Asian and African Area Studies, 11 (1): 1-17, 2011

Hariti: Village Origins, Buddhist Elaborations and Saivite Accommodations
Sree Padma*

Abstract
In this paper I examine the iconography, contemporary worship and mythology of a
local goddess, Erukamma, in the city of Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India toreconstruct her associations with the goddess Hariti who is known throughout the
Buddhist world of Southeast and East Asia. In order to establish Hariti’s connection
with Erukamma and her ancient origins and significance, I analyze the translations ofTaisho texts that refer to Hariti’s story and worship. My aim in this paper is to argue
the following: while the Buddhist renderings allow goddesses such as Hariti to travel
beyond the Indian sub-continent, there have been many goddesses like Hariti in the
Indian context whose cults were submerged in the developing Buddhist cultic world. A
reverse process has also occurred when Buddhism has lost ground such as in the caseof Erukamma. In these instances, goddesses like Erukamma reflect adaptations of new
religious trends while retaining characteristics of their original village origins.

Introduction
When I was doing field-work on the folk goddesses of Andhra Pradesh in 1991, I came across ajumbled mix of goddesses with different backgrounds. Among these goddesses whose iconography
and myth puzzled me most was the goddess Erukamma. Erukamma’s myth resembled the story of
mother Hariti that we know through Buddhist accounts. Increasing my curiosity, goddess Hariti
kept appearing to me in the form of sculpted images at Buddhist archaeological sites that I had
visited to collect information about early Mahayana bodhisattvas in the Krishna River valley. Since
then I have started looking for more information about the origins of Hariti in Andhra and hertransformation in a post-Buddhist context.
That the Hariti cult was known in Andhra, as it seems to have been in many other parts of
the Buddhist world as well, is amply attested by some sculpted images of Hariti usually seatedwith a child sitting on her lap. These images are mostly found outside the remains of refectories of
Buddhist monastic complexes. The Hariti images that I encountered come from the early Buddhist
places like Nagarjunakonda, Sankaram (Bojjannakonda), Salihundam etc (Figures 1 and 2).1) On astylistic basis, the Hariti figures in Nagarjunakonda and Sankaram are assigned to the 4th century* Visiting Research Scholar, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University.
Accepted September 20, 20111

Asian and African Area Studies, 11 (1)Fig. 1. Map

CE (Figures 3 and 5).2） Note that the Hariti figure at Sanakaram, somewhat better preserved, notonly holds a child in her lap but also wears a crown with children as motifs, implying her status as
possessing countless children.
Archaeological evidence points to the fact that Hariti figures started appearing only with theappearance of the Mahayana phase of Buddhist tradition. Her images are often seen emplaced inmonastic complexes. Hariti is sometimes portrayed along with her husband Panchika, or Panduka,
at the entrance or at the end of dining halls elsewhere in India. Hariti and Panchika are also seen in
the bas-reliefs of Gandhara and Mathura.3） In these contexts they both seem to symbolize wealth,abundance and prosperity. The Hariti cult spread beyond the Indian sub-continent to be part ofthe Buddhist cultural world in central, east and south-east Asia as it is well documented in a recent
book.4） I-Tsing’s record suggests that Hariti’s images were popular in certain parts of China by the1）Sarkar and Misra [1987: 29], Hanumatha Rao [1993: 39, fn. 44].
2）Krishna Murty [1989: 53-55].
3）Srivastava [1979: 88]. A couple of Gandhara sculptures of Hariti, one with a baby in her lap and the second
holding a cornucopia, seated next to Panchika are preserved in the British Museum, London.
4）Maheshwari [2009].

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Sree Padma: Hariti

Fig. 2. Andhra

Fig. 3. Hariti, Nagarjunakonda

Fig. 4. Erukamma
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Asian and African Area Studies, 11 (1)Fig. 5. Hariti, Sankaram

7th century.5）
According to mythic accounts, Hariti was a mother of five hundred children. She was often
portrayed as carrying a child while flanked by at least four of her other children. The widespread
popularity of the story of Hariti’s conversion to Buddhist path is indicated by the fact that it isrecorded in many Buddhist texts such as the Mulasarvastivada Vinaya (145, ch. 31), the Avadanakalpalata, and I-Tsing’s and Huan Tsang’s records.
My focus in this paper is to study the nature of Hariti’s incorporation into Buddhism withthe assumption that she originally has a folk origin. My aim is first to discuss the significance of
how Hariti becomes a popular deity with a close association to Buddhism and then explore hercultic transition through the local goddess Erukamma in a suburb in Visakhapatam city in Andhra
Pradesh.
When I-Tsing visited India between 671 and 695 CE, he gave an account of what he witnessed
during the ceremony on the Upavastha-day in the Indian Buddhist monasteries: how the goddess5）Takakasu [1966: 37].

