Golu Devta
गोलू देवता
Kuldevta, family god
A local god of justice; some accounts take him as Gaur Bhairav, a form of Shiva
At a glance
- Main shrine
- Chitai Golu Devta Temple, Almora district, Uttarakhand
- Worshipped in
- Kumaon, Garhwal
- Kept by
- Kumaoni
About
Golu Devta, also called Goludev, Golujyu or Goril, is the god of justice of Kumaon in Uttarakhand. Temples at Chitai near Almora, Champawat and Ghorakhal near Bhowali are best known, and Atkinson in 1884 already called him the most popular of the village gods of Kumaon. Villagers in Kumaon keep him as ishta devta or kuldevta, and people bring their grievances to him in writing.
Legend and Origin
No account is fixed. The legend as Atkinson wrote it down in 1884, and as it is told today with small changes, is that Jhalrai, a Katyuri raja of Champawat, met a young woman named Kali (Kalinka in modern tellings) and married her. Her co-wives hid her newborn son and showed her a pumpkin in his place (later tellings say a stone or a pestle), and the boy was set afloat in the river Gori. A fisherman raised him and named him Goriya after the river, which is how Goril or Golu is explained. When grown he rode a wooden horse to the water-place of the queens and asked whether a wooden horse could not drink if a woman could give birth to a pumpkin; his father recognised him and he became king. Atkinson recorded this tale in the Himalayan Districts gazetteer in 1884. Other accounts call him a general of a Katyuri king or a warrior of the later Chand dynasty who died in battle. Some modern accounts identify him with Gaur Bhairav, a form of Shiva; Meera Baindur's fieldwork account at Chitai speaks of Bhairav as his helper instead. A local story about Chitai says a Pant Brahmin dreamed that Golu asked for a temple there, after the Chand capital moved from Champawat to Almora. No source found dates the Chitai temple.
How the Deity Is Shown
The image at most temples is a recent marble relief of a king on a white horse. Baindur notes that older objects of worship were a fire pit with iron spears and tridents around it, in the Nath manner. Atkinson says small village shrines hold a stone that stands for the god.
How Families Keep the Worship
Among the families who keep Golu as ishta devta or kuldevta, worship is at the village shrine and at home. The main rite is the jagar: a bard (jagariya) calls the god with drum and song, a medium (dangariya) is possessed, and the god speaks to the family about its troubles and what to offer. A jagar lasts three or nine days. Offerings named in modern accounts include ghee, milk, curd, halwa, puri, bells, and white cloth and turbans. Some accounts mention goat offerings; the practice differs by shrine and family. At Chitai and other shrines people write their grievance on plain or stamped paper, tie it near the sanctum and hang a bell after the matter is settled. Atkinson already records people bringing a grievance to a Goril shrine and asking the god to act against the person who wronged them. Custom differs by village and family, and the details of a family's own jagar are theirs to give.
Shrines
Chitai Golu Devta Temple
Chitai, Almora district, Uttarakhand
The best-known shrine, a few kilometres from Almora on the Pithoragarh road. Thousands of bells hang in the compound.
Golu Devta Temple (Gol Chaur)
Champawat, Champawat district, Uttarakhand
Champawat is named in the legends as his home. Atkinson (1884) lists a temple at Gol Chaur in Kali Kumaon.
Ghorakhal Golu Devta Temple
Ghorakhal, near Bhowali, Nainital district, Uttarakhand
Golu Devta Temple
Chamarkhan, Tarikhet, Almora district, Uttarakhand
A smaller shrine named in modern accounts.
Festivals
Harvest-season worship
Jyeshtha (Jeth) and Margashirsha (Mangsir), and in some villages every third year
Atkinson (1884) gives these as the usual times of worship, with a fair at Hairiyagaon.
Jagar
Held by a family when needed, for three or nine days
The rite in which the god is invoked into a medium. Families hold it for guidance, healing and justice.
Stories and Legends
The wooden horse
In the best-known telling the boy cast into the river grows up with a fisherman and one day asks for a wooden horse. He rides it to the ghat where the queens come for water and breaks their pots, saying his horse is in a hurry to drink. They laugh, and he answers that if a woman can give birth to a pumpkin, a wooden horse can drink. The tale reaches the king, who learns the truth, and the boy is recognised as his son. Atkinson (1884) says the queens then paid with their lives. Modern tellings agree on the outline and differ on details such as the stone or pestle.
The neglect of Goril in Garhwal
Atkinson (1884) also records a Garhwal story that explains why his worship was weak in parts of Garhwal: the raja Sudarshan Shah is said to have beaten a possessed woman with a cane until the god left her, and then forbade possession by Goril. The same book lists a shrine at Damanda Uniyal in Garhwal. Modern sources describe him as a family deity in many villages of both Kumaon and Garhwal, called Goreel Devta in Chamoli district.