Daivas, Temples, and the Work of Belief: Worship in Tulunadu

Did you miss me? I know. I know. I said I would wait till Bisu and post my first essay, but what can I say? I’m impatient sometimes, and when I feel inspired to revisit my old essays, I come in, edit, and rush to publish. If you want, you can wait till April to read.

Something did inspire me to edit this essay, but before I get to it, I wanted to thank you for the love you’ve sent my way. Some angry emails as well. I read as many as I can.

I also wanted to tell you how different these next fifteen essays will be. They won’t speak only of impact, or only of the role of women. We shift now to what we can learn from the fabric of the Bunt community, Tulunadu, and its men.

But this will also be the last fifteen essays for the community. I have to move on.

This is nearly 10,000 words long, which is to say, not for everybody, and certainly not for the impatient.

On Fear, Memory, and Imbalance

So what inspired me, you ask? To come in and edit this essay that I originally finished in 2025? It is this uncertainty that I have suddenly encountered in the world around me.

I started a new job recently, which I love. I moved to a new city, which I love. But even as I have been loving all these new things, I feel uncertain about the environment around me.

I am someone who deeply worries about things that feel imbalanced. When I see war, poverty, sadness, and ill-fated accidents, I worry. It makes me really sad. I know it is not directly impacting me or my life, but I cannot help feeling a certain way.

This is not the first time I have felt this way. There are always disasters happening around us.

I remember a classmate in school losing her father to a tsunami. I remember the deaths that plagued my own family. I remember riots. I remember earthquakes.

I also remember terror attacks that left behind a quiet anxiety for crowded spaces.

COVID was another shock. I remember the 28th of March 2020. I was living in California then. The sky was orange, dusted with soot from the wildfires close to me. People were angry, protesting in the streets. My phone would ring, and I would wait for the other shoe to drop. Maybe another person dies. Maybe I don’t get a flight home.

I was about to graduate and start a new job that May, and all I could think about was how I might never see my family again if something happened to either of us.

And yet, I was also being a big baby, complaining about how I couldn’t eat another pack of ramen noodles, while imagining my family quarantining together as a kind of holiday I had been left out of.

On my birthday in October, I finally managed to get a flight out. I teared up as the plane landed when I heard someone behind me speak a language I understood.

I was privileged. I had an amazing house. My landlady, Claude, was a gem of a person. Other than noodles, she and I would get saag paneer, take a walk to Viks in Berkeley, and get kulfi. She had two beautiful mini schnauzers, Oscar and Bruce, that I loved very much.

My rent was paid. Life was not that bad. But it was also terrifying.

Two things can be true.

And then when I got home, life was good for a while. And then again, there were wars and sanctions that separated my best friend from me. There was a lot of good. But a lot of bad at the same time. The scales were not balanced enough for me.

But in all this, I found solace in thinking of a goddess I had prayed to all my life.

On the Absence of Religion but the Presence of Faith

If you got a copy of Season 1 of my book, you already know how I grew up. But for those who didn’t, I was raised in a very odd way when it came to religion.

I had an uncle who was a raging atheist, absolutely certain there was no god. He remains one of the smartest people I know, and for two weeks in school, I thought myself to be one as well.

I went to a Catholic girls’ school and went to chapel almost every day I could, either sneaking in during tea break or early in the mornings. Sometimes it was because I needed that one extra mark on a test out of ten. It mattered to me. It decided my fate for the weekend. If it was below an eight, I had to sacrifice playtime to pretend to study, while my mind was obviously on going to the grounds to play.

My mother raised me on mythological Greek and Roman stories at bedtime, with some Jataka tales sprinkled in. She had me read the Bhagavad Gita, the Torah, the Quran, and the Bible before I was fifteen.

We had no rituals at home. We celebrated Christmas and waited for Aunt Gulzar’s biryani at Eid. We took trips to Haji Ali, Sagrada Familia, the Kochi Synagogue, and Palani. We didn’t really have conversations about God.

My grandfather believed in Shirdi. After his bath, he would wrap a towel over his waist, mutter “Janna” for Kapu Janardhana, fold his hands in front of the feet of Shirdi, and it would be a three-second prayer.

Meanwhile, if I had to wait for my parents at a Brahmin friend’s house, there would be bhajans sung in front of their temple for a full fifteen minutes.

We didn’t even pray together as a family, except for the many illokkel’s we had and the kathas read at home. Even then, when my eyes got weary from the rising fire, I was excused to go out and pretend I had just survived an actual one.

Clearly, I was a very dramatic child.

On Ooru, Ritual, and Memory

Every year, we would take a trip to a nagabana in Adve, tucked between forests. I loved going there.

I would get to see peacocks. I would pretend to frighten my parents by declaring that I now wanted to live like Mowgli, since they were making my life so difficult with all the privileges they gave me. And it also meant that after the trip, I would get to eat Pabbas, which, as you know, is why you “agree” to these trips as a child, as if you ever had a choice.

Our prayers at Adve were less than five seconds, and then we would scramble into whichever Mahindra of the year we had and head to Kabathar. Our aadi.

The Kabathar I grew up with is different from how it is today. Back then, there were steps to climb up to the Nandigona and Panjurli to offer the kudu thaarai. The priest lived right behind, and there was a bana by his house. So we would make our way down there.

The priest was old. He had hair like Larry David, and his teeth were stained red.

We would pay obeisance to the bana, then turn and hold out our hands to receive the thirtha. He would go around once, giving every member of the family this holy water, and then give us sandalwood paste with pieces of the areca bud, pingaara.

I used to watch my grandmother quickly count the number of pingaara strands she received. An odd number, according to her, meant whatever you prayed for would materialise.

On our way back up to the aadi, we would stop one last time to see Mahalingeshwara, Abbaga Daaraga, and Siri. My grandmother and mother would take turns forcing me to decide what my prayer for the year was.

