KULA DEVATHA OR TUTELARY/FAMILY DEITIES:
ORIGIN AND CONCEPT

-Santhipriya-                                             

93. This is how the vast land created by the Supreme gradually expanded, humans appeared, divines appeared and Kula Devatha emerged. This is how the vast land created by the Supreme gradually expanded, humans appeared, divines appeared and Kula Devatha emerged:
(a) Supreme releases vast land
(b) Land and Ocean developed
(c) Prime divines created by Supreme
(d) Several secondary, third line, fourth line and fifth line divines planned
(e) Brahma acts
(f) Brahma plans evolution in four stages like Satya Yuga, Tretha Yuga, Dwapara Yuga and Kali Yuga
(g) Yuga wise creations worked out vis a vis, the destruction of created calculated
(h) Brahma created seven Maharishis
(i) Trained the Maharishis on complete plan of action
(j) Rehearsed the creation for several thousands of years and train the Maharishis on each aspect in four dummy yugas
94. Brahma realized that entire souls can not be released in one go and gradually they will have to be released in stages. He also realized that the no of divines needed in each plane is to be released in coordinated manner by his colleague divines. Therefore, Brahma divided the period of creations and destruction to take place in four stages called  Satya, Tretha, Dwapara and Kali Yugas.
95. Brahma realized that the vast land across the universe would have to be   expanded only gradually beginning with Satya Yuga. The decision of Brahma to expand the land space was meant to accommodate expanded populace who would get birth from the souls wandering in the floating plane and alter the strength of souls from X quantum in first Yuga to 2 x quantum  3 x quantum etc in the next three yugas. He had to keep in mind  how much of those born meet death, besides evil forces which needed to be destroyed  get destroyed in gradual stages. He thus, made the characteristics of the land accordingly. He was aware that   divines to appear  should also be proportionate to the populace.
96. According to Garuda Purana, initially Brahma created only 84 lakhs . If we properly understand the Garuda Purana text, which is stated to be the most authentic text in Hinduism, Brahma created 84 lac souls per Deva Year (God Year) in Satya Yuga. One Deva year accounts to 306 human years for Brahma. The life of Satya Yuga was 1,728,000 human years which is equivalent to 4800 Deva Years. Thus, the total no of active souls created in Satya Yuga at the rate of 84 lac per Deva year, could have been 403.200 million which may have included all creations like humans and animals and other creatures which had active life in them.
97. As per Garuda Purana, out of 84 lakhs created by Lord Brahma, 21 lakhs came from eggs, 21 lakhs from tree and plant vines, 21 lakhs from humans and mammals, and the remaining 21 lakhs were from worms and insects. This means only 25% of the souls initially created by him would have been in human form. Based on this information we can conclude that in Satya Yuga, out of 403.200 million souls created by Brahma, hardly 100 million souls may have been humans. However, how much divine forces were released simultaneously is not made known in any puranic texts or even folk lores.
98. Brahma did not fill the vast land with souls instantly after he began creation. First he created seven rishis for specific acts to spread divinity in the vast land. There are contradictions on the first batch of Hermits- Seven Rishis- created by   The Vedic school of thoughts, Jaiminiya (The Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana –जैमिनीय उपनिषद्-ब्राह्मण) mentions the list as Agastya, Atri, Bharadwaja, Gautama, Jamadagni, Vashishta and Vishwamitra, while another principal text called Brihadaranyaka Upanishad mentions same list but listing the seventh hermit as Brigu instead of Agastya. Similarly, the names of seven hermits vary in other principal texts of varying schools of thought.
99. One of the principal reasons for the creation of seven Rishis by Brahma was to categorise the entire human population under seven groups or Kulas, each Kula representing one of the seven Rishis initially created. The Kula represented the family of persons or descendants of a family related by blood. Therefore, the entire descendants of each Kula will have single distinctive Gothra representing one of the Saptha Rishis. Here again we find that in some caste they have more Gothras and thus over 2500 Gothras are reportedly existing in the universe.
100. Brahma, though created highly knowledgeable seven Maharishis and arranged to bring out many divine forms from the body of ‘Supreme’, he perhaps did not intent to activate them in the land immediately and took time to first allow things to settle down in each of the four Yugas and rehearsed everything in the first few Yugas.
101. Once created, the seven hermits stood before Brahma confused, as they did not know why they were created. Brahma informed them that they were created to act as his prime messengers when the universe gets activated. He explained to them  all aspects of four Yugas, characteristics of souls in each Yugas, birth-death-rebirth circles for each of the souls, male-female theory, their partnership, children, ethics, norms in life, good and bad deeds, sins, their worship pattern, the manifestation of several divine forces in different appearances and shapes in different periods of time in different parts of the land. He further explained the importance of Kula Devatha or Tutelary/Family deity and how the souls will remain under the control of the divines, Kula Devatha or Tutelary/Family deity who would guide and guard them in the lands they manifest and many more such details and directed that they wait in invisible and inactive form for the present till they get activated by him.
