Nīlācala: The Mountain of Desire, Death and Rebirth.

In Kāmarūpa (Assam) after the Hindu invasion headed by Naraka, the brāhmaṇas in order to legitimise the yoni (vulva) tribal symbol within the Brahmanic ideology manipulated the mythology of Dakṣa’s sacrifice. Therefore, only the North-eastern purāṇas narrate the origin of the śākta-pīṭhas (seats of the goddess) from the limbs of Satī, after her body’s dismemberment; her yoni landed on the Nīlācala in Kāmarūpa, where Kāmadeva (Desire) regained his shape after he had been incinerated by Śiva. Thence, the tribal yoni was transformed in the “yoni of Satī” and Nīlācala became the yoni-pīṭha. The Kāmarūpa is connected either with sexual or death imaginary, and both are inherited from tribal traditions. Yet the local goddess Kāmākhyā was absorbed into the Hindu pantheon, though her tribal roots survived within the mythologies of desire, death and rebirth which linked Kāmadeva and Satī to the temple of Kāmākhyā on Nīlācala, as well as in her aniconic cult and in its related ritual praxis. Thence, this essay aims to explain the cross-cultural negotiation which took place at Nīlācala, through the analysis of Sanskrit mythologies connected to the sacred hill as well as the study of ritual praxis linked to the temple of Kāmākhyā that was observed during a field-work period.