Hiltebeitel Rama and Gilgamesh

Rma and Gilgamesh: The Sacrifices of the Water Buffalo and the Bull of Heaven Author(s): Alf Hiltebeitel
Source: History of Religions, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Feb., 1980), pp. 187-223 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1062467 . Accessed: 13/08/2013 05:33
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Alf Hiltebeitel
R AMA AND THE GILGAMESH: SACRIFICES OF THE WATER BUFFALO AND THE BULL OF HEAVEN
The comparison of Indian and ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean traditions concerning the goddess is by no means a new one. It is widely held that such similarities as have been found result, in some combination of factors, from the common neolithic background, the agricultural revolution, the rise of the great river-based urban civilizations (including the "Harappan"), and the mutual contacts and diffusions that were a result of trade and the movement of peoples. The results of comparative studies, however, are disappointingly divided. On the one hand, there has been the fragmentary approach of identifying common cultic attitudes and personnel, generalized divine roles, and isolated specific themes and symbols in myths, rites, and iconography.1 On the other,
1 Among those who have contributed valuable insights, see S. K. Dikshit, The Mother Goddess (A Study regarding the Origins of Hinduism) (Poona: International Book Service, n.d.); E. 0. James, The Cult of the Mother Goddess: An Archaeological and Documentary Study (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1959); Sukumari Bhattacharji, The Indian Theogony (London: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 157-77; F. J. Richards, "Some Dravidian Affinities and Their Sequel," Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society 7 (1917): 243-84; Walter Dostal, "Ein Beitrag zur Frage des religiosen Weltbildes des friihesten Bodenbauer Vorderasiens," Archiv fur Volkerkunde 12 (1957): 54-109. ? 1980 by The University of Chicago. 0018-2710/80/1903-0001$02.84 187
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various syntheses have been attempted based either on generalized historical periodizations or cultural labels or on constructs like "matriarchy," "the feminine archetype," or "feminine theology." 2 It may well be that no vast comparative synthesis is possible. But the question should be continually asked: Do myths and rituals concerning the goddess show fundamental structural parallels and significant oppositions ? If they do, we can go beyond the amassing of endless details and the feeding of insatiable constructs to real hypotheses about the history, literary expression, and sociological significance of the goddess cult in its different cultural contexts.3 This essay will treat one such structural continuum in the area of ritual. Its point, however, can be made only by an examination of the ritual's echoes in myth and, even more specifically, in epic. Thus an additional comparative focus will be on the ways that certain epics provide ritual information. Our comparison concerns Indian and ancient Near Eastern rituals of sacrifice to the goddess and draws much of its material from the treatment of such rituals as narrative sequences in the great epic stories of Rama and Gilgamesh.
THE SOUTH INDIAN BUFFALO SACRIFICE
Let us begin with a synoptic conspectus on the buffalo sacrifice. Although buffalo sacrifices are pan-Indian,4 I draw my material primarily from South Indian village rites, for it is there that the
2 See, for instance, Robert Briffault's The Mothers. The Matriarchal Theory of Social Origins (abridged ed., New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1959), methodologically swallowed whole by Narendra Nath Bhattacharyya in both his The Indian Mother Goddess (2d ed.; Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books, 1977) and his History of the Sdkta Religion (Dehli: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1973); see also Erich Neumann, The Great Mother. An Analysis of the Archetype (Bollingen Series, no. 47 [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974]); Wendell Charles Beane, Myth, Cult and Symbols in odkta Hinduism: A Study of the Indian Mother Goddess (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977). 3 Of course valuable work has been done along these lines. See Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (New York: World Publishing Co., 1963), pp. 239-366, and A History of Religious Ideas, vol. 1, From the Stone Age to the Eleusinain Mysteries, trans. Willard R. Trask (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 56-161 and 390-423; Fred W. Clothey, "Skanda-Sasti: A Festival in Tamil India," History of Religions 8 (1969): esp. 249-50, noting that the Murukan festival has most of the ingredients of ancient Near Eastern festivals but lacks the "dying god," lamentation, and purgation themes. A new study by Gananath Obeyesekere of the Kannaki-Kovalan cult and myth will widen the spectrum on this very point (personal communication from Obeyesekere). 4 See Alf Hiltebeitel, "The Indus Valley 'Proto-Siva,' Reexamined through Reflections on the Goddess, the Buffalo, and the Symbolism of Vahanas," Anthropos 73 (1978): 767-97.
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ritual would seem to have its most rural, archaic, and perduring features.5 A. A public festival to the goddess involving a buffalo sacrifice may be done annually or at other fixed intervals, but it is commonly held whenever an epidemic breaks out, particularly of smallpox. It is unusual in that the festival involves the whole village, with caste-specific roles carried out by the village headman, the accountant (karnam, a Brahman), and so on down to the very lowest castes: the Malas, Holeyas, or Pariahs generally representthe "lefting the "right-hand" castes, and the Madigas or Manfigs
5 In citing material on the South Indian buffalo sacrifice, I will give references only when a detail is mentioned by fewer than four authors. As it is often essential to keep geographical distinctions in mind, the sources used are divided, with the exception of the first group, according to region. (a) General.-Madeleine Biardeau and Charles Malamoud, Le Sacrifice dans l'Inde ancienne (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1976), pp. 135-53; Richard L. Brubaker, "The Ambivalent Mistress. A Study of South Indian Village Goddesses and Their Religious Meaning" (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1978), esp. pp. 158-359 (hereafter cited as "Ambivalent Mistress"); P. K. Nambiar, ed., C. T. Rajan and T. S. Rajaram, research, Census of India 1971, ser. 19, Tamilnadu, part V-B, Ethnographic Notes. Scheduled Castes of Tamilnadu, vol. II (Delhi: Controller of Publications, 1975)-including extracts from many of the publications cited below (hereafter cited as Census 1971); Robert Vane Russell, The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India (1916; repr. ed. Oosterhout: Anthropological Publications, 1969), pp. 384-85 (hereafter Central Provinces); David Shulman, "The Murderous Bride: Tamil Versions of the Myth of Devi and the Buffalo Demon," History of Religions 16 (1976): 120-29; P. Thomas, Festivals and Holidays of India (Bombay: D. B. Tarporevala Sons & Co., 1971), pp. 35-40; P. Spratt, Hindu Personality and Culture (Bombay: P. C. Manaktalas & Sons, 1966), pp. 245-61; Edgar Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, 7 vols. (Madras: Government Press, 1909), 4:292-325 (Madigas), 4:329-43 (Malas), 7:146-51 (Todas) (hereafter Castes and Tribes); Henry Whitehead, The Village Gods of South India (Calcutta: Association Press, 1921) (hereafter Village Gods). (b) Andhra Pradesh.-Emma Rauschenbusch Clough, While Sewing Sandals, Or Tales of a Telegu Pariah Tribe (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1899) (hereafter Sewing Sandals); S. C. Dube, Indian Village (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), pp. 111-15 (buffalos apparently replaced); Wilber Theodore Elmore, Dravidian Gods in Modern Hinduism (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1915) (hereafter Dravidian Gods); Alvin Texas Fishman, Culture Change and the Underprivileged. A Study of Madigas in South India under Christian Guidance (Madras: Christian Literature Society, 1941) (hereafter Culture Change); Syed Siraj al Hassan, Castes and Tribes of H. E. H. the Nizam's Dominions (Bombay, 1920), 1:409-20 cited in extracts in P. K. Nambiar, ed., Census 1971, pp. 281-92 (hereafter Hassan/Nambiar, Nizam's Dominions); A. Satyanarayana Murthy, M. Vijaya Lakshmikumari, and B. Rama Moorthy, "Caste and Ritual in an Andhra Vill age," Folklore (Calcutta) 19(1978): 146-50 (hereafter"Caste and Ritual"); N. Subba Reddi, "Community Conflict among the Depressed Castes of Andhra," Man in India 30 (1950): 2-12 (hereafter Reddi/Nambiar, "Community Conflicts," as extracted in Nambiar, ed., Census 1971, pp. 329-39); the journal citation given in the latter seems to be erroneous; idem, "Spatial Variance of Customs in Andhra Pradesh," in Anthropology on the March, ed. L. K. Bala Ratnam (Madras: Book Centre Publications, 1963), pp. 283-96 (hereafter "Spatial Variance"); T. R. Singh, The Madiga. A Study in Social Structure and Change (Lucknow: Ethnographic and Folk Culture Society, U.P., 1969) (hereafter cited as Madiga). (c) Karnataka and Maharashtra.-Rao Bahadur R. C. Artal, "The Village Goddess Dyamavva," Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay 7 (1907): 632-47 (hereafter "Dyamavva"); Walter Elliot, Aboriginal Caste Book, 3 vols. (Manu189
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hand" castes. Various specific ceremonial roles are performed by members of these "fifth" castes, as also by potters, washermen, and barbers.6 B. There is usually, in addition to the buffalo sacrifice, the sacrifice of a sheep or goat. One cannot resist citing Artal's attempted clarification in this regard: "The sheep so dedicated is always a goat." 7 Frequently it is a black goat. Usually this goat (or ram) is killed prior to the buffalo, but in some instances-most notably in Andhra-its killing follows that of the buffalo. It is sometimes regarded as the buffalo's younger brother.8 The officiant responsible is often dressed as a woman.9 In Maharashtra and Karnataka, where the figure is sometimes a Mang, a Mahar, or a Holeya, he bears the name of Potraj, which means "buffalo king." In Andhra there is one reference to a Mala Potraj,10 though for the most part one finds the name in Andhra and Tamilnadu belonging to a divine attendant of the goddess. The Potraj (or sometimes an undesignated member of one of the fifth castes) kills the goat or ram by going into a state of possession or trance, biting its neck, and drinking some of its blood. A symbolic counterpart of this drink of blood is the draught of wine drunk by the goddess before she slays Mahisasura, the buffalo-demon (e.g., Devi-Mdhdtmyam 3.34). Additional blood is then soaked into large quantities of boiled rice. C. The main buffalo to be sacrificed is identified as the village
script: India Office Library [London]), 1:390-443; idem, unattached galley sheet in Aboriginal Caste Book, vol. I, summarizing paper titled "On a Proposed Ethnological Congress at Calcutta" (ca. 1869 ?) (hereafter "Proposed Ethnological Congress"); idem, Local History, 3 vols. (Manuscript: India Office Library, n.d.), 2: 675-81; Fred Fawcett, "On Some Festivals to Village Goddesses," Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay 2 (1890): 261-82 (hereafter "Some Festivals"); J. S. F. Mackenzie, "The Village Feast," Indian Antiquary 3 (1874): 6-9; Alexander Robertson, The Mahar Folk (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), pp. 67-69; Gunther-Dietz Sontheimer, Birobd, Mhaskobd, und Khandobd: Ursprung, Geschichte und Unwelt von Pastoralen Gottheiten in Mahdrdstra (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1976), p. 60 (hereafter Birobd); H. V. Nanjundayya and L. Krishna Ananthakrishna Iyer, The Mysore Tribes and Castes, 4 vols. (Mysore: Mysore University Press, 1931), 4:125-69 (hereafter Mysore Tribes); Traude Vetschera, "Laxmiai-a Mother Goddess of the Deccan," Anthropos 71 (1976): 457-65 J. Richards, "A Buffalo Sacrifice in (hereafter "Laxmiai"). (d) Tamilnadu.-F. Salem City," Indian Antiquary 41 (1932): 143-44 (hereafter "Buffalo Sacrifice"); Gustav Oppert, The Original Inhabitants of Bharatavarsa or India (Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co., 1893), pp. 457-95. 6 See Brubaker, "Ambivalent Mistress," pp. 173-96, for an illuminating discussion of the roles of such non-Brahman ritual specialists. 7 Artal, "Dyamavva," p. 642. 8 Ibid., pp. 635, 643; Nanjundayya and Iyer, Mysore Tribes, 4:159. 9 Sontheimer, Birobd, pp. 60-61 and pl. XI, 3; Vetschera, "Laxmiai," pp. 462-65. 10 Hassan/Nambiar, Nizam's Dominions, p. 429. 190
History of Religions goddess's husband. He has been selected soon after the most recent buffalo sacrifice, so as to prevent the goddess from remaining a widow, and has been left to roam freely around the village thus constituting a potential nuisance'1 (one is reminded of the horse at the Asvamedha: horse and mahisi or queen cohabit after the horse is sacrificed; buffalo [mahisa] and goddess cohabit until the buffalo is sacrificed). Among the Todas the wildness of the buffalo seems to be further underscored in sacrificial rituals, for the Todas chase the buffalo and wrestle it to the ground by the horns.12 In village rites the buffalo's wildness and anger may be accentuated by putting it through a period of starvation or fast and then dragging it by ropes through the village streets to the sound of drums played by members of the "fifth" castes.13 It may first be led to the house of the village headman.14 But its final destination is the sacrificial ground, where it is bathed, smeared with turmeric, and garlanded with flowers. Such adornments of a male are commonly associated with marriage. An image of the goddess may may also be prepared for the rite "as if she were a bride."15 The sacrificial symbolism thus has a connotation of sexual union. A pot of toddy may also be set before the images,16 for, as with the drinking of the blood of the ram or goat, those who participate in the rite are possessed by the Goddess and share in her "intoxication." D. The buffalo's head is cut off, almost always by a selected officiant from one of the "fifth" castes, though occasionally by a washerman or a barber.17 Madigas and Malas sometimes vie for this position.18 It should be done in one blow and in no more than three. Two methods for handling the blood are cited. In one, the buffalo's blood soaks into the ground, either in a pit or on the surface, and is covered up. A strict patrol keeps members of other villages from seizing it and taking its beneficial power to their own villages. Or the blood is taken in a vessel before the goddess's
11 Nanjundayya and Iyer, Mysore Tribes, 4:158; Whitehead, Village Gods, pp. 78, 107; Fawcett, "Some Festivals," pp. 271-72. 12 Thurston, Castes and Tribes, 7:150. 13 Murthy et al., "Caste and Ritual," p. 147; Mackenzie, "The Village Feast," p. 8 (the buffalo also made to jump over a fire pit); Fawcett, "Some Festivals," p. 265; Artal, "Dyamavva," p. 642. See Brubaker, "Ambivalent Mistress," p. 343. 14 Thurston, Castes and Tribes, 4:338. 15 Nanjundayya and lyer, Mysore Tribes, 4:160. 16 Thurston, Castes and Tribes, 4:338. 17 Whitehead (Village Gods, p. 93) mentions the only case where it is not done by one of the low ritual service castes-a Padaiyachi or Vanniya. 18 Reddi/Nambiar, "Community Conflict," p. 336; Reddi, "Spatial Variance," p. 286. 191
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image in the temple and closed up with her for three days. When it is removed, it is said that she has drunk some of it.19 In one case, grains were mixed with the blood and those which sprouted in it were chosen as auspicious for the next planting.20 Taken together the two variant rites suggest that the goddess is in both cases identified with the earth which, through drinking the buffalo's blood, thereby benefits the village in the form of vitalized crops. Sometimes the head and even the carcass of the buffalo are buried,21 but usually they are reserved for further ritual use. E. The buffalo's head is placed down in some fashion that connects it with the goddess: facing the goddess's image or that of one of her attendants; facing north, her direction;22 or upon a diagrammatic four-colored five-sided figure 23 which is itself placed before the goddess. The right foreleg is cut off and placed crosswise in the buffalo's mouth. Fat from its stomach is smeared over its eyes and nose.24 F. An earthenware lamp is lighted and placed on the buffalo's severed head. The oil is supposed to be from the buffalo's fat.25 G. Additional animals (including buffalo) are frequently brought and sacrificed by individuals, in fulfillment of personal vows which usually follow the recovery from some illness or hardship. H. Rites of apotropaic removal follow. The most regular feature of these involves taking the cooked rice soaked in blood from the ram or goat and mixing into it the entrails-filled with food-of the buffalo. in at least two instances Having undigested
