TO THE TEMPLE of Pattini, the shakti of Shri Shri Gorakshanatha Deva 108, which we surprisingly found in Sri Lankan foothill city Kandy, or EyeKandy as we decided to call it.
Kandy contains the Temple of the Tooth, a bit of the Buddha – born, enlightened and deaded on the full moon on the 19th that is to say today.
The guide waxed lyrical about Gorakshanatha, the founder of the pan-Indian Natha Sampradaya. He said that Theravada had it that when Maitreya, the next incarnation of Buddha, visited our little planet, he would be a Natha. Maitreya will be a Boddhisattva, an Avalokiteshvara and a Lokanath.
In Pattini’s temple several cocks strutted around cock-a-doodle-doing. The guide said that very often people would offer cocks, and sometimes other animals to the goddess – but they weren’t killed and were freely allowed to roam around. Only male animals were allowed to be offered, but we didn’t see bulls, bull elephants, rams nor Billy Goats in the circumambulatory space.
Some person listening to this noticed there were only two cocks in the precinct of the Devi’s temple. She observed, rather cynically we believe, that the same two cocks were offered to the goddess over and over again so that when they were led up to the niche where Pattini Devi lives, they thought to themselves, “oh no, not again”. ♥
