Aiyappa

Hilltop deity of the southern Indian
state of Kerala, who at the local level is
often identified with Aiyanar, the Tamil
village deity. The most important of
Aiyappa’s shrines is at Shabari Malai in
the hills of central Kerala, to which there
is an important pilgrimage each winter
in December and January. Aiyappa’s
strong associations with the hills and
the hunt make it likely that he was originally a local deity of the hills of Kerala,
but in more recent times he has been
assimilated into the larger Hindu pantheon as the son of Shiva and Vishnu.
Although both of these gods are male,
Aiyappa’s conception is said to happen
when Vishnu takes the form of the
female enchantress Mohini, to beguile
the demons into parting with the
nectar of immortality. Because of his
parentage, Aiyappa is also called
Hariharaputra, “the son (putra) of Hari
(Vishnu) and Hara (Shiva).”
Due to his unusual conception,
Aiyappa is fated to kill a particularly
troubling buffalo demoness, Mahishi,
who has been given the boon that she
cannot be killed by anyone born from
the union of male and female. After his
birth the infant Aiyappa is abandoned
by a riverbank, and adopted by King
Rajashekhara, who names him
Manikanta. Manikanta’s stepmother is
very jealous of her stepson and wishes
to clear the path to the throne for her
own child. When Manikanta is twelve his
stepmother feigns an illness that she
says only tiger’s milk can cure. Everyone
is understandably reluctant to try to get
the tiger’s milk, but Manikanta finally
agrees to do so.
On his way to get the tiger’s milk,
Manikanta is met by messengers of
Shiva, who remind him that his life’s
ultimate purpose is to kill Mahishi. After
a long struggle, Manikanta dispatches
the demon, but while he is dancing on
the she-buffalo’s body, another female
figure rises out of it. She identifies herself as Lila, and wants to marry
Manikanta, but as a celibate student he
does not desire this. He appeases Lila
20
Aiyanar
A shrine to Aiyanar, a regional deity in southern
India who is the protector of villages.
with the conditional vow that he will
marry her the year that a celibate pilgrim does not come to visit him on
Shabari Malai—a vow that will never
come true since celibacy is the single
most important requirement for the
Shabari Malai pilgrimage. Manikanta
then placates Lila by establishing a temple for her on a neighboring hilltop.
Returning to his original task of
retrieving the tiger’s milk, Aiyappa then
bids Shiva to take the form of a tiger,
upon which he rides back to his stepparents, inviting them to milk the tiger to
their heart’s content. This image of the
young boy returning astride the tiger is
one of the most common Aiyappa
images. For further information see
E. Valentine Daniel, Fluid Signs, 1984;
Kunissery Ramakrishnaier Vaidyanathan,
Pilgrimage to Sabari, 1978; and Lars
Kjaerholm, “Myth and Fascination in the
Aiyappu Cult: A View from Fieldwork in
Tamil Nadu,” in Asko Parpola and Bent
Smidt Hansen (eds.), South Asian
Religion and Society, 1986. See also
Tortoise avatar.