Stories of the Flesh: Colonial and Anthropological Discourses on the South Indian Goddess Mariyamman

by Perundevi Srinivasan

M.Sc., Chemistry, Annamalai University, India, 1988

M.A., Women’s Studies, Mother Teresa Women’s University, India, 1995

M.A., Religion, The George Washington University, 2008

M.Phil., Human Sciences, The George Washington University, 2005

A Dissertation submitted to

The Faculty of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

August 31, 2009

Dissertation directed by

Alfred John Hiltebeitel Professor of Religion and Human Sciences The Columbian College of The George Washington University certifies that Perundevi

Srinivasan has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of

June 18, 2009. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation.

Stories of the Flesh: Colonial and Anthropological Discourses on the South Indian Goddess Mariyamman

Perundevi Srinivasan

Dissertation Research Committee:

Alfred John Hiltebeitel, Professor of Religion and Human Sciences, Dissertation Director

Marshall W. Alcorn, Jr., Professor of English and Human Sciences, Committee Member

Andrew Zimmerman, Associate Professor of History and Human Sciences, Committee

Member

ii

© Copyright 2009 by Perundevi Srinivasan All rights reserved

iii Acknowledgements

This dissertation would not have been possible without the intellectual succor and emotional support provided by Professor Alf Hiltebeitel. A meticulous and brilliant scholar as he is, Alf introduced me to scholarship in the fields of religion and human sciences. Alf helped me shape the ideas of this dissertation as they evolved through our continuous conversations and his stimulating critiques. He guided me how to do field research with unflagging enthusiasm by being a model of a productive field researcher himself. And above all, he is a wonderful and generous person. I feel blessed to have him as my mentor. I am at a loss for words to thank him.

Professor Marshall Alcorn has greatly contributed to my growth as a scholar. He helped me to familiarize myself with the works of various scholars including Judith

Butler, whose theoretical frameworks and ideas I engage with to a considerable degree in this dissertation. With his resourceful remarks and suggestions Professor Alcorn helped me to build the interdisciplinary dimension of this dissertation. This work of mine owes a lot to him.

The historical and postcolonial perspectives that one can encounter in this work find their exclusive origin in Professor Andrew Zimmerman’s class on colonial and postcolonial modernities and imperialism. Professor Zimmerman, through this class and through his attentive review of my chapters, helped me locate this work within a convincing setting of the colonial history of medicine. I wish to thank Professor

Zimmerman for this.

Professor Indira V. Peterson has kindly consented to be the external reader of this dissertation and she has offered insightful comments. Professor Judith A. Plotz has been

iv an enthusiastic supporter of my research from the beginning and has provided thoughtful responses. I am grateful to both Professor Peterson and Professor Plotz.

Apart from my graduate advisor and my committee members, I am indebted to several others professors including Professors Peter Caws, Christopher Britt, Gail Weiss, and Jeffrey Cohen, who have taught me during my time as a student at the Human

Sciences Program at the George Washington University. Indeed, it is the rigorous training in human sciences given by my professors that has served as a foundation for this interdisciplinary dissertation.

This is an occasion for me to thank the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences at the George Washington University for their assistance in terms of stipend and fellowship. Professor Gail Weiss who served as Director of Human Sciences ensured my financial sustenance throughout the period of my study at the George Washington

University.

My ethnographic field research in India was generously funded by the American

Institute of Indian Studies. I was a Junior Research Fellow with the American Institute of

Indian Studies during 2005-2006. A Cotlow Research grant from the Anthropology department at the George Washington University also helped to conduct preliminary fieldwork in India during Summer 2004.

I have been fortunate to have great friends throughout my life both in India and the United States. Dr. K.R. Usha provided good and timely assistance in editing this dissertation. Similarly, Jennifer Sieck, Rajiv Menon, and Allison Taylor helped me with my English amidst their hectic schedules. Jennifer’s encouraging words served as a raft whenever I had felt I would drown in the process of organizing the sea of my fieldwork

v materials into writing. From the day I landed in the United States, Pamela Jones and

Michel Wilhelm have proved to be a great source of strength to me. I have found my family in the United States. Vineetha Chakrapani, T.P. Mahadevan, Diana Santillan, and

Annamalai were there for me throughout the period of my doctoral study. I have benefited from my conversations with Rajan Krishnan. I wish to thank these friends as well as numerous other friends who were with me at some point of time or the other when I was working on this research project.

I made a hard decision eight years back to quit a government job in India and come to engage in doctoral study in the United States. But for the tremendous encouragement and unswerving backing of my friends Uma, Janakiraman and Vembu and my father I would not be here where I am now. My special thanks to Vembu who was with me during my fieldwork and emotionally nourished me throughout the process of writing this dissertation. Finally, it is the goddess Mariyamman’s enabling grace that has guided me all through these years. I feel this dissertation and I are very much part of her and belong to her.

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Abstract of Dissertation

Stories of the Flesh: Colonial and Anthropological Discourses on the South Indian Goddess Mariyamman

My work explores how a body afflicted with poxes (ammai) “matters” (Butler) as

Mariyamman, the goddess of poxes widely worshipped in Tamilnadu, south India. It engages in two intertwined tasks: first, it deconstructs the identification of the pox- afflicted body as Mariyamman by unearthing the figurative, iconic imaginaries the afflicted body shares with an anthill and with a cultivated field. Second, the work asks how the goddess is produced as an originary essence, having immanent and eminent authority over a body through discursive practices. Tracing a continuum between the discursive practices at the ammai-afflicted home and the temple festival, it underscores a transformability of bodily states, which are marked with the “presence” of the goddess and/or are subjected to her. The discursive practices performatively constitute the goddess as “styles of the flesh” or a corporeal sign during the affliction of ammai and during the goddess’s “arrival” in devotees at her festival, instituting a cosmic personhood.

The discursive practices related to Mariyamman operate as a field of power, or

“force relations” (Foucault), pertaining to a heteronormative economy and law that revolve around two tropes: chastity (karpu) and purity (cuttam). A critical inquiry into the narratives shows that chastity, which is localized in the feminine/goddess’s body, is, in reality, the reiterative heteronormative power that produces the feminine subject/goddess according to hegemonic cultural norms. In habitual practices during ammai-affliction and Mariyamman’s festival, sexual abstinence as purity presents itself

vii as a mandatory condition for a body to be identified as the goddess, bringing heteronormativity to the foreground.

Considering the exchanges between Mariyamman worship and the colonial smallpox vaccination, this work argues that the vaccination project disregarded the iconic identification of the afflicted body with Mariyamman and thus challenged the cultural notion of a cosmic personhood. Nevertheless, “local” healing of ammai even today manipulates this perpetually constituted cosmic personhood in effecting curative outcomes. “Local” healing incorporates biomedicine, a “sign of the modern,” as the sign of the goddess, emphasizing a discursive realm of modern personhood that is not abstracted from the goddess.

viii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements...... iv

Dissertation Abstract...... vii

Table of Contents...... ix

List of Figures ...... xii

List of Tables ...………..………………………………………………………………..xiii

List of Maps...... …………………………….………xiv

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1

Chapter One: Constructing the Goddess:

Colonial Anthropological and Vaccination Discourses

Section I: The Seal of the Goddess…………………………………...…31

Section II: Vaccination: Government’s Pearls…..………………………57

Chapter Two: Mariyamman as the Source of Smallpox Vaccine…..…….……………..69

Chapter Three: Affliction, Materiality, Signification………..……………………..……97

Chapter Four: Eyes, Holes, Pearls:

Genealogy of the Identification of the Goddess with Ammai

Section I: Body, Anthill, Serpent………………………...... ……….143

Section II: Sprouts of the Body, Sprouts of the Field…………..………169

Section III: The Deity of Ammai as the Feminine Power…………..….193

Chapter Five: The Broken Pot and the Beheaded Body:

Chastity as Heteronormative Power……………………………...……..209

ix Section I: Renuka’s Pot:

Chastity as Regulatory Heteronormative Power…….………214

Section II: Sukanikai-Karumariyamman:

Chastity as Prohibitive Heteronormative Power……………230

Section III: The Eye:

Instantiation of Reproductive Heterosexuality

and Revenge………………………………………...... ……248

Chapter Six: Body Body Everywhere:

Impaled Son, Burnt Husband, and Others

Section I: Introduction to Mariyamman Festivals:

“Force Relations” and Bodies-nodes……….………………261

Section II: Ati Festival………………………………………………….276

Section III: Virgin Mother and Her Son Kattavarayan……………...…302

Section IV: “Have a Husband and Eat Him Too:”

The Husband-Post of Mariyamman ………..……….……327

Chapter Seven: When Body Matters as the Goddess:

“Styles of the Flesh”

Section I: Sakti Karakam Performance………………………………358

Section II: Drum and Dancer…………………………...……………375

Section III: Goddess as “Styles of the Flesh”…………..……………400

Chapter Eight: “I Gave Crocin Pills only after Calling them Margosa Leaves:”

Biomedicine in the Performative Theatre of Healing ….…………….420

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….………….444

x Bibliography…………...……………………………………………………………….463

Appendix…………………………………………………………………….…………478

xi List of Figures

1. John Bull and Mother India………………………………………………………. 454

2. Woman carrying a mulappari pot, Melur……………………………….…………455

3. Renuka and her pot. A painting at Renuka Devi's temple, Padavedu (near Vellore)…………………………………………………...………455

4. Parasurama joins heads with bodies, A painting at Renuka Devi's temple, Padavedu (near Vellore)…………….……...456

5. Waiting for alaku-piercing, Samayapuram………………….……………….…….456

6. Valangaiman cetil …………………………………………………….....………...457

7. Pataikkavati, Valangaiman…………………………………………..……...... …...457

8. Husband-post, Kukai………………………...…….……………...... ….457

9. Picture of Mariyamman’s husband on the post…………...……………..………....458

10. Javaram, Annatanappatti………………………………..……………..……...... 458

11. Alaku-piercing, Kukai…….…………………………….…………….…...………458

12. Procession of Sadacci and children is going to start, Dindigul……………....……459

13. Poster printed by a Dalit group inviting all to participate in planting the post at Mariyamman temple, Dindigul……………………...……….459

14. Sakti karakam, Mugapper…………………………………………………………460

15. Muttukkannu, a healer of ammai, Pudukkottai………………………..…………..460

xii List of Tables

1. Course of Festival Events (relating to Renuka’s hi-stories)……………….……….461

2. Course of Festival Events (relating to Mariyamman temple sites with the “husband-post”)………….……….462

xiii List of Maps

1. Sites visited in Tamilnadu and Pondicherry (Puducherry)……………….………….30

2. From Thoppur the “land of kambam/post” begins………………………………….356

3. Temple festivals with the post (kambam), with the impalement stake and with both ………………………………………………………………...……..357

xiv Introduction

There is a popular Tamil film named “Ati Parasakti,” meaning “primordial

Sakti/goddess.” The film, which was first screened in 1971, was a big-time hit and eventually was regarded as a classic. From the year of its screening, when I was only six, until now, I have watched that movie more than a dozen times. One fascinating scene which made me revisit the film features a British officer and the goddess Mariyamman of

Thanjavur in Tamilnadu.1 The scene introduces this British officer riding his horse with his retinue. He hears the peal of the bell at Mariyamman temple as he passes by and enters the temple in curiosity. He sets his foot in the temple with his boots on. This disrespectful gesture to the goddess is shown in a close-up shot. At the temple, he ridicules those who perform various forms of debt vows and makes fun of goddesses:

“How many goddesses do you people have? There is Minakshi in Madurai, Kamakshi in

Kanchi and Mariyamman in Thanjavur.” The officer then spots some beads of water on the deity’s face (even today one can see such beads on the face of Mariyamman’s icon in

Thanjavur) and enquires about them. The priest explains them as the beads of sweat that occur naturally on the goddess’s face, because she takes the heat that causes poxes and measles in people upon her. The officer cannot believe this and asks the priest to wipe the beads from the deity’s face. When the priest refuses to do so, he threatens him that he is an officer from the government and that the priest should obey his words. As the priest, with hesitation and fear, wipes off the beads, smallpox pustules appear on the face of the British officer, who loses his sight as well. At once he realizes he has made a mistake and asks for the goddess’s forgiveness.

1 The story seems to be related to Mariyamman at Punnainallur, a suburb of Thanjavur.

1 The goddess appears right there with a bunch of twigs of vembu or margosa

(Melia azadirachta, also called neem) in one hand and a firepot in the other. She waves the bunch against the body of the man and heals the pustules, singing a song, pleading to

Mariyamman (herself) to make the pearls “descend” or roll down the body. The poxes on the British officer disappear. The lyric of the song that pleads to Mariyamman to heal the poxes also offers a comment about the man: “Forgive him, mother. …This child is from the West and he is an ignorant boy. Show mercy upon him.” The goddess then reveals to him that she is one Sakti who manifests in various forms such as Minakshi of Madurai,

Visalakshi of Kasi and Kamakshi of Kanchipuram. Finally she tells him that she is

Mariyamman of Thanjavur, who fights against the cruel rule (meaning the British rule).2

When I was doing my fieldwork on Mariyamman in Tamilnadu, elderly people who I met in the field, in expressing the goddess’s power, often brought up the British in conversation. The elders remarked, “Mariyamman is powerful. Even the British were afraid of her,” and “The only one ‘person’ the British were really terrified of was our

Mariyamman.” Some of these conversationalists would bring up an anecdote from the life-history of a local chieftain called Virapandiaya Kattabomman, who fought against the

British. When the British army pursued a younger brother of this chieftain, the women of a village covered him with a cloth and hung margosa leaves at the entrance of the house, signifying the presence of smallpox at a house. The story goes that upon seeing the leaves, the British ran away at once.

2 Later in the film, the British officer narrates this incident to his wife and remarks that Mari is none other than Mary. This amounts to his coming to terms with the cultural practices of the colonized, since he now “recognizes” the power and supremacy of a divine figure of the colonized as being on par with a divine figure from his own religion.

2 In my fieldwork in Tamilnadu, I met a middle-aged gurukkal (priest), named

Bhagavati Gurukkal, in a Mariyamman temple at Kovilpalayam, near Coimbatore. He proudly showed me his arms, telling me that no one in his household was vaccinated for smallpox. “What is the vaccine after all? It is a type of milk from our body. In the British period they took it from the body and again administered it upon us. But why do we need it? We have Mariyamman who can take care of the milk in such a way that the milk in our body appearing as poxes on our body does not turn into poison and kill us.” I expressed surprise on hearing his remarks, since the smallpox vaccination had been compulsory even until the 1980’s in India. He explained to me that his family and neighbors never “believed” (nambikkai illai) in the vaccination: “The goddess will take care of everything. When I was in school, they vaccinated my body in fifteen places.

Nothing happened. All the marks of the incisions disappeared in a day or two. When I was in fifth grade, I got smallpox. Within three days, the ‘pearls’ (pustules) went away.”

Such stories were not isolated. Savithri amma, an elderly woman who hails from

Mayavaram and is presently my neighbor in Chennai, once told me that she had heard from her mother that in those days, if someone died of smallpox, nobody would report it to the government (the British were ruling in the period that she described), because it was feared that the corpses might be seized for getting “milk” (liquid matter in pustules) for vaccinating people.

Inspired by the film and hearing these stories, I was interested to know: if the popular perceptions had pitted Mariyamman against the British, how could the British convince the people of south India to accept the smallpox vaccination? Was the cultural practice of Mariyamman worship taken into consideration in the process of dissemination

3 of the smallpox vaccine? But these questions, their validity and significance notwithstanding, soon proved to be a small part of an inquiry about Mariyamman: the goddess has eventually emerged in the course of my fieldwork as an intricate cultural sign of corporeality that enacts and is constituted through a network of discursive practices. In these practices, affliction of poxes operates as an instance and occasion to reiterate cultural norms and notions that convey much more than a disease.

Let me begin with a basic simple fact. Mariyamman is not only a goddess of smallpox in Tamilnadu; she is a goddess of ammai, which is a Tamil term used to refer to at least sixteen varieties of poxes and measles (Janakakumari 1968), as also of rain and of general well-being in Tamilnadu. The Tamil term “ammai” means both the mother/goddess and poxes and measles. (Hereafter in this work I will use the term ammai, unless I need to refer to a specific variety of ammai, which I will mention distinctly.) In Tamilnadu, people believe that the goddess “arrives” upon a body during the affliction of ammai. When someone is afflicted with ammai, her/his house gets a distinct mark in the form of a bunch of margosa twigs hung on the entrance to indicate the goddess’s arrived “presence” at the house. With the hanging of margosa twigs, a set of restrictive and mandatory practices, which one can call habitual practices, are inaugurated at home.3 When seeking a cure for ammai, usually one does not resort to a physician. Quite often the family takes a debt vow (nerttikkatan) to Mariyamman, so that she ‘descends’ from the body soon. When an imminent cure is not in sight, a traditional male or female healer is sought for, who visits the house regularly and recites the goddess’s songs to enable healing.

