DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

8.5] MOTHER GODDESS AND DEATH GODDESS 267
instructed by the Buddha in a sutta admired by Asoka : “Let the
almsman desirous of victory over his senses take to a solitary -retreat
(for the night) : some tree (outside any village) , corpse enclosure, or a
hillside cave (SN 958) ... He must not take fright at the horrendous
practices of those following strange cults, but circumvent these and
other perils as whose goal is merit (SN 965)”. There are several Jat.
tales of the Buddha in some previous birth having put an end to
human or blood-sooifice. Of these, at least one locus was remembered in
historical times, namely at the village of Kammasa-damma in Kuruland
(Jat. 537, the Ratthapala-sutta, &c). The sacrificial tree was not cut
down, but the demon converted and set up again as recipient of principal
— albeit bloodless — sacrifice (agga-bali-patiggahaka). The
association of Buddhist caves with earlier cult-spots is not to be
questioned. Above the Fergusson College caves mentioned in the
chapter 2 above, a decayed vetala at a microlith site has recently been
replaced by a Hanuman. Below the same caves microliths of superior
type are found in considerable numbers, by the disused water
reservoirs of the College. At Karle, there is a very fashionable cult to the
mother-goddess and death-goddess Yamai, brahminised as Ekavira
Renuka. but worshipped by Kolis from distant Bombay ; they identify
her with the great Stupa inside the Caitya cave, to which the child
born in response to a vow made to their patron family goddess Yamai
is shown circum-ambulation. At the Manamodi caves by Junnar, the
goddess Manamodi is worshipped, sometimes with the alternative
title Ambika, in the form of three worn images, none female, apparently
of Mahayana Buddhas of Bodhisattvas! The name Manamakuda for
the locality occurs in one of the inscriptions proving that the cult is
older than the caves. At Karle, the Caitya facade bears a Satavahana
charter addressed to the governor at Mamale or Mamala-hara. The
name is obviously the modern Maval; it derives, in the two taluka of
Maval in Pauri Maval, from water deities, anonymous mother-goddesses
worshipped in the plural under the title Mavala-devi. The exact parallel
is observed for the region of the Buddha’s birth described in SN 683
as ‘the Lubini district’ (panapade Lumbineyye) while several