102. They were clearly told that as and when Brahma activate the hermits at appropriate time, they will have to begin educating humans  on need of divines and paths of divinity so that the divine messengers in human form could also carry forward the preaching and teaching initiated to them thus articulating the Guru-Shishya relationship.
103. At the end of the doctrine by Brahma, the invisible Maharishis waiting for an opportune time to appear before public, got married with certain female souls created for them and entered in the land to accomplish their task. All of them remained inactive and invisible studying the aspects of the universe in silence.
104. It took several thousands of years for the Maharishis to understand the entire philosophy of the Universe and the doctrines of Brahma as the subject matter was vast, minute and complicated.
105. The next act of Brahma was creation of souls to be sent to the universe. All the souls released by him did not instantly take birth as humans. The souls initially released by Brahma turned into 15 to 20 categories of species from whom some percentage of the species turned into humans millions of years later in the course of four to five stages of evolution. Why was the said situation created and why not humans directly created?
106. From the findings of the scientists of Archaeological and Anthropologists, it is clear that the initial creations of Lord Brahma might have been in the category of Anthropoidea (the bigger-brained monkeys and apes) and 15 to 20 categories including dinosaurs, and chimpanzees like figures, mammals, trees and plants of nature. The movables lived by the side of mountains and rivers in plain land or thick forested areas created by Lord Brahma.
107. The scientists who studied the aspects of the Universe (Anthropologists) opine that some form of humans appeared only few million years ago from the present Yuga. Though the first primitive primates in the category of Anthropoidea (the bigger-brained monkeys and apes, including humans) appeared 55 million years ago, our oldest human ancestor thought to have walked on two legs evolved only about 6 million years ago due to the biological changes that caused the tailless apes and chimpanzees turn into the form of humans walking with two legs without knowledge.
108. It was Charles Darwin, a British naturalist who proposed the theory of biological evolution. The first anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, emerged around 4 to 7 million of years ago in Africa.  Human evolution, the lengthy process of change to turn into two leggier human emerged from apelike ancestors. Citing the fossils of early humans, like Homo habilis and Homo erectus which were  found in Africa ,the scientists who researched the  human evolution opined that the physical and behavioral traits shared by all kinds of humans originated only from apelike ancestors who appeared millions of years ago.  One of the earliest defining human traits,  the ability to walk on two legs,  evolved over 2 to 3 million years ago.
109. We can thus believe that the first stage of human race may have been evolved only after approximately 13.799 billion years after the cosmic was born and humans without knowledge appeared 6 to 7 million (not Billion) years ago. This means that no divines including Kula Devatha or Tutelary/Family deities were needed for over 13.699 years after the cosmic was created and during this period as said in previously they were getting some kind of shape in ‘Supreme’ Loga under the hands of Deva Shilpi Visvakarma.

110. Brahma needed time for the living creatures to slowly settle down on earth, get accustomed to the environment before a percentage of them turned into humans. It again took thousands of years for those to gain knowledge and to understand what was around them and get accustomed with natural inhabitant places like mountains, caves, rivers, lakes etc.
111. Initially Brahma released from his body four broad based souls. Several thousand years later those four broad based souls took the form of humans and further got divided into several groups or castes with endless branches after they gained sufficient knowledge. They formed varnas- four categories in human.
112. He meticulously worked out specific time frame, Yuga specific characteristics to the souls who will live on the land and gain sufficient knowledge to distinguish each from the others. Brahma decided that the entire souls created in the first Yuga will not instantly get converted into humans from the species born, but part of the souls will remain floating on the plane awaiting their conversion to some form in the land in Satya Yuga itself or will still be floating without gaining any form till end of Satya Yuga. This concept of floating souls was to display to the universe, the male-female theory, which would fructify when the male-female souls interact with each other to give birth to some of the floating souls on the plane.
113. Since the first primitive primates in the category of Anthropoidea (the bigger-brained monkeys and apes, including humans) appeared 55 million years ago and our oldest human ancestor thought to have walked on two legs evolved only 6 million years ago, the divines too may have started appearing only 6 million years ago on the vast land. This to some extent indicate the advent of Rig vedic period. This thus puts the age of Kula Devatha to much later period after human developed some kind of knowledge and wisdom.
114. Here the narratives based on the vedic texts and history halts and story on the emergence of divines as narrated by  word-of-mouth stories, discourses, as heard form temple priests and folk tales follows as given below.