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Sree Padma: Hariti

Hariti was offered food after all arhats and bhiksus were served.6） Then, he relates a summary storyof Hariti: Hariti, due to a vow in her previous birth, took the form of a Yakshi, and was a motherof five hundred demons in Rajagrha. She devoured the children of Rajagrha causing much havoc inthe city. To teach her a lesson, the Buddha hid her beloved youngest son upon which the demonessapproached him with anger. The Buddha thus made her realize empathetically the immense loss
suffered by Rajagrha’s parents whose children she had devoured. Hariti repented and accepted thereligious path as set forth by the Buddha. As a response to her own concern about how to feed herchildren in the future, the Buddha instructed his sangha followers to feed her family in every monastery. It is since that time, I-Tsing says, that the images of Hariti surrounded by children are seen
either in the porch or in the dining hall of the Buddhist monasteries where she is offered abundantfood on a daily basis. I-Tsing recounts that Hariti, in turn, was worshipped by laity to beget wealthand children. During his visit to India in the first half of the 7th century CE, Hsuan Tsang refers to astupa dedicated to Hariti to which the common people seeking children, offered prayers.7）

1. Early Conceptions of Hariti
What sources are there to prove that Hariti has village origins? I will start with D. D. Kosambi
who points out that like goddess Hariti, many regional goddesses in the state of Maharashtra wereincorporated into Buddhism.8） Kosambi is not alone in making this observation. For example, GailSoutherland talks about the assimilation of many folk legends of local goddesses into a Buddhist
mythology of Yakshinis.9） According to her, Hariti was originally a fertility figure and a protectressof the city of Rajagrha whose demoness side was transformed by the Buddha. Southerland also mentions that Hariti in sculpture not only symbolizes fertility, but that in some representations she seems
transformed into an auspicious and gentle goddesses like Bhadra, Lakshmi or Vasudhara.10） This is
in contrast to what we see in (Buddhist) literature in its various accounts where Hariti is seen almost
exclusively as horrific before her conversion to Buddhism. Perhaps this contrast can be explained by
the fact that the artisan class were usually not well versed in Buddhist texts and might have still seen
her primarily as a fertility figure, while the texts tried to portray her demonic form more prominently
to show her dramatic transformation into a benevolent being through the intervention of the Buddha.
Curiously, Etiene Lamotte agrees that artisans were responsible for the depiction of life affirming6）Takakasu [1966: 37].
7）Watters [1904: 215].
8）Kosambi [1983: 82-109].
9）Southerland [1991: 143].
10）Southerland [1991: 143].

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Asian and African Area Studies, 11 (1)images like Hariti, but only to make his argument about how the artisan class was diverted from thepath of true Buddhist faith. I quote:While producing at will religious or worldly works (great many images of spirits, gods and demi
gods including Hariti and Panchika), they (the artists) were easily led astray by their art and on
occasions confused the serious with frivolous.11）