19 Whitehead, Village Gods, p. 94. 21 Ibid., p. 107. Ibid., pp. 64-65. 22 Ibid., pp. 78, 92; Elmore, Dravidian Gods, p. 25; Fawcett, "Some Festivals," p. 276 (facing goddess image); Richards, "Buffalo Sacrifice," p. 143 (facing north). 23 Elliot, Aboriginal Caste Book, 1:411-12; cf. Thurston, Castes and Tribes, 4:299. 24 The foreleg in the mouth is discussed further in Alf Hiltebeitel, "Sexuality and Sacrifice: Convergent Subcurrents in the Firewalking Cult of Draupadi," in Continuity and Change in South Asian Religion, ed. Fred W. Clothey (Delhi: Manohar Book Service, in press). Evidence of great antiquity for at least part of this practice may come from N. K. Gurov, one of the Russian team to work on the decipherment of the Indus Valley script, who interprets the sign for "offering" on the seals as "the profile representation of the (front) leg of some cloven animals" among which he includes the buffalo ("Towards the Linguistic Interpretation of the Proto-Indian Texts," Journal of Tamil Studies 2 [1970]: 76); see also Hiltebeitel, "Indus Valley 'Proto-Siva,'" pp. 779-80 (n. 4 above). Cf. Brubaker, "Ambivalent Mistress," pp. 334-38, including discussion of the fat over the eyes. See also Elmore, Dravidian Gods, p. 121. 25 See Hiltebeitel, "Indus Valley 'Proto-Siva,'" pp. 785-86 and n. 55, proposing that the lamp on the buffalo's head is the ritual counterpart of the early iconic treatment of Durga standing on the buffalo's head as Mahisasuramardini. The theme is further investigated in my "Sexuality and Sacrifice." 192
20
History of Religions put this mixture to his mouth,26 an officiant called the Bhuitabaligadu27 carries this mixture in a basket to a boundary location, most frequently to a boundary stone or to the corners of the village. The Bhuitabaligadu may be naked.28 The job is said to be full of dangers. At the boundaries he disperses the blood-riceentrails mixture as a "food-offering to demons and ghostly spirits" (bhutabali, poli),29 in most cases scattering it, in others (principally in Tamilnadu) throwing it after having pressed it into little balls.30 The scattering of the blood-soaked rice probably evokes smallpox, and both are probably related to the myth of Kali devouring the demon Raktabija ("blood-seed") who multiplies every time a drop of his blood touches the ground (Devi-Mahdtmya 8.40-63).31 Additional apotropaic rites may also be performed: the removal beyond the village of the buffalo's head, and sometimes the processional image of the goddess before which the sacrificed buffalo head has been placed.32 Although Madigas or Manigs and Malas,
Richards, "Buffalo Sacrifice," p. 144; Mackenzie, "The Village Feast," p. 9. Thurston, Castes and Tribes, 4:337. Ibid., p. 339; Whitehead, Village Gods, p. 73. Elliot, "Proposed Ethnological Congress"; Nanjundayya and Iyer, Mysore Tribes, 4:161; Whitehead, Village Gods, p. 94. 30 Whitehead, Village Gods, p. 94; Richards, "Buffalo Sacrifice," p. 144. Brubaker, "Ambivalent Mistress," pp. 240-41, astutely compares the Tamil practice of the pindas offered in orthodox sraddha rites and suggests that the pressing of the bhftabali into balls "may well have been adopted from Brahmanic rituals"Brahmanic influences on the buffalo cultus being most detectable in Tamilnadu. But see George L. Hart III, The Poems of Ancient Tamil. Their Milieu and Their Sanskrit Counterparts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), pp. 85-86, discussing comparable practices (without the blood) in early South Indian offerings to the dead. 31 This point involves a complex set of associations. The blood-soaked rice involves an inversion of traditional offerings of rice to ancestors (see n. 30 above). As rice bears close traditional symbolic connections with male seed (see Satapatha Brahmana 13.1.1.1-4), blood is the symbolic counterpart for female sexuality. Mythically speaking, one source of the smallpox is the wrath of the goddess that results from her having been in her previous life a brahmani who was deceived into marrying an outcaste (see n. 38 below). That is the "original" impure of blood and seed. For its results to be neutralized, the mixture must be mixing offered the bhatabali-to bhutas, that is, devils and ghosts, but not symbolically-as normal ancestors. In a sense the bhutas are lured into taking this food, which is full of dangerous power. Yet from another angle, as they are more even than outcastes, the bhutas are performing an indispensible ritual impure service: the bhatabali is their prasada. As to the demon Raktabija, as his "blood-seed" is devoured by Kali herself, this is probably a hint at her being, finally, the last resort in combating the disease. It is thus in the role of impersonating or being possessed by the goddess that the Bhutabaligadu would put the blood-rice to his mouth. For some similar but also different reflections, see Brubaker, "Ambivalent Mistress," pp. 237-67, 301-23, and 343-48 (I think the buffalo is usually quite clearly differentiated from the bhatas and cannot be easily grouped with them under the rubric of an invading enemy host). 32 Whitehead, Village Gods, pp. 52, 66-67; Elliot, Aboriginal Caste Book, 1:43840; idem, "Proposed Ethnological Congress." 193
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Pariahs and Holeyas vie for the position of strewing the bloodrice, as they do for the role of beheading the buffalo,33 sometimes the two roles are divided between members of these left- and right-hand "fifth" castes. But there may also be other individuals identified by specific ceremonial titles. This is particularly true in Karnataka and Maharashtra, from which the following details have been reported. One such figure is Ranigya or Ranagayya, sometimes also called Gosangi.34 The latter name probably means "cow eater" or "cow killer."35 He is the chief of the musicianchoristers known as Asadis and performs at various points throughout the sacrifice. Ranigya is usually said to personify the buffalo's younger brother36 and thus represents the goat or ram which the Potraj bites to death (see item B above).37 He is thus the goddess's brother-in-law, since the buffalo is her husband. As part of the band that disperses the blood-rice, his role is to revile her with foul and abusive songs for such things as having destroyed his family,38 having become a widow, being a harlot and an adultress-in terms that invoke her power over disease and plenty.39 This abuse is said to please the goddess.40 Ranigya also directs some of his abuse against the representatives of the higher
33 Reddi/Nambiar, "Community Conflict," p. 336; Reddi, "Spatial Variance," p. 386. 34 Nanjundayya and Iyer, Mysore Tribes, 4:154, 160-61; Artal, "Dyamavva," pp. 633-34; Hassan/Nambiar, Nizam's Dominions, p. 280. 35 See citations in n. 34 above. Connected with this title is a widely attested myth in which a Madiga ancestor kills and eats the Kamadhenu ("Cow of Wishes"). See Singh, Madiga, pp. 4-7, recounting different versions; Fishman, Culture Change, p. 14; Clough, Sewing Sandals, pp. 13-15; Nanjundayya and lyer, Mysore Tribes, 4:128-29; Russell, Central Provinces, p. 385. Singh adds the following on the term Gosangi: "The Gosangi or Gosika Madiga, a small [endogamous] group . . . claim superiority over the Tangedi Madiga. They do not eat beef or pork, nor do they work in leather.... It is said that the Gosangi at first ate beef but refused buffalo meat, and as such received this name. Because the Tangedi Madiga ate buffalo they were placed lower than the Gosangi" (Madiga, pp. 41-42). 36 Artal, "Dyamavva," pp. 635, 643; Nanjundayya and Iyer, Mysore Tribes, 4:159; Elliot, Local History, 2:679 (a maternal cousin). 37 Where Elliot, Local History, 2:679, describes an account which makes Ranigya the buffalo husband's maternal cousin, the latter's brother-the ram-is called Gavaga, perhaps a replica of Gosangi. 38 In the most pertinent myth, the defiled brahmani and goddess-to-be kills not only her husband but her children, who are henceforth born as Asadis. For variants, see Whitehead, Village Gods, pp. 84-85, 117-19; Elmore, Dravidian Gods, pp. 118-20; Artal, "Dyamavva," pp. 642-44; Spratt, Hindu Personality and Culture, pp. 253-54; Nanjundayya and Iyer, Mysore Tribes, 4:156-58; and Elliot, Aboriginal Caste Book, 2:675-81, quoted fully in Hiltebeitel, "Sexuality and Sacrifice." See also Brubaker, "Ambivalent Mistress," pp. 89-90, 334-39. 39 Nanjundayya and Iyer, Mysore Tribes, 4:154; Artal, "Dyamavva," pp. 634, 643; Elliot, Local History, 2:679-80. 40 Elliot, Local History, 2:680.
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castes (the Sircar, Naik, and Patel), until he is bribed to stop.41 After the blood-soaked rice has been strewn and the choristers have sung their songs, there may also remain a role for the Potraj. Some sources describe the Potraj as leading the distributors of the bhiutabali to the village boundaries, naked42 or carrying the buffalo's head on his own.43 Another mentions that after the head is buried on the boundary line, all in the procession go home except for the Potraj, who "starts away from the boundary and must not be seen for three days." 44 In another instance, he performs a pujd to Siva, god of outsiders and impure shares.45 It is the Potraj who, earlier, is said to "free the village" 46 with the slaying of the ram or goat. Now it seems that he frees the village additionally by being connected with whatever impurity must remain outside the village, whether from the bhutabali, the discarded buffalo's head, or from the abusive mouth of Ranigya. These themes of accepting the impurity of the sacrifice converge in a myth from Andhra where Potu Razu, divinized, is the village goddess Renuka's brother. Seeking to destroy certain Raksasas who trouble her father's kingdom, Renuka cannot do so because they multiply every time a drop of their blood touches the ground.47 So,
Renuka now thought of her brother Potu Razu, who immediately stood before her. "My brother," she said, "If you will help me in this trouble I will see to it that you receive a sheep as tall as the sky and a pile of rice as high as a palm tree." [Potu Razu agreed.] Renuka directed him to spread his tongue over the ground as far as the king of Rakshasas extended, and not let one drop of their blood fall to the ground. Thus the propagation of the Rakshases was stopped and the battle was won. This is the explanation of the offering of a sheep and a pile of rice to Potu Razu whenever the village deity is worshipped.48
As the goddess here is Renuka, a ksatriya, we are left with the implication that in being regarded as her brother, Potu Razu has risen in caste. Elsewhere he is more logically the brother of Renuka's Madiga double, Mathamma.49 As Elmore notes, "no one
Elliot, Aboriginal Caste Book, 1:437-39. Robertson, The Mahar Folk, p. 68. 43 Elliot, "Proposed Ethnographical Congress." 44 Elliot, Aboriginal Caste Book, 1: 440. 45 Thurston, Castes and Tribes, 4:340; on Aiva, see Hiltebeitel, The Ritual of Battle: Krishna in the Mahdbhdrata (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1976), pp. 312-56. 46 Elliot, Aboriginal Caste Book, 1:429. 47 Again a multiform of the Raktabija myth; see n. 31 above. 48 Elmore, Dravidian Gods, pp. 85-86. 49 See below, item I, and Elmore, Dravidian Gods, pp. 98-99. 195
42 41
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seems to know how it happens that Potu Razu is a brother of Renuka. This legend appears to be lost." 50 Nonetheless, there is a parallel myth which involves an even higher elevation of Pottu Raja to the status of Brahman. In Tamilnadu, the cult of Draupadiamman recognizes Pottu Raja as a Brahman servant of the goddess who perennially holds the last head of a many-headed demon which, should it touch the ground, would allow the demon to regenerate himself.51 In each case, it seems implied that Pottu Raja holds the head or holds out his tongue indefinitely, that is, until the impurity of the sacrifice is neutralized or destroyed. This is analogous to the three-day exile of the human Potraj described by Elliott.52 Moreover, one must suppose that the sheep given to Potu Razu in the Andhra myth is related to the one whose neck the Potraj bites prior to the buffalo sacrifice, and that therefore the great mound of rice which the goddess gives to Potu Razu is a counterpart to the blood-soaked rice (bhutabali) which the Potraj or some other officient disperses after the buffalo sacrifice. Thus, from one angle, like Kali he destroys the Raktabija ("bloodseed")-like demons by swallowing their blood; and from another angle, he benefits from handling the impurity of the bhutabali by receiving a giant mount of rice from the goddess. I. In some fashion the unity of the village is finally affirmed. Where the head and/or carcass of the buffalo remains, it is eaten in a feast. The carcass is once said to belong to the village headman,53 but more often to the Madigas or other "fifth" castes. In either case, the whole village would be symbolically represented by its top or bottom members. Sometimes it is stated that all castes have their share, with two indications that shares are distributed among "twelve office bearers" or "twelve classes of village servants."54 But those who are vegetarians make over their shares to others who are not.55 Further emphasis on the mingling of the different castes is mentioned by Artal: A marriage
50 Elmore, Dravidian Gods, p. 85; see also Murthy et al., "Caste and Ritual," p. 147. 51 Oral information, Tindivanam and Vellimedupettai, South Arcot, August 1977; see Hiltebeitel, "Indus Valley 'Proto-Aiva,'" pp. 782-83. 52 Elliot, Aboriginal Caste Book, 1: 440. 53 Whitehead, Village Gods, p. 58. 54 Nanjundayya and Iyer, Mysore Tribes, 4:161; Thurston, Castes and Tribes, 4:338. One is reminded of the twelve Ratnins, office holders, in the Rajasfya sacrifice. 55 Fawcett, "Some Festivals," p. 272; Thurston, Castes and Tribes, 4:334. See the excited and gory competition for shares in Elliot, Aboriginal Caste Book, 1:437. 196
took place between a man and a woman of different castes,56 therefore different castes mix at the "fair." 57 But the most interesting person in this connection is called Matafigi, a figure found by that name in both Karnataka and Andhra, and, as we shall see, with likely counterparts elsewhere. Matafigi is connected in various ways with the goddess, for instance as her sister-in-law or mother-in-law.58 In any case she is a Madiga and a woman possessed by Mathamma, the Madigas caste goddess. One myth which frequently accounts for her subordination to the village goddess (Ellamma, Mariamman, Dyamavva, Renuka, etc.)59 is the South Indian village rendition of the Renuka story. Mathamma and the village goddess have their present forms because when Parasurama slew his mother Renuka, he also accidently slew her "chuckler" or leather-worker servant (a Madiga woman); and in his haste, at twilight, to fit the heads to their bodies, he transposed them.60 Mathamma thus has the outcast head and the ksatriya body, and the village goddess-whom her husband still recognizes as Renuka-the reverse. Matanfigi,in embodying Mathamma, thus represents the fusion of the high and lowest castes, but especially from the point of view (head) of the latter. Madigas cannot enter the inner sanctum of a Mariamman temple,61 so Mathamma and Matanigi represent the Madigas' primary means of access to the village goddess. Once chosen through possession by the goddess Mathamma and initiated, the Mataiigi holds her position for life.62 Her sexual status is most ambiguous. She is married symbolically to a tree and "after that her life knows no moral restrictions." 63 One finds Matafigi as a name for a class of prostitutes.64 But her role at "all
An allusion to the myth referred to in nn. 31 and 38 above. Artal ("Dyamavva," p. 646) also mentions that the "fair" may involve two wife's (goddess's) and the husband's (buffalo's). Cf. also Murthy villages-the et al., "Caste and Ritual," pp. 149-50. 58 In Elliot, Local History, 2:679, and Artal, "Dyamavva," p. 643, respectively. 59 The Renuka myth is transposed onto a variety of village goddesses. 60 For nine village variants of the Renuka myth and discussion thereof, see Brubaker, "Ambivalent Mistress," pp. 99-121. On Sanskritic versions, see Madeleine Biardeau, "La Decapitation de Renuka dans le mythe de Parasurama," in Pratidanam: Indian, Iranian and Indo-European Studies, ed. J. C. Heesterman, F. B. J. Kuiper Festschrift (The Hague: Mouton, 1969), pp. 563-72. 61 Nambiar et al., Census of India 1971, 2:252; cf. Dube, Indian Village, p. 112. 62 On her initiation, see Thurston, Castes and Tribes, 4:298-304; Elmore, Dravidian Gods, pp. 28-29; Clough, Sewing Sandals, pp. 62-76; Brubaker, "Ambivalent Mistress," pp. 267-74. Cf. Vetschers, "Laxmiai," pp. 461-64, on the initiation of the Potraj. 63 Clough, Sewing Sandals, p. 74; Elmore, Dravidian Gods, p. 29. 64 Thurston, Castes and Tribes, 4:298.