For those who speak Tulu, it would be easier to decipher this:

“Swami joja malple, buddhi kenle, shaale’d yedde malpodu kenle, yenk first barodu kenle, odhuna shakthi kenle.”

If I had known that this reading power I prayed for, year after year, would materialise, I would have prayed for wealth, and Aishwarya Rai’s beauty too. I did not know. And these adults around me would not tell me.

Then we would head to Kapu Marigudi. If her doors were shut and it was raining, we would still get down in the pouring rain and fall adda. Again, this grandmother of mine, with her obsession with education, would ask me to pray for the same thing.

Even when we went to Mumbai, to Haji Ali, or to light a candle in the many churches we visited, it was the same prayer.

I did not know how to pray for anything else.

And sometimes I catch myself still saying, “Buddhi korle,” but now it is slightly weaponised. I am praying for others to get some buddhi. I am petty like that. Not petty in action. Petty, perhaps, to find some balance.

But I did eventually learn to pray. I prayed to see my family again when I saw the sky turn orange. I prayed for strength during adversity.

Today, I prayed for clarity, for something I suddenly found myself unsure about.

On Doubt and the Fear of It

But as a woman of science, I question myself, my faith, and everything around me. I doubt as well.

Usually, when things do not go my way, I question it more. Five years ago, I questioned it. I have questioned it again in the past few weeks.

Sometimes, I am even afraid of questioning it.

I remember once, at a garadi in a village my family hails from, someone remarked that if you do not trust fully, it does not work. But even when I want to trust fully, my mind questions.

My mother made me read these religious texts because she wanted me to be, quite frankly, disgustingly educated, but also to understand where the world around me came from.

Why the nuns at my school prayed to Mother Mary and placed Jesus on a cross. Why Gulzar Aunty made biryani for Eid. Why did some of my classmates fast for a month? Why I was told not to eat in front of them during Ramadan. Why do some men wear a kippah that covers only a small part of their head? Why did some people in our circles not consume onions, garlic, or anything that grew underground?

And when these texts did not explain these rules, I was taught how culture fills in what scripture does not.

We were different. We feasted on seafood and chicken in coconut milk almost every week. My uncles drank wine and alcohol even before the thirteenth day of mourning, unlike other cultures.

So I grew up diverse, a kind of third-culture child, trying to figure out what I believed in.

My parents did not force religious teaching onto me. We had superstitions:

do not cut your nails after sundown,

Stop the car when a cat crosses your path,

Apologise to a book if you drop it,

Do not cut your hair on the day you are born.

But there was no fasting for me.

We did have a mandatory oil bath on Diwali, and we waited for my Dodda’s karakaddi and chakkuli to be made. But beyond that, not much.

On Fear, Spectacle, and Belief

The only ritual I truly remember is a bhuta kola our family held when I was twelve.

I sat on a plastic chair, watching two men paint their faces. Someone told me they were Vorthe and Panjurli. I heard we would be there all night.

They began to dance in what I had decided were costumes, and I later learned in Tulu it was called vesha.

At some point, my mother made my brother and me go into a room where all the children were. She pointed to the red oxide floor and said we could sleep there. My aunt came in just then, sat between us, and we each took one of her knees as a pillow and fell asleep.

Sometime in the night, I was woken up and rushed to the door. The man in vesha stood there, shivering, looking straight at me.

All the women pushed me forward.

I was that child who was afraid of the oversized Mickey Mouse outside toy shops, the kind with a person inside. Mickey Mouse should remain on television, not exist life-sized in something furry with a man hidden inside it. That is a nightmare.

So of course, I was terrified.

I could hear my aunt saying, “Pray, pray, pray.” Another was telling my mother that I was the youngest.

They pushed a gold chain into my hand after the shivering man in vesha pointed at me. I just wanted to go back to sleep. They told me to give the chain to the one they called Daiva.

I was so scared.

But when I went back to school and told the story, I left that part out. I simply said it came to me, out of all the children. I was such an idiot.

Years later, I saw a kola again. I was older then. I had convinced myself I had become brave, even proud, to be there.

Until they called me again.

The fear returned. I don’t know if it was fear or something closer to social anxiety.

Look, I am all talk, but I am painfully shy.

If you see me being extroverted, know that I have carefully recharged my social battery to perform it, when I would much rather be at home watching the same show for the hundredth time.

And after that performance, I have to go back and recharge again, immediately.

On Coexistence and Bias

All these episodes kept unfolding in my life, and I could not quite decipher them.

Until about four years ago.

I was speaking to a peer about how Tulunadu is so diverse, and yet, it coexists.

I am going to say something controversial here. Everyone in Tulunadu is a racist.

You may say, no, impossible, I am not a racist. Calm down, let me explain.

I am not saying people discriminate based on caste or creed in how they treat others at the workplace or in the service industry. We are, by miles, among the most hospitable people.

But we hold onto biases. We carry opinions. We make assumptions.

We are still friends with those different from us, but we hold strong, often unexamined views about them.

And yet, we coexist.

To be honest, I think all humans are racist. That is my personal view.

But here is where I think one can attempt to be morally right, or at least where I try to be. I do not let my intrusive thoughts win. You may hold assumptions, you may inherit opinions, but you must not let them interfere with how you treat people.

My grandmother was particular about the different kinds of Tulu. She looked down upon those who spoke Puttur Tulu, in comparison to her holier-than-thou Udupi Tulu.

And yet, my cousin from the Puttur side thought Udupi people were insufferable.

It was fine. They still mingled.

But Tulunadu is more complex than dialects, Tulu, Kannada, Konkani, Beary, Kodavatak.

It has also long been divided by trade, status, and faith.

On the Social Formation of Tulunadu

But that is not the point of this essay.

