Draupadi Amman
திரௌபதி அம்மன்
Also Panchali Amman, Draupadai.
Village and folkShakta
Who this is
Draupadi, the wife of the five Pandavas, is worshipped as a goddess in her own right across the northern Tamil country and into south Andhra, which happens to no other character of the Mahabharata. The cult is built on her vow: insulted in the assembly, she swore not to tie her hair until it was washed in the blood of the man who had dragged her, and the eighteen day festival performs the whole epic as a drama, night after night, until that vow is kept. It ends with the devotees walking on fire. She is read as fire itself, having been born of a sacrifice, which is what the firewalking enacts.
How to recognise them
Standing, with her hair loose and unbound, which is the mark of the vow and distinguishes every image of her. Often with a trident or a sword, in red or green, sometimes with the five Pandavas carved small beside her. The shrine will have a fire pit, the thee mithi kuzhi, in front of it rather than inside.
Family and companions
Daughter of Drupada, born from the fire of a sacrifice along with her brother Dhrishtadyumna. Wife of the five Pandavas. The folk tradition gives her a far larger role than the Sanskrit epic does and makes her the mover of events rather than their occasion.
How they are worshipped
The eighteen day festival, usually between Panguni and Aadi; the firewalking on the last night.
An eighteen day festival in which the Mahabharata is performed as terukkuttu, street theatre, through the nights, with the audience following the plot to its end. The last night is the firewalking: the pit is filled with embers and devotees who have kept the vow walk it, often carrying children. The karagam pot is carried. The vow is taken for a child, a cure or a case.
The stories
As they are told, with the disagreements left in
The hair that was not tied
After the dice game Dushasana dragged her into the assembly by the hair and tried to strip her before it, and not one of the elders present stopped him. She swore she would not tie her hair again until it was washed in his blood. The folk cult takes that oath as its organising fact: the whole eighteen nights of performance run towards the night Bhima kills him, and the moment the hair is bound is the climax of the festival rather than the end of the war. The Sanskrit epic gives the vow a few lines; the Tamil villages built a religion on it.
Walking the fire
On the last night the pit is filled and burnt down to embers and the devotees walk it barefoot, those who have kept the fast and the vow going first, sometimes carrying a child or a karagam. The explanation given is that she was born of fire and is tested by it and is not harmed, and that the walker is for those moments inside her protection. Medical and rationalist objections have been made for a century; the festivals have continued, and the village reads the walk as evidence rather than as a display.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- Tamil Nadu
- The northern districts, Villupuram, Cuddalore, Thiruvannamalai and the old Gingee country, keep the eighteen nights and the firewalking.
- Andhra and Telangana
- The southern Andhra districts bordering Tamil Nadu keep the same cult with the Mahabharata performed over the same span.
- Sri Lanka
- Tamil villages of the east coast keep Draupadi Amman temples with the firewalk, carried there with the migration.
Their days
Every one of these has a page of its own