3 I discuss my usage of the term “habitual practices” in detail in Chapter Three.

4 We can find a seamless continuity in the habitual practices followed at home and the “ritual” performances at the Mariyamman festival, as I shall show in this work. Just as the goddess arrives as ammai at a home, so too, during festivals at Mariyamman temples, does she arrive (varutal) upon her devotees, who are then identified as

Mariyamman. The investment of the body with the presence of the goddess during the festival is indicated by terms such as “arul vantirukku,” meaning the “presence” has arrived. In the temple ceremonies, the “presence” of the goddess as “arul" in the participants is sought for to assure the people that the proper course of conduct of key festival “rituals” of the goddess is being followed. 4 The arrival of the goddess’s

“presence” is also considered ideal in the devotees who perform debt vows (nerttikkatan) at the festival.

My work explores how a body is identified as Mariyamman in the contexts of afflicted homes and temple festivals. Some of the questions it asks are: How can one understand the identification of a body afflicted with ammai as Mariyamman, a female deity? Does such identification of an illness as a female deity betray any misogynist cultural assumptions? Is there a correspondence between an ammai-afflicted body and an arul-arrived body at Mariyamman festivals, since both bodies are regarded as

Mariyamman? How is the interiority or subjectivity staged in the act of identification?

4 David Shulman (2002) points out, “arul” has been “misleadingly, translated as ‘grace,’ when what is meant is a kind of fluid, shimmering fullness, marked by shifting, unpredictable intensities” (135). Shulman also draws attention to the root of the word “arulu,” which he says is “appropriate to a divinity or other elevated personage as he or she enters into movement, action or some intentional state—or more generally, as he or she becomes present” (134). For him, “self-transformation in Tamil religion is primarily a matter of this arul—presence” (134). Anthony Gardner Harris (2008), in his dissertation “Obtaining Grace: Locating the Origins of a Tamil Saiva Precept,” articulates the notion of “arul” as including both “emotional components (i.e. mercy, love, compassion, etc.)” and “specific theological aspects (i.e. grace)” (10). In this work, I use “presence” to refer to ammai and arul, because in both of these contexts, Mariyamman is believed to arrive, manifesting her presence in/as a human body. I feel while the term “presence” includes a certain sense of “grace,” the term “grace” indicates the corporeal “presence” less evidently.

5 How did the colonial smallpox vaccination practices encounter and engage with the cultural practices that identify an ammai-afflicted body as the goddess?

I would like to deal briefly with the choice of my focus on the body as the primary tool and object in the research. Of late, there has been an increased skepticism in focusing on and deploying the body as a critical tool in scholarship. James H Mills and

Satadru Sen (2004) point out two streams of criticism that have been launched against employing the analytical tool “body” in critical discourses. Mills and Sen draw our attention to a general critique, advanced by Bryan Turner, who has claimed that “in adopting the body as an interpretive tool in South Asia the investigator is simply exporting a cultural product of late-twentieth-century Western society—the obsession with the body—to the non-West” (Mills and Sen 2004, 3). Second, using the body as an analytical tool has been criticized as falling back into the paradigm of colonial anthropological discourses, which believed that the anthropological analyst needs to focus on “the body of the ‘natives’ as the correct means of understanding them …” (Mills and Sen 3). These two critiques are further implicated by the recent postmodern emphasis on the body, for the postmodern approach is occasionally charged with

“‘methodological individualism,’ which has deliberately produced ‘the depoliticising insulation of social from material domains’ and a ‘refusal of any kind of programmatic politics’” (Mills and Sen 3). According to Mills and Sen, however, the “wholesale” dismissal of the body is “mistaken,” since the “body” has been “at the heart of systems of society, of metaphor and identity in South Asia long before Europeans came to have an impact in the region, and certainly long before Western academics began to explore concepts of the corporal” (4). Further, the body has been a “key means of

6 differentiation” in social organization “as the manifestation and center of ‘purity’ and

‘untouchability’,” and has been pivotal in the “definition of possibilities of Indian females throughout history” (Mills and Sen 4). Hence, Mills and Sen argue that notwithstanding the fact that body has increasingly acquired relevance with colonial practices and in modern Western scholarship about South Asia, since the body has been used “as an organizing concept and as a representational space” in South Asian societies and cultures for so long, it can serve as a “legitimate and proper tool” in understanding these cultures (Mills and Sen 5).

While I agree with these arguments advanced by Mills and Sen, my reasons for focusing on the body through this research are different: first, during ammai,

Mariyamman’s arrival is discerned with the manifestation of pustules or “pearls” of ammai upon the body. Similarly, during the festival, Mariyamman’s arrival is recognized through bodily movements of a goddess-dancer, such as trembling of the body, dynamic footsteps, intertwining of forearms, fast-paced dances, and dramatic, divinatory utterances and shouts. Second, there is another pertinent reason for me to situate the body at the locus of this research: not only has the ammai-afflicted body as a site been fraught with the interventionist colonial agenda that promoted the modern, scientific vaccine, but during the affliction of ammai the habitual practices followed at home meticulously focus upon the body. Similarly, certain restrictions (viratam) followed by devotees during the goddess’s festival are also organized around the body. Keeping these considerations in view, it will be seen that the body turns up at an interface between the archives of the discursive practices of smallpox vaccination and the discursive practices of Mariyamman worship in this work.

7 Goddess Scholarship

A brief survey on works of South Indian goddesses would be appropriate before I engage with the question of body. Most of the previous scholarly texts on Mariyamman worship confine themselves within the limited frameworks of annual temple festivals at particular Mariyamman temples (Beck 1981; Nishimura 1987; Craddock 1994; Younger

1980; Foulston 2002) or describe or interpret a related set of rituals and myths. A few other works (for instance, David Kinsley’s work on goddesses, 1987) include

Mariyamman in their scope as one among many “village goddesses” following the legacy of colonial ethnographies (Oppert 1893; Elmore 1915; Whitehead 1921) that have incorporated the goddess in their encyclopedic purview. Works on Mariyamman operate primarily within symbolist paradigms (Beck 1969, 1981; Ramanujan 1986; Craddock

1994) and address ammai only as one more dimension of the goddess, without concerning themselves with the discourses of ammai. The modern medical intervention against ammai that has had interactions with Mariyamman worship does not enter their scope either. Nevertheless, this work observes that a significant discursive connection is perpetually forged between ammai and Mariyamman, whose perceived power over the affliction expands into other valences and contexts. Almost all narratives of Mariyamman and festival events at Mariyamman temples articulate this connection in one form or another.

Similarly, even though cultural practices of Mariyamman are interwoven with discourses of ammai, major works on smallpox in the Indian history of medicine operate within the “realistic” epidemiological paradigms of disease, paying scant attention to

Mariyamman. I shall discuss these works in the first chapter. Margaret Trawick Egnor’s

8 (1984) article on Mariyamman is an exception to these trends, 5 as it interconnects smallpox and the goddess. But unfortunately, Egnor has incorrectly assumed that the relationship between Mariyamman and ammai disappeared with the eradication of smallpox from India. Against this background, I consider it necessary to cross disciplinary boundaries and analyze the discursive practices related to the goddess and affliction of ammai together, since they are interwoven and formative of each other. My work attempts to anchor “religious studies” in a broader socio-cultural Tamil context.

Generally, much of the history of existing scholarship on India’s goddesses has been the history of the emergence of two thought-models (Jameson 1972) 6 : a

“substantialist” model that conceives its “object of study” as a pre-given autonomous entity or essence; and a dichotomous, “relational” model that can serve classificatory purposes when a huge ensemble of data is confronted. The latter model, which undertakes this classificatory enterprise, still draws upon the notion of essence or

5 Ralph W. Nicholas (1981) in a rich article analyzes the relationship between the history of smallpox and the history of the goddess Sitala in the state of Bengal, and argues that the “religious interpretation” of the disease of smallpox “does not exclude a naturalistic comprehension” of the same (4). Nicholas also lays out the history of smallpox in India. He traces smallpox to a disease called “masurika,” which surfaces in the “early medical compilations of Caraka and Susruta,” which, he says, “appear to have taken shape before the Christian era” (25). Further, Nicholas points out that that although the goddess Sitala “emerged in the medical texts of Bengal about the beginning of the sixteenth century” (29), the icons of goddess Sitala date back to twelfth century (29-30). From the twelfth century onwards, the goddess Sitala was “introduced” to account for the epidemic form of the affliction as a “divine” force operating against kingdoms. My present work is more concerned with the Tamil cultural conception of the body as the goddess Mariyamman, and with how modern smallpox vaccination has encountered such identification, rather than with tracing the history of the affliction, or of Mariyamman. 6 Fredric Jameson points out that the “history of thought” has been a “history of its models” (1972, v). In articulating the “substantialist” and “dichotomous” models in goddess scholarship, I am inspired by Jameson, although he does not use these terms as such in the way I use them. Jameson observes that in the “history of thought” one could find an “organic model,” which relies “too heavily on substanitalist thinking” (vi). He explains what he means by this: “If its objects of study are not given in advance as autonomous entities, it tends to invent fictive ones for methodological purposes, as in the various organic theories of society or culture” (vi). According to Jameson, this model of thought was eventually challenged by the “model of language” which emphasized a “relational” model, as one can see in the linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Saussure (13). Such a perceptional shift, Jameson argues, placed “values” and “relationships” in the place of a priori “substances” and “entities” (15). Jameson seems to present these two models as successive. On the contrary, these two models seem to operate co-extensively in goddess scholarship.

9 substantiality that can be contained in two slots.7 These two models, mutually implicating each other, made major waves in ethnography with the works of W. T. Elmore (1915) and Henry Whitehead (1921), with their construal of a particular set of deities (especially

“village” goddesses) as “Dravidian” within a dichotomous framework, contrasting them with the Hindu-Aryan ones, based on the model provided by Rev. Robert Caldwell. I will discuss this trend in the first chapter.

In the works of these colonial ethnographers as well as in later ethnographic studies, the goddess, taken as a “Dravidian” entity, simultaneously slid into a set of homologous “substantialist” as well as “dichotomous” slots, such as “local-village/pan-

Indian,” “folk/classical,” and “earthly/spiritual.” For instance, one can consider the dichotomous frameworks such as popular religion/systematic philosophical religion

(Manna 1993), non-Brahmin/Brahmin (Craddock 1994), and village traditions/great

Sanskritic traditions (Beck 1981; Egnor 1984), within which the goddess is located.

Replicating these divisionary lines, the goddess has also become a bearer of dualistic labels like tooth mother/breast mother (Ramanujan 1986) or a site of ambivalence and double or dual nature (Brubaker 1978; Egnor 1984). 8 For the major part, through

7 The trouble felt by the missionaries in coming to terms with heterogeneous forms of worship in India is evident. Elmore, for instance, writes on the “difficulties” that one encounters on learning about “local gods” that the “material” on the subject “while almost limitless is very fugitive” (introduction, x). 8 Richard Brubaker classifies the goddesses under “benevolence” and “ambivalence” and stacks other dichotomies upon these (unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Chicago, 1978, 15-17). According to him, “benevolent” goddesses are married, pure, and vegetarian. The “ambivalent” goddesses are independent, associated with pollution, and meat-eating. He further extends this dichotomy to those having “periodic festivals” and those who have festivals “occasioned by the erratic onslaughts of epidemics or other calamities.” He calls Mariyamman an “ambivalent mistress.” Such categorization is problematic: to cite a few problems in such conceptualization, Mairyamman is vegetarian in some temples and non-vegetarian in others (see Chapter Seven, where I briefly point out such differences). She has regular annual or biannual festival in many temples. Further, “purity” or cuttam is almost “obsessive” concern in Mariyamman temples. Foulston (2002) critiques the existing models of classification including those of “breast mother/tooth mother” of A.K. Ramanujan’s (Foulston 178) and Lawrence Babb’s “Sanskritic/non- Sanskritic” goddesses (Foulston 175). Rightly she also finds the term “ambivalent” problematic (121-23). But again she goes by the notion of classification, and presents an extensive typology, including diet, form,

10 perpetuation of these two “thought-models” in ethnographic studies, the goddess as an object of inquiry is “fixed” as a substantial category according to scholarly interests and assumptions.9 Analyzing Egnor’s article on Mariyamman as an example in Chapter One, I will point out how the enterprise of substantializing and dichotomizing can lead to strange scholarly assumptions. Considering the above works as the guiding points of departure, my discussion will attempt to trace and inquire into the genealogical discourses that are formative of the goddess Mariyamman. This process will continue to unfold in this work, bringing out a fresh understanding of the “goddess” as sustained and mobilized by and through specific discursive practices that pertain not only to the public space of the temple but also to the private space of home.

It needs to be mentioned here that Madeleine Biardeau’s work on the sacrificial posts ([1989] 2004) challenges the dualist framework of religious phenomena. While recognizing the deterministic durability of the dichotomous framework in the religious studies on the goddess, Biardeau’s work attempts to reintegrate and identify a continuum of phenomena, categorized as the “classical”/“folk” or “Sanskritic/Pan-Indian” and

“Dravidian/local.”10 Biardeau’s “interpretive method” organizes the material on goddess worship for the purpose of tracing the discourses on “posts.” Biardeau traces the supposed impact of Vedic practices involving the sacrificial post or yupa upon the form taken by posts found in connection with popular practices running from Orissa through character, marital status, and inducement of possession etc. for goddesses (esp. 178-86). Nevertheless, she adds a cautionary note that the classificatory tables are useful only “in a general way” (187). 9 Eveline Meyer (1986), in her work centering on the goddess Ankalaparamecuvari, brings forth the “problematics of any classification” of deities in her critique of V. Das’s usage of the terms “left” and “right.” Yet Meyer too seems to believe in substantialist notions in her regarding the goddess primarily as a pre-given “cosmogonic concept” and a “clearly defined female deity” and in her concern to delineate the “salient features” of Ankalaparamecuvari (40). 10 Alf Hiltebeitel’s works on Draupadi (1988; 1991) also bridge the dichotomies of classical Sanskritic/folk vernacular and trace a continuum between them. But I will restrict my detailed discussion on Biardeau’s work here, since it speaks of Mariyamman, with whom this dissertation is concerned.

11 Andhra to Tamilnadu (Srinivasan 2005, 784). The symbol of the post, with its three strands of name, form and substance, is specifically traced along the cultural landscape of goddess worship in Tamilnadu in Part II of her book. Biardeau warns her readers not to follow any “simple diffusionist hypothesis” in considering the elements that one finds in the goddess’s worship, such as the impalement posts one finds in the arid region of

Ramnad as replicas or the theme (of the yupa or post) inherent in higher, brahmanical,

Vedic Hinduism (Biardeau 150). She is skeptical of fixing “origins,” as one can see from such a cautious approach. However, in spite of her skepticism, Biardeau’s employment of terms such as “initial” and “original” in reference to Vedic practices (for instance, in page

2 in Introduction) sometimes steers her inquiry toward locating the source of anteriority of the structural motif of the post in the Vedas. At one point in her text, Biardeau asks readers to assume that “brahmanical ascendancy, making itself felt by society as a whole, provided models which, while having been transmitted, underwent modifications to adjust to the sectors of society that received them, or that indeed welcomed them” (32). I can understand Biardeau’s contention that “we have no means of reconstructing what the indigenous [local] populations were prior to the newcomers’ [Brahmins’] arrival” (32-3).

But, as I have pointed out in my review of her work, this inability cannot rule out “any exchange or mutual influence of equal import between the ‘indigenous’ populations and the ‘newcomers’” (Srinivasan 2005, 787).11 Moreover, why should an analysis exclude the possibility of a temporal discontinuity in discursive practices? Even in the absence of

11 I have pointed out in the review: …not only is it time to inquire into the cultural conditions that construct and underlie the very idea of the category ‘indigenous,’ but, delimiting my observation to the context of the work [of Biardeau] at hand, I think that the non-availability of the means of constructing the cultures of ‘indigenous’ populations should not lead us to conclude that the ‘indigenous’ populations were primarily the borrowers of a model, or were devoid of creative, symbolic imagination that would enable them to be the providers of the mainframe of a model. (2005, 787)

12 a means of reconstructing the past, why should we assume a certain discursive unity thematically worked out through a symbol?

From my ethnographic work on Mariyamman worship in Tamilnadu, I found that posts, such as the three-pronged tree planted in front of the Mariyamman shrines or impalement stakes, rework discourses of the ammai-afflicted body. Not only impalement stakes but needles pierced into bodies, flour-lamps offered to the goddess, thousand-eyed pots carried for the goddess, and other such practices are tied with “local” discursive practices of ammai. My conversationalists barely mentioned anything concerning a

Vedic framework. While Biardeau’s work deals with local practices tied to material objects such as impalement stakes, tracing them to Vedic prototypes, my work engages more with how “local” discursive practices relates to the goddess and body matter to people.

By emphasizing the “local,” I do not claim to present an “authentic” framework as an alternative to the Vedic sacrificial framework to analyze these practices; rather, by that emphasis I allude to the irreducible specificity embedded in these practices. My interest lies in providing a counter-narrative of Mariyamman worship practices as framed specifically in “local” discursive practices. Instead of prioritizing a specific framework, namely the Vedic sacrifice or ammai affliction as an a priori source for Mariyamman- related practices, my work intends to draw attention to the interrelated discursive practices of the goddess at ammai-afflicted homes and at Mariyamman temples. The discursive practices organize the dynamics of the body, which is perpetually constituted as Mariyamman during ammai-affliction and festival events. One can also hope to go beyond this. I believe it is possible to point out directions regarding how these “local”

13 discourses of the body during ammai-affliction and during temple festivals provide certain transformability of signs, which would extend a reading within the Vedic sacrificial paradigm as well, although such a task is beyond the scope of this work at present.

