Epidemic Goddess and the First “Tika”

It was a worship like no other. Amidst chanting of mantras and beating of drums and blowing of conch shells, the priest specially called for this ceremony would approach a child, make a small incision on her forehead and apply something he brought with him. The child would then be isolated and given cold food for the next few days. Women would draw alpanas/rangolis outside the room and often break into songs or stories related to the goddess they worshipped in this fashion.

As the child contracted mild fever they would celebrate the success of their effort – this was the surest sign that the child had been blessed by the deity. Over the next few days, this fever would subside and the child would recover. For the rest of her life, this goddess would protect the child and she would carry that mark, ‘tika’ on her forehead.

Goddess Sitala, rides on a donkey and holds a broom to ward off disease and a pitcher of cold water – Kalighat Patachitra

The special priest (often called ‘tikadar’) normally came from the lower castes like that of mali (gardener) or napit (barber) in Bengal and even when they were Brahman by caste, they were often lower in status. Working between November and early March, they collected pus from small pox patients, preserved it carefully in bamboo containers and then diluted it to apply on children in exchange of a fee.This was the unique ritual of goddess Sitala, the cold one, who promised to drive away fever (more specifically small pox and measles). From the Puranas, which described her as another form of Durga, who rose from a sacrificial fire along with Jwarasura (the demon of fever), she was celebrated in folk stories and medieval mangal kavyas of Bengal.

Taming Jwarasura

Till it was eradicated worldwide through vaccination in 1980, there was no cure for small pox. For centuries, small pox outbreaks killed millions globally. But it was known that the survivors of small pox did not contract the disease again. This observation led to the invention of artificially inducing immunity.  

The method of inoculation followed by the worshippers of Sitala is called variolation (from variola or Latin for pox). It appears from the descriptions of European observers in the 18^th century that such inoculation was widely prevalent in Sitala’s home territories of North and Eastern India. But not so much in deep South, where goddess Mariamma takes over her role. Learning from Brahman practitioners in Odisha and Northern Andhra, British doctors started inoculating Europeans and Company soldiers in and around Madras in the late 1780s.

Variolation in China happened through blowing of powdered small pox material into nostrils

By the 17^th century, apart from India this was a common practice in China (where the practice might have started around 1000 CE and we have documentary evidence from around 1600 CE) and large parts of Africa. Variolation might have originated independently in these three geographies or spread from one to another.

Lady Mary Montagu

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Court in Istanbul in 1717 famously wrote a letter to her friend Sarah Chiswell in England describing variolation practice she witnessed in Turkey. Lady Mary, herself a victim of small pox, had her children inoculated and played an important part in spreading the practice in England.

Dr Zabdiel Boylston inoculating patients in Boston 1721 after Cotton Mather learnt about inoculation in Africa

Similarly after a devastating small pox epidemic in Boston in 1721, a Puritan Minister Cotton Mather promoted variolation – a practice he learnt from his West African slave Onesimus.

Goddesses of Plague

Sitala was not the first goddess of epidemic. Buddhist goddess of small pox, Hariti appeared in Gandhara around two thousand years ago. Buddhist myths say, Hariti (the name suggests someone who steals), was a child eating ogress but turned into a protector of children after coming into contact with Gautam Buddha.

Hariti Statue (Gandhar region - 1st-2nd century CE), her iconography was inspired by that of Greek Goddess Tyche

Between 165-180 CE, a small pox or measles epidemic killed 5 million people across Europe and Asia. In Roman history it was known as the Antonine Plague. At least three decades before that a similar plague ravaged the Kushan Empire, leading to a profusion of Hariti images in Gandhar region. Historians believe probably the same epidemic travelled to Europe through the Silk Route.

Gradually, Hariti transformed into both fever and fertility goddess and lived on for many centuries across the subcontinent. Her images have been found from Afghanistan to Rajshahi in present Bangladesh and also in Andhra. She even travelled to Japan as goddess Kishimojin.

Parnashabari - 11th century statue from Bangladesh, a small Sitala visible as her companion at the bottom right 

The other Buddhist fever goddess was Parnashabari. Her name literally means leaf-clad tribal lady. She was popular in Vajrayana/tantric Buddhism in Eastern India. Interestingly Sitala initially appeared as her companion. Her cult gradually disappeared or ceded ground to Sitala but even now she lives on as a goddess in Tibetan Buddhism

In the absence of any effective treatment, it was normal all over the world to invoke deities for relief from dreaded diseases. Bengal is still dotted with temples or areas marked after Sitala or such other deities like Olai Chandi or Ola Bibi (for Muslims) for cholera, goddess Raktabati for blood infection and Ghe(n)tu for skin disease.

But Sitala is different from all other deities in the sense that her worshippers tried to address the disease through scientific intervention.

Variolation to Covid Vaccine

English physician Edward Jenner (1749-1823) is considered the father of vaccination. On 14^th May 1796, Jenner inoculated (he took pus from cow pox blisters of a milkmaid, Sarah Nelmes) his gardener’s 8 year old son James Phipps, who had mild symptoms for a few days but recovered soon. Small pox did not have any effect on Phipps during subsequent inoculations.

Edward Jenner

In rural England, many people noticed that dairymaids did not suffer from small pox and that led them to think about a possible connection between cow pox and small pox. We know at least two cases before Jenner (Benjamin Jesty in England in the 1770s and Peter Plett in Germany in1791), where similar methods were used to inoculate a few. But the credit for scientifically pursuing it and convincing people for vaccination goes entirely to Edward Jenner (the word vaccine came from “vacca” – Latin for cow).

In 1879, Louis Pasteur came up with the first laboratory-made vaccine (for chicken cholera). Since then vaccines for polio, tetanus, MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) and other killer diseases have revolutionized not only medical science but also human history.

From those early days of inoculation by Sitala worshippers to the latest Covid vaccines, technology has changed immensely but the essential approach - of inserting weakened antigens to trigger immune response - remains the same. And the legacy of early small pox inoculation is preserved through the continuous use of the word ‘tika’ in Bengali, Hindi and several other Indian languages.