Medaram Jatara (Telangana Festival)
Medaram is a village in the “dandakaaranya” (Tadvai forest ) area of the Mulugu taluk of Warangal district, about 150-km away from Warangal city. Here Sammakka Jatara, non-Vedic and non-Brahminical festival is celebrated once in two years on a very large scale for four days in January-February. It is a rare confluence of different tribes and castes and their traditions at this biennial Indian fair. Medaram Festival is considered to be the largest festival in the South India and is one of the largest festivals in the world. This year (2012), it was estimated that approximately 10 million devotees visited the shrine.
History, Mythology and practices: According to a tribal story, about 6-7 centuries ago, a group of Koya Indians traveling through the dandakaaranya found a little girl playing with tigers. The head of the tribe adopted and named her Sammakka. She married the headman of a neighboring village. Saaralamma was her daughter. The Koya Indians were a tributary to the Kakatiyas, who ruled the country of Andhra from Warangal City between 1000 AD and 1380 AD. Once, the Koyas assisted the Kakatiyas in a war. After sometime, there was a severe drought that lasted for years and as a result the mighty Godavari River dried up. Koyas didn’t have even food to eat. However, the Kakatiyas insisted on the payment of taxes. The Kakatiya emperor sent his forces to teach the Koyas a lesson and collect taxes and the Koyas had no option but to resist. After a bitter war, the Kakatiya Prime Minister visited war ravaged Koya kingdom. By then most of the Koya chiefs had fallen in battle. The Prime Minister proposed peace and offered Sammakka a place in the emperor’s harem as the chief queen. Samakka turned down the offer and resolved to continue the fight to avenge the dead. The battle continued and Samakka was wounded. Samakka told her people that as long as they remembered her, she would protect them. Then, she cursed the Kaktiya dynasty to perish and disappeared into the deep forest. The Koyas searched for their queen and found only a red ochre box, her bangles and the pug-marks of a huge tigress. Soon after, Muslim invaders destroyed the Kakatiya dynasty. Since then, the Koyas, Waddaras and other Indian tribes and castes have been holding festivals in memory of Sammakka and Saralamma regularly.
There is no permanent idol of the deity. It is said that a Koya boy who gets a vision before the festival, searches in the forest for a week without food and sleep and finally brings the goddesses in the farm of two vermilion caskets tied to a piece of bamboo, one representing the main deity Sammakka and the other her daughter Saarakka or Saaralamma. The actual festival begins in the month of Magha, on Suddha Pournami (full moon day) evening when Saaralamma would be traditionally brought from Kanneboyinapalle, a village in the forest, and installed on a gaddi (the throne or platform), an earthen platform raised under a tree. Animals are sacrificed and intoxicants such as liquor are widely used.
Hundreds of people who are often possessed by the goddess come there dancing ecstatically throughout their journey. The special offering to the deity is jaggery. Some offer jaggery equal to their weight and distribute. It is a rare opportunity to witness some ancient practices especially pabba, Shiva sathi (sathi means lady) and Lakshmi Devaras. Shiva sathis are women who go into trance and bless the childless women to have children and the process of that blessing is called pabba. The belief is that those who had the blessings of Sammakka-Saralamma through the words of Shiva sathis would have children. Children get their heads tonsured. Young girls accompanied by their parents performed special prayers with the help of Shiva sathis and Lakshmi Devaras to get suitable husbands.
