Colonialism Rewrote Hinduism - Here's What They Erased

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]If you think you know what Hinduism is, then you probably don't. Because there's another version of Hinduism the world was never shown. When British scholars arrived in India, they took one of the most complex spiritual traditions and tried to fit it into a box. This is where the trouble started. They grabbed anything they could read and understand all of these ancient texts and labeled it Hinduism. And anything that didn't fit into that box was called primitive and superstitious. This is straight-up disrespect and Hinduism should not be treated this way. Because underneath all of the scriptures and texts, there's something else entirely. Something that was much older and never written down.

[00:00:43]In this video, we're going to talk about the folk tradition within Hinduism. This is one of the most dismissed and suppressed traditions within Hinduism.

[00:00:53]It's a whole tradition of worship that existed completely outside of what those scholars grabbed onto. And it was quietly passed down for generations. It was never written down, just simply practiced. And today we're going to clear everything up and talk about what this amazing tradition has to offer.

[00:01:13]So let's actually talk about what this tradition is. When most people think of Hinduism, they think of all the big gods like Vishnu, Shiva, and of course Devi, the divine feminine. These are deities that belong to everyone and worshipped across the entire world. But the folk tradition works completely differently.

[00:01:34]At the center of the tradition, we have something called the Grama Devata. Grama means village, Devata means deity. So this word literally means village deity.

[00:01:44]It's a god or goddess that belongs not to the entire world, but to one specific village. It belongs to one specific community and it protects that community completely. [music] Almost like a guardian deity. They watch over the entire village and protect everyone in that community. These deities can actually be tied to the land itself and therefore very connected with her devotees there. And the way these deities are worshipped is very communal.

[00:02:13]Everybody comes together. They do all of these seasonal festivals and collective rituals. It is not an individual relationship, but rather the entire community showing up for their guardian deity. But then there's something even more personal than this. We have the Kuladevata. Kula means family. This is your family deity. This is specific to your bloodline and passed down from your ancestors. It is completely fixed at birth. You do not choose them. You're born into that relationship with that deity. And this is where it gets really special. These gods actually know your family. They know your entire family history. They've been with your lineage for generations. They've protected your grandparents, your parents. Now they're protecting you and in the future they'll protect your descendants. [music] And if there's a birth or a marriage, the family needs to go to that deity and seek blessings before they do anything else. That's how personal this is. So it's not like praying to some distant god and hoping that someone hears you.

[00:03:20]This is more like that deity knows who you are and [music] they've been waiting for you this entire time. The folk tradition is very intimate, local and personal. And it is completely unlike anything you'd find in some grand temple or an ancient text. And what's remarkable is that this tradition is so ancient and way older than most people realize. But just how old is it and where did this tradition actually exist?

[00:03:50]Now here's what's wild about this tradition. This is not specific to one region. This exists across all parts of India. Tamil Nadu has Mariamman and Angala Devi. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have Pochamma. Bengal has Shitala and Dharma Thakur. So, every single region across the entire subcontinent have their own local deities. They may have different names, different forms, and different rituals, but it's the same structure everywhere.

[00:04:21]So, we're talking about a tradition that's worshipped by millions of people right now. This is not a dead tradition, and it has been like this for thousands of years. But, for some reason, no one's really talking about it much. Not because it's not real, but at some point, somebody decided that it wasn't worth paying attention to. So, now we're getting to the part that actually made me pretty angry, because this tradition, which is ancient, alive, and deeply personal, at some point started getting treated like it didn't matter. And a big part of why that happened traces back to colonialism. When the British arrived in India, they needed to understand what they were dealing with. And the way they approached this problem was to look for texts or written documents, things they could read, translate, and categorize, because that's how they understood religion. Christianity had the Bible, so Hinduism should also have something equivalent, right? So, they grabbed all of these ancient philosophical texts and the written scriptures and called it Hinduism. And anything that was oral, local, and unwritten did not make the cut. This is how folk traditions got left out and suppressed. And then, they ran a census. They tried to count and classify every single person in India by their religion. And anything that didn't fit neatly into their categories got forced into boxes that it was never meant to fit. [music] Scholars have also documented how the Western scholarship favored certain types of Hinduism. The philosophical and the written forms were favored. The rest got cut out. It was simply pushed to the margins. The folk traditions got the worst of it.

[00:06:14]literally given an academic label called the little tradition, and they were described in scholarly texts as primitive. This is a very strong word.