This essay is my attempt to make sense of the worship practices of the Bunt community in Tulunadu.

From my understanding and research, communities in Tulunadu that followed Shaivism, Vaishnavism, or Jainism were, in their earliest forms, organised by trade.

Some accounts suggest that there was no rigid hierarchy, as seen in other parts of Hindu society, until the arrival of GSB and other Brahmin communities in the region.

It is said that some GSB communities fled proselytisation into Christianity in Kallianpur and spread across Tulunadu. Others suggest that communities from Barkuru (Barthooru) migrated south under similar pressures.

But I am not a historian, and there are likely more rigorous texts that explain this better.

Beyond this, both matriarchal and patriarchal communities in Tulunadu were largely organised by trade.

The Marakala, or Mogaveera, communities were associated with fishing and the sea. The Ranadhagulu were associated with cobbling. The Odaari community with pottery.

The Billavas, or Poojaris, were associated with alchemy, toddy tapping, agriculture, and at times, soldiering. The Nalike tribes were the ritual keepers and custodians of oral tradition.

Dalit communities were associated with work related to death and cleaning. Because of beliefs that proximity to ash or death could contaminate food and ritual spaces, they were often excluded from certain areas.

What may once have been rooted in functional divisions of labour became, over time, rigid systems that led to marginalisation, much of which persists even today.

The Bunts were known as warriors. The word Banta itself meant warrior.

They served as generals, soldiers, and protectors, and over time, this role placed them within a higher stratum of the social order.

They eventually became the aristocracy of the region, the landed gentry.

On Who the Daivas Are

All these communities worshipped daivas. Before the spread of Shaivism and Vaishnavism, daiva worship formed a core belief system in Tulunadu.

K. Hari Kumar has written an excellent book on daivas, which I would recommend if you want to explore this further.

I read his work much later, after I had begun and completed this essay, and I chose not to return to revise this piece with those insights. His book stands on its own and is well worth reading.

This was my way of decoding who the daivas were.

It was how I made sense of it in my own head.

I originally wrote this essay to explain to a professor the different forms of worship in Tulunadu, and in doing so, I had to first break it down for myself.

Because it is, in truth, a complex system.

I had to question where it came from, how it evolved, and what I made of it.

First, I asked myself: what are daivas, and who are they?

Second, I looked at the daivas my own family worshipped. I began by studying the homes and lineages I come from.

My family traces back to Kabathar, Mithalike Chavadi, Ammunje Guthu, Balkunje Guthu, Pillianduru, and Balkatta Beedu through my grandparents and great-grandparents. My aunt is married into Mavanthuru. My granduncles on my grandmother’s side married into Majala Beedu, Pilar, Badagabettu, Chinkri Guthu, Settibettu, and Debbeli.

I used these homes as my first map. I studied which daivas they worshipped, where their garadis were, what their aadi was, all of it.

Then I expanded my search outward.

But this was my starting point.

So, bear with me. This gets a little complex.

On Stories, Lineage, and Meaning

Daivas took many forms: boars, bulls, and human-like figures. But they were all connected to something in nature.

Some parts of Tulunadu worshipped Kaantha Bhaara and Boodha Bhaara. Others worshipped Deyi Baidethi’s sons, Koti and Chennaya. They were not Bunts, but Billava heroes.

My aadi of Kabathar worshipped Siri, Abbaga, and Daaraga.

If you are interested in their stories, I would strongly suggest watching the Siri pardhana or reading the translation by Lauri Honko at the Govind Pai library.

If you are feeling slightly lazier and would prefer Cliff Notes, I would recommend Majje by Vidya Shankar Shetty.

A friend of mine, Rishitha, once wrote a brilliant essay on this as well, and I will continue to urge her to publish it.

Each home had its own rituals.

Majala Beedu is believed to be where Siri was born, from the bud of an areca flower, pingaara, to Berman Alva. She was the princess of Sathyanapura, now the Nidgala/Kalmanje region.

She is said to have married into Basruru. After discovering her husband’s infidelity, she returned to Majala Beedu, only to be denied her rights.

With her son Kumaara and her maid Dhaaru, she left, cursing the place to be burned.

She travelled, eventually finding refuge in Bola with two brothers. She later married again, to a man from Kotrapady who already had a wife, and gave birth to a daughter, Sonne.

Sonne, after making offerings to the gods, bore daughters Abbaga and Daaraga.

And in one moment of forgetfulness, of a missed parakke, both children died after a violent game of chenne da mane.

This was the first story I read to understand what daivas were, and why we were worshipping these women in my aadi.

I had to make sense of it by imagining each house as having its own set of daivas.

These daivas were not gods, at least not in the way I had been taught to understand gods.

They were custodians of balance.

They were just. They were karmic.

On Kola as Economy, Ritual, and System

They bless, they demand goodness and good deeds, and they punish when there is disruption. When there is sickness, or roga, in a family, some believe it is the daivas asking something of them. Usually, a priest or soothsayer will guide you through some form of astrology - prashna, ashtamangala, or through some other method across regions.

My first instinct was logical: What did they want? One family answered simply, “kola kattodu.” You have a kola for them. I could hear my father in my head, irritated that I was even questioning it, but I needed to understand what it meant. What did a kola actually entail? At its core, beyond questions and answers, a kola feeds a village.

From my informal education across faiths, Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and Jainism, one thing remains constant: charity, giving, food, and clothing. Even in a puja at home with a Brahmin priest, there is anna dhaana, food, and vasthra dhaana, clothing, and the intent is always tied to offering something in exchange for what you seek.

For a kola to take place, you employ the vaadhya, the instrumentalists, giving them paid work. You purchase supplies from farmers and vendors, chairs, tables, water, milk, ghee, fruit, flowers, and rice. A single kola may require approximately 140 kilograms of white rice, and if it is a Brahma Baiderlu kola, an additional 50 kilograms of red rice. If puddhe, offerings of food, are sent from different homes, that too circulates value within the village economy. You prepare the space, the garadi or house is painted, cleaners are hired, painters are hired. In one way or another, the entire village contributes to the kola, and every house is fed.