In any case, Hariti was one of the early goddesses to appear in the emerging Indian Buddhist
pantheon of deities. Lamotte cites an important piece of evidence that Hariti was a smallpox
goddess in the Gandhara region since very early times.12） An inscription that was inscribed on theplinth of a stupa dedicated to Hariti contains a prayer to the goddess to take the smallpox away into
the sky. Lamotte also observes in this context that Hariti was worshiped as a smallpox goddess in
Nepal and that the protection of monks in placating this goddess still holds true today in a Hariti
temple adjacent to the famous Svayambhu stupa in Khatmandu. These references suggest that Hariti,
like many village-level goddesses throughout India, was also associated with smallpox and its cure.
In fact, A. D. H. Aivar has written an article on Hariti that traces out her background as asmallpox goddess in the early historic period.13） While Peri translates Chinese texts on Hariti into
French, Dhirasekera talks about many Buddhist legends about Hariti and her husband Panchika.14）
A much later study on Hariti comes from Richard Cohen’s article, the aim of which is to show how
the Hariti cult is part and parcel of Buddhism in Ajanta.15） Cohen first shows how Hariti’s depiction
in cave 2 is in accordance with the description of I-Tsing and then proceeds to prove how themonastic community served as a mediator not only between the Ajanta laity and the goddess, butalso between the Buddha (sacred) and Hariti (chthonic). Cohen argues that by placating Hariti
through worship and offerings, monks ensured that Hariti did not bring harm but prosperity. This
argument is to prove his point of how the pacification of the Hariti cult helps to localize Ajanta’s
Buddhism. Even earlier, John Strong made a similar argument. I quote:

They (the Buddhists) allowed its (Hariti’s) positive side to go on more or less unchanged. Thus
her shrine within Buddhist monasteries remained a popular place with laypersons desiring to11）Lamotte [1988: 407].
12）Lamotte [1988: 689].
13）Aivar [1970: 10-21].
14）Peri [1917: 1-37], Dhirasekera [1976: 61-70].
15）Cohen [1998: 360-400].

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Sree Padma: Hariti

have children. On the other hand, they transformed her negative aspects; under the aegis of the
Buddhists, Hariti would no longer devour children, but devour alms given to monks instead.16）

My intention here is to study Hariti not from an exclusively Buddhist perspective but tounderstand what she has signified more generally from a more common folk’s view point. What
does Hariti mean to common folk? How does Hariti remain as a popular deity during pre-Buddhist
and post Buddhist periods? For this, I analyze what I see as the original understanding of the Hariti
cult and its transformation during the Buddhist period. First I look at how Buddhists domesticated
Hariti into the Buddhist fold and then some of the reasons behind that. For this, I consider three
Taisho texts where Hariti’s story and the procedure of her worship are mentioned in a detailed
manner. The basics of Hariti’s story in these texts are the same as in I-Tsing’s record but muchelaborated.17） Commenting on how I-Tsing’s record is similar to a sutra that traveled from India to
China, Lokesh Chandra mentions that the sutra that includes the story and worship of Hariti was tohelp the rulers to establish a Buddhist state. Thus in both Japan and China the sutra came to play
central role in imperial rituals.18） In any case, the Hariti’s story as it is told twice in Taisho texts wereoriginally translated from Sanskrit by Amoghavajra in the 8th century CE.19） The translation ofthese Sanskrit texts, into Chinese, especially the second, and third texts, were to some extent alreadystudied by the French scholar Peri.20） But the purpose of my study of these texts is basically to lookat Hariti’s cult from the folk point of view before and after Buddhist transformation.

2. Buddhist Elaborations of Hariti in Taisho Texts
On my request, these three texts were translated from Chinese into English in 1993 by the late Edward Chen, Professor of history at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In serial order,
the first Taisho # 1261, entitled as “Hariti mother, words of truth, sutra,” talks about various ways
of worshiping Hariti and the benefits of each form of worship. The second text, Taisho # 1262, isentitled “Mother of ghost children sutra spoken by the Buddha.” Here the Buddha encounters Hariti
who repents over her evil doings and pledges to do good for the people. The third text Taisho #16）Strong [1982: 36].
17）Chandra [2006].
18）Bruswell [2.812].
19）Chandra [1977: 466]. Hariti had five hundred sons, and she is referred to as panca-putra-sata-parivara in the
Mahayaksi-Hariti-Priyankara-sadhana-vidhi, translated by Amoghavajra during the years A.D. 746-771, into Chineseas Ta-yo-ch’a-nu-huan-his-mu-pring-ai-tzu-ch’eng-chiu-fa (Nanjio 1392, Taisho edition vol. 21 no. 1260).
20）Peri [1917: 1-37].

