Historical Period18c CE
Medieval; jātrā documented from 18th c. CE
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Deities
Buḍhi Ṭhākurāṇi
Buḍhi Ṭhākurāṇi — the Old Goddess of Berhampur
Buḍhi Ṭhākurāṇi — the Old Goddess of Berhampur
A gram-devatā ("village deity") is the specific god of a specific village — not the pan-Indic god of scripture, but this god, in this place, protecting these people. Every Indian village has one. There are thousands. Most do not appear in textbooks. Their names and functions change every 50 kilometres. The officiating priest is usually not Brahmin — he is from the local caste, the work passing father to son. Worship is oral, ritual, and embodied, not textual.
Buḍhi Ṭhākurāṇi (buḍhi = old) is the tutelary goddess of the coastal Odia city of Berhampur. The biennial Ṭhākurāṇi Jātrā is the city's defining festival — the goddess is carried in procession through the streets for 32 days. Every household puts out offerings. The goddess is understood as the great-grandmother — older, more authoritative than the young-goddess forms. Her aniconic mūrti is a wooden post wrapped in red cloth.
Buḍhi Ṭhākurāṇi's worship is typical of gram-devata practice:
The pujāri is usually from the local community — not Brahmin — and inherits the role through patrilineal succession. In Tamil Nadu she/he may be a Pāṭṭi or Pūjāri. In Maharashtra a Guravu. In Telangana-Andhra a Pāmula or Kurumbapu. In Kerala a Kaṇiyar. These are not shortcomings of the tradition — they are the tradition. The priest knows the god personally.
Documentation of this shrine and tradition comes from:
Gram-devatas are the real lived religion of 900+ million rural Indians. They are older than pan-Indic Hinduism, older than Vedic Sanskrit; many predate recorded history. When we catalog only the textual-Brahmin gods, we miss the majority of how Indians have actually worshipped for most of Indian history. This entry is part of a long-term effort to map the unmapped sacred geography of India.
