MASTAMMA

Mastamma (mAstamma) (ಮಾಸ್ತಮ್ಮ) is a simplified version of the world ‘maasti amma’. (mahAsati amma) Maasti belongs to the category of family deities among the female deities of Karnataka. The remaining two are village deity and clan deity. However this Mastamma relinquishes her life in the presence of her husband and not after his death.

According to the oral tradition Mastamma was born in Hulivaana village of Mandya district. She was adopted by a family in Eeregoudana Doddi in Maddur talluk of the same district. She was later married off to the head man of the Hosakere village in the same talluk. After a while a village barber casts his lecherous eye on Mastamma. She confronts the villain with very clever tactics and emerges victorious. However she is totally disgusted by the whole affair and decides to kill herself by performing ‘sati’. She lies down on a funeral pyre made by using seven carts of sandal food, after serving food to her father in law. However, she gives a curse to the entire village before her death. The women born at Hosakere are doomed to have either a husband or children at a given point of time. Marital relations between Hosakere and Eeregoudanadoddi are forbidden. After the ‘sati’ act is culminated mastamma reappeared as an anthill and a temple was built in her honour by her own father-in-law.

Mastamma temple is to be found in Hosakere village even to this day. It contains two enclousures. Inner sanctum contains the statue of Mastamma.

Similar stories are in vogue in some parts of Tumkur district also. The devotees of mastamma go to her temple on auspicious occasions. Special dishes are offered to the deity. Women are forbidden from entering the sanctum sanctorum. They worship the goddess whenever new clothes are worn by them. Those who cannot make it to the temple worship three stones and a pitcher full of water near a river or a tank. Newly wed couples are obliged to perform this worship. The major motifs behind the story and the antecedent details hint at

‘mahAsati’ worship. It looks as though a historical incident has gradually acquired legendary dimensions.

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