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Asian and African Area Studies, 11 (1)1451, called “Sarvastivadin Record of Miscellaneous Events,” tells the birth story of Hariti and thenrepeats briefly her conversion by the Buddha. This third text mentions the presence of Amitabha
and Avalokitesvara along with the Buddha and ends abruptly with the Buddha asking the opinionof bhikshus about the past karma of Hariti and the people of Rajagrha. Although these three texts
are overlapping in their accounts, I have discovered that we can see a continuum if they are read in areverse order. Thus, for the clarity of my argument, I will consider these texts in their reverse order.
The Sarvastivadin Record, Taisho # 1451, opens with the mention of Hariti’s father who was
one of the guardians of a royal capital. He promises his Yaksha friend, a guardian of another settlement, to marry his future child to his friend’s future offspring. Hariti was born to him as a beautiful
girl named Delight. When she was growing up, Delight developed a secret desire to snatch thechildren from the capital city and eat them. To divert Hariti from this desire, her younger brotherwho succeeded his father as a guardian Yaksha, marries her off to the son of the Yaksha to whom
his father had promised. After giving birth to 500 powerful children, relying upon her strength,
Delight starts preying on other’s children in Rajagrha. The people of Rajagrha started calling her
Hariti, the stealer of children and reported her evil doings to the Buddha. In response, the Buddha
covers the youngest son of Hariti with his bowl. Greatly distressed, Hariti searches all over for her
son, as far as Sakra’s palace where another Yaksha called Amitabha was a guardian. On the adviceof one of the devas, Hariti comes to the Buddha pleading with him to find her son without whom shewould not want to live. The Buddha asks her to think about the distress of the mothers of Rajagrha
who have lost their only child by comparing their distress to her own when she had lost only oneout of five hundred children. Hariti understands, repents and agrees to give up her evil ways while
accepting the Buddha’s five precepts and three refugees. The Buddha, in return, assures her that in
the future she and her five hundred children will be fed by the monks with the alms that they receivefrom the laity. In this context, The Buddha also mentions that bodhisattva Avalokitesvara washaving a festival in the city in his honor. After Hariti’s departure, the Buddha tells his bhiksus theaccount of Hariti’s previous birth in which Hariti, as a pregnant wife of a cowherd, is urged to dance
in a feast by a merry making group and loses her pregnancy as a result. Out of revenge, she makesa vow that in her next birth she would eat the children of the royal city, Rajagrha. The lessons ofkarma seem aptly illustrated by this explanation.
In the Sarvastivadin Record, the mention of Sakra, and other bodhisattvas such as Amitabha
and Avalokitesvara, clearly indicate the form of Buddhism in which Hariti as a cult was incorporated. Hariti is portrayed as a beautiful girl who was the delight of her parents. She is not just an
ordinary Yakshi who decides to eat the children, but belongs to a family of guardians whose duty
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Sree Padma: Hariti

was to protect the residents of the city. She is also portrayed as a great maternal figure who not only
gives birth to hundreds of children but also a fierce protector of her off-spring. Thus, Hariti’s own
protective qualities come through strongly in this text. In spite of all this background, this great
mother starts devouring the children of her own city. These ambiguous qualities of Hariti fit into
the traits of the smallpox goddess who was believed to have the ability to give or take away the life ofchildren.
As we have seen, we know from Lamotte’s study and others that Hariti was famous as a goddessof smallpox in Nepal and in the northwestern parts of India. I want to use the information I havecollected on many smallpox goddesses who are also guardian deities of various villages and towns inAndhra Pradesh, India to speculate the original nature of Hariti cult.
The goddesses of smallpox and other contagious diseases who are also regarded as guardian
deities are ubiquitous in Andhra. Throughout Andhra, people view these goddesses more or less inthe same manner and offer animal sacrifices to satiate them. The names of these smallpox goddesses
might vary from region to region. Some of these are called as Mutyalamma, Pochamma, Peddamma,
Nukalamma, Ankalamma etc. In the stories I have collected it is clear that some smallpox goddesses
are deified human women who died during their pregnancies or when delivering children. Devotees
believe that the spirits of these women would bring destruction and death to their children unlessthey are approached with proper offerings and prayers. In this context it is important to recall thereason for Hariti’s devouring children. We have learned that in her previous birth, Hariti lost her
pregnancy. It is possible that Hariti was originally a human woman who died in her pregnancy who
was later deified and worshipped with animal sacrifices.
Like almost all smallpox goddesses, Hariti was a guardian deity who is said to have protected
the people of Rajagrha. Guardian deities have been worshipped in Andhra with the belief that thesegoddesses guard the borders of a village/city from all kinds of calamities such as disease, untimely
death, pestilence and even from human enemies in the same manner as a mother protects her own
children. This is the reason why all these goddesses are simply referred to affectionately as themother. The word mother in Telugu is “amma” and the goddesses I quoted above have this suffix
attached to their names. Sometimes, especially in the context of placating the goddess she is respectfully addressed as “ammavaru” which means “madam.” It is widely believed that guardian deities
can be displeased very easily with any little mischief on the part of villagers. A seriously displeased
mother can be, therefore, transformed into the devourer of her own village. This displeasure canbe seen in any form such as drought, contagious diseases, etc. Until the discovery of vaccinations,
smallpox was considered the most serious of deadly diseases. Once smallpox erupted, children were
9

