As the paddana sings it
Tulu Nadu · sung at the Guliga kola · 3 min read
On Kailasa, Shiva sat in the ash of the burning grounds, as he does, and the ash lay thick all about him. One day Parvati, sweeping it, found a small stone in the grey heap. It was warm, and it seemed to move in her hand.
She carried it to Shiva. "Look," she said. "There is something alive in this."
Shiva looked at it and frowned. "Nothing good," he said, and threw it away over the mountain.
Where the stone fell it split open, and out of it came Guliga. He was born hungry. He was so hungry that before he had taken a step, he looked up at the sun in the sky and reached for it to eat it.
The gods ran to Shiva, and Shiva, who would not have him back, sent him to Vishnu. Guliga came to Vishnu's house and asked for food. He ate everything he was given and then asked for more. He went down to Vishnu's lake, drank it dry and ate every fish in it. Then he stood in front of Vishnu, still hungry.
Vishnu had had enough. "Go and be born on the earth," he said, "and learn what a body is." And by his curse Guliga entered the womb of a woman called Nelaulla Sanke.
He would not wait to be born. In the womb he grew restless and then furious, and he tore his way out through his mother's left breast. He came out roaring, and his hunger came out with him.
He went back up to Vishnu and stood before him again. "I am hungry," he said.
Vishnu gave him elephants and horses to eat. Guliga drank their blood and ate their flesh and stood there wiping his mouth. "I am still hungry," he said.
The gods were afraid now. Nothing would fill him, and nothing would send him away. Then Vishnu did something that none of them expected. He held out his own hand and offered Guliga his little finger.
"Take this," said Vishnu.
Guliga took the little finger of Vishnu in his mouth, and bit, and swallowed. For the first time in his life he stood still. His hunger was gone.
Vishnu looked at him, calm at last, and found him a use. "There is a coast below the hills where people grow rice and keep cattle," he said. "They need a guardian who is not afraid of anything. Go down there and keep the boundaries of their land. Stand at the edge of every village and every temple and let nothing harmful in. They will feed you, and you will never want for food again."
Guliga went down to Tulu Nadu. He stands there still, at the edges of things, as a kshetrapala, a guardian of the field and the boundary. Every village has its post for him. When his kola comes round, the dancer who takes him on is wild and fierce and hungry, as Guliga was before he ate the finger, and the people give him offerings until he is calm.