57
56
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ceremonies" is not to remove pollution like the Potraj and the Bhutabaligadu but to preside over the purificatory ceremonies.65 Mataiigi and Mathamma are both connected with the buffalo cultus. When the village goddess goes unworshipped, Mathamma brings diseases along with her brother Potu Razu.66 A buffalo is sacrificed at Matafigi's initiation,67 and the heads of animals sacrificed to the village goddess may be kept and then buried in a shed built for Matafgi.68 Mtanigi is either the sister or mother of the buffalo-husband in the prototype myth.69 I have not found a description of her role which states explicitly that it is performed at an actual buffalo sacrifice, but it would seem that the following applies to that context.70 In any case, even if it is not so concerned, the following account of her role shows direct structural and thematic relations to the buffalo sacrifice.
When [the village goddess] is to have her festival, the nearest Matangi is applied to. Her necklace of cowry shells is deposited in a well for three days, before she is allowed to put it on for the ceremony. She dons the necklace, and marches behind the master of ceremonies, who carries a knife, wooden shoes, and trident,71 which have been similarly placed for a time at the bottom of a well. The master of ceremonies, his male and female relations, then stand in a line, and the Matangi runs round and round them, uttering what appear to be meaningless exclamations, spitting upon all of them, and touching them with her stick. Her touch and saliva are believed to purge all uncleanliness of body and soul, and are invited by men who would ordinarily scorn to approach her, and it passes one's comprehension how she should be honored with the task of purifying the soul and body of high class Reddis and purse-proud Komatis. It must be said that only a very few Brahman families keep up this mysterious ceremony of homage to the Matangi. She is allowed to come into the house, that is to pass the gate. There she besmears a certain spot with cowdung, and places upon it a basket. It is at once filled with cooked food. A layer of rice powder covers the surface of the food, and on it is placed a small lamp, which is lighted. She then holds a little earthenware pot, and asks for toddy to fill it with. But the Brahman says that she must be content with water. With the pot in her hand and wild exultant songs in her mouth, recounting her humiliation of Brahman and Kshatriya, of saint and sovereign, she moves quickly around the assembled men and women, scattering with a free hand upon them the water from the pot .... [Women then present her with petticoats, and men change their sacred threads.]72
65
p. Nanjundayya and Iyer, Mysore Tribes, 4:162. Elliot, Local History, 2:679; Artal, "Dyamavva," p. 643; see n. 38 above. In agreement, see Brubaker, "Ambivalent Mistress," p. 268, n. 1. This is probably a figure analogous in at least some ways to the Potraj. Thurston, Castes and Tribes, 4:297-98; buttermilk from her mouth, placed on margosa leaves and scattered, is also purifying (Clough, Sewing Sandals, pp. 70, 76). 198
68 69 70 71 72
66 Ibid., p. 307; Elmore, Dravidian Gods, pp. 98-99. 67 Elmore, Dravidian Gods, 29.
Ibid., p. 296.
This nine-point synopsis cannot, of course, do justice to the nearly infinite variation one finds in accounts of South Indian buffalo sacrifices, but it will indicate better than the reliance upon any single report the underlying themes, continuities, and structure. The comparison of this material with epic scenarios, however, will require a further structural analysis of the relation between the rites of apotropaic removal (item H above) and those of "communitas" (item I above). The contrast noted between such rites offers good corroborating material for Victor Turner's discussion of the interconnection between what he calls rites of prophylaxis and rites of abandonment (and communitas) in the "sacrificial process."73 The South Indian buffalo sacrifice is a perfect case of a sacrificial rite that brings the apotropaic and the communal "flow" into a single focus. For the sake of clarity and simplification, I will present the relations between these two aspects of the buffalo sacrifice in the form of a chart of oppositions. Two difficulties must be acknowledged and answered. First, the figures who participate in the apotropaic rites-the Ranigya, the Gavaga, the Asadis, the Potraj, the Bhuitabaligadu-are not always clearly differentiated in their roles and identities. This is no doubt partly due to the fragmentary and impressionistic character of much of the descriptive literature, but it is no doubt also a reasonably accurate reflection of the facts. The proliferation of male roles in the sacrifice may be connected with the division of these roles among members of the lowest castes. In any case, this proliferation is most in evidence during the apotropaic rites, when the lowest castes turn to ritual advantage their routine everyday roles of handling impurities. It will thus be necessary to discuss the apotropaic rites from the vantage point of all the figures involved and to think of these rites as a total enterprise. Second, as already stated, none of the sources state explicitly that the Mtaiiigi's purificatory role is performed within the context of the communal rites that conclude the buffalo sacrifice. From the account quoted above, it would seem that there is a connection, but that her contribution precedes the sacrifice. Whatever the case, Matanfigi'srole is structurally the "counterritual" to the apotropaic rites, and neither can be adequately discussed without the other.
73 Victor Turner, "Sacrifice as Quintessential Process: Prophylaxis or Abandonment?" History of Religions 16 (1977): esp. 207-15.
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Apotropaic Rites (involving the Potraj, Ranigya, Asadis, and Bhutabaligadu) Numerous figures involved. All are male. Different castes are represented. The Potraj kills the ram or goat (identified with the abusive Ranigya) by biting its neck, and drinks its blood (which has a symbolic connection with liquor and intoxication). The Bhuitabaligadu (or Potraj) holds a basket of rice mixed with blood. In eating (as mentioned twice) or accepting (as in the Andhra myth) the blood-soaked rice mixed with the undigested food from the buffalo's entrails, the Madiga, Madigas, or Potu Razu show "what they are ready to swallow for the sake of their people."74 The Potraj or Bhfutabaligadu, when he takes off the bhftabali, is thrice said to go naked. Ranigya must be bribed to stop his invective, although it is pleasing to the goddess. Communal Purificatory Rites (involving the Matafigi) One figure involved. A female. A Madiga. Matanfigi asks for toddy (liquor) but takes water from the brahman to disperse.
1. 2. 3. 4.
1. 2. 3. 4.
5.
5. Matafigi holdsa basket ofcooked food covered with rice powder. 6. In releasing purifying water, or buttermilk, Matanigi shows what the goddess is willing on her people. saliva, the blessings to shower
6.
7.
8.
9. The distribution of the bhatabali spreads the blood-soaked rice away from the village, where it is thrown as food to demons. 10. The Potraj is ostracized and must stay outside the village; he handles the impurity that must remain outside.
7. The Matafigi accepts clothes from women while men change their sacred threads. 8. The verbal abuse of Matafigiwho represents the Madigacaste goddess-is welcomed by all, particularly by men of high castes. 9. Matafigi spreads spit and water from the Brahman's pot, both of which are equally purifying, and of which all welcome the spray. 10. Matafigi is welcomed into houses and past gates, spreading purity inside the village and its homes, touching one and all freely and at their encouragement.
It is hard to resist further discussion of these oppositions as they stand. But their significance for comparison is our present concern.
RAMA AND THE HERMITAGE OF MATANGA
Recent scholarship has made major advances in unpacking the sacrificial symbolism of the Mahabharata.75 The main emphasis
74 See Dan Sperber, Rethinking Symbolism, trans. Alice Morton (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974), p. 61, paraphrased here. Sperber's structural analysis of the relation between two Ethiopian Dorze rituals not only shows remarkable similarities to the Indian buffalo sacrifice, but may be cited as a parallel example of the type of analysis attempted here in showing the relation between the rites referred to in these two columns. 75 See Hiltebeitel, Ritual of Battle; Heino Gehrts, Mahabharata: Das Geschehen 200
has, of course, been on connections with the Brahman~icalsacrificial system. But a strict Vedic/non-Vedic dichotomy is of questionable value in interpreting post-Vedic texts, and various indications have been perceived that the MahTihhirata has interiorized sacrificial themes from both sources.7 The Mah5bhhrata thus shows the hand of synthesis in its treatment of the Indian sacrificial heritage. In the Ramilyania, however, the treatment of non-Vedic sacrificial themes seems altogether different. In the case at hand, it is not a matter of a ritual scenario interior to the main story, but of an episode that is explicitly exterior and anterior. It is also easily recognized for its non-Vedic character, being an obvious rendition of a buffalo sacrifice. After Riima and Laksman~ahave learned from the dying vulture Jatayu of Sita's abduction by Ravan~a, they proceed, as the bird had directed them, in a southerly direction on an "untrodden path" (aviprahatam ... pant hdnam; 3.65.2; Baroda Critical Edition). They are, in other words, going into the uncharted forest, having now exhausted their visits to the hermitages of all the famous Rsis down to and including the last, Agastya (3.10-12), whose hermitage on Mount Podiyil in the Tinnevelly District is regarded in classical texts and modern folklore as marking the southernmost outpost of colonizing Aryandom.7 Passing through several thick forests, they finally meet the headless Kabandha, a grotesque Danava suffering from a curse, who tells them, once Rdma has helped him regain his beauty, that Riivan~a'sabode may be found 78 if Riima for'ms an alliance with the monkey Sugriva. Kabandha provides them with an itinerary to Sugriva's haunt on Mount Rsyamfika near Lake Pampai. On the way they must pass Matafiga's wood (matajigavanam), where the Rsi Mataifiga had his hermitage. The approach will be remarkable, past flowering trees and lotuses which make unfading garlands but which no man has
und seine Bedeutung (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, 1975); J. A. B. van Buitenen, trans., The Mah&bh&trata (Chicago: U-niversity of Chicago Press, 1975), 2:3-30; Madeleine Biardeau, "Etudes de mythologie hindoue (Parts 4 and Bhakti et Bulletin II, de 5), avatfira," Orient 63 (1976): 1'Ecole Frangaise d'Exrtreime 203 62, and 65 (1978): 87-238. 76 See Madeleine Biardeau, Le Sacrifice dans l'Inde ancienne (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1976), pp. 119 53; David Shulman, "The Serpent and the Sacrifice: An Anthill Myth from Tiruvarfir," History of Religions 18 (1978): 107 37; Hiltebeitel, "Sexuality and Sacrifice." Little has been done on the R&myryana,but the material is there. 71 See Hiltebeitel, "Nahusa in the Skies: A Human King of Heaven," History of Religions 16 (1977): 336-50. Agastya is also identified with the southern star Canopus. 78 See Robert Goldman and J. L. Masson, "Who Knows Rdvana? A Narrative Difficulty in the V5ilmiki R&mayana," Annals of the Rhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 50 (1969): 95-100. 201
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ever picked. Explains Kabandha: "The disciples of Mataiiga there were well-adorned Rsis. When they were overheated (abhitapta) by the burden of fetching forest produce for their guru, the drops of sweat from their body (sarirdtsvedabindavah) which fell to the earth quickly were born as flowers (mdlydni) from the munis' tapas. Produced from drops of sweat, they do not die, 0 Raghava" (svedabindusamutthdni na vinasyati rdghava; 3.69.16cd-18). Yet within the hermitage all the rsis (including Matafiga) have passed away, but one: a "mendicant woman" (sramani, 3.69.19; also a siddhd, 3.70.6 and 9) named Sabari. The rest, Sabari soon corroborates, ascended to heaven when, earlier on their travels, Rama and company reached Mount Citrakuta (3.70.10-11). On Kabandha's instructions, Rama and Laksmana thus start toward Mount Rsyamfika by way of Matafiga's hermitage. Upon arrival, they learn that Sabari has remained behind at the instructions of Matanga and the other ascetics to obtain the sight of Rama. "Having seen him, you will go to the best of worlds" (3.70.12), was Matanga's promise. She now tells briefly the story of the hermitage and the powers of Matafga and the other ascetics, mentioning several curious details: their vedi (altar) faced west, and to it they brought the seven seas by virtue of their thought (3.70.19-21). Then she concludes: "As permitted by you, I wish to abandon this body. I wish to go into the presence of those pure-souled ones, those munis whose hermitage this is and of whom I am the maid-servant" (paricdrini: 70.23cd-24). And with Rama's permission, having offered herself into the fire (hutvdtmandm hutdsane; 26), she rejoins her maharsi preceptors in heaven. The brothers then leave Matanga's hermitage, but not without a curious remark from Rama: "Having performed ablutions and satisfied the ancestors in these tirthas of the seven seas, ... whatever misfortune [sin, evil] one has is destroyed (pranastam asubham yat) and good fortune (kalydnam) is begun. My mind is thus delighted now, 0 Laksmana" (3.71.4-5). This, the last of many hermitages which Raina visits, is the only one thus explicitly connected with an act of purification. It is also curious that in an "interpolated" passage Sabari tells Rama that she can now attain the heavens because "I am purified by your gentle regard" (tavdharm caksus . . . putd saumyena; 332*, line 5). Sabari's connections with purification should not be missed, and one cannot help wonder who is purifying whom. The good turn of fortune which Rama senses is of course the 202
History of Religions meeting with Sugriva and Hanuman on Mount .Rsyamuka. Soon Rama and Sugriva discover their common lot (lost wives, exiles), and forge an alliance of mutual aid with its implied exchange: that Sugriva will help Rama find Sita if Rama will kill Valin, Sugriva's older brother. Rama says he will kill Valin only after hearing the story of the brothers' enmity, but as he says it he strings his
bow.
The first and most famous part of Sugriva's story concerns the cause of the enmity. Briefly, once when Valin had fought the asura Mayavin in a cave outside the monkeys' capital Kiskindha, he had stationed Sugriva outside the cave entrance. After a year Sugriva heard and saw signs of what he thought was Valin's death, so he blocked the cave to prevent the asura's exit. Back at Kiskindha he was consecrated king in his brother's stead. But it was Valin who had triumphed in the cave, and when he finally got out he reclaimed the throne and, accepting no excuses, ran Sugriva out of town.79 Behind this story, however, lies another which Sugriva turns to in order to explain Mayavin's enmity toward Valin, to disclose the reason why Valin cannot harm Sugriva on Mount Rsyamuka, and to test Rama's potential as Valin's foe. We come back to the Rsi Mataniga. Mayavin's anger at Valin stems from Valin's prior conquest of Mayavin's older brother Dundubhi. This figure is introduced as follows: "a buffalo named Dundubhi, who resembled the peak of Kailasa" (mahiso dundubhirndma kaildsasikhaprabhah; 4.11.7). Dundubhi is in any case an asura who takes on buffalo form (dhdrayanmahisa.m rupam; 25)80 for his fight with Valin, a duel he covets having heard of Valin's prowess. Dundubhi terrorizes Kiskindha with his pointed horns; "then the highpowered Dundubhi roared out, causing the earth to tremble, like the drum which bears his name" (nanarda kampayan bhumi.m dundubhirdundubhiryathd; 26). As the play on words indicates, dundubhi is also the word for a large kettledrum, probably covered with buffalo hide. Dundubhi wrecks the trees, rends the earth, and tears the gate of Kiskindha with his horns. Finally Valin emerges to meet his challenge, fresh from amours with his concubines. An interesting exchange then precedes their combat. Valin asks Dundubhi why
79 See J. Moussaieff Masson, "Fratricide and the Monkeys: Psychoanalytic Observations on an Episode in the Valmikiramayanam," Journal of the American Oriental Society 95 (1975): 672-78. 80 This is also usually the case with Mahisasura in the Durga myths.
203
Rama and Gilgamesh