“Critical Genealogy” of Matter or “Porul”

An ammai-afflicted body or an arul-arrived body is an instance, which cannot be imagined as something other than that which is coded with the goddess’s “presence.” In other words, if I follow Judith Butler’s “critical genealogy” of the formulation of matter, the goddess’s presence provides a “schema”, that is, a grid of cultural criteria for the body to be intelligible (1993, 32). Butler advocates the concept of “critical genealogy” in order to interrogate the assumed “biological” facticity of the body and to ground the body as produced by cultural norms and practices. In her genealogical analysis of “matter,”

Butler deploys Aristotle, especially his notion of schema—the shape given to the body through its actualization through soul. Schema means “form, shape, figure, appearance, dress, gesture, figure of a syllogism and grammatical form” (Butler 1993, 33). Aristotle did not make any “phenomenal distinction between materiality and intelligibility,” argues

Butler (1993, 33). As the schema has been implicated with the matter through which it

“actualizes,” the indissolubility, between schema and matter, implies that “[matter] only appears under a certain grammatical form …” (1993, 33) or under a schema.12 Butler notes that the Aristotelean introduction of schema was a move to install “the principle of intelligibility in the very development of the body” (1993, 33). This sort of installation,

12 According to Aristotle, the question as to whether the soul and the body are one is “as meaningless as to ask whether the wax and the shape given to it by the stamp are one…” Butler notes that the entire phrase ‘the shape given by the stamp’ is rendered in Greek by a single word—schema. Reflecting on schema, Butler shows how the understanding of the body always occurs in conjunction with its cultural intelligibility.

14 according to Butler, is a “natural teleology that accounts for female development through the rationale of biology.” Such strategic installation has naturalized certain social functions for women, and “restricted [them] to the reproductive domain” (1993, 33).

Butler, thus, demonstrates that body cannot be construed as belonging to a

“natural” biology that is beyond and outside culture. Rather, body dissimulates a specific history of discursive practices, which have relegated the body to the biological realm.

Body, therefore, is implicated by this history of discursive practices from the beginning.

This “critical genealogy” can help one to interrogate the prevailing conception of bodily matter as a natural material and to perceive matter as a sign (1993, 49).13 “‘To matter’,”

Butler writes, is at once “to materialize” and “to mean” (1993, 32) and, therefore, the

“indissolubility of materiality and signification is no easy matter” (1993, 30). Further, schema is implicated in the production of the body as sign, with the production of the body being enabled through signifying practices. For Butler, these signifying practices are also performative, for they do not simply make a pre-given body known or intelligible, but take part in materializing as well as signifying the bodies, qualifying some of them as human or more or less human, and constituting some others as excluded abject in the discursive realm of sex. By “performative” practice, Butler means to indicate the “discursive practice,” which “enacts or produces that which it names” (1993,

13). Butler, in explicating the performative, cites the biblical phrase, i.e. “Let there be light!” as an instance of performative (1993, 13). The divine, first of all, comes into

13 In her discussion, Butler rereads Luce Irigaray’s reading of Plato’s form/matter categorization. She contests Irigaray’s conceptualization of matter into two categories: speculative and untheorizable matter that exceeds matter symbolizing the feminine and which falls outside chora; and, matter as a metaphysical category that falls within the phallogocentric economy and reason (1993, 43-9). This reading, Butler contests, is flawed due to its unquestioned assumption of one category of materiality as femininity and due to its failure to deal with materiality as a sign.

15 being through discursive practices: in regarding an object (needless to say that this includes a thought-object as well) as divine, naming it as divine and effecting it as divine go hand in hand. In other words, naming and consecrating simultaneously produce and constitute something as divine.

While Butler’s inquiry into schema is concerned with the intelligibility of the body as a specific sex, as male or female, or as abject in general life scenarios, I think the method of “critical genealogy” of materiality is indispensable for analyzing the practices that characterize the goddess worship and ammai. Let us look at the Tamil word “porul,” which, interestingly, informs us of the epistemological indissolubility of materiality and meaning, in the Tamil context. The word denotes both “thing/matter” and

“meaning/signification.” When I say, “un porulaip parttukkol,” it means “keep an eye on your thing/s;” when I say, “accollin porul enakkup puriyavillai,” it means “I don’t comprehend the meaning of that word;” if I complain “nan avanukkup porutte illai,” it means “I do not matter to him at all;” and if I say “aval ataip porutpaduttavillai,” it means “She did not take it into cognizance.” The “indissolubility” between porul as thing/matter as well as meaning/signification can be elucidated with the first few sutras

(formulae) of the “Peyariyal” (“Naming”) section of the Tamil grammar text

Tolkappiyam.

The first sutra in the section is: All words are those that designate porul. The word “kurittanave,” which I have translated as “designate,” implies a sense of indexing and pointing toward. I believe that such indexing or pointing anchors a word onto meaning and matter at once by forging a metonymic indexical connection between the word and the meaning on the one hand, and between the word and the matter on the

16 other, conflating, thereby, the materiality and the meaning. Analogous to the Western

(Greek) philosophical tradition, the “indissolubility of materialization and signification” does not appear to be an “easy matter” in Tamil epistemological tradition either, as one understands from the Tolkappiyam (1993, 30). The “indissolubility of materialization and signification” manifests obviously in Ilampuranar’s commentary of the next sutra in

Peyariyal, where he interprets the word “porunmai,” which can be translated as

“materiality,” as “porul” itself.14

Further, a conception of “schema” is embedded in a Tamil phrase “ammai varttal,” which is commonly used to refer to the instance of ammai-affliction. The verb

“varttal” can mean “pouring/infusing” as well as “casting in a mold.” The meaning

“casting in a mold” can orient our discussion on the body during the affliction of ammai, although “pouring/infusing” also alludes to pouring into a mold. The act of “casting in the mold” with/of ammai, presents us with the afflicted body as a “morphological possibility” with a certain “shape” or “schema.” One can contend that this shape or the schema is the “presence” of the goddess with which the body is realized during ammai. In other words, it is the “presence” of the goddess with which the body is materialized and understood during ammai. As the presence of the goddess operates as a “principle of intelligibility” during ammai, in a similar way, the presence of the goddess operates as a

“principle of intelligibility” in instances of arul, which always mark the festivals of

14 The sutra reads: The learned say it is with the word (that) the word-ness (conmai) and the materiality (porunmai) are discerned. The commentator Ilampuranar in his exegesis of the sutra writes: “The learned say that it is the word through which the discerning of ‘porul,’ which is different from the word, takes place, and the discerning of the word itself without discerning its ‘porul’ takes place” (142). For Ilampuranar, thus, “conmai” is the word’s function and ability to be “self referential” (Tamilavan 24). Concerning “porunmai,” in which I am more interested now, Ilampuranar renders that the act of discerning “porul,” which he equates with “porunmai” or “materiality,” as discursively made possible through word.

17 Mariyamman. In both contexts, the body, in which presence of the goddess is invested,

“means” as well as “matters” only in and through this presence, and not otherwise.

I argue that the presence of the goddess is actualized through the act of materialization and signification of the body as the goddess during ammai and during

Mariyamman festivals. At the festivals, this actualization is performatively effected through mutually informed and informing discursive practices of performances and narratives of the goddess. In other words, the performative practices repeatedly constitute the goddess as the body of the person. At a complimentary level at the home, during ammai, materialization and signification of the body as the goddess is perpetually reiterated and reinforced by performative practices that are habitually followed (see

Chapter Three) and network with the practices of narrations and performances of the temple festivals, as we shall explore.

When I say the presence of the goddess actualizes only through the performative production of the body as the goddess, a better phrase indicating this actualization would be “body-goddess,” rather than “body as the goddess,” since both body and the goddess are one and the same at the instance of actualization. However, since the “presence” of the goddess is considered as an originary essence in the discursive practices, in order to problematize such consideration, I employ “as,” albeit awkwardly, between the body and the goddess. The presence of the goddess comes to function, in the first place, as a key criterion or as a principle of intelligibility during such actualization, only because the presence is taken as an essence in itself, apart from and a priori to the process of actualizing it as it is. As Slavoj Zizek (1989) would say, the secret of the presence of the goddess is its temporal form of actualization—here the body-goddess itself.

18 Tracing the genealogy of identification of the affliction of ammai with

Mariyamman has been a major objective of this study. Firstly, I will engage with this task to understand how the goddess or her presence is “normatively” established, or in other words, is taken as an originary essence in the instance of ammai.15 If one contends that the goddess “possesses” a person causing ammai, it amounts to first taking the goddess as a given, a priori source of affliction. Perhaps this is an instance of an effect masquerading as a cause, and it is equally possible to propose that the identification of ammai as such with the deity Mariyamman might have led to the eventual belief that

Mariyamman occupies the body in the form of ammai. If the latter is the case, there is clearly misogyny at work in such a correlation of an affliction with the feminine and the goddess. However, it is noteworthy that in the south Indian cultural context, ammai has connotations other than ailment or affliction too. In the ethnographic sources of songs and narratives, ammai is often described as a sport of the goddess and the afflicted body is depicted as that which is decorated with pearls and gems. The goddess is believed to arrive with “compassion” to dwell in the human body, granting the person a boon of

“pearls” as pustules.16

15 I use the term “normative” expanding the sense in which Butler uses it. Butler uses the term to mean the “norms that govern gender.” But she adds that the term also is indicative of “ethical justification, how it is established, what concrete consequences proceed there from” (Gender 1999, xx). 16 One can compare this with the “traditional” perception of the disease in the Bible. Smallpox has been invoked in connection with Job; although David E. Shuttleton points out that the “original text does not give Job’s eruptive disease a specific name” (63, also see Job 30. 30-31). Yet, Shuttleton observes that the eruptive disease that Job suffered was cited by theologians of the early eighteenth century to argue against smallpox inoculation because it was the Devil that gave forth the “inflammatory pustules” upon Job (63). Notwithstanding the conflation between original smallpox and its antidotal inoculation, the association of pustules with the Devil strikes a different tone from the south Indian perception of the affliction. I should also mention here that like Mariyamman, in North as well as Eastern India, there is a goddess called Sitala who is associated with poxes and measles. However, as I understand from Susan Wadley’s writing, she has a more limited role compared to Mariyamman. For instance, Sitala is not connected with rains, and nor is she considered as a territorial goddess as Mariyamman is (“Sitala,” 57).

19 In a theoretical move to deconstruct the assumption that authorizes an essentialist construal of the goddess occupying the body during ammai-affliction, I raise a different question: What could have been the triggering conditions in which a female deity is taken as the source of ammai, when ammai also has benevolent signification? In the course of unearthing the genealogy of the identification of the affliction with the goddess, I argue that such identification is forged by what I term “iconic imaginaries” or imagistic representations of a “figurative kind” (Reynolds 1995, 23) that socially circulate as meaningful understandings of the afflicted body. For example, an ammai-afflicted body is visualized as an anthill and as a cultivated field, both of which are conventionally identified with the feminine in the Tamil context. As we shall see in Chapter Four, the figurative association of an ammai-afflicted body with an anthill as well as a cultivated field offers innovative frameworks to unearth the cultural notion of Mariyamman at immanent and eminent levels.

The goddess as an originary essence stems from a cultural recognition of her at an eminent plane, from a cultural conception of the goddess as a divine figure having the authority over the human body and occupying the body during ammai. Hence, my second task is concerned with mapping how the goddess of ammai is constituted as such through discursive practices. As we shall see in this work, the discursive practices that establish the goddess of ammai relate to the contexts of both the afflicted home and Mariyamman temple, and include temple festivals and healing performances of poxes at home. The discursive practices are performative, effecting and producing the goddess, deploying certain strategies and operations for this purpose. These practices are explored in

Chapters Five to Eight.

20 Heteronormative Power and Discursive Practices

The discursive terrain of Mariyamman worship is marked with two key inter- related tropes, karpu (chastity) and cuttam (purity-cleanliness). While the trope of

“chastity” traverses the narratives about Mariyamman, a closely-connected trope of

“purity,” emphasizing sexual restraint in thought and deed, organizes the strategies in materializing and producing the body as the goddess at home and in the temple. The narratives—I will call them hi-stories 17 —of Mariyamman foreground a condition of chastity as a frugal sexual economy or an effective deployment of sexual resources of the woman or the goddess. The narratives locate as well as prescribe such a condition in the body of a woman/goddess in the modality of her inherent “power” or “sakti.” It is expressed in the narratives that the accumulated sexual resources could produce miraculous manifestations and phenomena. The goddess’s “power” or sakti to afflict others with ammai and the goddess’s own status as a sufferer of ammai are intricately presented along with the underlying notion of a frugal sexual economy. When the frugal sexual economy is disrupted by sexual desire, the disruptor is punished and even faces a possible threat of death. For example, narratives include instances of the goddess being beheaded or her husband, seeking sexual union with her being burnt to death.

A critical interrogation of the narratives demonstrates that the power localized in the body of a female through the frugal sexual economy is, after all, not a quintessential power of the feminine. Following Foucault, I consider this power of frugal sexual economy as a discursive power and as a power that is embedded and is operative through a “multiple and mobile field of force relations” that traverse through discourse (1978,

17 See Chapter Three for my reason in employing “hi-story” instead of “myth.”

21 102).18 Interrogating the discursive practices, I propose and show that chastity should be considered as an articulation falling within the “juridical” (regulative and prohibitive) as well as “productive” heteronormative power and discourse (Gender, 4 and 39). 19 By heteronormative power and discourse, I mean a “nexus of power and discourse” that

“carve[s] up genders into masculine and feminine,”20 reifies these categories as if they are

“naturally” and “essentially” given, and perpetuates them as normative positions. As we encounter it in the discursive practices, on the one hand, the feminine body is subjected to the regulative heteronormative power through the reinforcements and reiterations of patrilineal reproductive heterosexuality through the codes of pativrata dharma (duty of a wife to her husband), which includes marital fidelity. On the other hand, the feminine body is subjected to the heteronormative power in its prohibitive capacity, which emphasizes virginity or absolute sexual control in the woman. Such an inquiry into the two operative modes of the heteronormative power could help explain why, in the Tamil context, chastity advocated for women takes two avatars—marital fidelity and virginity.21

I suggest that these two modalities of the heteronormative power are made evident in the puberty ceremony (puppuccatanku) celebrated for the first menstruation of girls, initiating them into adulthood, in Tamilnadu. The ceremony that inaugurates the appropriation of the female body within a familial exchange of the heterosexual matrix, produces the menstrual seed of the feminine as the property of the male on the one hand,

18 Foucault does not give a “substantive” or “subject” status to power. See Foucault (1978, 102). Also see Butler (1993, 225) 19 See Chapter Five for how I follow Butler and Foucault in my using “prohibitive,” “regulative” and “productive” capacities of power in foregrounding the subject. 20 I have derived this definition from Butler (1993, 225 and Gender, 1999, 84). 21 Scholars including David Shulman have pointed out how Tamil discourses of chastity are driven from articulating “chastity as devotion to one’s husband” toward articulating “chastity as virginity” (Rajam 261- 65; Shulman 1980, 148).

22 and as a pure paradigmatic materiality that can be appropriated under the male right on the other hand.

Significantly, along with these two modalities, there is a productive discursive dimension to the heteronormative power as well. As a material effect of the “reiterating acts” of productive heternonormative power, the “chaste” feminine subject in the form of the goddess is perpetually produced co-extensively along with its other effects that often take the form of miraculous phenomena. Furthermore, this chaste feminine subject is simultaneously presented as an object-site that has suffered the affliction of poxes and an agent that causes affliction of poxes upon others. Occasionally, one encounters a substitute “object-site” or substitute victim taking the place of the goddess in such practices.

Now, two implications arise out of such a constitution of the goddess in discursive practices, each with two facets. First, the goddess as a sufferer of poxes provides a model of identification of an ammai-afflicted human body with Mariyamman, and at the same time, the afflicting power “exercised” by the goddess over others (in the hi-stories, it is mostly male gods) installs her as a deity with an eminent authority over others’ bodies. Second, the discursive practices articulate a continuity between an ammai- afflicted home and a Mariyamman festival: the festival scene, especially, is replete with bodily states or bodies-nodes, such as bodies undertaking varied debt vows and elements such as karakam (a “sacred” pot containing water) that refer to or allude to ammai; and on a complementary plane, the goddess’s eminent authority is expanded from the realm of disease to a general governance of life, which is more explicit in the festival context.

One can encounter articulations of Mariyamman’s sovereign power with which she

23 arbitrates and regulates social situations, such as those, marked by “inappropriate” heterosexual desire, that run across castes or is incestuous; and in other situations by granting rain and protecting the welfare of a town, etc. In such a role and capacity, the goddess as a sovereign punishes and protects the bodies of her subjects.

The heteronormative power is not the only “vector of power” that operates through the discursive practices of the goddess. There are “force relations” pertaining to hegemonic caste regime that run through the practices. The dynamics of these “force relations” lead to discursive violence perpetuated on marginalized caste groups, or Dalits, who are articulated as those coveting upper-caste girls and those embodying killing poxes.

Interestingly, the regulatory caste regime that works in the practices goes along with and further consolidates the heteronormative regime, as we shall see in certain areas.

