Telangana Chenchus celebrate Bhramaramba Jathara during Shivaratri
By Dr. Dyavanapalli Satyanarayana The Chenchu tribals of Nallamala forests have been annually celebrating Bhramaramba Jathara at Bourapur, Lingala Mandal, Nagarkurnool district during the Shivaratri festival from 2015 onwards, i.e. after the formation of Telangana State. I visited the Jathara in 2016, 2020 and 2021. I myself found many developments that are taking place in […]
By Dr. Dyavanapalli Satyanarayana
The Chenchu tribals of Nallamala forests have been annually celebrating Bhramaramba Jathara at Bourapur, Lingala Mandal, Nagarkurnool district during the Shivaratri festival from 2015 onwards, i.e. after the formation of Telangana State. I visited the Jathara in 2016, 2020 and 2021. I myself found many developments that are taking place in the Jathara, and when I started studying the Jathara and its place history I came to know to my shocking several ‘frowning facts’ recorded over period of some hundred years. All of them were recorded by the British and Nizam officers.
Dr. J. H. Hutton, a higher official of Census of India visited this Chenchu area on 21 st June 1931 and observed at Farahabad (nearby hamlet) that the Chenchu “principal deity resided in two wooden lingams nearly decayed by the weather and there seemed to be a number of small stones putt up in couples or singly in the neighbourhood”. In contradiction to the above observation in the same Census Report of 1931 Ghulam Ahmed Khan, a Nizam Government officer noted the following.
“Chnechu is officially known to be animist… he has still retained his prestine paganism though apparently he is now a believer in deities… Akasa Amma (Sky), Bhoomi Amma (Earth) and Amma Talli (Smallpox goddess)… the latest addition is lingam represented by a piece of stone or wood”. One can clearly observe that while Hutton was noticing the lingam as the principal deity of the Chenchus, Ghulam Ahmed Khan was finding the lingam to be the latest addition.
The next scholar who also reported on the deities of Chenchus was Prof. Haimendorf. Eight decades ago he personally stayed in the Chenchu pentas (hamlets) for several months and studied their life and culture. He too remarked that the lingam or Lingamayya (as the Chenchus call the deity) was a latest addition perhaps infiltrated from the neighbouring plain area Hindus. Though Haimendorf had been staying in Bourapur during Shivaratri season he did not describe about the Jathara celebrated by the Chenchus worshipping the goddess Bouramma. Then the question comes whether the goddess Bouramma is also a latest one. The answer lies in the following saying recorded by Krishnaswami Mudiraj in Pictorial Hyderabad in 1934.
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