[00:06:25]The word primitive did damage because once you label something as primitive in an academic framework, it has consequences, long-term consequences that will last across generations. And that's what [music] happened. It changes how people see their own tradition, and it creates shame where there was none before. This is all very sad. Imagine feeling so close to a tradition that your family has been passing down and following for so many decades only to feel some sort of shame or guilt about it because it's not known or even recognized, because it's called the little tradition. And that was the real impact. It wasn't just that the outsiders dismissed it. It's that the dismissal became so embedded. It became so academic, official, and systematic.

[00:07:17]And then it started affecting how people within that tradition started to see themselves. Hinduism was never meant to be something that can be fit into a box.

[00:07:27]It was always this vast, diverse, living tradition. The folk practices, the village deities, they were never separate from Hinduism. They were always part of Hinduism and equally [music] valid. But someone else decided otherwise many years ago, and we're still living with that. But, we can work together to change this by giving equal respect and love towards [music] everybody within this tradition.

[00:07:54]Regardless of what deity they pray to, we have to respect each other. The outsiders are gone, but now is the time that we lift each other up. Now, let me talk about my personal story with my Kula Devata. This is how she came into my life very recently. I was in a store recently. It was a really small store that imports things from India. [music] I wasn't looking for anything particular, and then something caught my eye the moment I walked into the store.

[00:08:24]It was a really pretty murti. A murti of a feminine goddess. Absolutely beautiful. And I didn't know what it was, so I looked it up on my phone. It turned out to be Angala Devi. And I just stood there because this happened to be my family deity from my Telugu side.

[00:08:43]She's a niche folk goddess from the south part of India. And it's not exactly something that you would expect to be sitting on a shelf in a small store in my city. It was very unexpected and random. But, there she was on the exact day that I walked in. Of course, I took her home. She wasn't asking. She was literally telling me to take her home. [music] The moment I walked into that store, I knew I was going to buy that murti. Now, who is she? Angala Devi is a guardian deity who is worshipped in certain parts within South India. For me, it came from my roots in Andhra Pradesh. She is a guardian deity, and she is [music] my Kula Devata, which means family deity. One thing to know is that she is not a soft deity like Lakshmi. She does not gently bless you from a distance. [music] She literally shows up in your life. She intervenes and fixes you. She can be fierce when she needs to be [music] because that's what protection actually looks like.

[00:09:46]Growing up, I knew a lot about her. I've heard stories from my parents' side. My parent had mentioned about feeling this protective energy around them whenever they felt like something bad was about to happen or when something bad was already happening. Whenever they needed help, the deity showed up. In different ways, of course, but they were able to sense the deity's presence. [music] There's no rational explanation for this. This is something that you feel within your heart. The interesting part was that I was never connected to this deity in particular. Most of my calling is from Not Ayana. Lord Vishnu is who I look up to and pray whenever I need help. And then Angala Devi came into my life. I was very shocked. And when I brought her home, I started to notice a shift. I felt stronger. I started to make these decisions that I was too scared to make before. And I also started to see things more clearly as if something was dissolving all the illusions that I had built around my life. [music] So, the destroyer of illusions, a protective energy. She did not feel like a new presence. Felt like she was always there. I just had to open my eyes and connect [music] with her.

[00:10:58]And that was the moment I accepted her grace and love. So, that's the thing about Kuladevata's.

[00:11:04]>> [music] >> They don't wait for you to find them.

[00:11:06]They already know who you are. They know your family, your family history, >> [music] >> and when the time is right, they find you. Now, here's what I want to leave you with. The folk traditions were never a lesser version of Hinduism. The idea that some traditions are more valid than others did not come from within our own tradition. It was imposed from the outside and we absorbed it without realizing. And Hinduism was never just one thing. [music] The grand temples that we have, the ancient texts, the rich philosophy, and of course, the folk traditions, these are all Hinduism. And I think about that when I look at her murti now.

[00:11:46]>> [music] >> This deity that found me in a small store on an ordinary day. She did not arrive with a grand temple or an ancient scripture written in her name. [music] She arrived the way she always has.

[00:12:00]Quietly and personally. She found me because she already knew me. And I think that's the most beautiful thing ever.

[00:12:07]The divine doesn't always arrive in the way that you expect. Sometimes it arrives in a small store. The folk tradition within Hinduism is an integral part of the religion. And as Hindus, we need to unite together to spread the word of all the different traditions within Sanatana Dharma. They all have something amazing to offer everybody.

[00:12:28]One thing I'm proud about is the fact that my religion is so diverse and vast.

[00:12:33]There are so many ways of worshipping the divine. And of course, there's so many ways of connecting with the divine.

[00:12:39]And you never know how the divine will actually reach out to you. If you'd like more videos on topics like these, please comment below on Gauri Devi. And if you like this video, please hit that subscribe button, leave a like, and a comment. As always, thank you for all your support and love. I'll see you in the next video. Take care.

[00:13:07]Mhm.