he obstructs the city gate (nagaradvdram; 30) when it will only lead to his death. Dundubhi replies that Valin should mind his words in the presence of women and offers to postpone the fight until Valin is through carousing. He concludes: "Surely whoever would slay one drunk or wanton, sleeping or deserted, or, like you, deluded with intoxication (madamohitam), he as much as commits an abortion in the world" (34). To this Valin replies that Dundubhi should not think him merely drunk: "In this combat, consider this intoxication the drink of heroes" (mado 'yam sar.prahdre 'sminvmrapdnamsamarthyatdm; 36). The fight is then on, though not for long. Valin grabs Dundubhi by the horns and the latter is crushed (nispi.sta; 39) until the blood flows from his ears. Then, lifting up the corpse, Valin hurls it for a yojana. "When it was thus impetuously propelled, drops of blood from the wounds fell out from his mouth (vaktrdtksatajabindavah) and were lifted up by the wind toward the hermitage of Matafiga. Having seen them fall there, the muni, covered with drops of blood (sonitaviprusah), uttered a great curse against the hurler Valin: 'This hermitage/wood here is not for him to enter, for upon entering he will die"' (40-42). Valin will therefore not enter or even glance at Rsyamuka, which is part of Matafiga's hermitage and wood. Sugriva then points to Dundubhi's remains, a "great pile of bones that shines forth like the peak of a mountain" (46). Having heard enough, Rama kicks Dundubhi's bones to a distance of ten yojanas; but Sugriva protests that this is unimpressive evidence of Rama's ability to fight Valin, as "formerly the body was wet, with meat" (50-52). And thus another test is devised, and the story goes on. That these scenes from the Ramayana involve evocations of a buffalo sacrifice is evident. But before delineating these evocations, we must discuss the names Matafiga and Sabari. The Ramayana says nothing explicit about the caste of either figure (unlike most of the other Rsis whom Rama encounters). But other texts are less reticent. The Mahabharata knows of a Matafiga who seeks and fails by years of tapas to overcome his Candila (fifth-caste) identity and become a Brahman (13.28-30). He also, if it is the same Mataniga, finds his place in the southern sabhd (heavenly assembly) of Yama beside Agastya, Time, and Death (2.8.26)! 81
81 This location of Matafiga in the southern heavenly sabhd probably identifies him with the impure celestial zone beyond the star Agastya-Canopus (see n. 77 above and Hiltebeitel, "Nahusa," pp. 347-50); see Paranavitana, The God of Adam's Peak (Ascona: Artibus Asiae, 1958), pp. 67-74. Also, as Wendy Doniger
204
And in Banabhatta's Kadambari (early seventh century A.D.), Mataiiga is the name of a king of the Sabaras, a jungle tribe located in the Vindhyas, who leads his horde on a hunt-near of all places Lake Pampa! 82-that disrupts the idyllic infancy of the story's parrot narrator. Although the story also emphasizes the ambiguously positive connotations of the term Matafiga,83 it is wild and barbaric traits that are deplored by the parrot in recalling his childhood trauma. Among countless similes, the hunting 8abaras are "like a band of buffaloes prepared for a plunge into the water," and their leader Matafiga's "shoulders were rough with scars from keen weapons often used to make an offering of blood to Kali"; "his dread brow [marked] by a frown that formed three banners, as if Durga, propitiated by his great devotion, had marked him with a trident to denote that he was her servant"; "like the trident of Durga, he was wet with the blood of buffaloes"; and, as the parrot summarizes his impression of the Sabaras: "Ah, the life of these men is full of folly .... For their one religion is offering human flesh to Durga; their meat, mead, and so forth, is a meal loathed by the good." 84 The Matanigas of these early texts would thus sometimes appear to be outcastes (Candalas) and sometimes savage tribals (Sabaras, Kiratas, Mlecchas). As the latter, they are apparently mentioned as conquered foes of the western Chalukya king Mangalisa, who reigned from ca. 567-600 A.D.85 It is worth noting, however, that in all the literary instances, the Mataniga figures are recognized for a kind of disquieting religious power. This is most clearly the case in the Kddambari, where, in addition to his sacrificial services to the goddess, Mataniga is credited with a kind of grim yet awesome presence. This is also true of the Candala Mataiiga in the Mahabharata, whose tapas menaces the order of the castes and whose association with Yama and Death suggests a role at death
O'Flaherty has reminded me, the Mahdbharata depicts Indra disguised as a Candala-Matafiga who urinates soma to drink as a test for the sage Uttafka (14.54.12-53). 82 C. M. Ridding, trans., The Kddambari of Bina (1895; reprint ed., New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 1974), p. 24 (hereafter Kadambari). 83 The Candala woman who brings the parrot before king Sfidraka, and who turns out herself to incarnate Laksmi, is identified as a Matafiga (Ridding, Kddambari, pp. 8-10). 84 All from the long description in Ridding, Kddambari, pp. 27-31. 85 John Faithful Fleet, The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Muhammadan Conquest of A.D. 1318 (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1882), p. 21; but Clough (Sewing Sandals, p. 24) relates that Fleet later changed his view on the meaning of Matafiga in the inscription, translating it as "elephant." 205
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ceremonies. The Ramayana's treatment, however, is the most subtle. As already indicated, Matafiga Rsi's caste is not identified. Moreover, Rama never has to meet him. But his power to curse is the consolation of Sugriva and the bane of Valin. The Matafigas of the present day are the fifth-caste Madigas discussed earlier in connection with the buffalo sacrifice. Such at least is the Madigas own claim. They derive their name either from a male Matafiga Rsi 86 or-more frequently-from their caste goddess Matafigi. In fact the Madigas frequently identify themselves as Matangi Makkalu, "children of Matangi," regarding Matangi as a form of Kali or Durga.87 The Madigas derivation of their own name from Mataniga/Matangi/Matafiga has in general been credited by scholars with reasonable plausibility, and as the Mafigs identify one Matang as their ancestor, the etymology would also-as Nanjundayya and Iyer suggested-most likely apply to them.88 Along with work as village menials and agricultural laborers, the Madigas' caste occupations include several tasks which bring upon them the stigma of handling dead animals, particularly the cow and the buffalo. They remove the animals when they die in the fields. They also use the skins in making sandals and drums and are relied upon to beat the drums at Hindu ceremonies.89 As to the name Sabari, it is obviously the feminine form of Sabara, a savage jungle tribe such as the one of which Matafiga is the chief in the Kddambari. But there is more to 8abari than her name. When Rama "liberates" her on his way to Kiskindha, it is highly likely that the meeting represents a Brahmanical acknowledgment and adoption of an already existing cult. Today Sabari is connected with the cult of Ayyappan in the Sabari hills of Kerala. A pre-Ramayana Sabari cult might have been connected with other locations and certainly must have had different forms from the present day Ayyappan cult. But even in its present form, the cult and its mythology involve a clear fusion of themes
86Nanjundayya and lyer, Mysore Tribes,4:126, 129. 87 Ibid., p. 129; Clough,SewingSandals, p. 24; Thurston,Castesand Tribes, 4: 316; Hassan/Nambiar,Nizam's Dominions, p. 281. For variant folk etymologies, see Singh, Madiga, p. 4. See also the remarksof Rajan and Rajaram in Nambiar et al., Censusof India 1971, 2:234 and 252. 88 Nanjundayya and Iyer, Mysore Tribes, 4:126. Cf. also Thomas Burrow and Murray B. Emeneau, Dravidian EtymologicalDictionary (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), p. 320, who provide s.v. Madiga"cf. Skt. Matanga."For the Maiig myth about Matang, see Vetschera, "Laxmiai," p. 460. 89 See Singh, Madiga, p. 1; Fishman, Culture Change,p. 12; Clough, Sewing Sandals, pp. 214-15; cf. Thurston, Castesand Tribes, 4:304-5. 206
connected with both the Riimdyania and the buffalo sacrifice. The god Ayyappan (also known as Hariharaputra, Dharma Sasta, and Bhfitanatha and connected in most features with the god Aiyanar Sasta of Tamilnadu) is born in heaven to 8iva and Visniu, the latter taking the female form of Mohini. This singular birth is required to offset a boon given by Brahmii to the asura buffalo-cow Mahisi, sister of Mahisisura, who has ravaged heaven to avenge the killing of her brother by Durgd. While Ayyappan is undergoing his consecration in heaven for this, his chief mission, down below a childless Pandyan Brahman named Vijaya learns that to obtain a son, he must go the hermitage of the tapasvinii 8abari. This he does, and 8abari tells him to go a short distance northward to a waterfall which flows directly from the waters of Ayyappan's consecration. There Vijaya purifies himself in the water from the falls, and his sins fly away from his body in the form of black birds and die. Ayyappan then appears before him, promises him sons in this life and then, in his next when he will become King Rajas'ekhara of Pantalam, that he-Ayyappan-will be born to him as his son. Leaving aside Ayyappan's earthly mission in this filial role,90 when it has ended he bids his father Rajas'ekhara adieu with the instructions: "You shall build me a temple on the Neeli hills, on the north-east of the river Pampa where the great tapaswini Sabari is awaiting immortality at my hands." 91 In connection with this narrative, three matters require further elaboration. First, as 8abari's liberator either Ayyappan has replaced Riima or, less likely, in the Ram-ayana Raima has replaced a figure like Ayyappan. In any case, the Ayyappan cult has fused the two. Says Pyyappan of "Sabari Peetham": "This is the place where Sabari of the Ramayana lived in penance till she attained Nirvana at the hands of the Almighty who appeared to her as Lord Dharma Sasta." 92 Second, the sacred geography of the Sabari Hills, although it contains a holy ri'ver Pampa rather than a lake Pampa! as in the Riimiyan~a, contains also another river, the Alasa or "Azhutta," where Ayyappan "threw down Mahisi from Devaloka ... and performed his Cosmic Dance over her body.... Even today the Kannis [novice pilgrims], while climbing Azhutta mountain, throw a small pebble where the
" See Hiltebeitel, "Indus Valley 'Proto-~iva,`' p. 787.
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1966), pp. 14-29; quote p. 25 (hereafter Ayyappan).

