As we neared Saundatti, however, the green tunnel came to an end, and the fields on either side gave way to drier, dustier, poorer country. The trees, the cane breaks and the cotton fields were replaced by dry strips of sunflowers. Goats picked wearily through dusty stubble. Women in ragged clothing sold onions laid out on palm-weave mats placed along the side of the road. Existence here felt more marginal, more tenacious.
After some time, a long red stone ridge appeared out of the heat haze. The ridge resolved itself into the great hogback of Saundatti, and at the top, rising up from near-vertical cliffs, was the silhouette of the temple of Yellamma. Below, and to one side, stretched a lake of an almost unearthly blue. It was here, according to the legend, that the story had begun.
Yellamma was the wife of the powerful rishi Jamadagni, who was himself an incarnation of the god Shiva—he had arisen out of the ritual fire while his father, the King of Kashmir, was performing a mahayagna, or great sacrifice. The couple and their four sons lived in a simple wooden hermitage by the lake. Here, the sage punished his body and performed great feats of austerity. After the birth of his fourth child, these included a vow of complete chastity.
Every day Yellamma served her husband, and fetched water from the river for his rituals. For this, she used a pot made of sand, and carried it home in the coils of a live snake. One day, as Yellamma was fetching water, she saw a heavenly being, a gandharva, making love to his consort by the banks of the river. It was many years since Yellamma had enjoyed the pleasures of love, and the sight attracted her. Watching from behind a rock, hearing the lovers’ cries of pleasure, she found herself longing to take the place of the beloved.
The sudden rush of desire destroyed her composure. When she crept away to get water for her husband as usual, she found to her horror she could no longer create a pot from sand, and that her yogic powers of concentration had vanished. When she returned home without the water, Jamadagni immediately guessed what had happened. In his rage, he cursed his wife. In seconds, Yellamma became sickly and ugly, covered in boils and festering sores. She was turned out of her home, cursed to wander the roads of the Deccan, begging for alms. No one recognised her as the once-beautiful wife of Jamadagni.
Later, when she returned home and asked for forgiveness, Jamadagni was angrier still. Disturbed from completing his great sacrifice, he ordered each of his four sons to behead their outcaste mother. The first three refused to do so, but the youngest and most powerful, Parashurama, finally agreed; he cut off his mother’s head with a single stroke. Pleased with such obedience, Jamadagni gave Parashurama a boon: whatever he asked would be done. Parashurama, however, was not just an obedient son; he was also a loving one, and without hesitation he asked for Jamadagni to revive his mother. The sage had no choice but to fulfil his promise, and he did as Parashurama had asked. But still Jamadagni would not be appeased. He vowed never to look at Yellamma’s face again, and went off to continue his feats of asceticism in a cave high in the Himalayas. There, he was later joined by Parusharama, whose story is told in the Mahabharata, where he appears as the teacher of powerful mantras and secret weapons to another wandering outcaste, Karna.
The story is a harsh and violent one, and Jamadagni belongs to that class of irascible holy men who fill Sanskrit literature with their fiery and unforgiving anger. In contrast, the goddess Yellamma, like Sita in the Ramayana, is a victim, wrongly suspected of infidelities she never actually committed. Though she had been a good wife, her husband threw her out, disfigured her beauty and cursed her to beg for a living. She was rejected by all.
Though the story is full of sadness and injustice, devadasis—as those who have been dedicated, or “married,” to a god or goddess are known—like Rani Bai, tell the tale as they believe that it shows how their goddess is uniquely sympathetic to their fate. After all, their lives are little better than hers: cursed for crimes of love outside the bonds of marriage, rejected by their children, condemned like Yellamma to live on the roads, begging for favours, disfigured by sadness and without the protection of a husband.
I got a little glimpse of the tensions in the life of a devadasi on arrival in Saundatti. We had gone to a tea shop near the lake, at my suggestion. It was a bad idea. Devadasis are a common sight in Saundatti, where they often beg in the bazaars on Yellamma’s holy days of Tuesday and Friday, and during her month-long festival, holding small statues of the goddess on their heads. But they don’t usually brave the tea shops on the main street, at least not if they are as striking as Rani Bai. Long before the glasses of hot, sweet chai had arrived, the farmers at the other tables had started pointing at Rani Bai, and gossiping.