The Goddess of Instant Gratification
She seems like a deity meant for Gen Z. But Her temple has been in our city, if local legends are to be believed, for
She seems like a deity meant for Gen Z. But Her temple has been in our city, if local legends are to be believed, for more than three centuries. It was news to me, and I am thankful to Ganesh Ramaswamy, who via email enquired if I knew anything about the Nimishamba Temple in George Town. The name stands for She who grants wishes within a minute. He had just returned from a visit to the Nimishamba Temple in Ganjam, Mysore (and not to be confused with the erstwhile princely state in Odisha), and wondered if there was any connection between the two shrines. That set me off on a long chase, which ended in conjectures. The tiny shrine, with shops flanking it to an extent that they have left space only for the narrow entrance, is located in Kasi Chetty Street, George Town. Plenty of sub shrines have come up within the precinct, hiding whatever there may have been of the past. The sanctum reveals a four-armed goddess. The present trustees are local traders, and the temple comes under the HR&CE. The worshippers have no information about the temple’s past. In recent times a legend has sprung up that the nucleus of the temple is the processional icon which was found when the plot was dug around three hundred years ago for building a house.
But since that is a story behind many other temples in the city, we can discount it. But why Nimishamba? Edgar Thurston in his Castes and Tribes of Southern India (1855) writes of the Nimishamba cult. He says the worshippers are the Razu/Raju clans that speak Telugu and claim martial ancestry. He also notes that they had moved on from the army quite some time earlier, focusing instead on agriculture. Originally from the Karvetinagar zamin in Andhra, they had during Vikayanagar times moved deep down south to Rajapalayam. However, neither Karvetinagar nor Rajapalayam seems to have a shrine for Nimishamba. Her worship is prevalent in Andhra and more associated with a community known as Nakashvandulu or Chitrakara. Claiming martial descent, as do the Rajus, they later they took up artisanal work, chiefly filigree and inlay (Naqqashi in Urdu) and scroll painting. It is this group that settled in and around Mysore during Vijayanagar times. In the 17th century they were important enough for the ruling Wodeyars to construct the Nimishamba shrine at Ganjam. Which still does not explain how a temple came to be constructed in Madras. Shrines in George Town are of three kinds. The first were built by dubashes and the more powerful the dubash, the bigger the temple.
The twin temples of Chennakesava and Chennamalleeswara are an example as are a few others. Then we have the community temples – Draupadi amman shrines, the Chinnakadai Mariamman temple, the Ranganathaswami temple in Mulla Sahib Street, etc. Finally, we have the artisanal temples. Prominent among these is the Kalikambal temple constructed by the Viswakarma sect. We also have the Sivasubramaniaswami Temple on Irusappa Chetty street, built by the Senguntha weavers. This was constructed as a local version of the bigger temple at Porur. In the same tradition, it seems the Nimishamba temple here was constructed by members of the Nakashvandulu or Chitrakara sect. What were they doing here? Edgar Thurston once again has the answer. The community was far flung, spanning Odisha, Karnataka, Andhra and the city of Madras he writes. They were expert painters on cloth, which meant among their manifold skills was also kalamkari – the art of painting motifs using natural dyes on cloth. In the 17th century this was among the various textile offerings from Madras that were much in demand in England and the rest of Europe. According to an East India Company minute dated January 2, 1705, a large group of painters had been settled in the city and through the 17th century the painted calicoes were exported from here.
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