ABSTRACT
The gods and goddesses of village and tribal traditions remain frequent recipients of blood sacrifice. Over the centuries these village gods and goddesses often conflated their identities with the more formal deities of the great tradition, and in the process became deities of great subtlety, but of terrible appetites. The early Tamil literary sources such as the grammatical work, the Tolkappiyam, the 5th-century CE epic poem, the Cilappatikaram, and the 6th-century CE Manimekalai describe blood sacrifices to Korravai. Later, Korravai, along with her rites and iconography, was integrated and then subsumed into the Durga cult. This integrative devotional practice can be seen in Pallava and Cola sculptures: numerous sculptures depict blood sacrifices being offered to a goddess who displays the attributes of both Korravai and Durga. Some deities, especially goddesses, remained in the borderlands of civilisation - liminal and violent divinities that just by their blood cravings acknowledged the nexus of the sacred and the violent.