But there is more happening at a kola. People congregate from across places. Families insist that even if you are far from Tulunadu, you return for a kola. People ask about those who are missing, and they check in on one another.

And there is something deeper still.

On Asking, Believing, and Finding Solutions

But there is something deeply important happening here. My beliefs are my own, so I will offer the explanation I gave to those outside my culture. As human beings, we are deeply afraid of being burdensome. Many of us suppress our troubles. We may complain to a close friend, but most people suffer quietly, often entirely alone.

In Tulunadu, it is believed that you can ask the daivas for a solution during the darshana at a kola, and that they will provide one. Whether it is a land dispute, the loss of cattle, a drought that leaves you penniless, or something as intimate as the desire for progeny, people come and ask. They stand in line and voice their questions aloud.

One peer from outside this culture smirked and asked me, “Are you serious? You believe the daivas provide solutions?”

What I believe is not the point here. But people do find solutions. Almost everyone who told me they believed in the daivas also told me that they found one. But how do you prove something like that? I found myself going on an interviewing spree, trying to remain as scientific as possible. I was not trying to proselytise. In fact, if anything, Tulunadu is quite the opposite. There is no desire to convert anyone. If anything, they might quietly decide you are not one of them.

So I was not trying to convince him of what to believe, or even invite him to witness a kola. I quite like that the kolas remain sacred to those of that land. But I did want to explain the phenomenon.

Now this peer of mine was a fan of Nikola Tesla, and through that, a believer in manifestation, in the 3-6-9 theory, in the idea that thought can shape outcome. So I asked him, how is this any different? Let’s call him Chad, because that felt appropriate.

These people gather, articulate their problems aloud, and act as though a solution exists. Call it the law of assumption. Call it manifestation. Call it a coincidence. Call it what you want. But something moves.

One woman who prayed for a son-in-law found a match within that very gathering. Another who prayed for a daughter-in-law had someone knock on her door days later, having heard she was looking. A man whose business was failing asked why it was suffering, and days later, through a connection made at the kola, found work again.

You could reduce it to a coincidence. Or, as Chad rather dismissively put it, “marketing and networking at a kola.”

Maybe it is.

But they came for the daivas. And in their own way, the daivas provided.

And then there is the other side of it. The belief that when something goes wrong, when there is what they call uppadhra, disruption, you return to the daivas. Or, as I like to call it, the Uppadhra Retrograde.

When things begin to fall apart, people remember their gods. The NRI aunties, dressed head to toe in Hermes, who moments ago were saying “Enna maga’k Tulu barpujji” in an accent that makes you want to both laugh and be mildly violent, suddenly return to pray and promise to come back next year. Or the Bombay returns, with their wonderfully chaotic Tulu, asking, “Yenk poochna hai deverda, ki itna uppadhra daayed aawondundu?”

I realise I have been in a slightly wake-up-and-choose-violence mood of late. Forgive the meanness.

But Chad then asked me something harder.

How do you explain sickness? Health? Failure? Loss?

On Suffering, Faith, and the Absence of Answers

This was the hardest question for me. How do you explain something that complex? It was here that my faith began to feel less certain, more fragile.

How do you explain suicide? Cancer? Those who suffer and die without a reason that makes sense to us?

My grandfather on my mother’s side died without prolonged suffering. A heart attack took him quickly. But my grandfather on my father’s side lived through years of dementia before he passed. How do you explain who deserved which kind of death? Can you place that at the feet of the daivas? Because if you were to measure devotion, my paternal grandfather had done more for his daivas than most. And yet, both were flawed. Both were human.

How do you explain a child with cancer? Do you say the daivas are trying to tell us something? Are they punishing the parents? The child, who has barely learned to speak?

I found myself turning to philosophers, to believers, to non-believers, to people deeply rooted in other faiths. I asked, I listened, I searched. No one really had an answer. Not one that could sit comfortably in the mind.

But what I did observe was this: those with faith, of any kind, seemed to live more hopeful lives than those who believed in nothing at all. And that hope, that belief in the possibility of things getting better, seemed to produce more positive outcomes than the absence of it.

It reminded me of Pascal's Wager, the idea that belief, even without certainty, might still be the more rational position, because the potential gain is infinite, while the loss is finite.

But in Tulunadu, even belief was structured. It was almost bureaucratic. If something was lost, you went to Koragajja. If there was a skin ailment, you went to the nagas, not the daivas. If there were enemies, you prayed to Jumadi. If you needed protection or vengeance, Raktheshwari.

It was as though each daiva had a domain, a specialisation, a function within the system.

And then I realised something else.

There was another layer to this entire fabric.

The nagas.

On Nagas and Nature

Beyond the daivas, there is another form of worship, the worship of the nagas.

My nagabana overlooks a river. It holds both a female and a male naga, and beside them, a yaksha, Bermer, who is also a daiva, but in a more warrior-like form. The bana sits quietly within the forest. Mongooses run through it. Occasionally, you will spot a keyre, a kind of snake that many believe signals luck. Peacocks wander nearby, with their beautiful feathers and their rather unfortunate feet.

I have never felt peace the way I have felt it in a nagabana. Perhaps it is because it is so removed from noise, from pollution, from the constant friction of life. You are left alone with your thoughts, with your asking, with the quiet belief that something might be listening.

The nagabana was also once a unit of measure. Each parcel of land had a bana attached to it. The bana was not just sacred, it was structural. It held jaaga da daivas, the daivas of the land, while the illa da daivas belonged to the home, to the kutumba.