Nevertheless, my work focuses more on the regulative regime of heteronormativity than other regimes of power embedded in the discursive practices of the goddess. 22

Through the discursive practices or “vector” of heteronormative power, along with other “vectors” of power, the body is continually constituted as the goddess. The instances of ammai and arul offer a theoretical framework of understanding the corporeal

“presence” of/as the goddess as well. Problematizing the notion of a deity arriving from an external source and “possessing” a body or person, my work presents alternative popular notions which speak of the deity as coming from the interiority (manacu) or the immanent location of the body arriving and manifesting upon the body. Building upon

22 See Butler’s cautious warning about focusing on one modality or kind of power: “…any analysis which foregrounds one vector of power over another will doubtless become vulnerable to criticisms that it not only ignores or devalues the others, but that its own constructions depend on the exclusion of the others in order to proceed” (1993, 18). Butler, however, immediately points out that a writer cannot posit her writing as that which embodies all possible knowledge about a subject. She continues: “On the other hand, any analysis which pretends to be able to encompass every vector of power runs the risk of a certain epistemological imperialism which consists in the presupposition that any given writer might fully stand for and explain the complexities of contemporary power” (1993, 19).

24 these notions and drawing from my conversations, my work argues that a consideration of the body as the goddess is facilitated by the afflicted or arul-arrived “variable” bodily contours, functioning as a “signifying surface.” 23 Irrespective of whether the goddess comes from inside or from outside, as one gathers, during the instances of arul and ammai, Mariyamman is perpetually constituted as a corporeal mode of being or “styles of the flesh” (Gender, 177).24 Further, these corporeal “styles” are performative, and their

“meaning-construction” is relegated to the audiences/family members, who take and consider the ammai-afflicted and arul-arrived persons as the cosmic person or the goddess, in accordance with the established cultural norms. In the “local” healing of ammai, which is conducted when the poxes do not “descend” soon, the afflicted body that matters as the goddess is manipulated through a lullaby sung to the goddess to effect an early cure.

Biomedical Intervention and the Local Healing of Ammai

What happened when the British tried to promote the smallpox vaccine in a culture that celebrates Mariyamman in connection with ammai-affliction and that constitutes a cosmic goddess out of an ammai-afflicted body? I respond to this query from the point of view of cultural practices of the goddess, rather than from a history of medicine perspective. Smallpox, eradicated from Indian soil in the 1970s, is just one aspect of the goddess, as I have delineated. Yet it was a fatal disease and the colonial government struggled with the dissemination of the vaccine in a culture that associates a goddess with the poxes. Worship practices of Mariyamman have been referred to in the discourses of colonial government records in the context of smallpox vaccination time

23 See Butler’s analysis of Foucault on the body as “surface signification” (Gender, 172). 24Consider Butler’s arguments concerning “gendered bodies” as varied “styles of the flesh” (Gender, 177).

25 and again. A double dynamic operates in these discourses, which construct the goddess both as a challenge and as a vulnerable component in the path of the medical intervention in the form of the smallpox vaccine. Interestingly, this double dynamic replicates a similar double dynamic operating in the colonial ethnographies of the goddess, which articulate the goddess both as a challenge and as a vulnerable component in the path of the advancement of Christianity. The “civilizational rhetoric,” framed in the discourses of

Christianity in ethnographies and in the discourses of public health in the form of medical intervention, thus constructs and projects the goddess as an ambiguous episteme. Chapter

One explores this construction of the goddess.

Nevertheless, in actual field practices, the colonial vaccination propaganda campaign appears to have viewed the goddess positively. Drawing from propaganda materials including a play written by a Public Health official (1933) and leaflets, one can map a strategy of appropriation of Mariyamman as the source of the smallpox vaccine in the colonial public vaccination campaign. Although these propaganda materials relate to the early twentieth century, such a tendency or suggestion of appropriating the goddess for the vaccine propaganda can be traced to early nineteenth century materials involving the colonial missionary-ethnographer Abbe Dubois and the colonial administrator Francis

Whyte Ellis, as I show in Chapter Two.

This appropriation does not amount to a point blank acceptance of “native” thought of ammai as the goddess by the colonial administration. One can find an obvious disjunction between the local cultural conception of the goddess and the way in which the goddess is brought in to serve colonial public health interests. The disjunction entails the selective recognition of the “presence” of the goddess: while the colonial vaccination

26 campaign tactfully presented Mariyamman as a source and supporter of the smallpox vaccine, it did not concede the presence of the goddess as an ammai-afflicted body. In other words, Mariyamman’s immanent presence in the body as ammai was disregarded in the campaign. Such disinvestment of the presence of the goddess from the body in the colonial public health discourses goes along with the production of the “objectified spectral body” by the discourses of “colonial governmentality,” as argued by Gyan

Prakash (2000).

Manipulation of the goddess by biomedical practices, namely colonial smallpox vaccination, is, however, just one side of the story. Contemporary discursive practices of the goddess and ammai incorporate biomedicine, such as pills like antihistamines or paracetamol, as well. In a healing performance of chickenpox at a village near

Pudukkottai, which I present in Chapter Eight, such pills are assimilated in the name of margosa leaves, considered as accessories and favorites of Mariyamman. Biomedicine,

“sign of the modern,”25 reframed as a sign of the goddess and assimilated in the healing corpus, partakes of the discursive constitution of the ammai-afflicted body as the cosmic goddess.

Fieldwork and Method

A final brief note on the sites of my field research and method: Mariyamman is a goddess who is worshipped not only throughout Tamilnadu, but also in the neighboring states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala and the Union territory of Puducherry.

My work concerns her worship within the Tamil cultural space of Tamilnadu and

Puducherry. I was fortunate enough to get a dissertation fieldwork grant for a year during

2005-2006 from the American Institute of Indian Studies, but my curiosity about the

25 See Prakash (2003, 40). Chapter Eight discusses about this.

27 subject originally developed way back when I was afflicted with chickenpox in 1989, with my household following most of the habitual practices related to the goddess that I discuss in the work. Further, in 2000, when I came to know of Renuka-Mariyamman at

Kodalikaruppur (a village near Kumbakonam) as my family deity, my research interest developed a personal dimension as well.

The resources I draw upon for this work are disparate: archival colonial government records and colonial ethnographies on the goddess, colonial public propaganda leaflets and chapbooks, articles, and comments published in local magazines and journals during the colonial period, palm-leaf manuscripts of Mariyamman songs, published temple legends and songs of Mariyamman, personal conversations, and ethnographic sources gathered in selective sites of Mariyamman temples in Tamilnadu.

One thread that connects such a range of sources is Mariyamman’s association with poxes, which I follow throughout the work.

Both pragmatic concerns and personal choice determined the temple sites for this research. Healing of ammai by healers is prevalent in certain areas such as Pudukkottai,

Sivagangai, Thanjavur and Mayavaram, and I refer to my experiences with healers in two of these areas. Similarly, since I grew up with the Ati festival of Mariyamman in South

Arcot and Chennai, I was inclined to cover the festival events and associated narratives of

Renuka-Mariyamman, whom the festival celebrates. The concentric circle of the areas of the Ati festival soon expanded in the course of my fieldwork into other areas including

Dharmapuri, Salem, Coimbatore, Dindigul, Mayavaram, and Samayapuram near Trichy, as I followed the thread of the goddess’s immanent and eminent roles governing human life. (See map 1 for the temple sites which I visited.)

28 Mariyamman is everywhere: she is in Tamilnadu and beyond. This work, though it shares some selective knowledge about her, reveals how limited such knowledge can be.

Writing this dissertation has only made me realize a Tamil proverb to be very true: “What has been learnt is a measure of a handful; what has not been learnt is a measure of the world.” The chapters which follow will show what has been held in my hands.

29 Map 1

30 Chapter One

Constructing the Goddess: Colonial Anthropological and Vaccination Discourses

Section I

The Seal of the Goddess

Let the stylus never slant and the writing stop Let the tongue never fail; grant me the good pearls (muttu).

The Pearls

A Tamil palm-leaf song in the genre of “patam” addressed to the goddess

Mariyamman requests the goddess to grant good pearls of proficient speech and writing.1

This appeal is made at the end of a song, which asks Mariyamman to “move down” another variety of “pearls” from the body, namely the pustules of ammai.2 The song locates the pearls of speech and writing alongside the pearls of ammai as the treasure of the goddess, who administers them. The polysemous Tamil term “muttu,” meaning pearls, refers or alludes to several things, including seeds, grains, raindrops, boils, ornamental pearls, ritual-alms of rice, and drops of milk and blood, that we come across in the discursive practices of Mariyamman. This present chapter engages with the discourses of authority, sovereignty, and authenticity which enfold pearls of ammai within the milieu of colonial smallpox vaccination.

When I was in Erode, Tamilnadu in the summer of 2006, I came across instances of onset of measles in Kavundappadi, a village near Erode. Siddarttan, a friend of mine,

1 Consider common Tamil idiomatic usages such as “She thinks that if she speaks pearls are going to fall” or “His handwriting is like pearls,” that compare pearls with letters or words. 2 Pustules of ammai are usually called “pearls” in Tamilnadu.

31 persuaded me to visit the house of a schoolteacher called Amuda. Her son, a small boy of eight or nine years old, was suffering from measles at that time. I was a little hesitant to visit the family initially, for as I know from my personal experience of having had measles two times and chickenpox once, no outsider would generally be entertained to see the afflicted person or even visit the household. However, as my friend knows

Amuda very well, we took the privilege to go to her house. When I was hesitating to enter the house, Amuda greeted us warmly saying that there was no problem in my coming over. I was asked to wash my feet thoroughly before entering and there was a bucket of water at the entrance for that purpose. I also saw a branch of margosa leaves hanging above the entrance.

In the course of my conversations with Amuda, her son and her mother-in-law,

Amuda’s mother-in-law informed me that ammai was beginning to descend from her grandson’s body. I was told that they had poured the “first turmeric waters” (a “ritual” bathing, when the pearls of ammai get dried and begin to heal) over the child only the previous day of our visit. They were also arranging for a special pujai (puja in Sanskrit meaning worship) to Mariyamman as a token of their gratitude, for the pearls of ammai were really healing well.

After narrating the conventions to be followed at a household when a family member has ammai, Amuda’s mother-in-law recounted a dream which she had had a week before the onset of ammai on her grandson: A woman in the form of a widow, garbed in white clothes and with no jewelry or auspicious mark on the forehead (pottu), appeared to her in the dream. The next day her grandson developed fever and pearls of ammai appeared in the next couple of days. I asked her about the woman who appeared

32 in her dream. “It was Mariyamman, who else would it be other than the mother?” she replied.

As I mentioned in the introduction the term ammai can also mean mother, and, as it is, it can refer to the goddess, in addition to its denoting poxes and measles. For clarity’s sake I will, however, use the term to signify the ailments in this dissertation, and if the context demands me to use the word to denote the goddess or mother, I will specifically state that. The goddess’s relationship with ammai is considered at three levels in Tamil culture. First, the goddess is believed to be involved with the occurrence of ammai. “The mother has seen“(“ammai parttirukku”), “The mother has played” (“ammai vilaiyadiyirukku”), and “The mother has put” (“ammai pottirukku”) are the ways in which the ailment is talked about. At the second level, the goddess and pustules are one and the same. A colloquial usage “ammai varttirukku" could mean both “The mother has spread over/molded (the body)” and “Pustules have spread over/molded (the body).”

Such an allusion collapses the distinction between the goddess and the pustules. In a similar vein, another sentence “ammai irankidicci” meaning both “The mother has descended” and “Pustules have descended” undertakes this collapsing enterprise. As inferred in these usages, the goddess is perceived to be present in the body in the form of pustules. At the third level, the goddess is believed to have the power to cure ammai.

Several songs of the goddess in various genres, like Talattu (Lullaby), Unjal (Swing), and

Varnippu (Description) extol the goddess for this power, and various vows promised and performed by people to the goddess for the cure of ammai are in accordance with this belief. Amuda and her mother-in-law employed all these usages interchangeably as they described the child’s ailment and his cure.

33 The Seal or Muttirai

It is no wonder that such a multilevel relationship between the goddess and ammai gets reflected in her name “Muttumari,” literally meaning “the pearl Mari.” Of several references that foreground the association of the goddess and pearls of ammai, the one reference that categorically asserts the goddess’s authority over the body during the affliction of ammai is “muttirai.” When we come across the term “muttirai” in the goddess’s songs, it implies that the pustules of ammai are the specific seal of the goddess.

The text of the song Mariyamman Talattu or Mariyamman Lullaby (n.d) goes like this:

The seal of the fastened garland, you who have begotten me, make it

descend.

The seal of the jewel, Mother, make it descend.

The Lullaby, invariably sung to a person who has ammai in order to appease the goddess, is a solicitation to the goddess, which requests her to roll down or remove the pearls of ammai out of the body. The close of the Lullaby, describing the palatial court of

Mariyamman, which has ten stories, with each story decorated with gems, facades, thrones, broad counters, ornamental decorations, and marble, and where several other gods present themselves to her, testifies to her as the ruler. The song, indeed, addresses her as such:

Mari pearl, the Omnipresent one, you are for all

Being born as a woman you came to rule this big world

You came to rule this big world, the queen, Mari pearl

You were born, the harsh-you, to sustain us every day

You were born, the god-maiden, to sustain the country.

34 The seal of the goddess is, therefore, very much the seal of the sovereign queen, her emblem of authority that she affixes on the body of a person, which she alone could take away. The seal, inasmuch as it is Mariyamman’s royal insignia, is a part of herself, which explains the dual meaning of the term “ammai.” And, the body which suffers the seal of the “fastened garland” or the garland of pearls of ammai that are fastened by the goddess on to it, is considered as the body upon which the sovereignty of the goddess is imprinted thereby.

In the first phase of my ethnographic fieldwork in Tamilnadu in 2004, I had a chance to meet with Ramadoss, a blind healer of ammai in Papanasam near Mayavaram.

This was when I had just completed a close reading of the Lullaby for the first time and I was contemplating the intricate remarks concerning ammai in the text, especially about the description of ammai as the seal of the goddess. As soon as I met with Ramadoss, I asked him what he perceived regarding the “seal of the goddess.” Ramadoss responded to me: “The seal (muttirai) of the mother means the scar of the mother. Nowadays, the government itself inscribes this scar [the scar of vaccination] on us. If we don’t have that scar, we will not be in the government’s list. We cannot be its citizens (kudimakan) otherwise. Isn’t it so?”3

Ramadoss’s articulation of the ideas of sovereignty and citizenship inherent in

“muttirai” was the first beam of light that led me through the discourses of smallpox vaccination in connection with the goddess worship in Tamilnadu. After my

3 A post-independence article (1950), published in a Tamil magazine Manjari, written by Dr. Puccha Ramaiah that debates and derides the medical technique of vaccination speaks of it as a “mudra daanam” or the “donation of seal”. Criticizing the compulsory vaccination, Dr. Ramaiah notes that people cannot escape the government’s seal of vaccination now just like those who are of born of Vaishnava or Madhava sects of religion, who cannot escape the religious inscription of marks of their sects (“mudra daanam”) on their bodies (55).

35 conversations with Ramadoss, I was wondering what it might mean to have the scar or the seal inscribed by the government in the place of the scar or the seal inscribed by the goddess. How did the cultural orientation concerning the authority of the goddess

Mariyamman over the body take on the seal of the government on the body?

Specifically, what significance and import did the goddess worship have on the government-sponsored smallpox vaccination campaign and project? These questions are significant because the human body was precisely the target of the vaccination campaign and project.

The “Peculiar” Turn in Scholarship

Ammai not only means smallpox but it refers to fifteen other presently prevalent varieties of poxes as I mentioned in the “Introduction.” Mariyamman’s correspondence with these prevalent varieties of affliction is a vast territory to explore. Nevertheless, although smallpox is just one of several ailments or afflictions for which Mariyamman is the presiding deity, smallpox has unarguably been the most fatal and destructive. In

Tamil, in contrast to the euphemistic English ‘smallpox,’ it is called “periyammai” which literally means ‘big ammai.’ David Arnold, an eminent scholar of the history of medicine, observes that religion in the form of goddess worship was one way through which people comprehended the “destructive” and “fearful” smallpox (1993, 120).

However, Arnold’s observation does not help us to understand the following aspect of the relationship between religion and disease that even though smallpox was eradicated from

India way back in the 1970’s, and even though allopathic medical institutions and allopathic medicine have proliferated in India, worship of Mariyamman in connection with various other not-so-harmful and ordinary varieties of ammai is still persistent in

36 south India. When one encounters such ideas disregarding Mariyamman’s contemporary relevance in connection with affliction of poxes that prevail among scholars of the history of medicine, she might think that anthropologists of religion would have represented the cultural realm of Mariyamman worship practices in a better fashion. But, to my knowledge, except for Margaret Trawick Egnor, no other scholar has engaged with ammai and the goddess together in a significant way. Yet, there are a few problems in her article, which I thought I would address first, before dealing with the ideas of scholars like Arnold.

