Among the Todas, the duties of milking the buffaloes and dairy-work are entrusted to special individuals, whereas any Badaga male may, after initiation, milk the cows and buffaloes, provided that he is free from pollution. Every Badaga boy, when he is about seven or nine years old, is made to milk a cow on an auspicious day, or on new year’s day. The ceremony is thus described by Mr. Natesa Sastri. “Early in the morning of the day appointed for this ceremony, the boy is bathed, and appears in his holiday dress. A she-buffalo, with her calf, stands before his house, waiting to be milked. The parents, or other elder relations of the boy, and those who have been invited to be present on the occasion, or whose duty it is to be present, then conduct the boy to the spot. The father, or some one of the agnatic kindred, gives into the hands of the boy a bamboo vessel called honē, which is already very nearly full of fresh-drawn milk. The boy receives the vessel with both his hands, and is conducted to the buffalo. The elder relations show him the process, and the boy, sitting down, milks a small quantity into the honē. This is his first initiation into the duty of milking, and it is that he may not commit mistakes on the very first day of his milking that the honē is previously filled almost to the brim. The boy takes the vessel filled with milk into his house, and pours some of the sacred fluid into all his household eating vessels—a sign that from that day he has taken up on himself the responsibility of supplying the family with milk. He also throws some milk in the faces of his parents and relatives. They receive it very kindly, and bless him, and request him to continue thus to milk the buffaloes, and bring plenty and prosperity to the house. After this, the boy enters the milk-house (hāgōttu), and places milk in his honē there. From this moment, and all through his life, he may enter into that room, and this is therefore considered a very important ceremony.”
A cow or buffalo, which has calved for the first time, has to be treated in a special manner. For three or five days it is not milked. A boy is then selected to milk it. He must not sleep on a mat, or wear a turban, and, instead of tying his cloth round his waist, must wear it loosely over his body. Meat is forbidden, and he must avoid, and not speak to polluting classes, such as Irulas and Kotas, and menstruating women. On the day appointed for milking the animal, the boy bathes, and proceeds to milk it into a new honē purified by smearing a paste of Meliosma (tūd) leaves and bark over it, and heating it over a fire. The milk is taken to a stream, where three cups are made of Argyreia (mīnige) leaves, into which a small quantity of the milk is placed. The cups are then put in the water. The remainder of the milk in the honē is also poured into the stream. In some places, especially where a Mādeswara temple is close at hand, the milk is taken to the temple, and given to the pūjāri. With a portion of the milk some plantain fruits are made into a pulp, and given to an Udaya, who throws them into a stream. The boy is treated with some respect by his family during the period when he milks the animal, and is given food first. This he must eat off a plate made of Argyreia, or plantain leaves.
Besides the hāgōttu within the house, the Badagas have, at certain places, separate dairy-houses near a temple dedicated to Heththeswāmi, of which the one at Bairaganni (or Bērganni) appears to be the most important. The dairy pūjāri is here, like the Toda palol, a celibate. In 1905, he was a young lad, whom my Brāhman assistant set forth to photograph. He was, however, met at a distance from the village by a headman, who assured him that he could not take the photograph without the sanction of fifteen villages. The pūjāri is not allowed to wander freely about the village, or talk to grown-up women. He cooks his own food within the temple grounds, and wears his cloth thrown loosely over his body. Once a year, on the occasion of a festival, he is presented with new cloths and turban, which alone he may wear. He must be a strict vegetarian. A desire to marry and abandon the priesthood is believed to be conveyed in dreams, or through one inspired. Before leaving the temple service, he must train his successor in the duties, and retires with the gains acquired by the sale of the products of the herd and temple offerings. The village of Bairaganni is regarded as sacred, and possesses no holagudi (menstrual hut).
Bishop Whitehead adds that “buffaloes are given as offerings to the temple at Bairaganni, and become the property of the pūjāri, who milks them, and uses the milk for his food. All the villagers give him rice every day. He may only eat once a day, at about 3 P.M. He cooks the meal himself, and empties the rice from the cooking-pot by turning it over once. If the rice does not come out the first time, he cannot take it at all. When he wants to get married, another boy is appointed in his place. The buffaloes are handed over to his successor.” The following legend in connection with Bairaganni is also recorded by Bishop Whitehead. “There is a village in the Mēkanād division of the Nīlgiris called Nundāla. A man had a daughter. He wanted to marry her to a man in the Paranganād division about a hundred years ago. She did not wish to marry him. The father insisted, but she refused again and again. At last she wished to die, and came near a tank, on the bank of which was a tree. She sat under the tree and washed, and then threw herself into the tank. One of the men of Bairaganni in the Paranganād division saw the woman in a dream. She told him that she was not a human being but a goddess, an incarnation of Parvati. The people of Nundāla built a strong bund (embankment) round the tank, and allow no woman to go on it. Only the pūjāri, and Badagas who have prepared themselves by fasting and ablution, are allowed to go on the bund to offer pūja, which is done by breaking cocoanuts, and offering rice, flowers, and fruits. The woman told the man in his dream to build a temple at Bairaganni, which is now the chief temple of Heththeswāmi.”