92
91 Myth summarized from Pyappan, Lord Ayyappan, the Dharma Sasta (Bombay:
Ibid., p. 51.
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Rama and Gilgamesh

mortal remains of Mahisi were dumped."93 We thus have the commemoration of a "buffalo sacrifice" near Sabari's hermitage here also. This time the carcass (a she-buffalo's) is thrown out of heaven rather than out of Kiskindha, and the hurler is Ayyappan rather than Valin. But the remains are still there, whether to acknowledge with a pebble or a kick. Finally, Sabari and the pilgrimage to Ayyappan's temple on her hill are connected with what is probably the most remarkable case of initial ritual downgrading and extended mixing of castes known in India. The aforementioned kannis or first-time pilgrims (the term means "virgins," "maidens") dress and act as tribals. Says Pyyappan: "For a modern man of the so-called cultured and educated classes, to dance in public to the tune of the wild drums, and that too with the whole body smeared with different colours, and with a jungle rod over his shoulders decorated with leaves and vegetables, may appear revolting. This is the first acid test as to whether one values oneself above others or considers oneself one with them."94 This downward destructuring of caste status is also reinforced by pilgrims donning black garments.95 And intermixing of caste is extended to what Victor Turner, in his work on the "pilgrimage process," again has called "communitas."96 Early on the journey: "It is a wonderful sight, to see so many pilgrims of varied castes, rich and poor, young and old, busying themselves, arranging their own camps, helping each other, cooking their own food, singing all the while in praise of the Lord";97 and then further along, on the banks of the Pampa "a congregation of people of different social status and faith, men and women alike, all eating together and helping each other as though they were friends from birth."98 The pilgrimage to Sabari's hill thus requires of everyone a destructuring behavior (jungle dress, dancing to drums, black garments) that would otherwise connote inauspiciousness and impurity. As one draws nearer to the hill, the site of her "hermitage, " the spirit of communitas is increased. It will also be recalled that 8abari tells a Brahman how to purify himself at a waterfall. All
93
95
Compare Draupadi's disguise as a low-caste "chambermaid" (sairandhrZ) in the Mahdbhdrata, which includes "a single large black very dirty garment" (4.8.2; Poona ed.). 96 Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974), pp. 167-230. 97 Pyyappan, Ayyappan, p. 47.
98
94 Ibid., p. 46.
Ibid., p. 47; cf. p. 22.
Ibid., p. 50.
208
History of Religions these considerations suggest that Sabari-a name which suggests "tribal goddess of the Sabaras"-is none other than a multiform of the Matafigi ("caste goddess" of the Madigas). Indeed, Clough seems to have perceived something of this sort when she identified Sabari in the Ramayana as "a pariah woman."99 Sabari was probably adopted into Brahmanism first through the Ramayana and institutionalized into a perennial cult and pilgrimage figure in connection with the cult of Ayyappan. Indeed, the close connection of the names in the Kddambari, where Matafiga is the king of the Sabaras, and 8abari's own connection with Matafiga Rsi and his hermitage in the Ramayana are facts which both reinforce this conclusion and also gain further clarification by it. Let us now examine the Ramayana account in this light and in connection with our earlier analysis of the buffalo sacrifice. Rama's encounter with Sabari and his subsequent hearing of the story about Valin, Dundubhi, and Matafiga are full of details which now fall into place. I take them up sequentially and defer discussion of their significance until they can be examined in a wider comparative context. The buffalo Dundubhi threatens Kiskindha, the monkey city, by coming with his drumlike roars to the city gate, tearing it with his horns, and obstructing the entrance. Village watchmen, who come from the lowest castes, are guardians of the gate. The gate also stands pars pro toto for the city, which Dundubhi menaces, just as the sacrificial buffalo, set free to roam as the goddess's husband, menaces the village. Dundubhi's drumlike roar and his name, meaning "kettledrum," are probably evocations of the role of low caste priests, like the present-day Madigas (see n. 89)"descendants" of Mataniga-who beat drums at ceremonies. But more on this later. When Valin comes forth to challenge Dundubhi, he has been carousing with his concubines and is drunk. He calls his intoxication the "drink of heroes." One is reminded that the low caste officiant who sacrifices the buffalo is possessed by the goddess. As mentioned earlier, this in itself is a kind of intoxication, evoking the goddess Durga's drink of alcohol when she slays Mahisasura, the buffalodemon. Instead of beheading Dundubhi, Valin seizes him by the horns and crushes him. The grappling by the horns evokes the most "tribal" (see item C above) and no doubt archaic form of the rite.
99 Clough, Sewing Sandals, pp. 80-82. 209
Rama and Gilgamesh I would also suggest that the crushing of the body evokes the compression of the entrails into the bhutabali, the balls or handfuls of rice.100 Valin disposes of Dundubhi's carcass by hurling it a yojana away from the city gate. Similarly, Pariahs and Holeyas throw the sacrificial buffalo's carcass around.101 Moreover, it is one of the general caste prerogatives and duties of the leather-working Madigas, and often of the Malas as well, to remove animal carcasses when the animals die in the fields.102 The drops of blood from Dunhubhi's crushed carcass fall on Matafiga Rsi, an "ancestor" of the Madigas. Matainga is thus put in the inverse position of the officiant who distributes the bhutabali, although there is mention of some of the low caste people eating the bhatabali at the burning ghat.103 Both Matafiga and the Bhuitabaligadu, however, are in their own ways handlers of the impurity of the sacrifice. A complementary inversion completes the picture and effects the turnabout required by the Ramayana plot. Instead of taking the dangerous impurity onto himself, he curses Valin never to be able to enter the "hermitage" or "wood" where the drops have fallen. The apotropaic aspect of the story would seem to conclude with Matafiga and his disciples' ascent to heaven and Rama's final kick of Dundubhi's bones. It cannot be insignificant that Rama never comes into direct contact with Matafiga. After visiting so many other hermitages and always meeting the resident sages, the nonmeeting of Matafiga suggests that his removal to heaven is necessary to preserve Rama from so inauspicious a contact. Like Matafiga's removal is that of the Potraj, freer of the village, who cannot return to it for three days. Corresponding to the many male roles-Valin, Mataniga and his disciples, Rama-is the singular role of Sabari. Her singularity vis-a-vis numerous males correspond to that of the Matanigi. It is also striking that she appears before the recounting of the Dundubhi episode, just as the Matfangi seems to carry out her purification of the villagers toward the beginning of the village cere100Cf. Madeleine Biardeau's treatment of the Kicaka episode in the Mahdbhdrata, where Bhima crushes Kicaka, pressing his head and limbs into a mamsapinda (4.21.60), the ancestral offering as a ball of flesh ("Comptes-rendues. Conferences de Mlle. Madeleine Biardeau," Section des Sciences Religieuses, Annuaire de l'icole pratique des hautes etudes 82 [1973-74]: 95). 101 Elliot, Local History, 2:681. 102 Clough, Sewing Sandals, pp. 40-41; Singh, Madigas, pp. 26-27; Fishman, Culture Change, p. 7; Thurston, Castes and Tribes, 4:308. 103 Whitehead, Village Gods, p. 109. 210
monies. The Ramayana has certainly done much to clean up any overt references to the Matangi's free sexuality and her role of purifying through impurities. But the echoes are still there. Her former role was to serve Matafga and the other ascetics of the hermitage as their paricarini. The ostensible meaning would be "maid-servant," as translated above. But a literal translation of "go-about" or, more idiomatically, one who "makes the rounds," conveys the sexual implication that the term was probably not meant to lose. Furthermore, she dwells amidst unfading flowers born from the drops of the ascetics' sweat. In the context of the story of Sabari and Matafga's hermitage, these purifying sweat drops (sveda-bindavah) figure in opposition to the polluting blood drops (ksataja-bindavah) that fall on Matafga. They are the exact counterpart to the opposition purifying split/defiling blood-rice, dispersed respectively by the Matangi and the Bhitabaligadu, that we observed in connection with the rites of the village goddess. Finally, even as king and Brahman seek out the purification of the Matangi's spit, so Rama leaves the hermitage and Sabari's company purified by his ablutions in the "seven seas" and ready to seek the aid and alliance of "monkeys" and "bears."
GILGAMESH, ENKIDU, AND THE BULL OF HEAVEN
An examination of the Gilgamesh epic cannot, of course, be expected to reveal a set of themes so tightly interconnected with the South Indian buffalo sacrifice as those we have found in the Ramayana. Yet the Gilgamesh epic also has a scene which indisputably evokes themes of sacrifice: the killing by Enkidu and Gilgamesh of the Bull of Heaven. The episode has already been the subject of one comparison with Indian materials. As noted by S. K. Dikshit,104 the slaying of the Bull of Heaven has counterparts in myths and legends concerning Mithra, Herakles, and Krsna-the latter in his slaying of the bull asura Arista. And A. Leo Oppenheim has compared the killing with ritual bullfighting scenes depicted and represented in Egyptian, Minoan, and Greek sources, and has noted that the concluding scene in the Akkadian epic evokes "age-old rites" connected with the goddess.105 With this we must agree. An examination of the Bull of Heaven
104
Dikshit, The Mother Goddess, pp. 249-50. A. Leo Oppenheim, "Mesopotamian Mythology II," Orientalia, n.s. 17 (1948): 38-40.
105
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Rama and Gilgamesh