Egnor opens with a provocative question, “What will happen to her [the goddess], now that smallpox is apparently no longer present in India?” (Egnor 1984, 26). She presents an ethnographic account of a female healer, a “servant” of Mariyamman. Egnor offers a suggestion that in approaching the subject of the goddess and affliction, one should shift from asking “why would a disease such as smallpox be represented as a mother?” to asking “why would the mother take the form of this disease?” (32). She observes such a shift in approach is necessary because “variola major, the most virulent form of smallpox” “became widely associated with a goddess (Sitala in Northern India) in the 16th century,” whereas, she argues, drawing from the Tamil classical epic

Shilappadikaram (Cilappatikarakam), that “the ambivalent mother goddess” is “at least two millennia old” (31-2). This argument, as one can see, subsumes Mariyamman within an overarching category of mother/Tamil goddess emerging in a long chronological timeline. Egnor then presents a case history of Sarasvati, who belongs to a “low caste”, and who has reached “the depths of poverty, ignominy, and despair” (29). Sarasvati, as

Egnor reports, was tested by Mariyamman, who used not smallpox, but tuberculosis, after

37 which Sarasvati became a “shamanistic healer” and “servant” of the goddess. Egnor’s conclusion is: Smallpox with its religious aspect served as a “convenient symbol” for grim realities (such as “the pain and stigma of poverty, family discord, [and] the oppression of crowded living conditions”), but in the era of its eradication, when it was no longer available as a symbol, tuberculosis could substitute for it and represent these cruel realities of life. The goddess intervenes in grim situations of realities and transforms them.

In Egnor’s account, tuberculosis comes to be associated with “slum-living and untouchability” (39). 4 When Egnor substitutes smallpox with tuberculosis under the aegis of Mariyamman, Mariyamman is presented as a deity restricted to marginalized,

“untouchable” people and their grim realities. Such a framework is suggestive of an inherent dichotomous model (such as, lower caste vs. upper caste, marginalized vs. dominant, and poor vs. rich etc.). If, as Egnor argues, the “religious aspect” of a disease such as smallpox that is considered as a form of the goddess, is only a symbol for the realities of a marginalized, “low caste” life, and if this symbol has been eradicated and is replaced by a new symbol of another disease, how can one understand the continuing popular worship of Mariyamman for the prevalent varieties of poxes by people including

“locally” powerful, wealthy, and dominant caste groups? 5

Egnor’s incorporation of Mariyamman into the age-old, substantialist category of mother/Tamil goddess available in classical texts as against a “few-centuries old” (Egnor

4 Egnor writes, for instance: “A kind of folk-etiology has arisen in conjunction with tuberculosis in India, associating it with slum-living and untouchability” (39). 5 Egnor’s treatment tuberculosis as a modern phenomenon because “there is no indigenous Tamil word for it” (38) is questionable, for tuberculosis has a Tamil name, kasanoi. Moreover, in the West, as Susan Sontag (1978) observes, tuberculosis came to be associated with the romantic idea of the individual and her melancholic state that qualified it to be called modern. In Egnor’s account, tuberculosis in Tamilnadu does not have such modern notions associated with it.

38 31) smallpox facilitates her argument that the “religious aspect may have been only a symbol for some reality pre-dating and more fundamental to people’s lives than the disease itself” (32). Expectedly, reinforcing this substantialist model of the goddess, who is considered as someone who is always already there, she concludes, “whatever diseases come and go, deities like Mariyamman will remain alive” (40). In Egnor’s article, the goddess who is shown to get involved always with the difficult lives of people of “low castes” becomes a trans-historical phenomenon relating to a specific category of people amidst and in the face of changing diseases that represent these lives. Ironically, the historical anteriority posited for the category of goddess in the text forges the trans- historicity of the category so that it traverses smoothly across centuries. The trans- historicity of the category of the goddess, in turn, validates the substantialist model of the goddess deployed by Egnor. In her locating the goddess as a substantial essence and restricting this essence to people of marginalized castes and their life-situation, the contemporary reality of the persistence of ammai, and the relevance of popular worship of Mariyamman cutting across caste and status in their association, are neglected.

Popular discursive practices organized around the goddess Mariyamman and ammai in Tamilnadu have provoked me to look at the modes of interaction between these and the discourses of European “scientific medicine” in the form of vaccination. The interactions, I would prima facie say, did not have an undermining impact on the preeminence of the goddess in Tamilnadu, considering the force and prevalence of the goddess-related cultural practices performed during ammai even in contemporary times.

Though these interactions carve out a common area that involves myth, rituals,

“scientific” medicine and modern rationality, this area has not been paid much attention

39 by the present scholarship in History of Medicine or Religion. Existing scholarship on

Indian medical history tends to locate the correspondence between vaccination and goddess-related discursive practices within the paradigm of the colonizing, medically intervening self and the colonized, doubting or resisting other. For instance, Arnold, discussing the “raw secularity” of vaccination in contrast to the variolation involving the goddess Sitala, observes that “Vaccination was construed as a site of conflict between malevolent British intent and something Indian, something sacred, that was under threat of violation and destruction” (1993, 144). Though he alerts the reader immediately saying, “it would be wrong to represent vaccination and variolation solely in antagonistic terms or to allow no room for accommodation between Sitala and secular medicine,” he does not elaborate on modes of such “accommodation” (144). Further, according to

Arnold, “belief in a smallpox deity provided an alternative, religious explanation for the incidence of the disease and prescribed ritual observances that were at variance with

Western medical secularism.” Arnold holds that such belief seemed to have invested the colonial administration with “a peculiarly colonial predicament in which the administration was culturally and politically distant from the lives of its subjects” (157).

For Arnold the worship of the “smallpox deity,” has, thus, been one of the factors of a “peculiarly colonial predicament.” For another scholar, Niels Brimnes (2004), although, “smallpox was not seen as a peculiarly Indian or ‘tropical’ disease,” the

“particular Indian feature” of smallpox, if any, “was in the cultural practices surrounding it: the devotion to the smallpox goddesses—Sitala in the north and east, Mariyamman in the south—and the highly ritualized practice of variolation” (“Sympathizing Heart” 195).

Brimnes observes that in contrast to the earlier “physical environmentalist model” of

40 Europe, which “offered little prospect that European medical knowledge could be applied in India to the benefit of Indian population,” the cultural practice of Mariyamman worship provided “a field where the notion of a civilizing mission made sense, because such practices could be altered or even abolished through reform and ‘progress’

(“Sympathizing Heart” 195).6 According to him, the presence of a “particular” cultural practice in the form of worship of smallpox goddesses and ritualized variolation on the one hand, and the invention of the “superior” vaccine by Edward Jenner on the other, produce “smallpox prevention” as a site which features a “vision of the civilizing mission within the rhetoric of British colonialism in the first decades of the nineteenth century”

(“Sympathizing Heart” 195).

Brimnes employs the term “peculiar” in his discussion of colonial accounts of indigenous resistance to vaccination in another article (2004) of his:

From Trichinopoly the collector reported in 1802 that the Indians saw

variolation as “an unnatural and dangerous Provocation” of a disease from

which Providence might otherwise spare them. This probably reflected the

view of many Indians that smallpox was a divine possession rather than a

preventable disease. More peculiar was the belief, referred to by Surgeon

Prichard from Tripassore, that if humans did not get smallpox, the cattle

would get it instead (emphasis mine). (“Variolation”)

In the above passage of Brimnes, one can see that the word “peculiar” is not only loaded with the nineteenth century colonial view of a cultural practice, but in its being

6 The physical environment model “saw the human body as universal and explained disease patterns and human ‘constitutions’ with reference to the climate and the physical environment.” Though this model accounted for European “superiority” on the basis of Europe’s climate, it did not concern itself with the possibility of colonial medicine as a “central part of a civilizing mission” (“Sympathizing Heart” 195).

41 uncritically cited, the word also turns out to be a site of erasure of a discerning distance between the colonial viewpoint and a contemporary, scholarly perspective reporting that viewpoint.

Arnold’s text, compared to that of Brimnes, reads the colonial discourses of civilization more reflectively, as one can see in his narration, such as: “The propitiation of Sitala looked all the more obscure and absurd to medical practitioners who confidently believed that they possessed a scientific understanding of the disease…” (Arnold 134).

Yet, as depicted in both the narratives of Arnold and Brimnes, cultural practices surrounding the goddess were either “peculiar” or “particular” in themselves (Brimnes) or they produced a “peculiarly colonial predicament” (Arnold). It is interesting to note that, in these scholarly narratives, while the European scientific vaccination, which entailed imparting a substance from animal to human, does not emerge as “peculiar” or

“particular” practice, (as it could have in the eyes of the Indians), the cultural practices centered on the goddess are implicated with the adjective “particular” and “peculiar,” for they appeared so to the British. 7 It is an irony that these accounts, which brilliantly problematize smallpox vaccination in terms of “colonial predicament” and “civilizing mission,” subscribe uncritically to the divide of “the universalistic, civilizing, normal,

European science” and “particular, peculiar, sub-continental cultural practices of goddess worship.” This divide, like any other dichotomous divide, appears to reify one category, namely Western medical science, over the other, that is, discursive practices centering on the goddess. This divide runs as a potential undercurrent when Brimnes assumes and proposes that “the notion of a civilizing mission made sense” in the field of “cultural

7 Indeed, the resistance of Indians to vaccination, according to these narratives, was based on several reasons, of which one reason was that the process had been “alien,” and not “peculiar,” to them. See discussions in Brimnes (2004) and Arnold (1993).

42 practice” for “such practices could be altered or even abolished through reform and

‘progress’” (“Sympathizing Heart” 195).

The Goddess and the “Civilizing Mission”

I think that a good approach for inquiring into the connection forged between

Mariyamman and the European “civilizing” mission is to read colonial ethnographies that refer to Mariyamman. In a way, this inquiry will amount to tracing the genealogy of the goddess worship in the colonial anthropological texts. The “civilizing mission” of

Europe in connection with the goddess’s worship comes into play in a nineteenth century article Caldwell (1887), whose major ideas on the subject find their way into later ethnographies on South Indian religion. In his article, Caldwell derides the worship of female deities (Ammans) in relation to pestilences:

Notwithstanding the superior dignity attributed to the Ammans, I question

whether they are not, after all, more diabolical than the professed devils.

Cholera and small-pox, the most dreadful of all pestilences, are inflicted

by them alone; and what is specially extraordinary is, that small-pox is

invariably called by the common people ‘the sport of the Amman.’ When a

person is stricken by small-pox the expression the people use is ‘the

Amman is taking her pastime over him.’ …There is no difference between

the Ammans and the devils in regard to their appetite for blood. They all

alike delight in bloody sacrifices, and all alike require frantic dances to be

performed in their honour, especially in times of pestilences. The only

difference, indeed, that I can perceive between the Ammans and the devils,

43 consists in this, that the Ammans are never supposed to take up their abode

in the bodies and minds of their worshippers. (1887, 94)

In spite of these observations, the arrival of “civilization” in the form of

Christianity and education and the transformations it has brought out in Tirunelveli religion is obvious, as he notes at the beginning of the article (1887, 91-95):

Tinnevelly [Tirunelveli] was so much the home of demon-worship, at one

time, that it came to be regarded by Europeans as one of the special

peculiarities [emphasis mine] of the district; but it can no longer claim this

unenviable distinction, for, owing to the spread of Christianity and

education, most of the people in Tinnevelly are now ashamed of their old

demonism, and the wild orgies of devil-worship may almost be regarded

as things of the past. (1887, 91)

In his narration on the worship of demons, he includes Mariyamman in the category of demons that are “semi-divine and semi-diabolical beings” (1887, 93). His rendering of Mariyamman as one of those deities who are “more diabolical than the professed devils” demands attention.

Caldwell’s bringing the Amman goddesses and the malignant beings closer goes along with his constituting a distinct, autonomous domain for them in the name of

“demonolatrous system” or the religion of the Dravidians, in contrast with the

“Sanskritic, Aryan, Brahmanical” religion. As Caldwell deploys “appetite for blood” as a common theme to bring the Amman goddesses and the malignant beings closer, he deploys “blood sacrifice” in distinguishing these two religions of Brahmanism and the

44 “demonolatrous system” or the religion of the Dravidians.8 In his account on the religion of a Tamil caste group “Shanar,” Caldwell sees that the practice of blood sacrifice, which secures the boundary of “demonolatrous system” as against the Brahmanical Hindu system of religion, holds potential possibility for the “reception of Christianity” as well:

One of the most important parts of the system of devil-worship is the

offering of goats, sheep, fowls &c., in sacrifice, for the purpose of

appeasing the anger of the demons and inducing them to remove the

calamities they have inflicted, or abstain from inflicting the calamities

which they are supposed to have threatened. This is one of the most

striking points of difference between the demonolatrous system and

Brahmanism. It points to a higher antiquity; and, though now connected

with a base superstition, is more capable of guiding the mind to the

reception of Christianity than anything which Brahmanism contains. 9

(1849, 21)

At another place in the work, where he discusses the differences between the precepts and practices of orthodox Brahmanical Hinduism and “popular” religion of the

“Shanar” caste group, Caldwell directly forges the connection between the notion of

Christian sacrifice and the blood sacrifice of the Dravidian “natives”:

On the other hand there are certain facts and truths proper to Christianity,

such as the doctrine of our redemption by sacrifice, which are peculiarly

8 Demonolatry is defined by Caldwell in yet another work of his as “worship of evil spirits by means of bloody sacrifices and frantic dances” ([1875]1981, 580). He argues that it is the system which “prevails in the forests and mountain fastnesses throughout the Dravidian territories, and also in the south of the peninsula amongst the lower classes and a portion of the middle classes, and which appears to have been still more widely prevalent at an early period…” ([1875] 1981, 580) 9 “Bloody sacrifices” and “devil dancing” are regarded by Caldwell as the two “essential features” of the “demonolatrous system” (18).

45 offensive to some of the Brahmanical sects, and are supposed to be

offensive to the Hindu mind everywhere, but which convey no offence in

Tinnevelly; where the shedding of blood in sacrifice and the substitution

of life for life are ideas with which the people are familiar. (1849, 7)

Notwithstanding such sympathetic connection between their religion and

Christianity, as understood by Caldwell, the people’s faith is only in “demonolatry”

(1849, 9). For him, “they do not seem to have received from their fathers any distinct tradition of God’s creation of the world or government of it,” and they are “‘without God in the world’” (1849, 9). “This beautiful world,” writes Caldwell, “so full of divine philosophy, is to them a mere mass of dead matter, without a mind or a heart” (1849, 9).

One can observe two interrelated moves in founding a distinct, autonomous domain for the Amman goddesses and malevolent beings in order to facilitate the discourse of civilization: on the one hand, by and through such demarcation and separation, the domain of the goddesses and malevolent beings is now rendered devoid of any divine figure that represents the subtle, higher noble virtues; on the other, the demarcated domain of the goddesses and malevolent beings, with their gross “appetite for blood” highlighted as their common, major trait, presents itself as a vulnerable field,

“without a mind or heart,” necessitating and demanding civilizational intervention and transformation. For Caldwell, Christianity is best suited for the job, for it shares the common notion of “blood sacrifice” with the “demonolatrous” Dravidian religion, and therefore is akin to it in some way. With the first move of separation of this Dravidian domain from Aryan godheads and constituting it as autonomous, the way is cleared for the Christian god to be installed in the place of the distanced “superior” Aryan gods in the

46 domain; while, with the second move of stressing the “appetite for blood” sacrifice as a major characteristic of the Dravidian domain, which is now rendered autonomous of

“non-bloodthirsty Aryan gods”, articulations about “native superstition” could be made effectively, making the setting up of “rational” modes of life, in the form of an analogous, but ‘superior’ Christian religion and education all the more necessary. I just cited Caldwell’s remarks that due to the spread of Christianity along with education,

Tinnevelly people are now ashamed of their old demonism and their devil-worship is an affair of the past (1887, 91).

Caldwell’s viewpoint has a crucial impact on the future administrative perspectives and ethnographic scholarship on south Indian religion. A later administrative document titled Manual of the Administration of the Madras Presidency

(Vol.1, 1886) describes the South Indian “religion” along the line of Caldwell’s equation of deities and demons in its discussion on the subject “Ethnology.” Essentializing the worship of the Dravidian population to “demons” or to “deities who rule such demons to induce their interposition” (76), the Manual observes that although the worship of demons is “more constant” than the worship of deities, the “distinction between the two cannot always be ascertained” (77). Discussing the demon worship in detail, the Manual remarks that the village deities including Mariyamman are nothing but boss or superior demons:

Ruling the demons are certain principal demons who have attained the

rank of deities. They are worshipped by men by way of mediation, to

prevent the mischief of the lesser demons; but they themselves will inflict

harm if not worshipped. Again for every village there is at any rate one

47 temple dedicated to a goddess who occupies this position inasmuch as she

is specially tutelar to the locality. The presence of the goddess protects the

village from sickness and disaster. So that there she will be worshipped

for three causes; because she is hostile, because she is mediatory, and

because she is tutelar. (81)

Later ethnographers such as W.T. Elmore and Henry Whitehead follow

Caldwell’s Aryan and Dravidian classification, his arrangement of village goddesses within the paradigm of demonolatry, and his identification of blood sacrifice as a key distinguishing trait of the Dravidian religion.10 Elmore (1913) distinguishes between the

Aryan, Hindu Sakti, which is the “personification of the energy of the Hindu god in the person of his wife” and the Dravidian Sakti, which is “any female ghost which has evil powers” (151-2). Even though Whitehead (1921) regards the worship of the village deity as part of Hinduism, he still subscribes to the idea that such worship “represents a pre-

Aryan cult of the Dravidian peoples” (16) and it is “widely different” from the worship of the “popular Hindu deities, Siva and Vishnu” (17). Both Elmore and Whitehead consider the goddess worship within the paradigm of demonolatry. Elmore calls the goddess “an evil-bringing demoness,” and states that despite his attempts, he could not find any idea of “gratitude for the protection, which the goddess has given” in her worship (146).