Asian and African Area Studies, 11 (1)the first victims of it, and people consequently saw their goddess as a terrible mother, the devourer of
their children.
Hariti, being the protectress and the smallpox deity, must have been understood in the same
way as other goddesses I have just mentioned. The rituals to this goddess then must have been
constituted by animal sacrifices. If that was so, what made Buddhist monks intervene into Hariti’scult and soften her qualities? The second Taisho text gives us some clues to this question.
The second text, “The Mother of Ghost Children Sutra elaborates Hariti’s qualities as demonessand mother. In this text, Hariti is just named as “mother.” Here, the mother is said to have 1,000
ghost children, 500 in heaven and 500 in this world who harass heavenly and worldly beings. Eachof them has tens of thousands of ghosts in their followings. The mother herself steals other people’schildren and eats them. On hearing about the great disturbance created by the mother, the Buddha
sends Ananda and other sramanas to obtain all Hariti’s 1,000 children and hides them in themonastery. The mother, who realizes that her children are missing, cries and howls and, searches
all over for ten days for them. On the advice of a sramana, she goes to see the Buddha. The Buddha
makes her realize the sufferings of the parents who lost their children to her. He also wants themother to realize the sufferings of both heavenly and earthly beings due to the harassment caused byher children. The Buddha explains how her children disguise themselves as water spirits, sea spirits,
carriage spirits, state spirits and invisible spirits at night and disturb people. The disturbed people,
the Buddha says, kill animate beings in order to feed these ghosts while the intention of these ghosts
is not to eat offered meat but to delude people to commit sins of killing. On hearing this, the mother
repents and takes refuge in the Buddha who bestows on her the five precepts (no killing, stealing,
lying, adultery, and intoxication). Then the Buddha allows the mother to see all her children again.
The Buddha asks in return to give all her children to the monastery and stay herself by the monasteryand to be compassionate to all those who come to ask her favors.
The above story is salient about a number of things. It refers to common people’s beliefs about
the guardian goddess and the spirits and their ritual practices in which they sacrifice animals to appease these ghost spirits and their mother. Even now, in some Andhra villages, people believe in thetypes of spirits described in this story. In some village goddess myths, like the myth of Ankalammathat I collected, it is said that all these different spirits are the following of “the mother.” In order toappease these spirits, villagers recourse to animal sacrifices such as buffalo, ram, pig and chicken.
Buddhism, as a missionary religion, needed to come to terms with folk beliefs in order to spread
its own tenets among them. For this, the village goddess, worshiped in different names almost
everywhere in India, had to be tamed and so as the other spirits.
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Sree Padma: Hariti

