There is a temple opposite my house in the village. It's a small temple, with the main sanctum dedicated to Shiva Linga and, to its right, a shrine for the goddess. The temple is probably around 400 years old. That female deity is called Meenakshi Amman. Though she is not our family deity, and though we do not come from a tradition of worshipping Shiva, Simply because it is near our house, it has become ours. Back when we often played hide and seek, I had a secret hiding spot no one else could find. I'd go and hide behind that Amman's statue. A fragrance—of sandalwood and oil—wafted from that five-foot-tall idol and enveloped me. My introduction to female deities began with that fragrance.
No matter how small a village or may be a city, there is never a place without at least one temple dedicated to a Female deity. From the magical tales featuring Kali with her extended tongue, to Mari with her many prefixes, Neeli, Nangai, Paechi, and Bhagavati, the number of female deities is countless. They step through marshlands and deserts. Virgin-Mother, Beautiful in all three worlds, Terrifying like a ghost, Seated on a lotus, or Seated upon a corpse they rise from both extremes, and their laughter echoes everywhere. In Tamil, scholars like A. Kaakkum Perumal, A. Sivasubramanian, and Tho. Paramasivan has written about these female deities.
