Dikshitar
Southern Indian brahmin(priest) sub-
community. The Dikshitars are an
extremely small community and are
found mainly in the temple-town of
Chidambaramin the state of Ta m i l
Nadu. They are the hereditary servants
at the temple of Nataraja—the god
Shiva in his form as the “Lord of
the Dance.” According to their own
mythic understanding, the Dikshitars
were members of Nataraja’s heavenly
host (gana) when he lived in heaven.
They accompanied Nataraja when
he came down to earth, where they still
serve him.
Dilip
In Hindu mythology, one of the figures
in the charter myth describing how the
river Gangesdescended from heaven to
earth. Dilip is the great-grandson of
King Sagar, and the father of the sage
Bhagirath, who finally accomplishes
this task. The story begins with King
Sagar, whose 60,000 heroic sonsmade
the mistake of insulting the sage Kapila,
and have been burned to ash by the fire
of Kapila’s yogic powers. Kapila tells
Sagar’s grandson Anshumanthat the
souls of his dead uncles will find peace
only when the Ganges River (which is
considered to be the material form of
the goddess Ganga) comes down from
heaven and touches their ashes. After
this, the family labors unceasingly to do
this; Anshuman and Dilip die with this
goal unrealized, but Bhagirath finally
brings it to fruition by performing
asceticismuntil the gods agree to send
the Ganges to earth.
Dindi
Pilgrim group in the Varkari Panth, a
religious community that is centered
around the worshipof the god Vithoba
at his temple at Pandharpurin modern
Maharashtra. The primary Varkari reli-
gious practice is taking part in two
annual pilgrimages, in which all the par-
ticipants arrive in Pandharpur on the
same day. On this pilgrimage, pilgrims
travel in groups called dindis. Dindis are
often made up of people from the same
neighborhood or area and are usually
formed along castelines. During the pil-
grimage, members of a dindi travel as a
unit, walking and singing devotional
hymns together during the day, and
cooking and camping together at night.
These dindis thus create smaller
subcommunities within the larger
pilgrim body.Di Nobili, Roberto
(1577–1656) Jesuit priest and missionary
who spent much of his life in Maduraiin
southern India. Di Nobili came to India
to convert Indians to Catholicism and to
facilitate his attempt at following the
Jesuit pattern of learning the local lan-
guages, in this case Sanskrit (sacred lan-
guage) and Tamil. He also strove to
understand local culture and to gain the
ritual authority that came with brahmin
(priestly) status by emulating brahmin
practices (vegetarianism, modes of
dress, etc.), as a way to spread the
Gospel more effectively. He was a per-
ceptive and careful observer, but his
writings remained unpublished during
his lifetime. They have only been recently
rediscovered. See also Tamil language.Dipa
(“lamp”) The twelfth of the sixteen tradi-
tional upacharas(“offerings”) given to
a deityas part of worship, following the
model of treating the deity as an hon-
ored guest. In this action, the deity is
given an offering of light by waving a
lighted lamp before it. This rite more
commonly goes by the name of arati, a
word that is often used to denote wor-
ship in general. The underlying motive
here, as for all the upacharas, is to show
one’s love for the deity, and to minister
to the deity’s needs.Directions
In traditional Hindu reckoning, each of
the primary and intermediate directionsDikshitar