In this essay I describe an actual experience I had in South India with a pujari in the Palani Hills near Kodai Kanal, Tamil Nadu in South India. I begin by describing the nature of ancestor worship and the role of the pujari or priest. I also discuss a pujari’s mythological perception of the nature of the surrounding geography and its relation with the god Krishna and Shiva’s son, Murugan. We visited several sacred sites including a fig tree, the most sacred tree in the area. Finally I describe my experience of an annual Shiva Festival, which took place in one of the nearby villages, while drawing parallels between Shiva and the Greek god Dionysos. The ritual included a sacrifice of a cock, which undoubtedly registers symbolically in a meaningful way in the mind of the villager. I was reminded of the ancient Western sacrifice of a cock to Aesclupius, the wounded healer, and Socrates’ related query at the beginning of Timeus of the whereabouts of the long lost fourth, the body, bodily sensations and the physical world, which needs integration for healing of the Western psyche.