My family was said to have seven banas worth of land, each bana spanning roughly a hundred acres, a total of around seven hundred acres.

Tulunadu, at its core, worshipped nature. Boars, cobras, bulls, all of it tied back to the natural world. Even the superstitions, seeing a mongoose as good luck, or a keyre as a sign, are rooted in nature.

Harm nature, and it punishes. Nurture it, and it gives you what you need to survive.

Look at me, unable to survive a day of camping, but more than willing to appreciate nature in words.

On Nature, Healing, and System

When something goes wrong, when there is disease or disruption, the instinct is to search for a solution. And searching for a solution is perhaps the most frustrating and tedious part of human existence. So when you are at your lowest, the only place you often turn to is some form of higher power.

To Chad, I explained it simply: nature heals. It was not the most complete argument, but it was the most honest one I had.

At the nagabana, you go barefoot. You stand on the earth, surrounded by trees, by stillness, by something that feels older than you. You pray, sometimes desperately, that what ails you will be healed. Whether it is the sandalwood on your head or the mud from the bana, perhaps it raises hope, perhaps it shifts something within you, perhaps it gives you the strength to endure what you must.

For the Bunts, daivas and nagas sat at the core of worship. It was, at its heart, a way of praying to nature and its custodians, asking them to maintain balance. We named them. We prayed to them. We believed they would kaapad us, protect us.

And then, layered onto this, came other systems.

Somewhere around the third century BCE, Chandragupta Maurya is said to have abdicated his throne to pursue Jainism. Some accounts suggest that he and his followers travelled south, reaching places like Shravana Belagola and Moodbidri.

A book that helped me get a basic understanding of Jainism before beginning my research was Bahubali by Devdutt Pattanaik, where you can see how Jainism spread across regions, with Moodbidri prominently placed within that map.

My early research pointed to overlapping systems, where Bunt rulers, especially those from aramanes and guthus, adopted Jainism while continuing to worship daivas and nagas. The Jain Bunts of Tulunadu are among the few Jain communities that continued to follow aliyasanthana, the matrilineal system.

Many aramanes, Kuthyar, Vitla, Ajila, Venur, Chowta, continue to follow Jainism, while still remaining deeply tied to daiva and naga worship within their regions.

During this period, basadis were built, and Jainism spread across Tulunadu. A slightly different dialect of Tulu was spoken within these communities, and many of these traditions continue even today. In Dharmasthala, one can still see one of the largest statues of Gomateshwara.

With the arrival of Brahmin communities and the spread of teachings from Adi Shankaracharya around the 8th century and Madhvacharya in the 12th century, Shaivism and Vaishnavism began to take stronger root in Tulunadu. Some guthus and beedus gradually shifted toward these forms of worship, while others retained older systems alongside them.

Shiva, interestingly, appears even in older pardhanas, though often in the form of Bhairava. With the spread of Shaivism, he came to be worshipped in the form of the linga, as Brahma Lingeshwara, Mahalingeshwara, Veerabhadra, and many other forms. In many parts of Tulunadu, he is placed within the same sacred space as the daivas.

But there was something else I began to notice.

When daivas are prayed to, especially outside of a kola, the worshipper speaks directly. During a kola, there may be a mediator, a madhu patheruna, or the head of the household, but the interaction remains personal.

In temples dedicated to Hindu gods, however, the priest becomes the mediator.

With daivas, you ask directly.

With deities in temples, the priest asks on your behalf.

Shaivism spread widely across Tulunadu, particularly in Mangalore, Puttur, Vitla, and the interior regions of Hiriadka, Hebri, Pangala, Kabathar, and Nanadalike, areas where Siri, Abbaga, Daaraga, and Jumadi are also worshipped.

My great-grandfather was known as the patler of Balkunje Guthu, where Jumadi is worshipped. Some draw parallels between Jumadi and Dhoomavathi, who, in northern traditions, is said to have swallowed Shiva and held him within her. In Tulunadu, she is understood as a force that destroys evil.

Vaishnavism spread more prominently in the northern regions. Krishna Mutts were established as centres of learning, where Brahmin children were taught Vedic texts. Janardhana worship spread alongside other forms of Vishnu. Some even drew parallels between Panjurli and Varaha from Hindu texts.

Ganapati and Subramanya were also widely worshipped across Tulunadu. And although there is no precise Gregorian dating for Parashurama, it is often said that Tulunadu is part of Parashurama Srishti, or Bermere Srishti, as it was referred to before the spread of Shaivism and Vaishnavism.

There is a Parashurama Betta in Kunjarugiri that I would strongly recommend visiting. Even if you do not believe in any of this, the view from the hilltop is reason enough to go.

And just when you think you understand the system, it becomes more complex.

On Goddesses, Temples, and Power

Tulunadu is, in many ways, the land of goddesses. Beyond the daivas, there is a deep and widespread worship of Devi and Durga in many forms, and often, they hold a power that feels greater than their male counterparts. Whether it is Kateel Durgaparameshwari, Kollur Mookambika, Mangaladevi, Kapu Marigudi, or even the smallest temple within a grama, the presence of the goddess is central.

What makes this more complex is that these temples do not exist separately from the older systems. Many marigudi temples participate in rituals that mirror those of the daivas, rituals of sacrifice, darshana, blessing, and even punishment.

With the spread of Shaivism, Vaishnavism, and Jainism, basadis and temples emerged across Tulunadu, often existing alongside daivasthanas and nagabanas rather than replacing them.

And with temples came structure. With structure came economy.

I had to break this down further for myself, not just as places of worship, but as systems that sustained the fabric of Tulunadu.

At the level of the daiva, the unit is intimate, the kutumba and the grama. It is familial, local, and deeply tied to lineage. But at the level of the temple, the scale expands. Entire regions, sometimes multiple maganas, come under a single aadi sthala or devasthana.