Subscribing to a similar view, Whitehead indicates the necessity of bringing civilized worship into the field of village deities. Contrasting the village goddess with Siva, who is

10 Another ethnographer of South India, Gustav Oppert, also considers the Gramadevatas or village deities as those pertaining to the “non-Aryan population of India” ([1893]1978, 450, 503). The principal deities of the ancient Aryans, for him, were of the male sex, and their consorts drew their power only from them (397). Oppert too discusses the sacrifice of animals and men at the shrines of the village deities as a special form of worship by non-Aryan peoples called Gauda-Dravidians (452-3), though he does not look down upon such a way of worship.

48 a “world force” and who is “an interpretation of the universe and the embodiment of a philosophy,” Whitehead equates the “village deity” with the “petty local spirit:”

But the village deity is nothing more than a petty local spirit, tyrannizing

over or protecting a small hamlet, occasionally venting her spite or her ill-

temper on a handful of poor villagers. She inspires fear because of her

power to do grievous harm by inflicting diseases and injuries on man and

beast when she is offended, but she has no relation to the universe or even

to the world: she is the product of fear untouched by philosophic

reflection; so she does not draw out any feelings of wonder and

admiration, still less of love and gratitude, nor does she lead her

worshippers on to any higher ideals of morality (153).

Like Caldwell, Elmore also identifies “blood sacrifice” as a key differentiating feature between the Brahmanical Hinduism and the Dravidian religion.11 For Whitehead as well, animal sacrifice is one of major features of the village deities that distinguish them from Brahmanical Hindu gods (18). Whitehead goes along with Caldwell even further in linking the idea of “blood sacrifice” with Christianity. While Whitehead ridicules the practice of shedding blood as “superstition,” “disgusting,” “immoral,” and

“madness” (152), yet by employing the totemistic theory, he links the “sprinkling of blood” in the goddess worship with the notion of “Christian doctrine of the Atonement,” and draws out a common feature of “communion with God” both in the goddess worship

11 In his narration of “Village deities” Elmore points out: Each village has its own deity, a fact which has given rise to the common term of ‘Village Deities’ for these Dravidian gods. …Again, these gods are almost always propitiated with bloody or animal sacrifices, but this is not the case with true Hindu gods” (10). At another place, Elmore asserts: “The Dravidian goddesses are always bloodthirsty” (135).

49 and in the “sacramental system of the Christian Church” (139-51). Such a prevalent idea of “communion,” for Whitehead, is reflective of a “rudimentary religious feeling” (156).

Moreover, the fear inspired in people by an “ill-tempered, revengeful” goddess is after all

“not a bad preparation for a belief in a God of love” (156), and, indeed, “their fear of evil spirits is one reason why the doctrine of an omnipotent God of infinite love appeals to them with so much force” (Whitehead, 156).

It is clear that Whitehead subscribes to Caldwell in constituting an autonomous domain in the name of “demonolatry” or the “Dravidian religion” for the goddesses, cut off from the Aryan divine figures, who are portrayed and understood as personifications of larger “world forces” (consider Whitehead’s description of Siva). Once the domain of the “petty local spirits” or goddesses is constituted as autonomous, laying fresh inroads into this domain becomes much easier. A metaphoric phrase “cutting down the jungle” used by Whitehead in this context is quite striking:

In the writings of Hindu philosophers and poets there are many noble and

inspiring thoughts, but there is nothing in the vast jungle of beliefs and

practices that have grown up during the course of ages around the worship

of the village deities that the Christian Church could wish to preserve. The

first step towards any religious progress in the villages of South India is to

cut down this jungle of beliefs and practices, rites and ceremonies, and

clear the ground for the teaching and worship of the Christian Church.

(154) (emphasis mine)

Such an act of severing the domain of the goddesses from “noble and inspiring thoughts” facilitates the articulation of this domain as a shapeless, dangerous jungle. To

50 “cut down” the jungle and to “clear the ground,” obviously, means to “civilize.”

Aligning the practices and beliefs of the ‘indigenous’ goddess worship with the jungle, and therefore, with uncontrolled nature, validates the European civilization’s playing the role of ‘taming’ or ‘correcting’ this nature. Reading Caldwell and Whitehead together, one can sense that in the ethnographic accounts, Christianity is both the means and the end in the civilizational rhetoric. It is a civilized institution, which can be erected once

“jungles” in the form of worship of the village deities or goddesses are cleared, as well as a major tool in such ‘clearing,’ civilizing enterprise. In a mirror-like complimentary discursive plane, the conceptual metaphor of jungle renders goddess worship as a vulnerable, albeit a considerable stumbling block, to the European “civilizing mission.”

A pattern in the discourse about Mariyamman unfolds when one moves across these ethnographies of the Indian way of life. We get references to Mariyamman in the eighteenth-century writings of Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg (1713) and Pierre Sonnerat

(1788-89). Both place the Amman goddess at the bottom rungs of the hierarchical pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses. Ziegenbalg ([1869] 1984) draws a four-level hierarchy: “Parabaravastu” (the supreme or universal being) at the first level, the Trimurti

(Siva, Brahma and Vishnu) with their wives and sons at the second level, the

“Gramadevatas” (the tutelary or village deities) and the malignant beings at the third level, and the Devas and the other celestials at the fourth level. Ziegenbalg includes

Mariyamman as one of the “Gramadevatas;” yet he clearly distinguishes her from

“malignant beings,” such as “demons,” “Bhutas,” “Rakshasas,” and “Asuras” (6-7)

Indeed, “malignant beings” are explained by Ziegenbalg as those beings “from whom the

Gramadevatas are to protect mankind” (6). Pierre Sonnerat (1788-89) gives an account

51 of “Demi-Gods” of Indians, placing these gods under the Trimurti. His list of “Demi-

Gods” comprises the gods of heaven (such as Devendiran, Agni, and Vayu etc.), the seven planets (including the sun, the moon etc.), “thirty-three courous of Deverkels [sic]” meaning thirty-three crores of Devas, Mariatale [Mariyamman], the goddess of smallpox and other goddesses, such as Kalis and Pidaris. Sonnerat calls these goddesses the

“protectresses of the cities” (64) and “tutelary divinities” (64). Sonnerat mentions that the goddesses “are commonly pleased with sanguinary sacrifices, and there are places where even human victims are exacted,” yet he makes a clear distinction between these goddesses and “the giants” or “the bad genii” (65). Moreover, in his account, although

“sanguinary sacrifices” of goddesses are specially mentioned, these are not deployed as a device to carve the discursive domains of the Aryan and the Dravidian.

Unlike the above ethnographic accounts, Caldwell’s text, which has set the tone of future ethnographies, relegates goddess worship to the discursive domain of the

Dravidian, which is equated with “demonolatry” (1887, 94). This relegation helps to advance colonial civilizational rhetoric intervening in the field of “religion” of “natives.”

Caldwell’s move of departure from earlier ethnographic narrations could be tied to the

“emergence of conversion as distinctive to the micropolitics of colonialism” (Scott 1994,

158) with the “shift” in the colonial scene from the first half of the nineteenth century, as suggested by David Scott:

The production of colonial knowledge depends on the constitution of

privileged “scenes” where what counts as “true” knowledge is to be found.

The physical and symbolic place of this “scene” shifted according to the

imperatives of the colonial enterprise. That, for instance, Calcutta once

52 constituted such a “scene” was the reason for the establishment there of

the College at Fort William in 1800. That it had already effectively ceased

to be so early in the nineteenth century, and particularly after 1813 with

the change in the East India Company’s policy toward missionaries, was

the reason for its decline. In these years colonialism became authorized

through a discourse of subjectification and discipline—in short, the

“civilizing mission”—requiring a different modality of power, and a

different site of application. And what emerged as one of its privileged

techniques was the Evangelical practice of conversion. (158)

As regards “production of colonial knowledge” about Mariyamman worship, one needs to explore another related dimension too. Around the same period at which this

“shift” in the colonial scene has taken place, in order to counter smallpox, modern smallpox vaccination was introduced in India and in Madras presidency in 1802.

Whether this scientific intervention reconstituted the discursive field of knowledge about

Mariyamman worship would be an interesting aspect to look at. With this question in our minds, let us look at a significant work of ethnography, Hindu Manners, Customs and

Ceremonies, by Abbe Dubois. Dubois not only lived for a long period of thirty years in south India in close contact with ‘native’ communities,12 but he was one of the early introducers and advocates of the smallpox vaccine as well. Henry K. Beauchamp points out that Dubois was granted a special pension by the East Indian Company for his role in promoting the smallpox vaccine amongst the people (1906, xi-xii). Dubois’s work, which stands between the ethnographic accounts of Ziegenbalg and Sonnerat on one side

12 According to Henry K. Beauchamp, his translator, editor and biographer, Dubois left France for India in 1792 and lived in India until the years 1822-23.

53 of the time frame and of Caldwell on the other, was based upon his life in India for about twenty-six years (1792-1818) at the turn of the century. It was a time period, in which the

Jennerian smallpox vaccination figured as a major subject in medical discourses.13

Dubois also provides a description of the hierarchical Hindu pantheon. His account includes the Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu and Siva), Vigneshwara, Indra, and the

Ashta-Tik-Palakas (“guardians of the eight directions”) through the animals, bird, snakes, and fish to Bhootams (evil spirits) and inanimate objects (1906, 612-48). To our surprise,

Mariyamman does not find a place in this list. Considering Dubois’s involvement with smallpox vaccination and considering a pertinent letter written by Dubois to the Madras

Government on the subject of the smallpox goddess in the year 1804, which I shall discuss soon, the insignificant place given to the goddess in his work is conspicuous.

However, Dubois’s major role as a bringer and administrator of the smallpox vaccine to ‘native’ communities also renders this silence as meaningful. This silence about the place of the goddess in the Hindu pantheon might be consequential to the outlook of Dubois of the arrival of “progress” and “reform” amongst the “natives,” brought forth by the successful European vaccination: the drug preempting smallpox is here, and, therefore, the smallpox goddess has no more role to play and is redundant. In fact, such an interpretation finds support in the latter text by Caldwell, which denies the superiority of the goddess with respect to demons (or “devils”).

Yet, a close reading of Dubois’ text provides another possibility of interpretation too. While Dubois’ text does not assign a place to the goddess in the Hindu pantheon, it

13 From what Beauchamp writes, Dubois seems to have completed the first manuscript of this book in 1806, which was returned to him in AD1815 so that he could make necessary revisions and corrections. He submitted a first revision of his work in AD1818, and another re-revised version three years later to the Madras Government.

54 still describes a few ceremonies and rituals such as hook-swinging associated with the goddess. In these descriptions, it employs the epithet “cruel” preceding her name (599);14 also, it calls Mariyamman “one of the most evil-minded and bloodthirsty of all the deities of India” (1906, 597-598). From these instances, one can say that his ethnography operates within a double dynamic: on the one hand, it excludes her from the Hindu canon of deities, unlike the works of Ziegenbalg and Sonnerat; and, at the same time, it displays the popular worship of the goddess to its readers. In Caldwell’s text too, this double dynamic is visible: although the text states that with the spread of Christianity and education, the “demonology” is almost the stuff of the past, it still elaborates upon how people regard ammai as the “sport” or “pastime” of the goddess. In Whitehead’s work too, we find that a chapter that deals with propagating the Christian church is preceded by several other chapters, which elaborately narrate and analyze a variety of prevalent practices of worship relating to several goddesses of south India.

Drawing from the colonial ethnographic narratives, one can observe that the double dynamic is, on the one hand, embedded with a wishful idea on the part of the ethnographic discourse that the European civilization, especially in the form of

Christianity, would disempower the “native” gods and goddesses (including the

“demonic” or “cruel” smallpox goddess) and undermine their importance; and, on the other, the discourse is marked by a necessity to acknowledge and report, albeit in a critical manner, the obstructing block standing in the way, that is, the popularity of the

“native” practices of worship and the sway they have over people. This double dynamic

14 Dubois records his views on pain-inflicting debt vows performed for Mariyamman here: I could not help shuddering one day at seeing one of these imbeciles with his lips pierced by two long nails, which crossed each other so that the point of one reached to the right eye and the point of the other to the right. I saw him thus disfigured at the gate of a temple consecrated to the cruel goddess Mari-amma. (509)

55 of the ethnographic discourses is pertinent, for a similar double dynamic characterizes the colonial administrative and public health discourses of smallpox vaccination in south

India. As I will be discussing later in this chapter, when colonial medical and public health discourses refer to Mariyamman worship, they record “religious prejudice” and

“religious superstition.” On the one hand, they express hope that such “prejudice” or

“superstition” would vanish with education and with actual empirical experience of people with the new smallpox vaccine over time. On the other hand, these same discourses also articulate the goddess worship as a formidable block to the smallpox vaccination project. Ethnographic discourses draw on the same paradigm. This double dynamic characterizing the discourses of ethnographies as well as of medical, public health accounts constitutes Mariyamman worship as an episteme of ambiguity, which is at once challenging and vulnerable to the rhetoric of the European “civilizing mission.”

Nonetheless, another discursive tactic figures in the operational part of vaccination discourses, which I will be discussing soon. Notwithstanding critical comments made in colonial official records about the native “superstition” or “prejudice” as foregrounded in local conception of smallpox as Mariyamman, the colonial administration has restrained itself in making such observations in its propaganda materials on vaccination. And, if at all, the goddess is referred to in these materials, her authority over “natives” is conceded in such references. When the colonized public is the targeted audiences of vaccination discourses, the episteme of the goddess worship, framed in ambiguous terms, by the rhetoric of the European civilization in the colonial records, is glossed over, and sometimes, it is even disregarded.

56 Section II

Vaccination: Government’s Pearls

Government’s Pearls

When I was trying to learn about the impact of Mariyamman worship on the

“civilizing mission,” I first came across an article written by V.V. Ramanan in “The

Siddhanta Deepika or The Light of Truth” (1900-1902). The article, titled “The-Smallpox

Goddess,” was published in two parts between June 1900 and May 1902, and it is a detailed account of the goddess. It regrets the lack of a “systematic book of all the south

Indian devils,” stating that the “diagnostic hints for their identification” and “a tabulated classification of all their genres and species” are a “desideratum” for these “devils,” and then introduces the smallpox goddess as one of the “rural demons,” guarding the village during nights to avert pestilential diseases.15 While I will be citing Ramanan to discuss the Tamil conceptions of ammai, its treatment and rituals performed during and after ammai in my next chapters, I cite now a portion from his article that concerns vaccination:

Here, before detailing the way in which the old offerings are doled out, we

must pause to note an important fact which accounts for more small-pox

patients among Hindus than among Europeans.

The European nations avoid the contagion by dreading and fleeing from it,

while the Hindu courts it from the superstitious fear that he provokes the

wrath of ‘Mari’ in case he does not willingly place himself under her

‘merciful sway,’ when there is an opportunity. The small-pox may be

15 Most likely, Ramanan picked this idea of “demons” from Reverend R. Caldwell’s essay on “demons.” (1887, 94).

57 raging in a village and may be carrying off men and women as victims in

large numbers, yet the Hindu will hardly dare to hear any advice coming

from a sanitary or vaccination inspector as to the ready means of keeping

it in check. Instances are not uncommon when a vaccination inspector

visits a village with his ‘lymph’ and ‘lancet,’ while the Brahmans try to

send him away with bribes. They do not want the Englishmen’s ‘false-

pearls,’ for to see counterfeit things smuggled into her port will excite

Mari to greater anger and she may “play away” then with the population

only too heartily. Such is the belief of the orthodox villager towards

vaccination (142).

Ramanan’s description of people’s resistance to vaccination, considered as

“counterfeit” and “false pearls” requires detailed attention. Before discussing this, I will first look briefly at how the goddess worship was framed within the paradigm of resistance to vaccination.

Religious worship of the goddess is listed by Arnold as one among several other reasons, such as alienation of vaccinators from the community, unwillingness to expose women to vaccinators and failure rates of vaccination that provoked resistance to vaccination. Yet Arnold contends that the goddess worship still played a major role against vaccination. According to Arnold, “the greatest objection to vaccination was its raw secularity” (1993, 143). Contrary to this view is Mark Harrison’s observation (2004): for him, the “historian may have placed too much emphasis upon cultural reasons for resistance to vaccination” in India (96). Harrison argues, “Indians feared the procedure for the same reasons as people in Europe: namely, that it was painful and sometimes gave

58 rise to secondary infections” (96). Moreover, because of the hot climate of the tropic, which rendered the vaccine often ineffective, sometimes multiple scars were inflicted on the body, and this increased the “fears of infection and disfigurement” among Indians

(Harrison 96).