scene in connection with such age-old rites-specifically those discussed earlier from India-will open some new vistas on the Gilgamesh epic. And these in turn will shed some reverse light back on the Ramayana. It will thus be a double comparison, involving first the parallels between the two rituals, and second the similarities and contrasts in the ways the two epics treat these rituals. As to the legitimacy of comparing a bull sacrifice with a buffalo sacrifice, the issue is a complicated one. There is a world of difference between bulls (and cows) and buffalos in India.106 The water buffalo was also unknown in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean areas. But the proper focus for comparative investigation is the cultural variations in the chief animals involved in royal sacrifices and hierogamies. According to Jaan Puhvel, writing about the Indo-European horse sacrifice: "The Indo-European pattern of theriomorphic hierogamy was clearly King and Mare, the Near Eastern and Aegean one Queen and Bull.'"107 The South Indian and, further back, perhaps the Dravidian pattern involves a relationship between the buffaloking and the goddess. Let us now look at the Gilgamesh epic, bringing the discussion to focus on the Bull of Heaven episode and noting, along the way, the convergences with the Indian buffalo sacrifice. As G. S. Kirk has observed, the full Akkadian version of the Gilgamesh epic brings into relief a nature/culture opposition that is only implicit in the surviving Sumerian version of several episodes.108 The central focus of this opposition concerns the crisscrossing careers of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Enkidu is created by the gods (particularly Anu and Aruru) as Gilgamesh's double to restrain the latter's excesses with the sons and daughters of Uruk (the city of which he is king) and to curb his arrogance. While Gilgamesh is thus caught up in the trappings of civic life, much is made of Enkidu's associations with the wilds. Born on the steppe, he roams about drinking with wild beasts at their watering place
See Hiltebeitel, "Indus Valley 'Proto-Siva,"' pp. 772, 791-92. Jaan Puhvel, "Aspects of Equine Functionality," in Myth and Law among the Indo-Europeans (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), p. 168; cf. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Women, Androgynes and Other Mythical Beasts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, in press), chaps. 6-8; Friedrich Blome, Die Opfermaterie in Babylonien und Israel (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum des Uurbe, 1934), 1:61-73. 108 G. S. Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), pp. 142-43; cf. S. N. Kramer, "The Epic of Gilgames and Its Sumerian Sources," Journal of the American Oriental Society 64 (1944): 7-23.
107
106
212
and feeding on grass with the gazelles (I.ii.39-40).109 "Shaggy with hair is his whole body, he is endowed with head hair like a woman. The locks of his hair sprout like Nisaba" [goddess of grain] (I.ii.36-37). His idyll continues until a trapper sees that Enkidu is spoiling his traps. The sight of Enkidu paralyzes and terrifies the hunter (I.ii.45-50) and, at his father's advice, he complains to Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh sends a harlot back with the hunter with instructions to "pull off her clothing, laying bare her ripeness. As soon as he sees her, he will be drawn to her. Reject him will his beasts that grew up on his steppe" (I.iii.42-45). Enkidu's behavior in the wilds involves some kind of power that Gilgamesh must neutralize lest it endanger the welfare of others in the realm.110 The harlot attracts Enkidu, and after a week of lovemaking the gazelles run away from him. But from his experience comes knowledge and the harlot's invitation to return with her to Uruk, to the temple of Anu and Ishtar. This temple has been built by Gilgamesh (I.i.10) and apparently serves as his home (I.iv.37-38). Most likely the harlot is a temple courtesan, and we thus note the beginnings of an association between Enkidu and the temple personnel that gains further clarification. The harlot clothes Enkidu with half of her own garment (II.ii.27-30).1l Thus as Enkidu sets off to meet Gilgamesh-whom he has decided to challenge on account of Gilgamesh's excesses (I.iv.43-47)-he wears half a woman's garment. We have already noted Enkidu's woman-like hair. A further corroboration of his identification through symbols of femininity occurs in the dream of Gilgamesh which foretells Enkidu's coming. Disturbed, Gilgamesh tells his mother over and over that he was drawn to the figure in the dream "as though to a woman" (I.v.36 and 47; vi.14). On the way to Uruk, the harlot and Enkidu pause among shepherds. Here for the first time he takes food and strong drink (seven goblets full; II.iii.17-18), becomes carefree and cheerful, puts on ordinary clothing, and chases away wild animals that had formerly been his companions. Then a man comes from Uruk to tell him of Gilgamesh's "defilement" of the city, principally his
109 All citations, unless otherwise indicated, are from James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament, 2d ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), pp. 72-100. 110Again Indian parallels have been noted in connection with the Rsyasrfga story; see, most recently, Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 49-50. 111Compare the dividing of the saree between Nala and Damayanti (Mahdbhdrata 3.59).
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Rama and Gilgamesh