At the daiva level, the central figure is the gurkaara or gurkaardi, and the gadi patthunaar, often the yajmana or yajmaanthi of a guthu that serves the village. Historically, these were not just ritual roles, but positions of responsibility. They were tied to governance, to the welfare of the land and the people within it.

Many old guthu houses still reflect this. Some have an upparige or maalige, elevated structures from which the extent of their land could be observed. Others relied on what planners today would call desired paths, routes formed naturally by repeated movement of people, animals, and life itself.

For Jain Bunts, these heads were also responsible for the basadi. For the Shaivite and Vaishnavite Bunts, they took charge of the aadi sthala or grama devasthana. In cases where multiple maganas were tied to a single temple, one family, often the most capable or resourceful, assumed responsibility.

Many such families also built temples during their time, further embedding their role within the religious and social structure of the region.

But temples were never just places of worship.

They were schools.

They were places where food was served every single day.

They were shelters in times of distress.

They were centres of entertainment, through Yakshagana, Gombeyaata, and Taala Maddale.

They were, in every sense, institutions of community.

On Kapu Marigudi as an Institution

So Chad asked me, "Do people still believe in this today?"

I had to turn to something more concrete. I chose Kapu Marigudi, partly because I grew up visiting it, and partly because I had seen its functioning up close.

I grew up hearing stories about the temple. One about a truck driver who followed the scent of jasmine, only for it to lead to his death. I also grew up with the story of the goddess herself, how she married a man who had concealed his identity as a cobbler, how she bore his children, and how, upon discovering the truth, she left him, leaving her sister behind to care for the children.

My chronically online brain, shaped in part by too much time on TikTok, could not help but think, “clock it.” If a man lied to me like that today, I would simply leave.

But over time, I also observed something else, not just the stories, but the people who ran the temple.

I watched K. Vasudeva Shetty serve as the adhyakshara of the Hosa Marigudi Temple in Kapu.

In Tulunadu, the role of an adhyakshara or muktheshwara comes in one of two ways: either inherited, often by the eldest or rightful heir, or earned through selection. But there is a deeper belief that underlies both paths, that you are chosen by the deity to take on that role.

Because it is not an easy one.

Let me begin with what that role looks like today, through Vasudeva Shetty, and then return to how it connects to the historical structures I described earlier.

On the Role of the Adhyakshara

1. The Worshipper

The first role is that of a worshipper, and this is perhaps the most important one. When an adhyakshara comes into power, the first thing that is tested is not his ability to lead, but his ability to surrender. Whether it is at the linga temple in Pangala or at Kapu Marigudi, I have met, observed, or spoken to over twenty adhyaksharas, and there is a pattern that reveals itself quietly. If they are present, they pray.

I have seen K. Vasudeva Shetty since I was a child. The first time I remember noticing him was when my grandfather was alive. We were at the Kapu Janardhana temple, and my grandfather was speaking to this gentleman whom I only knew by a nickname. At the time, he was simply another presence in the background of something larger.

Years later, when I began visiting Kapu Marigudi more frequently during Navratri, I would see him again, often with his wife, quietly paying obeisance. We would not cross paths in the crowd, but you begin to notice things when you return often enough.

And over time, something about him changed. Or perhaps it was I who changed in my noticing. There was a calm that seemed to settle into him. For the Gen Z children, his vibe softened. He now dresses mostly in white, speaks in a way that is both reassuring and firm, and when he speaks to you, he holds your gaze without wavering.

For those from Tulunadu, you know this feeling: “Money thoodhu patherodu.” There is something deeply reassuring in it, something that steadies you without quite explaining why. He does not preach. He does not persuade. If you ask, he will tell you the story of Mariamma. And then he will stop.

2. The Listener (or, The Free Therapist)

The second role is that of a listener, though I often think of it, half-seriously, as that of a free therapist.

Most people who come to these temples or daivasthanas are not coming empty-handed. They come carrying something, worry, grief, uncertainty, questions they have not been able to voice elsewhere. They may begin by speaking to an idol, a stone, a presence that does not respond, but at some point, they look for someone who will.

Sometimes the priest is occupied, bound to ritual, or simply too distant to hold that kind of conversation. But the adhyakshara, if present, becomes the closest human point of contact.

In 2021, I remember sitting in the car while my parents spoke to Vasudeva Shetty outside the temple office. I had graduated the year before, and we had come to offer Anna Dhaana. We are not a family that leans toward unstructured giving. We prefer something tangible, food, clothing, education, something that feels like it lands where it is needed.

After what felt like an unreasonable amount of time in the Kapu heat, I was called in. He spoke to me about his daughter, and then, without transition, about the many people who come to him.

People with problems that cannot always be solved.

And that is the thing. Sometimes, there is no solution to give. But there is listening. And that, in itself, becomes a form of relief.

3. The Connector (or, The Agent of Help)

The third role is that of an agent of help.

Yes, there is a government whose purpose is to serve people, but in reality, it often feels distant, bureaucratic, and, for many, deeply intimidating. It is not always the first place people turn when they are in need.

The temple is different. It is closer. It feels known.

A few months ago, there was a TikToker who called different places of worship as a social experiment, asking for baby formula. Many did not respond. Some did. The mosque did not hesitate. But what stayed with me was not the outcome of that experiment; it was what it revealed about expectation.

People often ask me why I am so unsettled by the wealth inequality I have seen in America. It is because I am not used to it. Whether in England or in the part of India my family comes from, I have not seen poverty in the way I have seen it there. I have not seen people forced to survive in such visible isolation.

In Tulunadu, I have seen something different. Not perfect, not without flaw, but different. I have seen temples, mosques, and churches act as quiet points of support. I have seen Dharmasthala, Kollur, and Kukke feed thousands in a single day. I have seen communities collect clothes, offer help, and extend support without spectacle.

