Ooramma is also a form of Renuka-Yellamma Devi and she is the reason those girls are there. You listen to the tale and then decide if they should continue to be there.

It is the same story he told Doddegowda so long ago, but he couldn’t stop Gangi’s fate. Maybe his grandson Puttaswamegowda will listen.

17. Yellamma’s Story

17

YELLAMMA’S STORY

he princess Renuka is born of fire, Annaiah says. When the king of this land desperately wanted a child, the gods granted him that wish by creating this girl child and sending her into the world through fire. She grows up bright and happy into a beautiful young woman, whom a lot of young people wish to marry. Her father is advised by Sage Agasthya that she should marry the aged sage Jamadagni. The father, fearing the wrath of the gods, follows this directive.

Renuka lives with the inflexible Jamadagni on the other side of this wall. She puts aside all her own wishes and adopts his spartan life. They have five sons. Such is her devotion to her husband that she can make a pot out of sand with nothing to glue the grains together. She bathes in the still lake in the middle of the Aranyaka forest, gathers water in a sand-pot and gives it daily to Jamadagni to pour into the big pot that he stirs on his fire.

Kamadeva, however, is not one to allow a vibrant girl to become a mere dutiful wife. One day, Renuka sees a gandarva and his wife having fun in the lake, stirring ripples in the still water. Kamadeva has created spring, the kogile is singing her heart out in vasantha raga, the bees and parrots are flying around in profusion and there is the heady fragrance of flowers from Deyi Baidethi’s magical garden in the air. Renuka, still young and beautiful, feels the beauty and the joy of the moment. It is only a fleeting moment, but it is enough to destroy the pot of piety and devotion that she makes every day. Unperturbed, she makes a garland out of the swetasanchari and suryavamsi blooming all around and carries that to Jamadagni.

The sage turns dark with fury. He sees the signs of Kamadeva and accuses her of infidelity, even though Renuka was born out of fire, the ultimate test of purity. He orders their sons to behead her. Four of the sons refuse and are turned into eunuchs who can never experience pleasure with a woman or have children. The fifth son was a form of Visnu, Parasurama. A dark-skinned, powerful man, Parasurama fears the fate of his brothers. He runs after his fleeing mother, carrying his axe. A lower-caste woman, Yellamma, whom Renuka has helped with childbirth, bars his way to stop him. She pleads for Renuka’s life. Parasurama, weighing his own fate against his mother’s life, beheads both of them.