Navakandam and Human-sacrifice

[Full title: Other Religious Beliefs and Customs (during the Pallava period): Navakandam and Human-sacrifice]

An important custom peculiar to this period is the navakandam, i.e. offering of nine parts of the body, followed finally by one’s own head to Durga. Number of sculptures depicting this act has been found in the Pallava temples of this age. The earliest of them can be seen in the rock-cut cave temples of the time of Narasimhavarman I Mamalla. One such sculpture can be seen carved in relief on the rear wall inside garbhagriha of the Draupadi ratha (fig. 69) in Mamallapuram. J. Ph. Vogel^[1] was the first scholar to notice they are the depictions of the practice of offering head in sacrifice to the Goddess Durga. The depiction in the Draupadi ratha shows that the male devotee kneeling to the proper right of Durga holds with his left hand the tuft of hair and a sword is held in his right hand. A glance at this pose will impress upon the visitor as if the devotee is in the act of offering his hair to the goddess, the practice of which is still prevalent in many of the South Indian temples. Even J. Ph. Vogel^[2] in his first ever observation on this panel mistaken it to be of hair-offering ritual. However, his subsequent study of similar panels from other places like in the Varaha and Adivaraha cave temples at Mamallapuram made him rectify his view and correctly interpreted it as the ritual of head-offering. The bas-relief in the Varaha cave temple shows that the devotee to the proper right of Durga was holding the sword much lower to the level of his tuft of hair and thus clarifying the point that he is not cutting his hair, but offering his own head. C. Minakshi^[3] while discussing the significance of these panels draws attention towards the other devotee kneeling to the proper left of Durga and suggests two contrasting methods of worship. In the Draupadi ratha, he is shown offering salutation to the feet of Durga by placing his hands in anjali, whereas, in Varaha cave temple he is shown holding a cup, probably containing wine as per Minakshi’s interpretation. She makes a passing reference to the iconography of the Durga panel in Varaha cave temple, but is silent about the significance of depicting lion and antelope in the panel corresponding to the head-offering individual on the proper right and man with cup to the proper left of Durga. Here it can be suggested that they perhaps are intended to signify the raudra and saumya forms of Durga and the two methods by which a devotee propitiates the goddess, i.e. one by self-immolation and the other by propitiating the goddess with food-offerings.

In support of the view that the custom of head-offering was practiced in Pallava period, very clear inscriptional evidence dated in the 20^th regnal year (circa 889 A.D.) of Kampavarman^[4] is found engraved on a slab set up in front of the Subrahmanya temple at Mallam (Nellore district, Andhra Pradesh). The inscription is engraved above the figure of a person holding his severed head by the tuft in his left hand, while the right hand holds a sword. The inscription records the act of navakandam (offering flesh from nine parts of his body) as a sacrifice to the goddess of Durga by a warrior and registers a gift of land made by the urar of Tiruvanmur (i.e. modern Mallam) to Pattai-Pottan for the pious act of Okkondanagan Okkatindan Pattai-Pottan, probably his father, for cutting off flesh from nine parts of his body and finally his head as an offering to the goddess Bhatari i.e. Durga.

C. Minakshi^[5] identifies the Durga panel in the Adivaraha cave temple at Mamallapuram as depicting human sacrifice and states that the person kneeling to the proper right of Durga, who is seen invoking the goddess and elegantly ornamented is the one to be sacrificed by the person kneeling to the proper left of Durga holding a cup in his hand and resting an axe over his shoulder. In support of the interpretation she quotes late inscriptional evidences from Vijayanagara period. Another sculptural panel is found carved in the rock face adjacent to the Pallava rock-cut cave temple at Singavaram.

Apart from inscriptional and sculptural evidences there is also description of the custom of navakandam from literature as well. The rituals connected with the human sacrifice offered to the goddess Durga are elaborately described in Silappadikaram^[6] and mentioned the offerings, as a prize given to the goddess, by the warrior communities for giving them victory. Such description of the practice of head-offering to the goddess is also described in the Sanskrit literature Dasakumaracharita authored by Dandin^[7], a contemporary poet of Narasimhavarman I.

Rai Bahadur Hira Lal^[8] in his research paper on the Golaki matha mentions, certain sects who used to sacrifice their heads and tongues in mandapa specially built for the purpose. A study of tribal customs of Gonds and Santals by scholars such as Mitra^[9] also hints at the possibility of offering human sacrifice to the goddess.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

J. Ph. Vogel, “Head Offerings to the Goddess in Pallava Sculpture”, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies vol. 4, no. 2, London, pp. 539 ff.

[2]:

Ibid., “Iconographical notes on the seven Pagodas”, in ASI –AR, 1910-11, p. 53.

[3]:

C. Minakshi, Administration and Social life under the Pallavas, Madras, 1938 (Reprint 1977), p. 183.

[4]:

Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy, 1908, no. 498 and South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. XII, no. 106, pl. VI

[5]:

C. Minakshi, op.cit., p. 184.

[6]:

Silappadikaram, Chapter XII, Vettuvarai-Turaippattumadai

[7]:

Commentaries of Moreshvar Ramachandra Kale, Bombay, 1900, Chapter I, p. 15

[8]:

Rai Bahadur Hira Lal, “The Golaki Matha”, in Journal of Bihar and Orissa Research Society, vol. 13, p. 144.

[9]:

S. C. Mitra, Journal of Bihar and Orissa Research Society, 1926, p. 153.