Pishārati
This article is an excerpt from Government Press, Madras |
Pishārati
The Pishāratis or Pishārodis are summed up in the Madras Census Report, 1901, as being a sub-caste of Ambalavāsis, which makes flower garlands, and does menial service in the temples. As regards their origin, the legend runs to the effect that a Swāmiyar, or Brāhman ascetic, once had a disciple of the same caste, who wished to become a Sanyāsi or anchorite. All the ceremonies prior to shaving the head of the novice were completed, when, alarmed at the prospect of a cheerless life and the severe austerities incidental thereto, he made himself scarce. Pishāra denotes a Sanyāsi’s pupil, and as he, after running away, was called Pishārōdi, the children born to him of a Parasava woman by a subsequent marriage were called Pishāratis. In his ‘Early Sovereigns of Travancore,’ Mr. Sundaram Pillay says that the Pishārati’s “puzzling position among the Malabar castes, half monk and half layman, is far from being accounted for by the silly and fanciful modern derivation of Pishārakal plus Odi, Pishārakal being more mysterious than Pishārati itself.” It is suggested by him that Pishārati is a corruption of Bhattāraka-tiruvadi.
According to the Jati-nirnaya, the Bhattārakas are a community degraded from the Brāhmans during the Trētā Yūga. As far as we are able to gather from mediæval Travancore inscriptions, an officer known as Pidara-tiruvadi was attached to every temple. It is known that he used to receive large perquisites for temple service, and that extensive rice-lands were given to the Bhattakara of Nelliyur. It is noted, in the Gazetteer of Malabar, that “the traditional etymology of the name Pishārodi refers it to a Sanyāsi novice, who, deterred by the prospects of the hardship of life on which he was about to enter, ran away (odi) at the last moment, after he had been divested of the pūnūl (thread), but before he had performed the final ceremony of plunging thrice in a tank (pond), and of plucking out, one at each plunge, the last three hairs of his kudumi (the rest of which had been shaved off). But the termination ‘Odi’ is found in other caste titles such as Adiyōdi and Vallōdi, and the definition is obviously fanciful, while it does not explain the meaning of Pishār.”
The houses of Pishāratis are called pishāram. Their primary occupation is to prepare garlands of flowers for Vaishnava temples, but they frequently undertake the talikazhakam or sweeping service in temples. Being learned men, and good Sanskrit scholars, they are employed as Sanskrit and Malayālam tutors in the families of those of high rank, and, in consequence, make free use of the title Asan. They are strict Vaishnavites, and the ashtākshara, or eight letters relating to Vishnu, as opposed to the panchākshara or five letters relating to Siva, forms their daily hymn of prayer. They act as their own caste priests, but for the punyāha or purificatory ceremony and the initiation into the ashtākshara, which are necessary on special occasions, the services of Brāhmans are engaged.
The Pishāratis celebrate the tāli-kettu ceremony before the girl reaches puberty. The most important item therein is the joining of the hands of the bride and bridegroom. The planting of a jasmine shoot is observed as an indispensable preliminary rite. The events between this and the joining of hands are the same as with other Ambalavāsis. The bride and bridegroom bathe, and wear clothes touched by each other. The girl’s mother then gives her a wedding garland and a mirror, with which she sits, her face covered with a cloth. The cherutāli, or marriage ornament, is tied by the bridegroom round the girl’s neck. If this husband dies, the tāli has to be removed, and the widow observes pollution. Her sons have to make oblations of cooked rice, and, for all social and religious purposes, the woman is regarded as a widow, though she is not debarred from contracting a sambandham (alliance) with a man of her own caste, or a Brāhman. If the wife dies, the husband has, in like manner, to observe pollution, and make oblations of cooked rice. There are cases in which the tāli-kettu is performed by a Pishārati, and sambandham contracted with a Brāhman. If the tāli-tier becomes the husband, no separate cloth-giving ceremony need be gone through by him after the girl has reached puberty. Inheritance is in the female line, so much so that a wife and children are not entitled to compensation for the performance of a man’s funeral rites.
No particular month is fixed for the name-giving rite, as it suffices if this is performed before the annaprasana ceremony. The maternal uncle first names the child. When it is four or six months old, it is taken out to see the sun. On the occasion of the annaprasana, which usually takes place in the sixth month, the maternal uncle gives the first mouthful of cooked rice to the child by means of a golden ring. The Yatrakali serves as the night’s entertainment for the assembled guests. Nambūtiris are invited to perform the purificatory ceremony known as punyāha, but the consecrated water is only sprinkled over the roof of the house. The inmates thereof protrude their heads beneath the eaves so as to get purified, as the Brāhmans do not pour the water over them. The chaula or tonsure takes place at the third year of a child’s life. The maternal uncle first touches the boy’s head with a razor, and afterwards the Mārān and barber do the same. The initiation into the ashtākshara takes place at the age of sixteen. On an auspicious day, a Brāhman brings a pot of water, consecrated in a temple, to the pishāram, and pours its contents on the head of the lad who is to be initiated. The ceremony is called kalasam-ozhuk-kua, or letting a pot of water flow. After the teaching of the ashtākshara, the youth, dressed in religious garb, makes a ceremonial pretence of proceeding on a pilgrimage to Benares, as a Brāhman does at the termination of the Brāhmacharya stage of life. It is only after this that a Pishārati is allowed to chew betel leaf, and perform other acts, which constitute the privileges of a Grihastha.
The funeral rites of the Pishāratis are very peculiar. The corpse is seated on the ground, and a nephew recites the ashtākshara, and prostrates himself before it. The body is bathed, and dressed. A grave, nine feet deep and three feet square, is dug in a corner of the grounds, and salt and ashes, representing all the Panchabhūtas, are spread. The corpse is placed in the grave in a sitting posture. As in the case of a Sanyāsi, who is a Jivanmukta, or one liberated from the bondage of the flesh though alive in body, so a dead Pishārati is believed to have no suitable body requiring to be entertained with any post-mortem offerings. A few memorial rites are, however, performed. On the eleventh day, a ceremony corresponding to the ekoddishta srādh of the Brāhman is carried out. A knotted piece of kusa grass, representing the soul of the deceased, is taken to a neighbouring temple, where a lighted lamp, symbolical of Maha Vishnu is worshipped, and prayers are offered. This ceremony is repeated at the end of the first year. Some Pishāratis are large land-owners of considerable wealth and influence.
