The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2730 page)

A goddess of folk Hinduism, venerated particularly in Mah
r
ra, Kar
aka, and further south, by the lower
castes
. The most likely etymology of her name is from a Dravidian
l, ‘seven’, and
amman
, ‘mother, goddess’, and thus alludes to a belief, found all over W. India, in the ‘seven sisters’ or ‘seven mothers’. The main ritual centres of her worship are the temples of Mah
r (E. Mah
r
ra) and Saundatt
(Kar