115. After creating the vast land, Brahma divided the space into several pieces to facilitate the souls to go and settle in the spaces of their choice. He deliberately left the choice to the discretion of the human souls where to settle down. The clear picture on the demographic structure or terrestrial area of space created is not known, but pundits opine that they included entire universe covering mountains, rivers  beside forested areas covered with thick trees and animals.
116. The body of those souls which settled in spaces which were imbibed with divine in nature automatically absorbed the qualities- spiritual in nature embedded in those spaces.
117. Similarly whichever souls entered other spaces imbibed with other qualities, their bodies too automatically absorbed those qualities. This was kept as basic norms in canon of creation, lest one would not be able to realize the impact of good and evil or after effects.
118. The spaces imbibed with divine in nature were mostly occupied by the souls of saints, rishis and other spiritual minded folks while the rest of the spaces were occupied by other souls.
119. After the humans were activated, the seven Maharishis created by Brahma got activated and came out in open in those places where the souls turned into hermits entrenched. The seven Maharishis spent several days giving sermon to several divinely soul  humans and turned them into the forms of Rishis, Sages, saints who carried forward the messages of creation to the humans which appeared on the vast land during Satya Yuga which was the first Yuga released by Brahma.
120. In the land of human, each day works out to several  hundreds of years as stated in Puranas and Itihasas.  In Bhagavad Gita the duration of one day in Brahma Loka is given as 1,000 times the four yugas. Each  yuga  measured  4,300,000 years (Ref : https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/3/7/33/ ) In  Garudapuran too it is stated that one day of Brahma is composed of 1,000 cycles of four yugas – Satya, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali -totaling to 4.32 billion years.  Therefore, the seven Maharishis may have taken several hundred years to teach the spiritual minded souls on creation.
121. As several hundred years passed, the task force consisting of Rishis, saints and sages created by the seven Maharishis moved all around where humans had settled and began to give spiritual doctrines and knowledge revealing to the mankind the divine acts & plays. Now this was the period when the divines started appearing on the vast land. They were sent by the first line of divines. While the first line of divines continued to stay invisible in the sacred land created in the vast space (above earth) by the Supreme, they sent the second line of divines to the vast land to appear and enact divine plays.
122. How to get the folks fall into divinity? The first passion that was infused in the minds of humans was fear on unknown terrifying sounds and flash of eye breaking lights followed by ethics and norms to be practiced in one’s life. Infusion of fear was necessary to force them to accept the invisible divines who were to appear to guide and guard them as Kula Devatha or Tutelary/Family deity at much later stages.
123. While Brahma was developing the universe from primitive stage to that of human habitats, there in Supreme Loga the appearances of divines were getting shaped.
124. It is generally believed by the pundits that the divines emerged from Supreme Loga. According to mythology, Shiva is the single incarnation of all souls and deities. In Shaktism, Adi Parasakthi, is considered to be the Supreme both with and without qualities, and also Supreme in its energetic and non energetic state, the ultimate reality. According to Devi Suktham and Sri Suktham in Rigveda she is the womb of all creation. However, they were all embodiment of invisible Supreme only.
125. Though it is unclear as to how the divines whom we see today received specific appearances and shapes the broader opinion is that they received their features and appearances when Supreme released the cosmic which may have been the womb of female part of him and  who is embodiment of male-female energy.
126. However, the matter for debate is how the prime divines like  Siva, Maha Vishnu, Brahma and  Parvathi were shaped inside Supreme. Which fleet of divines got specific forms and shapes? Were entire fleet of divines who were created and energized inside the Supreme sent to earth? Were features of each divine pre-determined? These are some of the most difficult queries that remain unanswered.
127. Some of the spiritual masters explain that even before the Cosmic was created  several lakhs of invisible divines and deva ganas existed as divine energy rays within Supreme with certain characteristics and appearances.  Supreme plane was centralized energy center called Loga of Supreme in which lakhs of divine energy rays remained stored. Remember that the  earth and ocean were also lying inactive inside Supreme till he released them.
128. In the opinion of several pundits, prior to converting his energy rays in different forms and appearances, a principal architect of the universe –Deva Shilpi- was created by Supreme to shape the appearances of divines within him (Supreme) in the form of divine energies. It is believed that the divine architect sitting inside the body of Supreme gave shape and appearances to the entire fleet of divines that included prime divines like Siva, Vishnu, Brahma and Parvathi.


129. The Rig Veda mentions about the role of Deva Shilpi Visvakarma and so are few more Upanishads. Accordingly, Deva Shilpi Visvakarma brought out several images from his nave and used them as models for shaping the divine appearances. In the historical vedic religion, the role of Visvakarma as the builder of gods is attributed to Tvastar who was vedic artisan god or fashioner. Vedic Visvakarma is identified with Prajapati rather than Tvastar.