You do not often see people left entirely to themselves.

If there is a panhandler outside Pabbas, someone will help. It may not always be gentle, sometimes it is almost aggressive in its kindness, but it is there. Someone will grumble, someone will complain, and then still hand over ten rupees or buy them an ice cream.

It is not softness. But it is not indifference either.

Temples in Tulunadu have long been congregating points, not just for prayer, but for problem-solving. People come not only to ask the gods, but to ask each other.

I have seen this in my own life. My father has received calls from temples we are connected to, asking if he knows of someone who can offer a job, if he can help a child with fees, or if he can step in where something is lacking.

The temple may not always be able to provide help directly. But it connects. It moves information. It brings people together.

And the adhyakshara sits at the centre of that network.

In the case of K. Vasudeva Shetty, I have seen this most clearly in the past five years. People come to him with requests that range from the deeply personal to the quietly urgent, and if it is within his power, he makes it happen.

Holding that seat of power does not simply mean authority. It demands a kind of altruism that cannot be performative. All eyes are on you. And the expectation is not that you will succeed every time, but that you will try every time.

Through something as large as the jeernodhara, hundreds have found employment. Through something as simple as listening, people have found direction.

Kapu Marigudi has been, and continues to be, something of a lighthouse. A place people turn to, not only for faith, but for help that feels immediate, human, and possible.

It is not a replacement for the state. But for many, it is the first place they go. Because it does not feel like power, it feels like proximity.

And perhaps that is what makes it work.

4. The Leader and Representative

The fourth role is that of a leader and a representative for the community behind him. An adhyakshara is not serving one group. He is serving a space where multiple communities congregate, and so regardless of caste or creed, he has to advocate for anyone who comes seeking help.

But leadership here is not just about responsibility. It is about creating a sense of belonging, something I have seen K. Vasudeva Shetty do consistently in his role at Kapu Marigudi.

He has to think about what brings people together. Whether it is organising a Yakshagana that generates employment, or creating a platform for children to showcase their talent, or even something as simple as a monthly event where people can dress up, step out, and feel like they are part of something larger than themselves.

He has to think about prizes, about scholarships, about who deserves recognition for their work and contribution. These are not small decisions. They shape how people see themselves and how they see each other.

He becomes, in many ways, responsible for the morale of a place.

And this is where I cannot help but think of Kabathar, of how it was when I was growing up, and how it has changed. The Kabathar I knew had narrow steps, uneven ground, and spaces that felt open to the sky. You would climb up to Panjurli, sometimes in the rain, sometimes slipping, sometimes laughing, sometimes being forced into prayer you did not fully understand. It did not feel curated. It felt lived in.

And now, things have changed. Spaces have been levelled, structures made more accessible, more permanent. There is convenience where there was once effort. There is shelter where there was once exposure.

I miss parts of what it used to be. The open air. The feeling of being slightly uncomfortable, slightly unsure, slightly more present. But I also understand that change is necessary. That accessibility matters. That more people can now participate in ways they perhaps could not before.

And this is the balance someone like Vasudeva Shetty has to hold.

In the past few years, through the Jeernodhara and the events surrounding it, he has not just built a temple. He has built momentum. He has created a space where tradition is preserved, but also adapted. Where people can return, but also remain.

And that is not easy. Because every change risks losing something, and every preservation risks excluding someone.

And yet, the expectation is that you must get it right.

In cities, belonging is optional. It is fragmented. You can choose your circles, leave them, rebuild them.

In a place like Kapu, belonging is not optional. It is inherited, shared, and constantly reinforced.

And the adhyakshara stands at the centre of that reinforcement.

And when it is done well, it does something subtle but powerful.

It makes people feel seen.

5. The Altruist

The fifth role is that of the altruist. This is a thankless job, really. Many are out to get you. Many resent that you are in power. Many are happy that you are in power, but forget to thank you. Whether you are socio-economically sound or not, everyone has problems. It is true.

You think that a rich man with five Lamborghinis does not have problems? He does. You think that the Instagram-perfect model does not have problems? She does. We are all human, and we are all fallible. We all have struggles; they simply exist at different scales. It does not hurt less. And everyone, in their own way, magnifies their pain.

So we are all, constantly, in pursuit of comfort and solace.

Some are struggling to pay school fees. Some are praying for IVF to work. Some have lost their life savings in a scam. Some are struggling to find a job in Bangalore. Some are waiting for their visa to be stamped. Some have children who no longer speak to them.

We all have problems.

We are all congregating, in one way or another, trying to find solutions to the same problems, just in different fonts.

And the adhyakshara is privy to all of this. That, in itself, is burdensome.

Look, I felt like Siddhartha leaving the palace when I first came to Berkeley. I was just like, " Oh, there is death, there is hunger, there is poverty, should I be Buddhist now?

Imagine someone like K. Vasudeva Shetty, constantly listening to the worries and pain of so many people who come to him with trust. For him to remain, a vault. For him not to break that trust. For him to empathise, to reassure, to carry it, even on days he may not want to.

Sometimes being altruistic is not a choice. It is the role you have taken on.

My biggest flaw is that I feel relieved when plans are cancelled, and I can stay home and binge-watch the same show for the hundredth time.

He does not have that luxury.

6) The Diplomat

The sixth role is that of a diplomat.

I have had a small taste of this, and I can tell you, it is not pleasant. Being diplomatic all the time is exhausting.

Not only does an adhyakshara have to navigate the priests of the temple, the other community leaders, bureaucrats, politicians, and the many free riders who want to appear as though they are doing work, you know, the kind, empty vessels and all that, but he also has to remain diplomatic with the people of the community themselves.

He has to balance expectations constantly. He has to stay logical, even when emotions are running high. And more importantly, he has to lead by example, because people are always watching.

