COLOMBO: Pattini, known as Kannagi in Tamil Nadu, is the most popular female deity among Sinhalese Buddhists, the majority community in Sri Lanka.
She is seen as being gifted with powers to relieve a devotee of doshas or planetary debilities, disease, infertility and sorrow.
In literature on traditional Sinhalese ritualistic worship, there are 35 texts on Pattini, which is more than those on other popular deities like Vishnu, Skanda and Saman, says Gananath Obeysekere, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the Princeton University. The quality of the texts on the latter deities are no match to those on Pattini in terms of versification and poetic grandeur, he adds.
Lanka’s link with the Pattini cult goes back to 2nd century AD when King Gajabahu attended the consecration of a temple for Kannagi built by Chera king Senguttuvan. Gajabahu is said to have brought Pattini worship here and built a temple for her at Mullaitivu. However, the first documented evidence of Pattini worship here is found in 15th-century Sinhalese poem Kokila Sandesaya, written during the reign of Parakramabahu VI, who built a Pattini temple at Kotte near Colombo.
The Pattini cult spread to other parts of the country due to various factors. First, the cult had the sanction of Buddhism, the dominant religion in the island. The Sinhalese see Kannagi as the product of non- Hindu and non-Brahminical works like Silapathikaram and Manimekalai (the former being Jain and the latter, Buddhist), and therefore, acceptable.
Sanskrit-Hindu deities have not been accepted in Lanka for long. It is reflected in the oft-quoted description of Ramayana by 5thcentury Buddhist scholar Buddhaghosha as Samprappalapa or “falsehood”.
This is the reason why Rama and Sita are not worshipped by Sinhalese Buddhists.
Another factor is the migration of Buddhists and Jains from the Vanchi region of Tamilaham (now divided between Tamil Nadu and Kerala) to Lanka due to the pressure of a Hindu revival between the 8th and 15th centuries.
