Origin
In ancient Tamil, the word which has lost its roots in usage 'Maari' would mean rain and 'amman' would literally mean mother but here "mother nature." She was believed and worshipped by the ancient Dravidian people to bring rain and hence prosperity to them as their vegetation was mainly dependent upon rain. The goddess was not a local deity, connected to a specific location, close to a certain tree, a rock or a special spot, but worshiped throughout the Dravidian nation. The form of the goddess is only the brainchild of human curiosity through the ages of civilisation. According to some sources, Maariamman is the same as Renuka or Yellamma and even Sri Chowdeshwari Devi. Sri Thailuramma Devi, Huchamma Devi, Manchamma Devi, Chwodamma Devi or Chowdeshwari are a few considered elder sisters of Maariamman.
Read more about this topic: Amman (goddess)
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a byroad
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“We have got rid of the fetish of the divine right of kings, and that slavery is of divine origin and authority. But the divine right of property has taken its place. The tendency plainly is towards ... “a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.””
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)