The global COVID-19 pandemic triggered a variety of religious responses across the world. In India, one of the popular religious responses to the pandemic was the emergence of a new Goddess popularly named 'Corona Mata' during the first wave of the pandemic in rural and adjacent areas. The worship of 'Corona Mata' emerged during the initial weeks of the pandemic and continued for a few weeks until subsiding. The 'Corona Mata' worship incidents were labelled in the mainstream media as 'superstition' and 'irrational' etc. and were criticized for being an outcome of 'lack of education', 'stupidity' etc. This paper aims to move by problematizing the concept of ‘superstition’ to locate the phenomenon of 'Corona Mata' and related responses in the wider framework of Religion as a meaning-making exercise. Utilizing the phenomenological and functional perspectives on Religion which understand Religion as a meaning-making exercise, as a sacred canopy, as theorized in the works of Peter Berger and others, this paper seeks to explain the emergence of 'Corona Mata' not as an outcome of the superstition or irrationality of “uneducated” people, but as a meaningful response to those situations which threaten the very existence of human beings. This paper locates the novel phenomenon of 'Corona Mata' in the rich tradition of disease-related Goddess in India to show that a new Goddess can emerge during a crisis following a set template, in which the disease is understood as a 'demon' and Goddess as the 'Killer/Controller', as people try to understand, control and integrate any 'crisis' in their worldview in order to cope up and domesticate that crisis so that the everyday life can continue.
This paper will be based on primary data collected from news reports and videos to throw light on the origin story, rituals and beliefs related to Corona Mata.
