Blue Book Evidence
"The precipitous sides of difficult questions."--E. B. B.
OUR first evidence consists of abridged extracts from the Census Report
for 1901. After explaining the different names by which Temple women are
known in different parts of the Madras Presidency, the Report continues:
"The servants of the gods, who subsist by dancing and music and the
practice of 'the oldest profession in the world,' are partly recruited
by admissions and even purchases from other classes. . . . The rise of
the Caste and its euphemistic name seem to date from the ninth and
tenth centuries, during which much activity prevailed in South India
in the matter of building Temples and elaborating the services held in
them. . . . The duties then, as now, were to fan the idol with Tibetan
ox-tails, to carry the sacred light, and to sing and dance before the
god when he is carried in procession. Inscriptions show that in A.D.
1004 the great Temple of the Chola king at Tanjore had attached to it
four hundred women of the Temple, who lived in free quarters in the four
streets round it, and were allowed tax-free land out of its endowments.
Other Temples had similar arrangements. . . . At the present day they
form a regular Caste, having its own laws of inheritance, its own
customs and rules of etiquette, and its own councils to see that all
these are followed, and they hold a position which is perhaps without a
parallel in any other country. . . .
"The daughters of the Caste who are brought up to follow the Caste
profession are carefully taught dancing and singing, the art of dressing
well, . . . and their success in keeping up their clientele is largely
due to the contrast which they thus present to the ordinary Hindu
housewife, whose ideas are bounded by the day's dinners and babies."
Closely allied to this Caste is that formed by the Temple musicians, who
with the Temple woman are "now practically the sole repository of Indian
music, the system of which is probably one of the oldest in the world."
In certain districts the Report states that a custom obtains among
certain castes, under which a family which has no sons must dedicate one
of its daughters to Temple service. The daughter selected is taken to a
Temple and married there to a god, the marriage symbol being put on her
as in a real marriage. Henceforth she belongs to the god.
Writing in 1904, a member of the Indian Civil Service says: "I heard of
a case of dedication (three girls) at A. at the beginning of this year,
but I could not get any evidence. The cases very rarely indeed come up
officially, as nearly every Hindu is interested in keeping them dark."
We, too, have had the same difficulty, and the evidence we now submit is
doubly valuable because of its source. It is very rarely that we have
found it possible to get behind the scenes sufficiently to obtain
reliable information from those most concerned in this traffic.
The head priest of one of our Temples admitted to a friend who was
watching for opportunities to get information for us that the "marriage
to the god is effected privately by the Temple priest at the Temple
woman's house, with the usual marriage-symbol ceremony. To avoid the
Penal Code (which forbids the marriage of children to gods) a nominal
bridegroom is sometimes brought for the wedding day to become the
nominal husband. This Caste is recruited by secret adoption."
A Temple woman's son, now living the ordinary life apart from his clan,
explains the very early marriage thus: "If not married, they will not be
considered worthy of honour. Before the children reach the age of ten
they must be married. . . . They become the property of the Temple
priests and worshippers who go to the Temple to chant the sacred songs."
A Temple woman herself told a friend of ours: "The child is dressed like
a bride, and taken with another girl of the same community, dressed like
a boy in the garb of a bridegroom. They both go to the Temple and
worship the idol. This ceremony is common, and performed openly in the
streets." In a later letter from the same friend further details are
given: "The child, who should be about eight or nine years old, goes as
if to worship the idol in the Temple. There the marriage symbol is
hidden in a garland, and the garland is put over the idol, after which
it is taken to the child's home and put round her neck." After this she
is considered married to the god.
A young Temple woman in a town near Dohnavur told us she had been given
to the Temple when she was five years old. Her home was in the north
country, but she did not remember it. She had, of course, understood
nothing of the meaning of the ceremony of marriage. She only remembered
the pretty flowers and general rejoicing and pleasure. Afterwards, when
she began to understand, she was not happy, but she gradually got
accustomed to it. Her adopted relations were all the friends she had.
She was fond of them and they of her. Her "husband" was one of the
Temple priests.
A Hindu woman known to us left home with her little daughter and
wandered about as an ascetic. She went to a famous Temple, where it is
the custom for such as desire to become ascetics to enter the life by
conforming to certain ceremonies ordained by the priests. She shaved her
head, took off her jewels, wore a Saivite necklet of berries, and was
known as a devotee. She had little knowledge of the life before she
entered it, and only gradually became aware of the character borne by
most of her fellow-devotees. When she knew, she fled from them and
returned to her own village and the secular life, finding it better than
the religious.
In telling us about it she said: "I expected whiteness, I found
blackness." She told us that she constantly came into contact with
Temple women, none of whom had chosen the life as she and her
fellow-ascetics had chosen theirs. "Always the one who is to dance
before the gods is given to the life when she is very young. Otherwise
she could not be properly trained. Many babies are brought by their
parents and given to Temple women for the sake of merit. It is very
meritorious to give a child to the gods. Often the parents are poor but
of good Caste. Always suitable compensation and a 'joy gift' is given by
the Temple women to the parents. It is an understood custom, and ensures
that the child is a gift, not a loan. The amount depends upon the age
and beauty of the child. If the child is old enough to miss her mother,
she is very carefully watched until she has forgotten her. Sometimes she
is shut up in the back part of the house, and punished if she runs out
into the street. The punishment is severe enough to frighten the child.
Sometimes it is branding with a hot iron upon a place which does not
show, as under the arm; sometimes nipping with the nail till the skin
breaks; sometimes a whipping. After the child is reconciled to her new
life, occasionally her people are allowed to come if they wish; and in
special circumstances she pays a visit to her old home. But this is
rare. If she has been adopted as an infant, she knows nothing of her
own relations, but thinks of her adopted mother as her own mother. As
soon as she can understand she is taught all evil and trained to think
it is good."
As to her education, the movements of the dance are taught very early,
and the flexible little limbs are rendered more flexible by a system of
massage. In all ways the natural grace of the child is cultivated and
developed, but always along lines which lead far away from the freedom
and innocence of childhood. As it is important she should learn a great
deal of poetry, she is taught to read (and with this object in view she
is sometimes sent to the mission school, if there is one near her home).
The poetry is almost entirely of a debased character; and so most
insidiously, by story and allusion, the child's mind is familiarised
with sin; and before she knows how to refuse the evil and choose the
good, the instinct which would have been her guide is tampered with and
perverted, till the poor little mind, thus bewildered and deceived, is
incapable of choice.