Before Buddhism devolved into an elitist monastic tradition, it had striven to be the common
people’s religion, and in the creation of the Hariti cult it attempted to address common people’s
needs. The way the common people deal with mysterious diseases and death is to have a belief inthese invisible blood thirsty ghosts whom they think would leave them alone if they could appeasethem with animal sacrifices. What Buddhists did here was to make a compromise with the common
beliefs that there is a mother who controls all the ghosts. What Buddhists argued was that however
terrible the mother might be, she along with all forms of ghosts can be subdued by the Buddha’s
powerful dharma. The Buddha and his dharma can channel these powers of the mother and thevarious forms of ghosts to achieve common good without the necessity of spilling blood. Instead of
directly admonishing people not to kill, here an attempt is made through Hariti and other similar
goddesses to argue that killings are not necessary to appease the mother or the ghosts. In fact, now
the mother herself is ordained into Buddhism while the ghosts are accommodated in the monasteryand will now follow the principles set in the dharma.
This transformation was convincing to the common people as it speaks their own language andinvokes their symbols. For example, it is a common understanding among village devotees that themother can appear as a disease herself or possess a particular human being or even the sacrificial
animal. Through the vehicle of a human being the mother always spells out her preferences. While
it is possible for village devotees, who consist of the majority of population, to feel the presence ofthe mother in various ways, Buddhists sought instead to simply bring her under control. Here, by
taming the majority people’s religion, Buddhists wanted to not only popularize to their own religion
but also to change people’s attitude towards their own gods.
On the other hand, the cult of Hariti became popular not only in those areas where she wasworshiped earlier as a goddess of smallpox, but also in other regions such as Andhra. The reason
for this is that Hariti’s cult is similar to any other smallpox/guardian deities that people are familiarwith. As we can see in the second Taisho text where Hariti is called mother, most smallpox
goddesses/guardian deities are referred to only as “amma” rather than with any personal name.
This made possible the identification of the story of the mother with different goddesses in any
village or town where a guardian deity is worshiped for all the above stated reasons.
With regard to rituals, in the “Mother of Ghost Children Sutra,” the Buddha talks about theharmfulness of bloody sacrifices in inducing others to kill. This raises questions about alternativemodes of worship proposed by the Buddhists in relation to the goddess and whether there are any
specific instructions about how Hariti should be worshiped.
The first Taisho text, “The Hariti Mother Sutra,” which gives instructions on how to worship11

Asian and African Area Studies, 11 (1)Hariti, is helpful in answering our questions. The text starts with Hariti herself explaining to the
Buddha how she should be worshiped. Here again we see that the mother herself instructs her devotees to worship her in a particular way that would not be antagonistic to Buddhist teachings. The
Buddhist teachings referred to here are Mahayana, in so far as Hariti is regarded as a Bodhisattva
and therefore her rituals seem to be of a Tantric nature.
It is not the aim of this paper to go into the discussion of what features can be defined as
Tantra. Suffice it to say that the form of worship mentioned for Hariti in this Taisho text does notparticularly conform to all the features of the Tantric cult that generally scholars ascribe.21） It does,
however, contain magical incantations, the repetition of which for a certain number of times isdesigned to achieve basically any particular wish including the subjugation of enemies. Althoughofferings to the goddess are mostly vegetarian, we do see in certain rituals, an occasional recommendation of meat offerings.
In “The Hariti Mother Sutra,” Hariti starts explaining the procedure of her worship by praising
the value of mantras and their benefits for the good citizens of Jambudvipa. The text goes on to saythat women who are not capable of conceiving children should worship the mother in a certain way
in order to beget offspring. This worship consists of painting a Hariti image on a white cloth, as abeautiful woman with regal dress sitting in a bejeweled seat with two children standing on her eitherside and two sitting on her knees and one child in her left arm. The worshiper should meditate on
the image in a quiet room. Then the image should be placed on incense ashes in a squared altar withflowers scattered about. Food and drink offerings consist of milk, rice, porridge, a variety of fruits
and perfumed water along with incense should be made to Hariti. Then the given mantra (Om, namaha) should be recited a thousand times in the morning, noon and dusk. In order to get whateveris wished, face the image and begin chanting the mantra on the fifth day of a month a hundred
thousand times. This procedure of worshiping Hariti is basic for all kinds of wishes although thenumber of mantra recitations and the offerings made to the goddess and even the ritual observation
may vary to a degree.
In one occasion to achieve any wish, Hariti instructs the worshiper that he/she should makeofferings first to the images of Buddha and bodhisattvas like Manjusri, Samantabhadra and then to
her image. The reason for this is, Hariti says, that the Buddha bestowed on her three refugees andthe five precepts of which enable her to come face to face with the bodhisattvas who have achieved
the tenth stage.

21）Bhattacharya [1982: 220].

