Shitala

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Sheetala (

The deity is typically depicted as a mother who defends children from paediatric ailments, such as exanthemata and smallpox. She also serves as a fertility goddess that assists women in finding good husbands and conceiving healthy children. Her auspicious presence promises the welfare of the family and is considered to protect the devotee's sources of livelihood. Sheetala is also summoned to ensure refreshing rainfall and the prevention of famines, droughts, and cattle diseases.^[5]

Some 16th-century copies of the Skanda Purana's Kāśī Khaṇḍa section on Varanasi describe Sheetala curing ailments like smallpox pustules:^[6]

For the sake of quelling boils and blisters (of smallpox) and for the sake of the children, a devotee takes Masūra lentils by measures and grinds them. Due to the power of Śītalā, children become free from the disease.

— Skanda Purana, Chapter 12

The earliest Bengali language poems on Sheetala were composed in Saptagram in 1690. 18th-century compositions from Midnapore, West Bengal led to Sheetala's increasing prominence in religious worship. During this period, conflicts between the Maratha Empire and British East India Company led to famines that increased the mortality of smallpox cases.^[7]

Name and variants

In

According to common belief, many families do not light their stoves on Ashtami/Saptami day, and all devotees cheerfully eat cold food (Cooked the previous night) in the form of prasada. The idea behind this is that as spring fades and summer approaches, cold food should be avoided.^[12]

Iconography and symbolism

Traditional depictions

Sheetala is traditionally represented as a young maiden crowned with a winnowing fan, riding a donkey, and holding a short broom to spread the content of her pot full of viral pustules or cold water of immortality. In smaller rural shrines built by

Sheetala is historically understood as causing smallpox among non-believers, providing them an opportunity for reflection. Based on her religious role of healing those that make offerings to others recovering from illness, the World Health Organization's efforts to distribute smallpox vaccines initially faced resistance as local people saw vaccination as an attempt by Western science to circumvent Hindu religious order. To combat this perception, the international Smallpox Eradication Program (SEP) produced posters depicting Sheetala with a vaccination needle to reinterpret immunization as derived from Sheetala's power.^[14]

Buddhism

In

Sheetala temples in India

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Some of the notable temples:

• Sheetala Mata Mandir, Mand, Dist. - Mandla , MP
• Sheetala Mata birthplace, Maghra, Bihar Sharif, Nalanda, Bihar
• Sheetala Mata Mandir, Mehandi Ganj, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
• Sheetala Mata Mandir, PitaMaheshwar Kund,
  Gaya, Bihar
• Sheetala Mata Mandir, Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh
• Rejidi Khejdi Mandir, (Kajra, near Surajgarh, Jhunjunu district) Rajasthan
• Sheetala Mata Mandir, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh
• Sheetala Chaukiya Dham Sheetala mata Mandir, Jaunpur
• Sheetala Mata Mandir Gurgaon
• Sheetala Mata Temple, Khanda, Sonipat
• Maa Sheetala chaukiya Dham, Jaunpur
• Shree Sheetala Mata Mandir, Adalpura, Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh
• Shitla Mata Mandir, Jalore, Rajasthan
• Sheetala Mata Temple, Reengus, Rajasthan
• Sheetala Mata Mandir, Garia, Kolkata
• Sheetala Mata Mandir, Una, Himachal Pradesh
• Sheetala Mata Mandir, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh
• Harulongpher Shitalabari, Lumding, Nagaon, Assam
• Shitala Mata Mandir, Jodhpur, Rajasthan
• Shitala Mata Mandir, Nagaur, Rajasthan
• Sheetala Mata Mandir, Kaushambhi, Uttar Pradesh
• Shitala Mata Mandir, Nizambad, Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh
• Sheetala Mata Mandir, Barmer, Rajasthan
• Sheetala Mata Mandir, Bidhlan, Sonipat
• Sheetala Mata Mandir, Farrukhabad
• Shitala Devi Temple, Gurgaon^[16][17][18]
• Shitala Maa Temple,
  Samta
• Sheetala Mata Mandir Anjaniya, Mandla 481998
• Shitla Devi Mandir, Mahim, Mumbai^[19][20]
• Shitala Mandir, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand
• Shitla Devi Mandir, Chembur, Mumbai
• Shitala Devi Mandir, Barad, Maharashtra.^[21]
• Sheetala Devi Mandir, Ranibagh, Nainital, Uttarakhand^[22]

See also

• Lakshmi
• Vishnu
• Ashvins
• Sita
• Dhanvantari

Notes

• Arnold, D. (1993) Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India, Berkeley, University of California Press.
• Auboyer, J. and M.T. de Mallmann (1950). ‘Śītalā-la-froide: déesse indienne de la petite vérole’, Artibus Asiae, 13(3): 207-227.
• Bang, B.G. (1973). ‘Current concepts of the smallpox goddess Śītalā in West Bengal’, Man in India, 53(1):79-104.
• Kinsley, D. Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition
• Dimock, E.C. Jr. (1982) ‘A Theology of the Repulsive: The Myth of the Goddess Śītalā’, in J.S. Hawley and D.M. Wulff (eds), The Divine Consort: Rādhā and the Goddesses of India, Berkeley, University of California Press, 184-203
• Ferrari, Fabrizio M. (2009). “Old rituals for new threats. The post-smallpox career of Sitala, the cold mother of Bengal”. In Brosius, C. & U. Hüsken (eds.), Ritual Matters, London & New York, Routledge, pp. 144–171.
• Ferrari, Fabrizio M. (2015). Religion, Devotion and Medicine in North India. The Healing Power of Śītalā. London: Bloomsbury.
• Inhorn, M.C. and P.J. Brown (eds) (2005). The Anthropology of Infectious Disease. International Health Perspectives, Amsterdam, Routledge.
• Junghare, I.Y. (1975) ‘Songs of the Goddess Shitala: Religio-cultural and Linguistic Features’, Man in India, 55(4): 298-316.
• Katyal, A. and N. Kishore (2001) ‘Performing the goddess: sacred ritual into professional performance’, The Drama Review, 45(1), 96-117.
• Kolenda, P. (1982) ‘Pox and the Terror of Childlessness: Images and Ideas of the Smallpox Goddess in a North Indian Village’, in J.J. Preston (ed.), Mother Worship, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 227-250
• Mukhopadhyay, S.K. (1994) Cult of Goddess Śītalā in Bengal: An Enquiry into Folk Culture, Calcutta, Firma KLM.
• Nicholas, R. (2003). Fruits of Worship. Practical Religion in Bengal, Chronicle Books, New Delhi.
• Stewart, T.K. (1995) ‘Encountering the Smallpox Goddess: The Auspicious Song of Śītalā’, in D.S. Lopez, Jr. (ed.), Religious of India in Practice, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 389-397.
• Wadley, S.S. (1980) ‘Śītalā: The Cool One’, Asian Folklore Studies, 39: 33-62.

References

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