Benevolent Consort or Dangerous Adversary? The Accommodation of the Goddess in the Hymns of the Tamil Śaiva Saint Appar

Abstract

The Tamil Bhakti tradition has variously been understood as a literary efflorescence, religious revival, or an ideological tool through which social tensions were eased. In this article, I highlight the significance of bhakti or devotion as an ideology that transformed the cultural landscape of Tamiḻakam, through its proponents’ invocation of the sectarian deities Śiva and Viṣṇu. The Śaiva saint Appar’s patikam, composed between the mid-sixth and mid-seventh century AD, reveals this process in the typical fashion: through the introduction of Śiva along with his divine pantheon, the Puranic mythologies, and representations of conflict and accommodation in particular sacred sites. There are many instances where goddesses are invoked as benevolent consorts on the one hand, and as dangerous adversaries on the other. While it is the Brahmanical female deities who are clearly given representation, although in a marginal manner, the choice of specific sites to explicate certain motifs, such as that of a dance contest between the goddess and Śiva, indicates the manner in which local goddess traditions and cult spots were appropriated and accommodated within the Brahmanical tradition. As the loving spouse, the goddess is presented as the perfect foil to Śiva, while as the aggressive independent female deity she is depicted as his anti-thesis. The goddess may not have been the recipient of Appar’s bhakti fervour by herself, but as a result of her engagements with Śiva, she was included in the ideational world of devotion.