Atheists ridicule the superstitious devotees, who promise to get their heads tonsured if their vows are once fulfilled. The rationalists even question the theists if they dare to get their limbs chopped off and donate them. The skeptics also say that the ’clever’ devotees would not do that, for they know that limbs, unlike hair, once chopped off, do not grow again. But, believe it or not, a certain community in places including Salem of the Kongu region once got their fingers chopped off and offered them to God!
Atheists ridicule the superstitious devotees, who promise to get their heads tonsured if their vows are once fulfilled. The rationalists even question the theists if they dare to get their limbs chopped off and donate them. The skeptics also say that the ’clever’ devotees would not do that, for they know that limbs, unlike hair, once chopped off, do not grow again. But, believe it or not, a certain community in places including Salem of the Kongu region once got their fingers chopped off and offered them to God!
Quoting a chapter from General Report on the Census of India, 1891, the British ethnographer Edgar Thurston in his famed work on Ethnography Castes and Tribes of Southern India, says:
“There is a sub-section of the Morasu community in Cuddapah (Kadapa) called Veralu Icche Kapulu, a social group of agriculturists, who offer the fingers to God in a curious custom. When a grandchild is born in the Morasu family, it was a custom that the wife of the eldest son of the grandfather must have the last two joints of the third and fourth fingers of her right hand amputated at the temple of Bhairava."
The custom began in the ancient Mysore kingdom from a belief of the Morasu community.
Legend has it that once Lord Siva hid in a shrub from a rakshasha, who was pursuing him. But, a Morasu cultivator indicated the hiding place of Lord Siva to the rakshasha with the little finger of his right hand. Later, on emerging from the hiding place, the angry Siva decreed that the farmer should forfeit the offending finger. The farmer’s wife, who arrived at the field with food for her husband, threw herself at the feet of Lord Siva and besought the deity to rather accept two of her fingers instead of one from her husband. From then on, the cruel ordeal began in the Morasu community..
Quoting from A Manual of the Salem district in the Presidency of Madras, which was published in 1883, Thurston points out that the practice was observed in Salem district too. When a grandchild was born in a family, the eldest son of the grandfather would appear at the temple with his wife for the ceremony of boring the child's ear. And there, the woman (Eldest son’s wife) would have the last two joints of the third and fourth fingers chopped off.
Narrating the horrific scene of the custom, Thurston says:
“About the time of the full moon, a propitious day is fixed by the village astrologer, and the woman, who is to offer the sacrifice, performs certain ceremonies in honour of Siva, taking food only once a day. From three days before the operation, the woman has to support herself with milk, sugar, fruits, etc. When the day appears, she is taken to the temple. There, she places her right hand with fingers spread out on a wooden seat before the image of Lord Siva. A man holds her hand firmly, and the village carpenter, placing his chisel on the first joints of her ring and little fingers, chops them off with a single stroke”
Thurston informs that the pieces lopped off are thrown into an ant-hill, and the tips of the mutilated fingers, round which rags are bound, are dipped into a vessel containing boiling gingili (Sesamum indicum) oil.
Thurston says that the woman undergoes the barbarous and painful ceremony without a murmur,
“And it was an article of the popular belief that, were it neglected, or if nails grew on the stump, dire ruin and misfortune would overtake the recusant family.”