Non Brahminical Goddesses of Gujarat

Recently, I got an opportunity to visit the famous Bahucharaji temple with Limbach mā temples at Unva and Patan. At the same time, I also paid a visit to Ambaji temple in Gujarat. What stuck in my mind was the socio -cultural dimensions of these temples, rituals and goddesses which remained divorced from Brahminical and puranic frameworks.

let me ask you something, if you ever find yourself in a dusty corner of North Gujarat or Saurashtra, or deep inside the rice belts of central Gujarat, and someone points you towards a neem tree wrapped in red threads or a stone smeared with vermilion near a dried-up well, don’t be deceived by the simplicity. You are not looking at folk superstition. You are staring at the living remnants of a subaltern theology—what the villagers might call Meldi no Maṇḍ, Momai na sthān, or Bahucharā no dero. These are not minor goddesses. They are the pulsing, breathing soul of local religiosity—sovereign, sensory, and disruptive.

Before Temples, There Was Earth

These goddesses did not arrive via Sanskrit scriptures or grand narratives. Their first ‘temples’ were rocks under trees, or platforms beside cremation grounds. For instance, Meldi Mā, worshipped widely by Koli and other agrarian communities, is typically represented by a stone block, often without any anthropomorphic image. Her presence is invoked not through verses from the Devi Mahatmya but through songs passed orally—simple, vernacular, and emotionally immediate.

Momai Mā shrines dot the arid stretches of Kutch, often marked only by clusters of red flags fluttering against the desert wind. These symbols are not abstractions; they are reminders of protection against snake bites, cattle disease, and infertility. This connection to the ecological and the bodily grounds their power in everyday survival, not transcendental salvation.

Unlike Puranic goddesses, whose stories are fixed and carefully archived, these deities are born anew in every retelling. Consider Bahucharā Mā, revered by the hijra community and associated with gender transgression. Her legend speaks of a young woman who, upon facing assault, castrated herself and declared that only the gender non-conforming would worship her. This narrative, central to Bahucharā's cult, resists the heteronormative ideals embedded in mainstream Hinduism.

the oral stories of Khodiyār Mā among the Charans and Patidars tell of a girl who walked into a lake and emerged riding a crocodile—a symbol of her refusal to conform to social expectations of chastity and marriage. These narratives aren’t quaint myths. They are performances of resistance, told in garba songs and dramatized in bhavai theatre, which remain thriving art forms across Gujarat.

When the Goddess Speaks Through You

I recall an ethnographic instance from a Meldi Mā jagran in Bhavnagar district, where a woman—barefoot, hair loose, eyes vacant—entered a state of possession (avtar levo or mata aavi). In her trance, she accused a local landlord of cheating labourers out of their due wages. The entire gathering turned silent, then electric. She was no longer a woman from a Dalit family. She was Meldi Mā herself. The landlord left in shame.

This moment was not hysteria, as colonial ethnographers might have labelled it, but a deeply political act—an assertion of voice where silence is the norm. This is consistent with numerous studies, such as those by anthropologist Tulsi Patel, who documented similar possession phenomena among lower-caste women in central Gujarat, interpreting them as moments of spontaneous truth-telling and emotional justice.

The locations of these shrines are never accidental. Khodiyār Mā’s original shrine, for instance, sits near a pond in Matel, far from Brahmanical temple towns like Somnath. Likewise, Momai Mā’s shrines are often found near cremation grounds, reinforcing her connection to transitional spaces—birth, death, boundary.

These are not peripheral placements due to neglect. They are ritualised margins, where the goddess guards against danger and disorder. Anthropologist David Sopher once called such deities "threshold guardians," a term that finds perfect resonance in these goddess cults that monitor the edge, not the centre.

Refusing Divine Beauty

Mainstream Hindu goddesses are typically idealised—lotus hands, perfect eyes, waist like a drum. But in Khodiyār Mā’s depictions, especially in older shrines, she has bulging eyes, rides a crocodile, and wears weapons. In many cases, the deity is not even anthropomorphic. A silver mask with red eyes suffices. For Meldi Mā, it's often just an upright stone block with a smeared red cloth. The absence of idealised form is not due to artistic limitation; it’s a theological declaration.

These aesthetic choices are defiant. They say: beauty does not equal worth. The grotesque, the raw, the wild—all have divine potential. This aligns with what feminist theorist Rajeswari Sunder Rajan has referred to as “visual insurgency” in the politics of representation.

Caste, Clan, and Kuldevi Politics

Each of these goddesses belongs to someone. Khodiyār Mā is the kuldevi of the Leuva Patidars. Bahucharā Mā is associated with the Pavaiyas, a nomadic community. Meldi Mā is venerated primarily by the Kolis, who have historically faced caste discrimination. Their worship is not just spiritual—it’s political.

When the Patidars erected the Khodaldham temple in Kagvad in 2017, it wasn’t merely a devotional act. It was a declaration of socio-political visibility. The temple cost over ₹100 crore, funded entirely by community donations. Embedded in this act was a narrative: we are organised, powerful, and sacred too.

Yes, Sanskritisation happens. You can now find a purohit performing aarti at a Meldi Mā temple. But the possession rituals, the bhavai performances, the animal sacrifices—they still exist. I’ve seen them with my own eyes. In a Momai Mā temple near Mandvi, the new marble altar sits right beside a much older neem tree wrapped in iron chains—used during possession to keep frenzied bodies safe. The coexistence is uneasy, but real.

Bleeding, Dancing, Cursing

These goddesses menstruate. They curse. They demand meat and liquor. This is not vulgarity—it’s realism. The female body, often sanitised in mainstream theology, is central here. In Bahucharā Mā’s annual fair in Mehsana, gender non-conforming devotees walk barefoot for days, seeking healing and acceptance. Their bodies are not obstacles to the divine; they are its medium.

This theology doesn’t merely tolerate bodily experience. It demands it. Scholar Alf Hiltebeitel’s work on possession in South India applies well here too: the body, especially the marginal body, becomes a “sacrificial text” where the divine inscribes itself.

These deities have travelled. 

Among the Gujarati diaspora in Leicester, for instance, Meldi Mā is worshipped in suburban homes. The possession rituals are gone, but bhajans continue. In Toronto, Khodaldham Canada organises yearly gatherings that blend digital live-streaming with garba and community prayers. The goddess now rides the internet as much as she does a crocodile.

Even in migration, her core promise remains intact: to protect, to empower, to connect.

To dismiss these goddess cults as “folk remnants” is to miss the point entirely. They are not awaiting integration into a grand Brahmanical narrative. They are already complete, sovereign, and intensely relevant. They offer a theology of survival, of resistance, of raw human experience sanctified.

So the next time you see a red-smeared stone beside a field, pause....

She may not have a name you recognise, but she sees you. She remembers. She protects...