gods and into the realm

of the devils. Although the figure of Virabhadra is closely

related to her own appearance in the Sanskritic tradition, he is

not part of her local Tamil mythology. The fact that his images

are to be found in her temples, however, do underscore their

earlier associations.

Mariamman, on the other hand reflects a very interesting

process of assimilation: it is not merely the Puranic traditions,

but also the classical Tamil traditions that colour her

conceptualization. This is why she is both Mahaperundevi or the

great goddess, or the creeper-like goddess Kodi (Uma) on the one

hand, and the denizen of forests (Kadukal) or the great womb

(Modi) on the other. The latter were epithets used for Korravai,

the goddesss of war ad victory in the Tamil region, in the Sangam

literature. A motif that I have discussed elsewhere that

frequently emerges in the brahmanical engagement with local

traditions is a dance competition between Siva and a goddess

variously called Kali, Camundi, Anangu and Korravai. So again,

what we have here is a mingling of traditions and, more

conspicuously, a blurring of identities.

Although the fourth chapter in this part is about Pidari,

Chamunda and Durga, there is much repetition about the

iconography and temples of the deities. While there is no myth

related to Pidari, Camundi is associated with the angry form of

Parvati after Daksa’s sacrifice. Durga is curiously represented

with a sheep head and is said to stand on the head of a lion that

she decapitated.49 It is her epithets of Nili and Suli that bring

back the amalgam of associations of this category of goddesses.

49 Ibid, pp. 144-5.

The final chapter on Malignant Beings discusses the devils,

demons and rakshasas/ asuras.

By the time we come to the works of the well-known

philologist and missionary Reverend Caldwell in the mid-19th

century, and still later to Reverend Henry Whitehead in the early

20th century, we find that there is greater system and order

followed in the understanding of religion, and particularly in

the portrayal of brahmanical deities. Caldwell’s The Religion of the

Shanars is said to have been greatly influenced by Ziegenbalg’s

Genealogy. In this work, there was an emphasis on the category of

divinities that Ziegenbalg had classified as Malignant Beings.

Here, Caldwell introduces the term demonolatory to describe the

worship of demons by this toddy tapping community in the

Tirunelveli region of Tamilnadu.

Rev. Henry Whitehead’s early twentieth century survey of

village deities and rituals is also considered an important

source-book on religion in the Tamil region because it

constitutes one of the earliest systematic documentations of

local beliefs and practices.50 Whitehead states that the origins

of animal sacrifices to the village deities, which were very

common, could be traced to the totemistic practices of the

Dravidian people, and predated the coming of the Aryans. The

author further argues that agrarian society developed first under

the Dravidians, and, making connections between the fertility of

the earth and women, he sees this as one of the reasons as to why

the village deities were primarily goddesses. At the end of his

compact ethnograph, Whitehead lists ninety-seven goddesses that

he had identified in different localities.51 However, a reading

of the names of these deities shows many repetitions, suggesting

that there was a regional awareness of these deities, who may

nevertheless have had origin myths that were at variance due to

locational factors. The remarkable feature of this work was its

comprehensive survey of the religious practices in south India,

and, like Ziegenbalg’s, this was a first-hand account of the

practitioner’s beliefs and traditions. While Whitehead, as the

Anglican Bishop of the Madras Diocese, had his own proselytizing

50 Rev. Henry Whitehead, The Village Gods of South India, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, 1999 (1921).51 Ibid., pp. 167-8.

agenda, one of his significant contributions is the understanding

of village cults and folk religion as counterposing the

brahmanical traditions with its emphasis on institutionalized

ritual and caste.52

W.T. Elmore’s work on Dravidian gods, written around the

same time as Whitehead’s survey, carries the same problematic

with regard to the definitive separation of Aryan and

Dravidian.53 One of the interesting things in Elmore’s analysis

is his recognition of the importance of the locality in defining

the identity of village deities, in the Tamil context, though

because of the cultural contact with the Aryan traditions, he

would see the generic term Śakti being applied to these

goddesses.54 While I would take issue with these analyses because

of the clear-cut separation of Aryan and Dravidian, seen not

merely in linguistic–cultural terms but also as a racial

difference, there is no doubt that these presented a more rounded

52 Ibid, chapter IX.53 W.T. Elmore, Dravidian Gods in Modern Hinduism, New York, 1915, pp. 16-18.54 Ibid, pp. 18, 40.

view of the ‘native’ religious traditions, which may or may not

be bracketed as Hindu.55

III

In this paper, I have attempted to look primarily at the

accounts of a European Evangelist Ziegenbalg, the first

Protestant Missionary with the Tranquebar Mission. The purpose of

my paper is to look at the gradual excavation of knowledge about

the religious traditions of the sub-continent by Ziegenbalg and

others. Although many were motivated by their proselytizing zeal,

they cannot be homogenized and understood as presenting a unified

picture. There have been studies of the Jesuits in the Malabar

region, particularly de Nobili’s emphasis on the upper caste and

classical Sansritic tradition. However, someone like Ziegenbalg,

in keeping with his philosophy of pietism, learnt the Tamil

language and studied the Tamil religious texts and classics to

understand the people he was trying to convert. More importantly,

he was responsible for a number of scholars and religious

practitioners with a knowledge of Tamil and Sanskrit committing

55 Perundevi Srinivasan, Stories about Posts: Vedic Variations Around the Hindu Goddess (review), Anthropological Quarterly, 78:3, 2005, pp. 783-87.

their ideas about the brahmanical tradition and Tamil society to

writing.56 Despite his deprecation of the heathen foolishness

apparent in the idolatory and other practices of the Tamils,

Ziegenbalg presented a coherent account of the brahmanical and

local deities worshipped by the people. While he does not place

the latter outside the life-world of the so-called ‘greater

traditions’, neither does he try to compress them within.

The debates about the colonial ‘invention’ of Hinduism or

its continual flow in premodern India have to take in these

nuances that men like Ziegenbalg were very sensitive to. As

Christine Chojnacki argues, most scholars ignore alternate

traditions within the sub-continent such as Jainism which provide

a sharp and focused religious identity that nevertheless was

fluid according to the context.57 The shift from the category

Gentoo implying the gentile religion of the heathens to Hindoo as

a sharp, essentialized identity that both Lorenzen and Smith talk

of, appear to be as much a construction of the western liberal

mind as those whom they critique. Ziegenbalg, and following him,56 Ibid, pp. 18-20.57 Chojnacki, Christine, ‘Shifting Communities in Early Jain Prabandha Literature: Sectarian Identities and Emergent Identities’, Studies in History, 27:2, 2011, pp. 197-219.

Elmore and Whitehead present a far more complicated reading of

what Hinduism as they understood it was, with all its

multiplicity, assimilations, contradictions and overlaps.