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Sree Padma: Hariti

Interestingly the above text guides common people how to worship their goddess to fulfill theirvarious wishes, rather than instructing monks how to honor Hariti to keep her from harming thecommon people. This strategy I think is to create a substitute for the earlier form of rituals wherecommon people participate themselves. While the earlier rituals required the participation of allgroups in the village where they have assigned roles, the substitute is only meant for one individual’s
participation for his/her own fulfillment. The recitation of a mantra, the image making, the altar
preparation and the various vegetarian food offerings are the alternatives to the earlier form of
bloody rituals to the goddess of smallpox. While the mother of smallpox is usually worshiped by
the village as a whole, the nature of worship here, in contrast, is for individual men and women toachieve their own personal or family goals. This feature indicates the transformation of Hariti cultwhere individuals strive for their own betterment rather than as a group for the common good. This
shift from common goal to the personal goal can be attributed to the Buddhist context of soteriology.

3. Erukamma: The Saivite Accommodation
The same way as Kosambi explained how Buddhism influenced the cults of many village goddesses
in Maharashtra during the middle of the first millenium CE., many village goddesses in Andhra
were influenced first by Buddhism and then later by Saivite and Vaishnavite traditions. According
to Kosambi, many of these goddesses have been portrayed in rock cut relief sculptures in various
Buddhist cave complexes and continue to be venerated today in nearby villages. In the case of theHariti cult in post Buddhist Andhra, the continued veneration of the goddess went through somecultic transformations. An example of this is the image of Hariti at Sankaram considered as a local
goddess called Palakamma (Figure 5).22）
With the eclipse of the Buddhist tradition by the 8th or 9th century CE, and the simultaneous
sweeping wave of Saivism of the same period, many village deities became identified with aspects of
the Saivite cult. This seems to be the case with Erukamma, whom devotees identify with Parvati,
the consort of Siva (Figure 4). Erukamma is a goddess worshipped in a small but busy temple in
Dondaparty, a village that forms part of the city of Visakhapatnam in coastal Andhra. As is the caseof many village goddesses in Andhra, Erukamma is attended by a non-brahmin priest. But unlike atypical village goddess, Erukamma possesses a distinct iconography and a unique myth.
The myth of the goddess as narrated by the priest of the temple goes like this: A woman named
Erukamma was causing horror by stealing the children in the village and devouring them in a secret22）Krishna Murthy [1987: ix-x].

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Asian and African Area Studies, 11 (1)place on the village outskirts. A man of the Erukala (basket weavers) caste happened upon her while
she was devouring a recently kidnapped child and immediately cut off her head. After her death,people feared the potential malevolent effects of her revenge. To placate her, they worshipped her
and through their petitions were able to redirect her powers for the purposes of village protection.
This rather crude story contains the basic outlines of the extensive myth of Hariti that I havediscussed earlier. Having quenched her insatiable appetite for devouring children, the Buddha
promised that Hariti would instead be fed rice by his monks for as long as his sangha prospered.
Hence she came to symbolize the material well-being of the Buddhist community in general and was
also venerated by laity seeking offspring. That her cult was popular in Andhra, as it seems to havebeen in many other parts of the Buddhist world as well, is amply attested by the sculpted images ofHariti, usually seated with a child sitting on her lap, found outside the remains of refectories of Buddhist monastic complexes. But in post Buddhist Andhra, where sangha no longer was in prosperity,
the story of Buddha’s promise to Hariti seemed to be of very little relevance. For, the present myth
replaces the Buddha with a man of the Erukala caste who by no means was non-violent in his actions. In this myth, Erukamma becomes one of the many deified women in Andhra, whose potential
malevolent effects are feared. In other words, if Erukamma was originally Hariti, now she left her
monastic connections to come back to the non-Buddhist populations, which was her original home.
By doing so, Erukamma finds herself in the same position as other village goddesses in the wave ofSaivism and came to be identified as a form of Parvati. The main difference though is that mostvillage goddesses in Andhra are seen as the forms of Durga. By this identification, these goddesses
retain their non-vegetarian nature.
As a form of Parvati, Erukamma is now served liturgically by a Brahmin priest during therituals constituting her annual festival. But on all other days, it is a non-Brahmin belonging to an
agricultural caste, that acts as the ritual preceptor. Worship of Erukamma is usually done directlyby the devotees themselves who offer fruits, coconuts, saris and blouse pieces to the goddess after
applying turmeric and vermilion. But on the special annual occasions, the Brahmin priest conducts
rites on behalf of all devotees for a price. Animal sacrifices are rare, and devotees still take pride insaying that this goddess does not like non-vegetarian food, a reflection of her Buddhist associations
with her mythic past. This last point of the goddess accepting only vegetarian food is very rare forvillage goddesses. In Andhra many regional goddesses of village origins but now served by Brahmin
priests are known to accept animal sacrifices on special occasions in specially assigned places. These
venues and occasions are set in such a way that Brahmin priests will be absent from the scene. But
in the case of Erukamma, her vegetarian preferences like those of Hariti must have been stayed in
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Sree Padma: Hariti