For Frederique Apffel Marglin (1990), a postcolonial scholar, resistance to vaccination in India was “essentially of a political nature” clothed in the “religious garb”

(116-120). She argues that people resisted the way in which the alien practice was imposed on them more than the practice itself. Vaccination abolished the indigenous variolation, which was affordable and effective. Moreover, the logocentric perspective of health as absence of disease underlying the practice of vaccination was against the non- logocentric conception of health and life which viewed the goddess as “both the presence and the absence of the disease.”16 Marglin observes that logocentric mode of thought takes the distinction between naturalistic explanation of a disease and religious explanation of a disease as axiomatic, and contends that the resistance “voiced in the language of ‘the anger of the goddess’ should be read as a sign of political resistance to the logocentric, authoritarian, top-down disciplinarian activities of the government”

(120). According to her, methods, both of colonial and post-colonial governments in

India, which resorted to repressive measures against people rather than seeking for their co-operation, exemplified the logocentric exercise of power from “above.” She points out that it was only with the collaboration between the Government of India and the

WHO from 1970 that a shift took place from “mass vaccination to the policy of

16 Marglin remarks that “resistance to vaccination on the grounds that it would offend the goddess can be interpreted ‘from below’ in a very different way from the interpretation ‘from above.’ It is not a simple matter of religion and/or blind faith in tradition on the one hand and a rational, naturalistic, progressive scientific world-view on the other. The language of Sitala is a non-logocentric language, dissolving all binary oppositions” (116).

59 ‘surveillance and containment’” whereby the smallpox eradication program could achieve its results successfully (120).

I need to point out that except for Brimnes who brings South India into the picture, all other scholars have dealt with northern and northeastern materials from India in their works. I tend to think that the Tamil situation might be a little, if not altogether, different from the northern and northeastern contexts, because the ‘traditional’ ritualized variolation was rare in Tamilnadu, as pointed out by scholars including Arnold and

Brimnes. Hence, there is no question of erasure of a ‘traditional’ mode of knowledge with the advent of vaccination in Tamilnadu, nor could the resistance to vaccination be due to the prevalent, indigenous variolation, as it was so in other places of India.

Yet we bump into narratives such as Ramanan’s that discuss people’s reluctance to undergo vaccination within the context of the goddess worship. Ramanan suggests that people in Tamilnadu preferred the goddess Mariyamman’s “pearls” to the “false” pearls of vaccination. Along these lines, I also found a satirical comment on people’s reluctance in Thanjavur to undergo vaccination in a Tamil magazine, Anandavikatan, in 1934.

Under the heading of a news column, “What is Special,” a journalist with the pseudonym

“Vambu” (“Gossip”) remarks:

The Municipality has issued notices that as ammai is prevalent here,

everyone should undergo revaccination, failing which they will be

prosecuted. People who have no faith in this have decided to pay to the

Bench Court that which they have kept aside to give as offering to

Mariyamman. (Anandavikatan, 24 April 1934, 16)

60 In fact, about fifty years earlier to the publication of Ramanan’s article, in the

Report on Vaccination, 1856, Assistant Apothecary R. Donaldson, Circuit Superintendent of Vaccination, Salem District articulates people’s resistance analogously:

There cannot be a doubt that in many places the people do not care for

vaccination, some being simply indifferent and apathetic, while others

look with dread on the operation, considering it irreligious to take any

means for preventing an affliction that comes from their gods, and say

they prefer the disease thus sent, to what they call the Sircars’

[Government’s] small pox (1856, 40).

I would like to note that in Tamil both smallpox and vaccine are denoted by the term ammai, which would help us to make sense of the phrase “Sircar’s smallpox.”

Vaccination is called “ammai kuttutal” (“stamping or imprinting ammai”) and vaccinator,

“ammai kuttubavar” (“the one who stamps on imprints ammai) in Tamil. The Tamil term

“kuttutal” also indicates the sense of pain involved with such stamping or imprinting. The terms “stamping” or “imprinting” have obvious connections with the “seal” or “muttirai” that I discussed earlier. Thus, “Sircar’s smallpox” also implies the “Sircar’s seal” and it links the context of vaccination to larger questions of sovereignty and authority of the

Government vis-à-vis of the goddess over the body.

I need to proceed with caution in locating Mariyamman worship in the framework of people’s resistance to the project of vaccination. One learns from Brimnes that the resistance in Tamilnadu appears to be based on specific and “local conditions” which cannot be drawn into any particular pattern (“Sympathizing Heart” 201). According to him, the “British did not seek to understand the specific reasons behind indigenous

61 resistance, but took recourse to the increasingly dominant colonial conceptualization of

Indian society as static and traditional” (“Sympathizing Heart” 202). And “reducing the diverse and specific reasons Indians had to oppose immunization to abstract notions of indigenous prejudice and superstition helped the British to envisage the campaign against smallpox as a civilizing mission” (“Sympathizing Heart” 203).

It is possible that the British reported the people’s resistance upon various reasons under the overarching terms of “prejudice” and “superstition.” A few vaccination reports do portray a sense of confidence that “prejudice” and “superstition” would disappear with the spread of education or with people’s actual, empirical experience with vaccine. One of the earliest reports on vaccination, Report on

Vaccination Throughout the Presidency and Provinces of Madras for the Year 1854, even affirms, “Native prejudice … has greatly abated,” and “presents very little obstruction,” and only apathy exerts a “most baneful influence against the wished for and due extension and diffusion of this blessing over the country.” The Report states that this apathy “will only be overcome by the power of education, in enlightening the mind and intellect of the people” (3). Earlier, a similar vaccination report for the year 1853, has also advanced a similar view that “popular prejudice is disappearing,” whereas

“indifference and apathy operate almost as injuriously to its [vaccination’s] spread”

(Public Consultations, Vol. 933, 5473). Yet the report adds, “It cannot be expected that, with the limited experience the people have yet had of the benefits of vaccination, they should in so short a time become convinced of its efficacy, and anxious for its diffusion”

(5473), and only “actual experience of the protection which vaccination affords” will make people “willing to receive” as well as “diffuse” the remedy (5474). Another

62 vaccination report for the year 1857, however, points out that both “native prejudices” and “native apathy” exist together. However, the report argues, “Education, however, is now rapidly spreading over the country, and as the community get enlightened, the strong prejudices against vaccination will, it is hoped, be overcome” (3).

Leaving aside the hope displayed in the above narratives, it is possible that even impediments caused by factors such as sheer institutional inefficiencies on the part of the government machinery, shortage of vaccine, funds and human resources, lack of coordination between government departments in charge of vaccination, and other heterogeneous local factors could have been attributed to the goddess worship of

“natives”. One can even doubt that in their encounters with administrative authorities, people could have resorted to the reference of their “religion” in general and/or of the goddess in particular, as a calculated strategy or as a desperate attempt to escape vaccination for their own reasons, right from their perception of it as an “alien” and unfamiliar practice on the body to their fear of its occasional adverse effects or to simply the pain and inconvenience it caused. We can never access the minds of the past in a foolproof manner, nor can we now retrospectively tie in an authentic way the patterns of resistance to particular motives, which people or medical officials, according to us, were supposed to have had in those times. The story has many narrators; and there might have been as many plots.

While all these possibilities or constraints might stand in the way of ascertaining why goddess worship is reported in official records in a particular fashion/s in the colonial period, these constraints would not hinder us in the way of understanding how the goddess is represented in the colonial archives, for the latter question gets its focus

63 mainly through textual evidences. My goal here is, thus, to trace the episteme of the worship of the goddess, as it is constituted by the official records, such as reports, discussions and correspondences, meant for sharing amongst the colonial authorities.

Despite the hope exuded by the colonial records (such as those contained in the Reports which I just discussed) that eventually education and actual experience would bring the people to the side of “scientific enlightenment,” the goddess also figures in the vaccination accounts as a significant stumbling block impeding vaccination. Let me elaborate on this: The Report on Vaccination throughout the Presidency for Madras for the Year 1856 contains extracts from annual reports by the local superintendents of vaccination. One superintendent reports an objection made by people resisting vaccination who stated that “…We have no faith in vaccination, and we would rather our children take the smallpox, and leave the rest with our Maareetha [Mariyamman] to dispose of as she thinks proper” (9); Another superintendent remarks that in his jurisdiction there prevails a “superstition” that “an idol supposed to preside over smallpox” existed and by submitting to vaccination, the “idol” would be offended.

Similarly, in Report on Vaccination throughout the Presidency and Provinces of Madras for the year 1858, worship of the goddess, called the “superstitious reverence,” is included as one of the reasons for the unpopularity of vaccination:

It is an undoubted fact, that vaccination is by no means generally popular

with the natives of Southern India. Caste prejudices, or superstitious

reverence for the presiding deity of smallpox, ignorance of the benefits

accruing them from the operation, the carelessness, apathy and want of

intelligence amongst the class of persons hitherto necessarily employed as

64 vaccinators, all combine to retard the diffusion of the blessings, which

Jenner’s great discovery has conferred upon mankind (3).

Nearly seventy years after the introduction of vaccination in India, the colonial government authorities were still discussing whether “religious prejudice” would stand in the way of a strict implementation of vaccination project. In 1872, in his proposing a new scheme to the Secretary to Government, the Inspector General of the Indian Medical

Department asserts that a trial run of a scheme might help the Government to decide on the question of “religious prejudice” (GO No. 533, Proc. of the Madras Government,

Public Department, 24/4/1872). The new scheme was to give money (two annas) instead of rice as batta to encourage those undergoing vaccination 17 and to have an extra

“ambulatory” vaccine depot for maximum immunization coverage. These new introductions, the Inspector General writes, “will aid is deciding the very important question, whether the people in Madras may be brought under a law compelling each child to be vaccinated, as the readiness to take money will satisfactorily show whether or no [sic] there is any religious prejudice to overcome, or any difficulty in legislating on the subject.” According to a report on this new scheme in a subsequent Public Department proceeding (GO No. 66-67, Proc. of the Madras Government, Public Department,

24/7/72), people’s “conduct shows that they are not dead to the influence of a small bribe, and that the attractiveness of the money payment is quite sufficient to overcome the so- called ‘prejudices’ of the people against vaccination.” A colonial manual, related to

Trichy District (1878) describes the state of affairs in vaccination after rice got replaced with money. In a footnote, the manual reflects a ray of hope:

17 The scheme was suggested by Surgeon Dr. Shortt, who had had a successful experience with giving a money incentive to the inhabitants of the Royapuram area in Madras.

65 Vaccination is fairly well received by the Natives, especially the poorer

classes, who are induced to submit to it by the batta of 2 Annas allowed

for each person. Any objections that caste Natives, Brahmans and the

well-to-do classes, might urge towards preventing the access of the

goddess Mari to their bodies, are fairly put aside by the fact of it being

necessary for them to produce a certificate of vaccination when applying

for public employment.

Nevertheless, the manual points out that since the year 1857 smallpox has been absent from Trichinopoly for only one year, and complains:

Indeed no other result than its constant presence can be looked for, when it

is remembered that its [smallpox’s] appearance is esteemed by Natives as

a visitation sent by the goddess Mari, which it would be impious to

attempt to resist. With a system such as this what is to be expected? (91).

Notwithstanding the attractive financial incentives to inhabitants, it appears that the colonial authorities felt that the vaccination project had not made strong inroads into people’s lives. Again, a key reason for this state of affairs is stated to be the “prejudices” of people. Manual of the Administration of the Madras Presidency in Illustration of the

Records of Government and the Yearly Administration Reports (1886) in its “Sketch

History of Government Sanitation in the Presidency- Vaccine Department” notes that even “after three quarters of a century” of the introduction of the vaccination, “prejudices still exist.” Giving a list of sustained efforts put in by the Government from 1802, the year of the inception of vaccination, the Manual regrets that “[w]ith all the efforts made

66 at the time, vaccination did not however find that favour with the people which the

Government had expected” (512). The Manual of Madras Administration continues:

The Medical Board writing in 1807 observe “prejudices have led the

natives to suspect even the benevolent intentions of Government, from the

anxiety that was shown to diffuse vaccination, and caused them to attach

to it many foolish intentions. It is to be regretted that even after three-

quarters of a century, these prejudices still exist among the masses of the

people. One of the chief objections brought forward to vaccination was

that Mauriamma [Mariyamman], the goddess of small-pox, would be

offended if artificial means were adopted to avert the malady. (512)

One can see that as soon as the Manual of Madras Administration speaks of

“prejudices,” it first lists the worship of Mariyamman, rendering it as a prejudice. Such style of narration tells us that even if Mariyamman worship is not overtly mentioned in the colonial reports, it is possible that it could have been subsumed within the overarching phrases, such as “prejudices of natives” or “superstitions of natives”–the catchphrases which have been used commonly in colonial records of vaccination in

Tamilnadu.18 Report of the King Institute of Preventive Medicine for the year 1912-13 too discusses the issue of the goddess hindering vaccination. A letter by Captain O.A.E.

Berkeley Hill, who acted as Inspector of Vaccination and Deputy Sanitary

Commissioner, in the Madras Presidency, contained in the report, expresses that vaccination in India is “an inconceivably fragile exotic” and it struggles under a “stifling

18 In colonial records, while one of the reasons for resistance is expressed in phrases such as “religious prejudices” (Report on Vaccination, 1856, 5) or “religious superstitions (Report of Vaccination, 1857, 8; 1856, 29), sometimes we come across phrases such as “native prejudice” (Report on Vaccination, 1854, 3) too.

67 load of misconception of which the [Indian] tendency to regard all manifestations of disease as an expression of Divine wrath…” (16-17). Similarly, Report on Vaccination in the Madras Presidency for the Year 1923-24 mentions a communication between a Taluk officer and the District Health Officer, Ganjam, in which the former has reported that people of two villages under his charge had refused to be vaccinated and they had

“thought that smallpox was due to the influence of a Goddess and that vaccination would only incense her” (4).

The above references from colonial accounts show that the cultural dispositions and practices connected with Mariyamman worship were not construed as an easy field through which the European civilization in the form of a “superior,” medical technique could perform a cakewalk. Similar to the ethnographic discourses which I have discussed, here too a double dynamic operates: sometimes these discourses display hope that people would get rid of their “religious prejudices” over time when they get convinced eventually about the efficacy of the vaccination through actual experience and/or with the dissemination of scientific enlightenment through education; whereas, at other times, the goddess-associated cultural practices are rendered as difficult terrain to cross, and the accounts foreground a hopeless state of affairs. In sum, in the vaccination discourses the goddess worship evolves as an ambiguous episteme, which is vulnerable as well as challenging to the rhetoric of the “civilizing mission” of Europe, articulated in terms of its “medical benevolence.”

68 Chapter Two

Mariyamman as the Source of the Smallpox Vaccine

In the nineteenth century colonial administrative records like vaccination reports, manuals, circulars and proceedings of Madras Presidency, one often comes across references to “religious prejudices” and “superstitions” of the “natives” as stumbling blocks to smallpox vaccination. As I discussed in the preceding chapter, cultural practices relating to Mariyamman occasionally find a detrimental mention in these governmental commentaries about the nature and attitudes of the “natives.” In contrast, the colonial public vaccination campaign of the nineteenth century has adopted two approaches: either the campaign completely disregards Mariyamman-related cultural practices or takes a positive approach by incorporating Mariyamman as a supporter of vaccination and as the power behind the vaccination project. These two types of approaches extend into the twentieth-century too.

The colonial government’s advertisements propagating smallpox vaccination, published during the early decades of the nineteenth century, serve as examples of the first approach. The vaccination advertisements refrain from making any reference to the

“religious prejudices” and “superstitions” in general and to Mariyamman in particular.

From a few available copies of advertisements published in that period, one finds that the goddess’s worship for smallpox has not been disparaged. Either the advertisements, published from time to time, list the number of persons who have successfully undergone vaccination, in order to incite the readers to undergo the procedure, or they provide

69 information about vaccinations undergone by the elite of the society, projecting these events as models for others to emulate.1

Against this backdrop, I would like to draw attention to a letter written by the nineteenth century French missionary-ethnographer Abbe Dubois (1765-1848), addressed to the Superintending Surgeon of Mysore in the year 1804, and which was later circulated among the District Collectors through the Board of Revenue.2 Dubois’s career as the propagator of smallpox vaccine and his experience in the field as vaccinator is referred to by Beauchamp in his editorial foreword to Dubois’s legendary ethnographic work, Hindu

Manners, Customs and Ceremonies (1906). In this letter under discussion, Dubois asks for state assistance to perform vaccine service effectively in the districts of Barahmaul,

Coimbatore and Palgaut (Palghat) in the Madras Presidency, and delineates the future strategy to popularize the project of public vaccination too. In order to facilitate an understanding of this strategy, I am citing a lengthy portion from Dubois’s letter, dated 9

July 1804:

The strongest and I may say the almost alone [sic] serious opposition which now stands against vaccination is that which proceeds from religious scruples, or too much delicacy of conscience, the fear of irritating and being exposed to the displeasure of the goddess Mariama for she was contradicted in her ordinary mode of making her appearance under the form of natural small pox, makes so much impression on the mind of many devoted Hindoos, that in many instances hearing of the ravages made by that (177) dreadful disease in some villages and sending inoculators to stop them by the mild way of vaccination, the Inhabitants could by no means be prevailed upon to have the children inoculated, and notwithstanding the imminent danger to which the latter were exposed to take the infection of small pox, their relations obstinately refused to admit

1 For instance, in a government record (Public consultations volume no. 287B, 3804-3807) one finds a draft of an advertisement notifying the number of persons vaccinated from the month of September 1802 to the month of April 1804 “without any casualty.” Also, one of the early advertisements published in1806 draws attention to a report of the “beneficial consequences with which the Vaccine practice has been attended in the case of the young Ranee of Mysore whose Nuptials with His Highness the Rajah of Mysore” were then celebrated (Coimbatore District Records, Volume 567, 113). 2 See Coimbatore District Records, Volume 565, 173-181.

