From East to West
Romany-Gypsy Pagan Roots and Hinduism
The Romany-Gypsy people came from Central/East India more than 1500 years ago and traveled to the Mediterranean, Europe, and the Americas.
From their origins in Odisha, an area of central and east India, they held Hindu beliefs, specifically Shaktism, a denomination of Hinduism. In Shaktism, a mother goddess created everything and is the essence of our existence.
This mother figure is Shakti the primordial mother, and her other names that depict her roles as a Goddess: Parvati, Goddess of Love, marriage, fertility, and war (as Durga and Kali), Saraswati the Goddess of Wisdom, and Lakshmi Goddess of Wealth and Good Luck.
In Hinduism there are three goddesses that are distinct identities of the same deity. To simplify, I’ll refer to her as Kali, an aspect said to portray the strongest form of Shakti, and embodies her universal role as Goddess.
Kali means time and refers to her dark blue skin. She represents mother nature. Ferocious and protective of those she loves, and the destroyer of ego.
Shaktism and the Evolution of Romani Belief
While traveling, the Romani people adopted different beliefs, but still kept their original shaktism beliefs in various forms. To reference my background, this would come in the form of Saint Sara e Kali, or Kali Sara, defined as Black Sara in english.
If you look at the various names of Shakti, you would see that it is related to Kali and Saraswati. While Kali herself is a form of Durga, who is a form of Parvati, the wife and consort of Lord Siva, an aspect of the Godhead of Hinduism.
Shaktism holds the divine feminine in reverence, but it doesn’t completely disregard the divine masculine. The divine masculine comes in the form of Brahman, Vishnu, and Siva.
Brahman is the creator aspect of the divine, Vishnu preserves creation and reality, and Siva is the destroyer that ends creation so it can be remade and reborn.
I’m going to focus on Siva because they considered him the strongest of the three, and, like Kali, the aspect that embodies the male divine principle.
Siva is a complex God associated with asceticism, tantra (Hindu occultism), and the divine consciousness.
He is said to be dancing, and by doing so, maintaining the universe. His dance is a metaphor for the movement of consciousness, the universal consciousness of mankind and creation.
There is a story where Parvati creates Kali out of rage to defeat an asura named Raktabija who multiplies when he bleeds.
So Kali drinks the blood spilled by the original asura and all his copies, thus ending him for good. Yet, she ends up going on a rampage until Siva falls to the ground before her, and in her rage, she dances upon his body.
This symbolizes two things:
Kali, as nature, holds supremacy over mankind, and
Kali is fiercer than the male divine — that is, without the activating force of the universe, consciousness would be lifeless and inert. That Shakti is necessary for the universe, and reality itself, to operate and live.
Bridging Siva to other Mythological Figures
To bridge Siva with Greek, or European mythology, they relate him to the horned God Cernunnos as Pashupati, the lord of the animals. Pashupati is thought to be a precursor to Siva in early Vedic beliefs.
There is a depiction of Siva on an old piece of art seated cross-legged surrounded by animals which is strikingly similar to that of the Gundestrup Cauldron depicting Cernunnos seated in a similar fashion.
In Greek mythology, he is the equivalent to Dionysus. They both embody madness, intoxication and the power of these states to either create, enlighten, or destroy. They are also both related to the bull and seen with tiger iconography.
In some ancient texts, in the time of Alexander the Great, there are references to Siva as the Indian equivalent of Dionysus, for their similarities and associations.
Siva is also associated with fertility and the phallic symbol seen in ancient Greece and Rome, through the lingam, a phallic depiction rising from a circular base.
It is my personal opinion from these associations that I would consider Siva a horned god, and in ancient India, the keeper of the mysteries.
Tantrics’ in India call on both Kali, as a dark goddess, and Siva for magical workings. In mythologies about Siva, they say he is in cemeteries among the dead with a host of demons.
With the preamble out of the way, how does this relate to modern Romanis now?
Romani Belief in the Modern Age
Modern Romanis hold some of the underlying beliefs of Shaktism from India to their treks across Europe.
With the rise in popularity of Kali Sara, we finally have a goddess of the Romani that embodies the mother goddess figure. Kali is syncretized with Catholicism as a fictionalized Christian Saint, and as a form of the Black Madonna.
Black Madonnas’ didn’t originate with the Romani, but instead was a pre-Christian ancient earth mother goddess who can relate to such goddesses as Isis, Demeter, Cybele, or Hekate.
The Romani Gypsies have merged the Earth Goddess, Kali, and a Christian figure into one goddess named Saint Sara e Kali of Egypt.
I didn’t forget about Siva, but the Romani don’t have a specific title for him, however the language they brought alludes to him.
The word for God is the Baro Devel, meaning the Great God. Devel comes from the Sanskrit word for gods, deva or devas.
More recently, the Christian Cross and Jesus Christ are referenced by the Romani word treshul, meaning trident. Specifically, the trident of Siva. This would mean that the romani people consider Siva the father God, and Christ as his son or incarnation.
Holding Fast to Forgotten Roots
Although the Romani people converted to Christianity, they still held onto their previous beliefs from the centuries of travel and their roots in Hinduism.
With that in mind, Christianity became syncretized when it was necessary to survive in the European landscape. Until the 20th and 21st century we filled our culture with superstitions and references to these ancient beliefs.
We, as Romany-Gypsy practitioners, use our ancestral roots and Christian folk magic to sustain a unique and fulfilling practice.
This would consist of charms to aid in everyday life, reverence for our mother goddess, the coming together of tantric principles with Christian mysticism, and the cultivation of our divinatory arts.