Concerning the initiation of a Lingāyat Badaga into his religion, which takes place at about his thirteenth birthday, Mr. Natesa Sastri writes as follows. “The priest conducts this ceremony, and the elder relations of the family have only to arrange for the performance of it. The priests belong to the Udaya sect. They live in their own villages, and are specially sent for, and come to the boy’s village for the occasion. The ceremony is generally done to several boys of about the same age on the same day. On the day appointed, all the people in the Badaga village, where this ceremony is to take place, observe a strict fast. The cows and buffaloes are all milked very early in the morning, and not a drop of the milk thus collected is given out, or taken by even the tenderest children of the village, who may require it very badly. The Udaya priest arrives near the village between 10 A.M. and noon on the day appointed. He never goes into the village, but stops near some rivulet adjacent to it. The relations of the boy approach him with a new basket, containing five measures of uncooked rice, pulse, ghī, etc., and a quarter of a rupee—one fanam, as it is generally designated. The priest sits near the water-course, and lights a fire on the bank. Perfumes are thrown profusely into it, and this is almost the only ceremony before the fire. The boys, whose turn it is to receive the linga that day, are all directed to bathe in the river. A plantain leaf, cut into one foot square, is placed in front of the fire towards the east of it. The lingas, kept in readiness by the parents of the boys, are now received by the priest, and placed on the leaves. The boys are asked to wash them—each one the linga meant for his wearing—in water and milk. Then comes the time for the expenditure of all the collected milk of the morning. Profusely the white fluid is poured, till the whole rivulet is nothing but a stream of milk. After the lingas are thus washed, the boys give them to the priest, who places them in his left palm, and, covering them with his right, utters, with all the solemnity due to the occasion, the following incantation, while the boys and the whole village assembled there listen to it with the most profound respect and veneration ‘Oh! Siva, Hara, Basava, the Lord of all the six thousand and three thousand names and glories, the Lord of one lakh and ninety-six thousand ganas (body-guards of Siva), the donor of water, the daily-to-be worshipped, the husband of Parvati. Oh! Lord, O! Siva Linga, thy feet alone are our resort. Oh! Siva, Siva, Siva, Siva.’ While pronouncing this prayer, the priest now and then removes his right palm, and pours water and milk round the sacred fire, and over the lingas resting in his left palm. He then places each of the lingas in a cloth of one cubit square, rolls it up, and requests the boys to hold out their right palms. The young Badaga receives it, repeats the prayer given about five times, and, during each repetition, the palm holding the linga tied up in the cloth is carried nearer and nearer to his neck. When that is reached (on the fifth utterance of the incantation), the priest ties the ends of the rolled up cloth containing the Siva emblem loosely round the boy’s neck, while the latter is all the while kneeling down, holding with both his hands the feet of the priest. After the linga has been tied, the priest blesses him thus: ‘May one become one thousand to you. May you ever preserve in you the Siva Linga. If you do so, you will have plenty of milk and food, and you will prosper for one thousand years in name and fame, kine and coin.’ If more than one have to receive the linga on the same day, each of them has to undergo this ceremony. After the ceremony is over, the priest returns to his village with the rice, etc., and fees. Every house, in which a boy has received the linga, has to give a grand feast on that day. Even the poorest Badaga must feed at least five other Badagas.”
The foregoing account of the investiture with the lingam apparently applies to the Mēkanād Udayas. The following note is based on information supplied by the Udayas of Paranginād. The ceremony of investiture is performed either on new year’s day or Sivarāthri by an Udaya priest in the house of a respected member of the community (doddamane), which is vacated for the occasion. The houses of the boys and girls who are to receive lingams are cleaned, and festoons of tūd and mango leaves, lime fruits, and flowers of Leucas aspera (thumbē) are tied across the doorways, and in front of the house where the ceremony is to be performed. Until the conclusion thereof, all the people of the village fast. The candidates, with their parents, and the officiating priest repair to the doddamane. The lingams are handed over to the priest, who, taking them up one by one, does pūja to them, and gives them to the children. They in turn do pūja, and the lingams, wrapped in pink silk or cotton cloths, are tied round their necks. The pūja consists of washing the lingams in cow’s urine and milk, smearing them with sandal and turmeric paste, throwing flowers on them, and waving incense and burning camphor before them. After the investiture, the novices are taught a prayer, which is not a stereotyped formula, but varies with the priest and village.
Like other Lingayats, the Udayas respect the Jangam, but do not employ the Jangama thirtham (water used for washing the Jangam’s feet) for bathing their lingams. In Udaya villages there is no special menstrual hut (holagudi). Milk is not regarded by them as a sacred product, so there is no hāgōttu in their houses. Nor do they observe the Manavalai festival in honour of ancestors. Other ceremonies are celebrated by them, as by other Badagas, but they do not employ the services of a Kurumba.
Important agricultural ceremonies are performed by the Badagas at the time of sowing and harvest. The seed-sowing ceremony takes place in March, and, in some places, e.g., the Mēkanād and Paranginād, a Kurumba plays an important part in it. On an auspicious day—a Tuesday before the crescent moon—a pūjāri of the Devvē temple sets out several hours before dawn with five or seven kinds of grain in a basket and sickle, accompanied by a Kurumba, and leading a pair of bullocks with a plough. On reaching the field selected, the pūjāri pours the grain into the cloth of the Kurumba, and, yoking the animals to the plough, makes three furrows in the soil. The Kurumba, stopping the bullocks, kneels on the ground between the furrows facing east. Removing his turban, he places it on the ground, and, closing his ears with his palms, bawls out “Dho, Dho,” thrice. He then rises, and scatters the grain thrice on the soil. The pūjāri and Kurumba then return to the village, and the former deposits what remains of the grain in the store-room (attu). A new pot, full of water, is placed in the milk-house, and the pūjāri dips his right hand therein, saying “Nerathubitta” (it is full). This ceremony is an important one for the Badagas, as, until it has been performed, sowing may not commence. It is a day of feasting, and, in addition to rice, Dolichos Lablab is cooked.
Badaga Temple.