In the case of K. Vasudeva Shetty, I have seen this play out over time. He did feel like the right choice as adhyakshara. He is.

He is a hardworking, successful businessman, a father who has raised two very accomplished daughters, and a secure man married to a dynamic woman. There is a steadiness in him that makes people trust his position.

But none of this came easily. People did not always keep their word. There were promises made and not fulfilled. There was resistance. There were hurdles that he has had to overcome, many of which he does not openly speak about.

And yet, he does not let it show.

He has garnered respect from those around him, and he commands a room simply by entering it, not through force, but through presence.

I once took a World Economic Forum fellow to visit in 2025, and Vasudeva Shetty showed him around the temple. In that moment, he also validated my claims about the existence of a matriarchal community in South India. It was a small moment, but for me, it mattered more than I let on.

Those were my problems. First-world problems, perhaps. But I am a dramatic person. I tend to magnify things in my head.

And still, he took the time.

7) The Cultural Custodian

The seventh role is that of a cultural custodian.

An adhyakshara has to understand more than ritual. He has to understand the tapestry of how society works, how it functions. He needs to understand people, behaviour, tradition, and the quiet rules that are never written down but always followed. In many ways, he has to be a behavioural economist, whether or not he ever calls himself one.

For K. Vasudeva Shetty, this has meant ensuring that traditions continue without becoming rigid. That pili vesha troops are able to perform, that the paathri is taken care of, that the vaadhya dagulu are invited and made to feel wanted. It also means understanding that Kapu is not just one community. If you drive through Kapu, you will see that it holds many worlds at once, including those that exist just across the road from the temple.

Tulunadu carries its stories everywhere. Marigudi has its own. There are stories of Tipu Sultan, who is said to have been a devotee of the goddess Nimishamba, and who is believed to have travelled to Kapu, leaving behind jewellery that became part of local lore, stored in Mallar Guthu.

There are sixteen pillars at the Kapu Janardhana temple, each representing a guthu tied to the region. Each space holds something: memory, lineage, identity. Every temple in Tulunadu carries its own network of stories, some documented, most remembered.

And trying to explain all of this to someone like Chad means navigating daiva, naga, deva, devi, Gomateshwara, all at once.

Imagine if I went further. If I began explaining Sathyolu, or dakkebali.

He would probably never speak to me again.

But that, perhaps, is the point.

Worship in Tulunadu is not simple. It is layered, inherited, adapted, and lived.

And someone like Vasudeva Shetty stands not just as an administrator within it, but as a custodian of that complexity.

All of this to say, the impact and learning from temples and those who run them is not small. It is a lesson for sociologists, anthropologists, and behavioural economists alike.

Conclusion

When I step away from the detail, from the stories, from the names and places and the particularities that make Tulunadu what it is, what remains is not a single explanation, but a pattern of behaviour that repeats itself with enough consistency to suggest that something more structured is at work beneath what is often dismissed as belief.

In Tulunadu, uncertainty is rarely endured in silence; it is carried outward, spoken into spaces that are both ritualistic and social, whether that is at a kola, within the quiet of a nagabana, or before a deity in a temple, and in that act of articulation, something subtle but consequential begins to shift, because a problem that is spoken ceases to belong to an individual alone and instead enters a shared field of attention.

What follows is not miraculous in the way it is often described, but neither is it incidental; people begin to move, to respond, to connect, to intervene, sometimes consciously, sometimes through a chain of events that appears coincidental but is, in fact, structured by proximity, repetition, and expectation, and so what is often attributed to divine intervention may also be understood as the outcome of a system that organises human behaviour toward resolution.

Over time, these acts accumulate, and what emerges is a decentralised but remarkably resilient network, one in which information circulates without formal channels, where obligation is produced without contracts, and where help, though not guaranteed, appears with enough frequency to sustain belief in its possibility, which in itself becomes a powerful behavioural force.

To observe this purely through the language of faith would be insufficient, but to dismiss it as faith alone would be equally incomplete.

And yet, any account that stops here would be dishonest.

Because I am also aware, acutely so, of the ways in which such systems can fracture, of how temples, like any institution that accumulates power, are not immune to corruption, of how there are moments when ritual becomes transaction in its most cynical form, when pain is not alleviated but leveraged, and when belief is not nurtured but extracted from.

I am aware of how astrologers can mislead, of how certainty can be manufactured and sold with confidence to those who are most vulnerable to it, of how human beings, regardless of their proximity to the sacred, remain fallible, capable of greed, capable of self-interest, and capable of making decisions that are, at times, morally indefensible.

None of this exists outside the system; it exists within it, complicating it, distorting it, and yet never fully undoing it.

Because what sustains Tulunadu is not belief in isolation, but the material and social economy that belief produces and circulates through, an economy that is both visible and unseen, where flowers, milk, fruit, ghee, offerings that are made daily, move through hands and households, where food is prepared not only for gods but for people, where labour is generated, where vendors survive, where kitchens run, where something as intangible as faith gives rise to something profoundly tangible.

To remove worship from this structure would not simply be to remove a set of beliefs; it would be to interrupt a system of circulation, of goods, of labour, of care, that has, over time, become embedded within the very functioning of the region.

And so what one arrives at is not a resolution, but a recognition that systems such as these are neither pure nor entirely corrupt, neither wholly rational nor wholly irrational, but instead occupy that more difficult middle ground in which most human institutions reside, where contradiction does not negate function, and imperfection does not prevent continuity.

And in Tulunadu, for all its layers, its tensions, its moments of excess and of failure, this system continues to endure, not because it is beyond critique, but because it continues, in ways both visible and invisible, to work.

And in that persistence, imperfect as it is, lies its legitimacy.

Disclaimer: Look, I'm still a kid in the larger scheme of things. There is a lot that I do not know. But so much information that I've collected and tried to put into words to the best of my ability. Still Jon Snow.