Folk deities widely worshiped in rural India.
Often female figures, they may have originated as agricultural deities, and they are offered animal sacrifices to ward off disease, crop failures, and other natural disasters. Many are purely local, spirits of a place (e.g., a crossroads) or of a person who has died an untimely death. They are worshiped in the form of stones or earthenware icons fixed in simple shrines or set up under a village tree.