Thus she is referred to as Mariyayee or Aathaa. It can also mean ‘change’ as in status as her beautiful beauty faded away and replaced by pox.
They were reduced to being grama devatas or village deities. Their unique form of worship was overlooked or even dismissed by male dominated spiritual scholars. But their courage and purity brought them vindication against males whose behaviour threatened their person. Both Goddess Draupadi and Mariamman contain stories of women, both divine and human, violated, exploited and betrayed by men. Also known as Amman, she is women centred. GODDESS MARIAMMAN: Suffering mothers and betrayed wives get told in the mythology of the Dravidian Goddess Mariamman of South India.