130. In later mythology, Visvakarma is sometimes seen identified with Tvastar who is a craftsman deity. Some of the vedic literature indicate that Prajapati and Tvastar were associated with creation, though in different ways. Prajapati is indicated as ‘lord of creatures’  while Tvastar is shown as a skilled craftsman who fashioned and created implements and objects, including weapons and vehicles. From puranas and vedic literature one thing remains clear- one or two craftsmen were responsible shaping the appearances of divines and other materials needed for the vast land.
131. The divines thus created remained invisible inside Supreme, waiting for call to manifest. Once every form and appearances were finalized inside his body, the invisible cosmic was made visible and it was left to Brahma to chalk out the destination for the manifestation of the divines created, and Brahma was exclusively authorized to work out their time of appearance in the vast land  liasoning with first line of divines.
132. This secret was revealed by Brahma to the first sets of Maharishis. Sriman Narayana (Lord Vishnu) too revealed the said secret to Narada Muni by way of sermon called Rahasya Sthuthi. Few pundits also say that the secret was revealed to Parvathi by none other than Shiva himself when they were sitting alone in a cave in Himalayas. Their conversation was overheard by a divine bird which revealed the secrets to hermits and Rishis who transmitted the contents to the folks of the universe by word-of-mouth stories/folk tales.
133. Why were the divines shaped  inside the body of Supreme? It is believed that the divine rays which were converted into some forms were needed to be energized suitably to play their active role in the cosmic. Unless the power rays were given some form and energized, it would not be possible for them to absorb or retain the scripts of their role in their body to display them whenever they descended on earth, lest there could be chaos in interaction between divines and humans. Primarily for this reason, divine power rays were given some body shape and appearance to absorb and retain the scripts to practice and rehearse them in the invisible universe inside Supreme.
134. It is interesting to know that during the first half period after the cosmic had been created, invisible energisation process was taking place inside Supreme. During learning process inside Supreme some of the deva ganas and divines incurred curses for one reason or the other for their flaws; similarly, some of the prime deities too accrued certain curses.
135. After the land space was created, when the souls were sent to the universe, many of those divine forces in the form of divine energies too descended on the land and hid themselves in the spaces allotted to them in their own appearance as shaped by Deva Shilpi.
136. Though Sanathana Dharma believe  that the features of the divines were known to the mankind only through Maharishi Ved Vyas who is credited to have included the illustrations of Hindu gods and goddesses in the texts compiled by him, what confuses is that in those periods of time everything were only transmitted orally which were earlier written on palm leaves. Perhaps those who compiled them in palm leaves might have  understood the true features of the divines by constantly contemplating (meditating) on them and left illustrations in palm leaves as they saw for future generation to copy them. When the divines emerged in the universe they were given a human sketch by few divine artists like famed Indian painter Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906), who gave classical representations of Hindu gods and goddesses basically by understanding the divine features mentioned in the palm leaves or in the oral transmissions.
137. Now coming back to the story, after the land was made ready by Brahma with human habitats, he had to also position various other creatures, animals etc. Simultaneously he had to ensure that the divines released by various divines were to be allowed to settle in the spaces allotted to them.
138. Prior to sending the souls to earth, Brahma desired to split the divines into various categories and remain invisible in the spaces earmarked for them even before human souls reached there. The divines were to appear gradually as folks gained knowledge and belief to accept the divines.
139. In short, Brahma’s creations included the several categories of divines to guide and guard the humans on earth.
140. The First line of deities were Prime divines in some form and settled in worship places or temples. They were mirror images of Shiva-Sakthi, but appeared in different other form with dual role to play. They enjoyed enormous divine powers to bestow or grant favors to the prayers of those who worshipped them regularly and in sincerity. They could enter any space on earth or air space, land or sea to protect the folks who pray to them sincerely. Besides they also protected the sub divines working under them whenever their existence was threatened. They were also empowered to manifest in any form whenever and wherever needed to annihilate the evils and war mongering Asura and Draconian forces even if it lay beyond their area of control
141. The first line of divines possessed unlimited territories to manifest and exercise their divine powers, however without defacing the basic norms of Brahma’s scripts of creation. The first line of divines are in different appearances and names, the classic example being Shiva in the shape of Shiva Ling in many temples addressed in several names. To quote few are Murutheeswarar, Kapaleeswarar, Vaitheeswaran, Chokkanathar and Kumbeswarar etc all appear in the form of a Shiva Ling. Parvathi is represented in the name of Tripurasundari, Lalithambigai, Kamatchi, Karpagambigai, Raja Rajeswari etc. Mahavishnu appears in the forms of Venkatachalapathi, Sarangapani, Srirangam Ranganatha swami, Puri Jagannath etc, etc. Normally all of them  do not turn into tutelary deities; only some of them became Kula Devatha/Tutelary/Family deities through their incarnations.

……….142 continued
References to all these points in last part