first right to the maidens at marriage (iv.27-41). When Enkidu enters Uruk, the people proclaim him a hero and match for Gilgamesh, saying: "For Ishhara [Ishtar] the bed is laid out" (ii.v.28-29). Presumably Enkidu is perceived as a suitable consort for Ishtar. The two heroes meet and grapple "like bulls" (II,vi. 16, 21), and finally become friends. Directly at this point, and with no further ado, Gilgamesh decides on a mission to slay the monster Huwawa (Assyrian Humbaba). This is the first of two interrelated killing scenes, the second being the killing of the Bull of Heaven. Enkidu first tries vainly to dissuade Gilgamesh from his mission against Huwawa, whom he seems to know from his earlier life on the steepe (III.iii and iv). But Gilgamesh insists that this is the way to fame. His counsellors advise him that Enkidu who "knows the way" (III.v. 24; Assyrian version III.i.5-10) should lead and protect him. And then, before departure, Gilgamesh and Enkidu go to Ninsun, Gilgamesh's mother. She offers protective prayers to the sun-god Shamash (who wants Huwawa defeated; Huwawa is appointed by the storm-god Enlil to safeguard the Cedar Forest; III.iv.1-2). Her prayers complete, she then says to Enkidu: "Mighty Enkidu, thou not my womb's issue, I herewith have adopted thee with the devotees of Gilgamesh, the priestesses, the votaries, and the cult women" (Assyrian version III.iv.17-20). She puts a tag around Enkidu's neck and entrusts him to safeguard the king, her son, until his return. We have already noted the beginning of Enkidu's association with the temple personnel in the episode with the harlot. It should now be apparent that all the introductory material cited so far concerning Enkidu has highlighted the preparation for his singular role in the slaying of these two monsters, Huwawa and the Bull of Heaven. To be sure, the overt motive of his creation is to curb the arrogance and sexual excesses of Gilgamesh. One should note an opposition here. Their confrontation contrasts two uses of sexuality: the harlot's interruption of Enkidu's wild virginity in the service of the king and his realm and Gilgamesh's own taking of the virginity of the maidens, which is done to the realm's disservice. But Enkidu's practical involvement in the epic, aside from the many ways in which he figures as Gilgamesh's foil, builds up to these two killing episodes and is finished when they are over. In brief, Enkidu is Gilgamesh's priest. His place is among "the devotees of Gilgamesh, the priestesses, the votaries, and the cult women." But he is a priest of a special sort. Oppen214
History of Religions heim has drawn attention to the above passage. Ninsun says that Enkidu, literally, will be among the "sirqu of Gilgamesh" (sirqu is translated above by "devotees"). Says Oppenheim: "While the term sirqu denotes in later texts persons who belong to a sanctuary either because they have been dedicated to it, or because they are offspring of such persons, this word seems to refer in the present context to a social relationship which Ninsun desired to establish between her family and Enkidu."112 I would suggest that the first meaning must also be intended: that Enkidu is now dedicated to the temple of Anu and Ishtar as a priest. Kurt Jaritz, in summarizing the variety of Sumerian and Akkadian cultic functionaries, has shown that Enkidu has affinities with other types of priests: the ecstatic mahhu, and the lamenting priests (Sum. gala, Akk. kalu) and others who play the kettledrum.113 Oppenheim also adds: "the placing of a tag around the neck of Enkidu clearly indicates his new, and lower, social status."114 His priestly status thus involves a lower rank than Gilgamesh, the king. It would seem that the role of the harlot, another temple officiant, has been-in addition to taming his wildness so that it should not be disruptive to the periphery of the realm-to introduce him to feminine garments, strong drink, and sex. In a word, she has initiated him into his priestly role. One is reminded of the low caste officiants in the cult of the Indian village goddess: long hair feminine dress, drink, open sexuality, and the handling of powers dangerous yet necessary to the village and its headman, the local representative of the king. Now, as to the two killing scenes, let us just note that they appear in sequence. One is reminded of the frequent pattern of the buffalo sacrifice being preceded by the sacrifice of a ram or goat. But the Huwawa episode gives no details to sustain the comparison. It is curious, however, that Ishtar has some connection with the forest. When Gilgamesh and Enkidu arrive, they see there "the throne-seat of Irnini" (i.e., Ishtar; V.i.6). And further, she would seem, with Shamash, to be pleased with Huwawa's death. Whether Gilgamesh or Enkidu kills Huwawa is not clear, the text being mutilated (V.iv.21-47). Later passages suggest that Enkidu had the major hand in it (VII.ii.11-12; X.ii,l-2; iii.18-19-Assyrian
Oppenheim, "Mesopotamian Mythology," p. 33 (n. 105 above). Kurt Jaritz, "Schamanistisches im Gilgame?-Epos," in Beitrdge zu Geschichte, Kultur und Religion des alten Orients, ed. Manfred Lurker (Baden-Baden: Verlag Valentin Koerner, 1971), pp. 77, 81-87 (hereafter "Schamanistisches"). 114 Oppenheim, "Mesopotamian Mythology," p. 34.
113 112
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Rama and Gilgamesh

version). But Ishtar seems pleased at least by her immediate reaction, which precipitates the episode of the Bull of Heaven. After the defeat of Huwawa, Gilgamesh cleans, adorns, and crowns himself. Ishtar sees his beauty and offers to take him as her lover, with promises of wealth and prosperity for his kingdom. But Gilgamesh replies that she is unreliable and fickle and names the sad fates of her former lovers (VI.22-78). Ishtar, enraged, goes before her father Anu (recall that Gilgamesh has built a temple to both deities) and demands that he fashion "the Bull of Heaven that he might smite Gilgamesh," or else she "will smash in the doors of the nether world" and "raise up the dead eating and alive so that the dead shall outnumber the living" (VI.94-100). This is an evocation of the dread aspect of the goddess. During the epidemics and droughts that prompt Indian buffalo sacrifices, the dead are also around to receive the blood mixed with rice and entrails. The theme is further reinforced by Anu's warning that the death of Gilgamesh will bring seven years of barren husks. He secures a promise from Ishtar that she has provided grain for the people and grass for the animals during that period and then agrees to fashion the Bull. When the Bull comes down to attack, Gilgamesh and Enkidu are back at Uruk. The text is mutilated, but would seem to indicate that the hundreds of men the Bull kills with its first two snorts are sent out to defend the city. His third snort is directed at Enkidu. "Up leaped Enkidu, seizing the Bull of Heaven by the horns" (VI. 131). And finally, after a mutilated interlude: "Between neck and horns he thrusts his sword" (VI.152). They then take out the heart and lay it before Shamash. But our main interest lies in their interaction with Ishtar. The goddess mounts the wall of Uruk and curses Gilgamesh for killing the Bull. "When Enkidu heard this speech of Ishtar, he tore loose the right thigh of the Bull of Heaven and tossed it in her face. Could I but get thee, like unto him I would do unto thee. His entrails I would hang at thy side" (VI. 160-64). Such "age-old rites," as Oppenheim calls them,115 are by now familiar to us. Both Oppenheim and Kirk have remarked that the right thigh may be a "euphemism.'"116 More likely, it is probably a ritual symbol of male sexuality, identical in this least when offered to the goddess-with the right respect-at foreleg in the buffalo sacrifice and the right thigh of Duryodhana
115
116
See n. 105 above. Oppenheim, "Mesopotamian Mythology," p. 40; Kirk, Myth, p. 137. 216
(as I saw the scene enacted ritually in South India; in the Mahabharata it is the left),117 broken by Bhima to avenge his sexual insult to Draupadi. As to the Bull's entrails which Enkidu says he would like to hang at Ishtar's sides, this is surely also an evocation of actual ritual practices. In India, while the goddess is garlanded with flowers, one of her priests may be garlanded with the entrails of the ram or goat.118 Enkidu's words and acts, which in fact conclude with these outbursts, are thus reminiscent of the practices of Indian low caste priests who act in the service of the wider village. It is perhaps not too much to suggest that he speaks as one "possessed," like the Ranigya who berates the goddess after the beheading of the buffalo. The text now turns to Ishtar. Upon hearing Enkidu's angry words, "Ishtar assembled the votaries, the pleasure lasses and the temple harlots. Over the right thigh of the Bull of Heaven she set up a wail" (VI.165-67). Her manner reminds us that the closing rites of the Indian buffalo sacrifice often play upon the theme that, with the buffalo slain, the goddess is a widow. Gilgamesh next "called the craftsmen, the armorers, all of them" (VI. 168-69). Their purpose is apparently to admire the horns and to prepare them for hanging in Gilgamesh's bedchamber (170-75). But, having looked at the Indian materials, one cannot help but wonder whether these various tradesmen might not also have roles in apportioning (like the "twelve office bearers" of the South Indian village) and disposing of the body. And one should also not miss the identification of Gilgamesh with the Bull, whose horns now hang in his bedroom. Though not seduced by Ishtar, he is symbolically now her consort. Finally, we come to the fate of Enkidu. Enkidu tells Gilgamesh that he has dreamed that for slaying Huwawa and the Bull of Heaven, the gods have decreed that one of them must die and have decided it is to be him (VII.1-10). And so he dies. His role, as it were, is over, other than to provoke Gilgamesh by his death to undertake his lamentations, his wanderings in the wilds, his quest for immortality and his reconciliation to culture and death.119 Enkidu's exit from the story at the conclusion of the killing of the Bull of Heaven bears a structural similarity to the exile of the Potraj, and to other themes and figures connected with the apotropaic rites of the buffalo sacrifice.
117
See Hiltebeitel, "Sexuality and Sacrifice." 118 Whitehead, Village Gods, p. 52. 119See Kirk, Myth, pp. 146-52 (n. 108 above).
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Rama and Gilgamesh

