COMMUNITY SHRINES

Each Hindu community in the Indian subcontinent has its own gramadevata, the deity regarded as synonymous with the locality and everything within it. Every house, every street, all of the shops, the craft studios, the barns, the farms, the trees and bushes, the wells, the reservoirs and/or streams, the inhabitants (people, animals and insects), the spirits of those that have lived and died there previously, and even the activities, thoughts and emotions of everyone living there, all are part of one great spirit identified as a deity, a gramadevata. This deity is the community just as the community is the deity. They are inseparable. Most gramadevatas are feminine associated with the earth, fertility, healing, and protection. Their names often reflect their association to the Mother Goddess: they are usually prefixed or suffixed with Ma, Mata, Matrika or Amman (each a regional translation of Mother), Ben or Bai (Sister) or Rani (Queen). Sometimes their regional identities have been merged with that of a greater pan-Indian deity, such as Durga or Mari.

Although gramadevatas are indivisible from their entire communities, their worship requires that each has a focal point, a specific place or object upon which to direct attention. The shrine of a gramadevata is usually associated with an important element of nature: a hill, a boulder, a stream or pond, or a tree or grove of trees. Trees are by far the most common: there are hundreds of thousands of sacred trees in constant worship in India. Most are ancient, venerated as gramadevatas for untold centuries. The appearance of these tree sanctuaries is as varied as the communities themselves: sometimes there are several trees together, or a single tree with a large platform built around it, or one marked with flags and banners or with its trunk dressed like the Goddess herself.