Manasa - Origins

Origins

Originally an Adivasi (tribal) goddess, Manasa was accepted in the pantheon worshipped by Hindu lower caste groups. Later, she was included in a higher caste Hindu pantheon, where she is now regarded as a Hindu goddess rather than a tribal one. In Ancient Greece, there is a goddess named Manasa found in the records of Mycenae, written as ma-na-sa in Linear B. As a Hindu goddess, she was recognized as a daughter of sage Kashyapa and Kadru, the mother of all Nāgas. By the 14th century, Manasa was identified as the goddess of fertility and marriage rites and was assimilated into the Shaiva pantheon as a relative of Shiva. Myths glorified her by describing that she saved Shiva after he drank poison, and venerated her as the "remover of poison". Her popularity grew and spread to southern India, and her cult began to rival Shaivism itself. As a consequence, stories attributing Manasa's birth to Shiva emerged and ultimately Shaivism adopted this indigenous goddess into the Brahmanical tradition of mainstream Hinduism.