GRAMADEVATA

(Sanskrit: "village deity"), type of folk deity widely worshiped in rural India. The gramadevatas, often female figures, may have originated as agricultural deities; in South India and elsewhere they continue to be propitiated with animal sacrifices as a way of warding off and removing epidemics, crop failures, and other natural disasters. The gramadevatas coexist side by side with the Brahmanical gods of modern Hinduism. Many gramadevatas are purely local deities. Spirits of the place (the crossroads, the boundary line), spirits of those who die a violent or untimely death, and tree and serpent spirits may also be treated as gramadevatas. They are worshiped in the form of earthenware icons or shapeless stones, established in simple shrines or on platforms set up under a village tree, and only occasionally in more imposing buildings. An exceptional male village deity is Aiyanar, who in South India is the village watchman and whose shrine is always separate from those of the female goddesses. A similar male deity, known variously as Dharma-Thakur, Dharma-Raj, and Dharma-Ray, is found in Bengali villages.