In this connection, let us note one other thing. In the Sumerian version of the Bull of Heaven episode, Enkidu is apparently not involved in the killing, and his death has no connection with that incident.120 There is, however, a separate Sumerian story of Enkidu's mysterious end. It is translated directly into the appendix-like twelfth tablet of the Akkadian epic and is the sequel to another Sumerian legend called Gilgamesh and the huluppu tree.121 Not long after the world was created, a huluppu tree (according to Kramer, probably a willow) that had been planted on the banks of the Euphrates was uprooted by the south wind and carried off by the river. A goddess brought the floating tree to Inanna's (Ishtar's) garden in Uruk, and there Inanna tended it, hoping to have a bed and throne made of it for herself. But in two years her plan was jeopardized by a dragon, the Zu bird, and the demoness Lilith who had occupied the tree. Gilgamesh then came to Inanna's rescue, killed the dragon, and dispersed Lilith and the Zu bird. Gilgamesh and the men of Uruk then uprooted the tree and made Inanna her throne and bed. And Inanna, in gratitude, made from the tree's base the pukku and the mikku, probably a magic drum and a magic drumstick.122 In all this, one can hardly miss the implication that such a sacred drumstick, made from the "cosmic tree" which provides wood for Inanna's bed and throne,123 would have been used in the service of the goddess. As to temple drums, we know from one Akkadian ritual text that the rite for covering a temple kettledrum included offering the thigh of a sheep prior to and after the killing of a black bull whose hide is used to cover the drum.'24 If the provision of the bull's hide for the drum is a priestly function, it is more than likely that the handling of the mikku and the pukku would also be a sacred role. We now come back to Enkidu. In the Akkadian epic, he dies having slain the Bull of Heaven in a mock priestly role, offering its thigh to Ishtar. In the Sumerian legend, his death follows the
Kramer, "Epic of Gilgames," pp. 15 and 19 (n. 108 above). S. N. Kramer, ed. and trans., Gilgamesh and the Huluppu- Tree. A Recon8tructed Sumerian Text (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938). 122 Claiming a continuing consensus that the objects are drum and drumstick, see Jaritz, "Schamanistisches," p. 81; J. Makkay, "Some Ancient Sources to the Shamanism," Alba Regia 6-7 (1965-66): 30-31, with further substantiating arguments and citation of other textual connections between Gilgamesh and the drum. 123 On goddess and throne symbolism, see Neumann, The Great Mother, pp. 98-100 (n. 2 above). 124 A. Sachs, trans., "Ritual to Be Followed by the Kalu-Priest When Covering the Temple Kettle Drum," in Pritchard (n. 109 above), pp. 334-38; see also Jaritz (n. 113 above). Compare the ram or goat sacrificed prior to the water buffalo in South India.
121 120
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disappearance of the mikkcil and the puklcu-Ishtar's gifts to Gilgamesh. When these two objects fall mysteriously into the netherworld, Enkidu volunteers to retrieve them. But he is seized by the underworld and unable to return. Finally Gilgamesh beseeches Nergal to open the hole to the netherworld and let Enkidu come forth. But when he appears, he tells Gilgamesh that vermin devour his body and his heart is filled with dust (Gilgamesh epic XII.93-96). I would suggest that Enkidu's connection with the mikkii and the pukk/u finds him again in a priestly role, one that parallels his involvement in the sacrifice of the Bull of Heaven. Significantly, the Akkadian version retained both accounts, despite their contradiction. Produced from Inanna's tree yet lost in the underworld, the mi/c/ct and pukk/u hold connections with life and death. They are obviously used in the service of the king, yet their dangerous side must be neutralized by their handler. In this case we can only assume that Enkidu either is, or in some fashion represents, their handler, and that his journey into the netherworld to retrieve them represents his readiness to take on in its extreme form the danger and impurity which they entail in the service of the king. Such a reconstruction is of course drawn from comparison with the role played by the Madigas and other "fifth" castes in handling the impurity and danger of covering and playing the drums in South Indian ceremonies of village gods and goddesses. Even in large South Indian temples today, it is members of the low castes who play the large temple drum called the nagari.-2 One will also be reminded of the role of Matafiga in receiving the blood of the buffalo Dundubhi, named "Kettle Drum." This handling of the drum is done not only in service of the gods, but of the upper castes. Clough recalls a sad incident where Miidigas who had converted to Christianity were forced to fulfill their festival drum playing role by a belligerent village Karnam.'2 But it was not always so demeaning a task. As George L. Hart III has so beautifully shown, in the old Tamil poems that evoke many facets of pre-Brahmanized South Indian culture, one of the most important emblems of the king's power was the royal drum, the muracu. This drum "was made of the skin of a bull that had vanquished a rival in a bullfight and of wood taken from an
125 126
Personal communication from Balaji Gopal. Clough, Sewing Sandals, pp. 214-15. 219
Rama and Gilgamesh enemy's tutelary tree."127 Among its ritual uses, it was beaten "to awaken the king and bring him back from the other world."128 Such details are certainly reminiscent of the mikku and the pukku, which are made from Inanna's tree and which themselves descend to the underworld. In disentangling the "bewildering" assortment of poets, bards, drummers, dancers, and other performers in ancient Tamilnadu, Hart demonstrates that many of them were ritual handlers of dangerous sacred power (ananku). Concerning the muracu drum, he says: "While there is nowhere any indication of who played the muracu, it is not unlikely that a subcaste of the Paraiyans [= present-day Pariahs] had that office, especially as one of the modern subdivisions of that caste is called Muracu. The task of awakening the king was one fraught with sacred importance, for it involved bringing the most important representative of the sacred back from symbolic death into this
world."129
Quite possibly the Sumerian version of the death of Enkidu involves an inversion of this very theme and a reminder of a similar ritual office. Enkidu does not summon the king from the netherworld. Rather he enters the netherworld on Gilgamesh's behalf-that the mikkf and is, in place of Gilgamesh-when pukku are lost. Yet their loss is ascribed to a scene-from an apparently more fully developed version of the twelfth tablet found at Ur-that has striking affinities with the ritual awakening of the Tamil king.
(In) his [Gilgamesh's] place where the pukku [drum] was set he [Gilgamesh] drew a circle. The pukku he raised before him and went into his house. In the morning his place where the circle was drawn he viewed. The adults (?) do not.... (But) at the crying of a young girl His pukku and mikku fell down into the "Great Dwelling."130
The text is broken and obscure, but it seems that Gilgamesh puts his drum away ceremonially before retiring for the night, and that, were the silence131 not broken by the cries of the little girl in the
Hart, Poems of Ancient Tamil, p. 16. Ibid., cf. also p. 144. Rdmdyana 2.75.2 similarly refers to the ydmadundubhi, seemingly a kettledrum used to mark watches of the night (including the king's waking) and struck with golden drumsticks (suvarnako.na)! 129 Hart, Poems of Ancient Tamil, p. 144. 130 C. J. Gadd, "Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XII," Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archeologie orientale 30 (1933): 131-32. 131 Ibid., p. 138; cf. Makkay, "Ancient Sources," p. 30 (n. 121 above), with a similar reconstruction.
128
127
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History of Religions morning, the precious implements would not have been lost, and Enkidu's mission of retrieval would not have been required. The Sumerian and South Indian drums are thus both connected with movement back and forth between this and the other world. In both cases, the "other" world clearly includes the realm of death and, apparently, also that of sleep. Yet it also includes access to the blessings of gods and goddesses. Gilgamesh's drum is made from the root of Inanna's tree, his drumstick from its top.132 The two implements thus connect the king with heaven and the underworld. In contemporary India, the drum is connected not only with impurity and death133 but also with divine invocation and divine possession. Enkidu's connection with the mikkiu and pukku probably evokes similar modes of interaction with the sacred. As Jaritz has observed, Enkidu has affinities with several types of priests, including "ecstatics" (though probably not, in the sense that he and others use the term, "shamans").134 Yet with the loss of the mikku and pukku and the death of Enkidu, the Sumerian narrative-anticipating the fuller Akkadian accountalso tells how such immediate access to the sacred is disrupted, and how Gilgamesh must acknowledge an unbridgeable discontinuity between life and death. Unlike the drum player of the Tamil king, Enkidu journeys to the underworld and encounters' the reality of
Gadd, "Epic of Gilgamesh," p. 131 (lines 22-23). The Indian use of buffalo hide on many drums and the connections between the drum and buffalo, such as in the name Dundubhi, evoke the figure of Yama, whose mount is the buffalo, bearing souls to the land of the dead. On Yama and the buffalo, see Hiltebeitel, "Indus Valley 'Proto-~iva,'" pp. 783-86, and n. 128 above. 134 See n. 113 above. There is not likely any more than a distant echo of "ecstatic" (as opposed to "possession") type shamanism in the Near Eastern, and for that matter Indian, figures and implements under discussion, notwithstanding the arguments of Jaritz, "Schamanistisches," pp. 75-87; Makkay, "Ancient Sources," pp. 27-38; and E. A. S. Butterworth, The Tree at the Navel of the Earth (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1970), pp. 141-46. The only convincing similarities lie in the connections of both shamans and the Gilgamesh epic heroes with drums (including myths of the origins of the drums [see especially Makkay, pp. 30-34]). But one must know more about the types of drums involved. For instance, I do not know of shamans using "kettledrums." Analogies drawn between shamanic ecstasy and ancient Near Eastern ecstatics are inconclusive and unlikely (Jaritz, pp. 77-80). The characterizations of Enkidu as a "black shaman" (Jaritz, p. 78; Makkay, p. 32; Butterworth, p. 142) are strained. And efforts to extend the shamanic interpretation beyond the drums and drumsticks are often preposterous: e.g., the suggestion that the Bull of Heaven is a rival shaman in animal form (Jaritz, pp. 82, 86; Makkay, p. 33). The Tamil evidence undercuts Makkay's statement that no pertinent analogies to the drum and drumstick are found "among the written statements handed down to us by ancient civilizations." For a noncommittal discussion, see Eliade, History of Religious Ideas, 1:398 (n. 3 above).
133
132
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Rdma and Gilgamesh death, and returns, only momentarily, to "awaken" Gilgamesh to its ineluctability.
CONCLUSIONS: THE TWO EPICS
The numerous correspondences noted between traditional sacrificial rituals and epic narratives invite a final comparative look at the two epics themselves. Such a confrontation must distinguish between two lines of inquiry: one, into the similar ways in which the sacrificial episodes are handled, and the second, into similarities between the two epics as a whole. My comments will be limited for the most part to the first topic, but a few remarks on the second will emerge naturally from the discussion. It should be stesssed that I am not arguing for a direct influence of one epic on another, but rather highlighting certain structural and thematic similarities that would themselves seem to rely on an evocation of archaic themes and rites which in both cultures are drawn from common (or at least similar) ancient cults of the great goddess. At the point where the two epics converge, Rama and Gilgamesh are on dangerous missions in the forest. Rama must find and defeat Ravana. Gilgamesh has elected to kill Huwawa. In each case a new ally is required: Sugriva and Enkidu. In both cases the ally's story concerns a sacrificial scenario. In one case the sequential sacrifices of Huwawa and the Bull of Heaven involve Enkidu himself, who dies as a result of the second. In the other, the killings of Dundubhi and Mayavin are by Sugriva's brother Valin, whom Rama must kill himself to cement his friendship with Sugriva. Two of Enkidu's roles are divided between these two brothers: Valin, the sacrificer who suffers death, and Sugriva, the permanent friend, guide, and ally. In both epics the ally and "sacrificer" are wild creatures, affiliated or identified with wild animals, who contrast sharply with their highly cultured counterparts, Gilgamesh and Rama. The sacrificial themes and accountrements of office that mark them-wild hair, women's garb, drums, connections with cult women, drunkenness, possession-indicate that they represent "tribal" or "barbaric" forms of sacred power. This is not to suggest-as has often been done of the monkeys in the Ramayana-that these figures are leaders of actual forest tribes. Rather, they are figures whom the authors of these highly stylized literary epics have chosen so as to represent symbolically certain values and themes associated with tribals, outsiders, and aboriginees. The important point in each epic is that the connection between the king and the "wild man" of the forest is made
222
to the advantage of the king. The sacred power which the forest figure makes accessible is in some manner necessary to the king's welfare and thus to the welfare of his domain.135 In Gilgamesh's case, Enkidu's services bring him fame and eventually reconciliation to a responsible rule in Uruk. In Rama's case, Valin's killing of Dundubhi and Mayavin stands behind Rama's friendship with Sugriva, which in turn makes possible his recovery of Sita and his return to a responsible rule at Ayodhya. Finally, in the long run, both stories concern a restoration of a proper relationship with the goddess after that relationship has been disrupted. Gilgamesh, recipient of Ishtar/Inanna's mikku and pukku, insults the goddess by refusing to be her lover. Sit&, the goddess incarnate, is of course abducted. In each epic the initiation of the restoration of relations between king and goddess involves a sacrifice performed by an inhabitant of the forest. And in each case, the "sacrificer" dies: Enkidu as a direct result of his role; Valin indirectly, but with the slaying of Dundubhi as the root of his problems with Mayavin, Sugriva, and finally Rama. One need only recall that the restoration of proper relations with the goddess is the very purpose of the buffalo sacrifice. George Washington University
135 On the constant pressures of "barbarian" peoples on and within Mesopotamian cultures (Gutians, Amorites, Arameans, Urartu, etc.), see H. W. E. Saggs, The Greatness That Was Babylon (New York: Mentor Books, 1962), pp. 69-71, 74, 85, 101-4 and passim. See also Jonathan Z. Smith, "A Pearl of Great Price and a Cargo of Yams: A Study in Situational Incongruity," History of Religions 16 (1976): 2-11, on the destructive roles attributed to foreign kings.
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Rma and Gilgamesh: The Sacrifices of the Water Buffalo and the Bull of Heaven Author(s): Alf Hiltebeitel

Rama and Gilgamesh

Rama and Gilgamesh

Rama and Gilgamesh

R,dma and Gilgamesh

Rama and Gilgamesh

Rama and Gilgamesh

Rama and Gilgamesh

Rama and Gilgamesh

Rama and Gilgamesh

Rama and Gilgamesh

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1966), pp. 14-29; quote p. 25 (hereafter Ayyappan).

Rama and Gilgamesh

Ibid., p. 47; cf. p. 22.

Rama and Gilgamesh

Rama and Gilgamesh

Rama and Gilgamesh

Rama and Gilgamesh

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