The God Who Guards the Village From the Edge of the Forest

Walk out of a Tamil village and keep going until the fields stop.

Where the cultivated ground gives out and the forest or the wasteland begins, there is a tree. Under it, a stone, or three stones set together, or three bricks. They are marked with sacred ash, with sandal paste, with saffron.

And planted in the ground beside them is a trident - the badge of the Shiva-Shakti authority this god serves under.

That is the shrine. There is no building, and there does not need to be one.

The god standing there is Muniyandi, and he is facing outward.

Why there and not in the village

Muniyandi is not worshipped at the centre where the community's larger temples stand. He is worshipped at the boundary, and that is the whole design.

Think about what used to come out of that treeline.