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A God for Bladder Control

I recently went through Wendy Doniger's The Hindus: An Alternative History. It's supposed to be an interesting book, among the sea of old Hindu stories, you will find old names like Sudhir Kakar, Ashis Nandy and Dean Koontz. Yeah, even Dean Koontz. But that somehow wasn't intersting enough for me. Instead, one of the most interesting 'Hindu' story that I came aross in recent times was narrated to me by a Marwari friend of mine. This friend of mine traces his family origins to a village called Behel in Rajasthan. In this village they have a god known simply as Malasi. It's the god of bladder control. Mothers pray to it to for their bed wetting kids and old men pray to it for a quick fix of their enlarged prostate. This rare god is represented, appropriately enough, by any simple stone.
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  1. SmitJun 28, 2010, 10:57:00 AM

    Who told u about the prostate, even i didnt knew that. And he is not a diety of behal only. Infact, his patronage includes quite major part of rajasthan. His main temple/shrine is in small village apptly named Malasi only. And his respresntation is not a stone but a well

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  2. Vinayak RazdanJun 29, 2010, 1:57:00 PM

    I think we were not sober when you first told me about it. Anyway, thanks for the additional info.

    ReplyDelete

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