the consciousness of devotees in just the same way as some elements of her mythic origins have beenpreserved. Another element that appears specific in Erukamma’s worship is the importance given to
the individual offerings to the deity over to the annual ritual offered by the community. The imageof Erukamma in her shrine depicts her with the cut-off head lying in front of her and her right arm
wrapped around, ostensibly, a kidnapped child who is sitting on her lap (Figure 4). The icon of
Erukamma seems much older than the Saivite affiliation of this temple, however. The origin of this
icon, though evidently quite old, is not known to the local people or to temple administrators. But
the image clearly represents the local myth about this goddess, and no iconographic elements can belinked to Parvati whatsoever. What these details about Erukamma indicate is a very rich and varied
amalgamation of practices and beliefs encompassing aspects of religious cults originating from preBuddhist, Buddhist, Saivite, and village origins.
Erukamma, in her former incarnation as Hariti, started her origins as a smallpox deity but
travelled to Andhra in the incarnation of her Buddhist rendering. In post-Buddhist Andhra, when
her sculpture was worshipped as the mother of the village with the name Erukamma, she might beviewed as a smallpox goddess who, in the height of epidemic was the devourer of the children andwhose protective power can be invoked by appropriate propitiation. In the absence of smallpox,
now her protective function is extended to the well being of families and especially as a goddess withthe power to produce male offspring. This is probably the reason why she has been identified bydevotees as a form of Parvati who is considered as an ideal wife and a mother of two sons. There is,however, remarkable evidence of amalgamated sources in the narrative and ritual traditions associated with Erukamma, and it is precisely this amalgamation that contributes to her continuing appeal
to a diverse congregation.
As a conclusion here I will summarize my observations. When Hariti was worshiped as asmallpox deity in the northern parts of India, Buddhists were likely to have felt a responsibility fordiverting people away from violent forms of worship. The result was that Hariti, herself, becamea Buddhist goddess. When Hariti’s cult was presented in Buddhist guise, the lay people, in fact,
were happy that they could continue to worship the mother to ask for their favorite boons, whileremaining as Buddhists. Buddhists themselves consciously attributed the same Hariti myth to otherguardian deities as well. For example, Strong mentions the conflation of cult of Kunti with that ofHariti in the Mathura region.23） The Hariti myth was relevant not only to the Indian sub-continent
but beyond as well. It would seem that the same process occurred in relation to Kuei-tzu-mu (Mother23）Strong [1982: 37].

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Asian and African Area Studies, 11 (1)of Demon-children), an indigenous mother of demoness figure who was later identified with Hariti
when Buddhism was being acculturated in China.24）
Curiously, the cult of Kuei-tzu-mu as a goddess of children was reported as kept alive by
Chinese women.25） Hariti’s variations in Japan are known as Karitei or Kishimojin (Kishibojin).
Her statues are found in many Buddhist temples in Japan including at Sanjusangendo, Kiyomizudera
and Ninnaji. In Andhra, on the other hand, goddesses like Erukamma, whose myth as a stealerof children and whose iconography with a child in the arms, finds herself among Hariti’s original
haunts. In her Erukamma’s form, Hariti not only brings her past imprints of village characters aswell as Buddhist soteriology, but also embraces a new identity as the form of Parvati. In all of thesevicissitudes, either as Hariti or Erukamma, her basic identity remains.
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