70 the powerful preservation offered to them, saying that they preferred to see their children carried away by Mariama rather than to be exposed to a more severe vengeance from that goddess by contradicting her in her ordinary way of manifesting herself among mortals; however, I am persuaded that this (178) difficulty however serious, will soon give way, and when more experience has convinced the inhabitants of the advantages of vaccination they will easily persuade themselves that Mariama herself has chosen this new mild mode, to make her appearance among them, and has preferred it to her former hideous and loathsome form, and then vaccination as is the case with every institution shall triumph over every obstacle and become as general. (177-178) (emphasis mine)

The Medical Board members, in their recorded observations on Dubois’s letter, which they sent to the Governor in council, praise Dubois as a “worthy missionary” in view of his “remarks on the prejudices of the Hindoos and his mode of explaining their religious prejudices relative to their goddess Mariama, [which] appear as expressive of an intelligent and a zealous mind, and such as to give just ground to hope that they may be removed in a reasonable time (172-3).” Not only does Dubois illustrate the “prejudices of the Hindoos” with respect to the goddess, which stand in the way of vaccination, but he also visualizes a general strategy that might evolve in the minds of the “Hindoos” in their undergoing an “experience” to accept vaccine in their lives. Dubois envisages that this acceptance by “natives”, however, will not be based on the vaccine in their considering it as a product of a “superior” European medical science; rather, it will be accepted by them as a form, a milder form, of the goddess. Their belief will be such that it is the goddess who has chosen to take on this milder form as the vaccine compared to her earlier form of smallpox.

Earlier in the first chapter, I have drawn attention to a double dynamic inherent in

Dubois’s ethnographic text—his conspicuous non-inclusion of the goddess Mariyamman within the pantheon of Hindu deities and his simultaneous reporting of the popular

71 worship of the “cruel goddess Mariyamman” by the “natives” (599). But in the letter under discussion, which Dubois wrote more in his capacity as a field practitioner of the vaccine technique than in his capacity as an “outside” ethnographer, he does not simply dismiss the goddess or call her “cruel,” as he does in his ethnographic text. Rather, he seems to have understood the larger role the goddess might play in the popularizing the vaccination project. In reading Dubois’s ethnography and this letter of his together, we can discern a discursive break between the two narratives—the former with an ethnographic import, primarily addressing a European audience, and the latter that attempts to address and shape the field concerns within the cultural premises of the colonized.

The accommodating spirit of Dubois’s letter seems to have been sustained and elaborated in the colonial propaganda of vaccination. It can be reasonably presumed that this strategy laid out by Dubois was not an idiosyncratic thought of an individual, for a similar idea appears to have persisted among colonial administrators of the Madras

Presidency during the same period. Recently, Thomas R. Trautmann (2006) has brought this out from the hitherto unpublished papers of Francis Whyte Ellis (1777- 1819),

Collector of Madras and senior member of the College of Fort St. George.3 Ellis has written a purana-like text entitled “The Legend of the Cowpox” in Tamil, which he himself later translated into English. Trautmann points out that the text “was meant to aid in the promotion of the new vaccination for smallpox, a project on which the colonial government had embarked in a big way shortly after the vaccine’s discovery” (2006,

231). The narrative, written in the form of a conversation between the goddess and the divine physician-sage Dhanvantri, articulates vaccine as a “virtue” infused by the goddess

3 I thank Professor Indira Peterson for bringing this source to my attention.

72 of Death (“Cakti”) into cows, and in the text the knowledge about this “virtue” is imparted by the goddess herself to the divine physician for the benefit of the people.

After some eighty odd years, Dubois’s valuable and practical ideas have again been invoked again in a footnote in a colonial administrative manual on Coimbatore district (1898), where he worked. The manual cites Dubois who had reported in 1804 that one way to convince Hindus who would not agree to vaccination, due to their perception of smallpox as a manifestation of its special patron deity Mariyamman, was to

“induce an opinion that Mariyamman herself had deigned to choose this mild form of smallpox, and that it was therefore not impious, but to the contrary, to assist its spread”

(112). Later, from the early twentieth century, the goddess was given positive attention in the governmental campaign of vaccination to the public, proving the insightful observations of Dubois as indispensable for propagating vaccination.

John Bull and Mother India

A booklet, issued by a Municipal Councillor, Karaikudi, in the year 1937 at the behest of the Karaikudi Health Association introduces smallpox vaccination as a “Divine

Method” (2). Demanding that every one of us who has “devotion to the divinity” (teiva bhakti) receive the immortality-bestowing elixir (amirtam) in the form of the vaccine, the booklet asks us to welcome the vaccinators, who are the divine emissaries, and implores us to follow the “divine command” (teiva kattalai) to undergo vaccination. Recasting vaccine as immortality-bestowing elixir is creative enough. What is more alluring is, the booklet’s imaginative interpretation of the iconography of Mariyamman:

We worship the goddess Mariyamman when the epidemic smallpox is

prevalent. That Mariyamman also appears to us: she grants protection to

73 us with one hand; with the second hand, she sends the vaccinators, who

are her emissaries; with the third, she bestows the pot of elixir, which is

vaccine [or the ‘milk of the mother’]; and in her fourth hand, she holds the

scepter of the vaccine needle, and, thereby, protects us all. (2)

The booklet need not be taken as an isolated product produced by a local health association at a remote town in Tamilnadu; rather, its content is strongly reminiscent of propaganda materials that were either published or approved by the state Public Health

Department in that period. I will specifically draw from three illustrated leaflets concerning smallpox vaccination published by the Public Health Department that relate to the years 1928-1930 to substantiate this argument. 4 The contents of the leaflets challenge the conception of the “civilizing mission”, enacted through the project of vaccination by the colonizing British, either by demolishing the idea of England as a key center of modern civilization or by locating Mariyamman as a patron and supporter of vaccination.

First let me look at the leaflet, titled “John Bull to Mother India”. On the first page, the leaflet shows India in the form of a woman standing at a higher level than that of John Bull, who represents England. John Bull (England) tells the woman (India) that he “neglected vaccination” and “suffer[s] for it;” in turn, the woman says “Sorry” and

4 The volume of leaflets covers various diseases from cholera and smallpox to plague and leprosy, and general issues like sanitation and nutrition, and were also available for sales. On the subject of smallpox and vaccination, about twelve leaflets have been listed in the volume. Of these, two leaflets with the titles “Safe from Smallpox” (L. No. 56, 1928) and “What we hear from the Other World” (L. No. 51, 1928), in asking people to get vaccinated, speak of the “neglect of vaccination,” and laxity and non-enforcement of vaccination in England compared to America respectively. Six leaflets are titled, “Take your Choice” (L. No. 93, 1928), “A Warning to the Public” (L. No. 54, 1928), “Vaccination versus Smallpox: Some Proofs” (L. No. 63, 1929), “Facts about Vaccination” (L. No. 4, 1930), “The Demon of Smallpox or the Angel of Vaccination” (L. No. 55, 1928), “Vaccination: What to Do and What to Expect?” (L.No.65, 1929). These leaflets address or cover one or several of the following: they explain the necessity and advantages of vaccination, detail procedures to follow during and after vaccination, furnish statistics, and ask people to come forward to get vaccinated.

74 asks him to “get everyone vaccinated” (figure 1). This dialogue is a fascinating turning over of the tables with regard to the “civilizing mission” in terms of the “medical benevolence” of the British. Inside the leaflet, we listen to the conversation between

John Bull and India. John Bull calls India “Mother”, and he expresses his plight to her saying that England, the land which was once free from smallpox, is having widespread epidemic attacks now, for an “anti-vaccinationist” (sic) campaign has grown active. To this, Mother India responds:

Sorry for you, John. Why did you neglect vaccination? What is the good

of crying now? Anyway I shan’t fall into the same pit. I shall get

everyone of my sons and daughters vaccinated. I shall see that the demon

of small-pox is driven out bag and baggage from my shores…The cry of

the German Eagle is still ringing in my ears. You had better hear what he

says, it will do you good. (2)

Obviously, the leaflet demonstrates that India, the follower of England as regards the project of vaccination is, indeed, a leader now. England is figuratively as well factually represented to be standing at a lower level than India. India’s portrayal as

“mother” synchronizes with its representation as “mother” in the nationalists’ texts of the pre-independence era. Not only that, India performs the mother role even with respect to

England in the leaflet: John Bull calls India “Mother”, and complains about his issues like a young son would do to his mother. And, the mother figure gives prudent advice, and cites another neighbor, Germany, for him to follow.

These leaflets belong to a period when the devolution of governmental power had just taken place with the Government of India Act of 1919, with the introduction of the

75 representative government at the state level.5 The sharing of power between the British and Indians produced new administrative structures such as District health committees, formed by District health boards on the instructions of local self-government bodies, to co-ordinate the medical relief, preventive medicine, control of fairs and festivals, and public health propaganda. More significantly, attention was also given to health propaganda by the authorities of local self-government. 6 A separate section for propaganda was formed in the public health department itself in the year 1927. From all these developments, one gets a sense that with the increased participation of Indians in public health administration, increased attention was given by the local self-government to mobilize the public opinion by health propaganda. Another pertinent factor to remember is that the 1910’s and 1920’s were also the decades in which nationalist sentiments throughout the subcontinent were growing strong. Between the years 1918-

1922, the Indian National Congress, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, was organizing a series of non-cooperation activities in the form of non-violent resistance to the British.7 The anti-British mood, gaining momentum in the Madras presidency, seems to have had its impact on public health discourses reaching out to people too.

Thus, factors like greater participation in the administration of public health by

Indians and fermenting nationalist feelings could have had an impact on the public

5 See Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Mark Harrison and Michael Worboys (2005, 82). The Act of 1919 embodied the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, which introduced a two-tier structure of governance and provided the way to some extent of local governance. The Act delegated certain areas like education, public health and agriculture to a greater control by Indians and retained certain others like revenue and law and order for the British administrators. 6 One of the early local self-government’s public health department’s G.O.s (G.O. No. 1354-A, P.H., dated 19 October 1921) prescribes the general guidelines, which need to be followed for the propaganda work in the districts. Moreover, complementary to the District Health Boards, in 1921, a non-government Health Propaganda Board, consisting of eight members, was constituted (G.O. 234, P.H. 8th February 1923). 7 Mahatma Gandhi himself was against smallpox vaccination. In Guide to Health (1921), an English translation from the Hindi version of Gandhi’s book on health and diseases, Gandhi squarely condemns vaccination as a “barbarous practice,” and the practice is “not to be found even among the so called savage races of the world” (106).

76 campaign relating to vaccination. The vaccination leaflets such as the one featuring John

Bull and India, with the former representing “poor England” that has not done its job correctly, and the latter taking on the mother’s role and advising John Bull, can be tied to a new strand in the public health campaign: India knows better, better than her colonizer, and she can even teach the colonizer a way or two toward a “healthy life”. The logical fallout of such articulation of India’s better or superior knowledge of vaccination is to correlate this knowledge with the “local” or indigenous medical knowledge, and bring

Mariyamman to resurface as the source of this knowledge.

The Anecdote of Mari Amma

A Public Health Department leaflet, “A Talk on Smallpox to Mothers” (L.No. 30,

1928) entreats young mothers to get their “precious” children vaccinated. Articulating the “blessing” of vaccination, which the vaccinator bestows as a “gift” upon the child, the leaflet speaks of the goddess as the one punishing those who refuse to get vaccinated:

“Smallpox is like fire, too dangerous to play with. … It is truly a visitation of the

Goddess; for she punishes those who refuse to take the remedy she has offered, namely, vaccination” (L. No.30, 3, emphasis mine). Presenting the goddess as a patron and not as an antagonist to vaccination comes out even more elaborately in another Public Health

Department vaccination leaflet titled “The Anecdote of Mari Amma” (L. No. 92, 1929).

The leaflet tells a story mainly in the form of a conversation between the Dhanavantri and the goddess Mariyamman, in a way similar to the purana-like text created by Ellis.8 The sage Dhanvantri is considered as the father of medicine in Indian mythology. In this

8 The sage appears in Ellis’s text, “The Cowpox Goddess” (Trautmann 2006). He also figures in the propaganda play on vaccination, which I will discuss below.

77 conversation, his name figures as Dhanavantri. I will summarize its contents while citing excerpts from the conversation:

One morning, when Dhanavantri is returning from the river, the goddess approaches him. He praises her devoutly, and laments that although he could cure almost all the diseases of mankind, making use of the teachings of his forefathers and the great rishis (saints), he is powerless against the goddess and knows no remedy for the smallpox that she inflicts upon people. He entreats the goddess to instruct him on her secrets, and initiate him into her mysteries. The goddess replies:

Listen, Maharishi [great saint]! I am generally cursed as a demon. But, as

you know, I am far from that. …Cruelty is not in me. Kindness is one of

my in-born attributes. … The shastras embody a set of rituals to be

followed by each person, both for his safety and for the safety of his

fellow-beings. Whoever deviates from them, whoever neglects those

codes, whoever does anything injurious to his health or to that of his

neighbour, that culprit is my victim. Him I attack with all force; …But I

leave alone those who are righteous, those who are clean, those who

follow the injunctions of the shastras. (2)

The goddess reminds Dhanavantri that he already knows one of her secrets, that she would never punish an individual twice. Dhanavantri’s forefathers knew this and they taught this to their disciples, in centers of learning such as Nalanda, Benares, Pataliputra,

Brindhaban and other places. The teachers even carried the goddess from village to village for people and returned to their homes before summer. Every village knew when to expect these teachers and every one took special care of them. Though this continued

78 for a long time, people soon became indifferent, and started neglecting her and her disciples, and the present situation resulted from this (3). Then the goddess goes on to share another secret of hers with Dhanavantri:

…Listen! my son! …There is yet another secret in my life. A secret which is valuable. A secret which is not known so far to anybody. …Remember what I say and spread the knowledge far and wide and thus relieve the sufferings of humanity. This is it. I am no doubt fond of human beings. But I like calves better. They are my chosen ones. Them I love dearly. I treat them with great kindness. I play with them. When I depart, I leave my blessings with them as a precious nectar in their bodies. At no distant future, there will appear in the west certain chosen persons who will realize this secret of mine and cherish it with avidity. They will understand the great value of the nectar which I leave in the calves. … . Knowing how valuable and useful this nectar is, they will take all possible care to collect it cleanly and send it round to everybody to welcome and receive with delight and respect. Special messengers with be appointed to carry this nectar, guard it carefully and distribute it far and wide to all persons. When my nectar is welcomed by one and all, that will be the summit of my happiness. ….If that happens, I will be supremely content. But whoever spurns the messengers, whoever rejects the nectar of mine, them I will smite and smite severely with my powerful trident, Smallpox (3-4).

The goddess affirms Dhanavantri’s position with respect to her “secret”:

...I know you are the best of mankind to receive the knowledge of the healing art, I have initiated you into the mysteries of mine. …Let yours be the privilege of first expounding it to the world. Let everyone know this! …(4)

In this exchange of dialogues, one may notice two intertwined strands of approaches in promoting vaccination: first, smallpox is shown as a disease that attacks those who are derelict in following the “shastras” and spares those who follow them.

What are these shastras? Mariyamman indicates that the “shastras”, at least in the ancient times, were forms of teachings that prevailed in great universities, from where knowledge—knowledge both in general parlance as well as with particular reference to

79 the knowledge of her first “secret”—disseminated. Her first “secret”, pertaining to the past, was disseminated by learned disciples, who are indicated in the text as links constituting the tradition of learning with the goddess as the ultimate teacher. Although the text does not openly state whether this “secret” is one of variolation, the narration that the goddess was carried from village to village by groups of men, “who return to their homes before summer”, unfolds it as variolation. 9 Further, this “secret” is about the goddess’s not afflicting any individual twice, which is actually the idea behind variolation. The goddess says that soon this knowledge of her “secret” was neglected by people, which resulted in smallpox attacks on them. The remedy for smallpox is thus presented as that which was already part of the repertoire of medical knowledge in ancient India, and this “secret” of knowledge was later lost due to the negligence and disregard for it, which amounts to the violation of “shastras”.

The “present” situation, as presented in the leaflet, is a fallen state in the realm of health. One can perceive a key shift in the discourses of vaccination here: in contrast to references such as “religious prejudices” or “religious superstition” which we find in colonial administrative records, in the leaflet we get to hear of the “negligence” and

“indifference” of people towards the codes of knowledge of the ancient Indian tradition.

In other words, in the leaflet, people’s non-support for vaccination is not attributed to something essentially intrinsic in their cultural attitude; rather, it is attributed to a historical human condition, specific to a time period. Obviously, when the notions of

“prejudice” or “superstition” are not in the picture, the rhetoric of the “civilizing mission”

9 For a history of variolation in South India, see Brimnes (“Variolation” 2004). Before cowpox vaccine was discovered, variolation, a method of inoculation with variolous or smallpox matter to bestow immunity against smallpox, was practiced. Brimnes observes that this method was “well established in parts of Asia” (1).

80 against cultural practices such as the goddess worship too falls out of the scene. As articulated in the texts of these leaflets, the goddess worship is not an obstruction to the vaccination project. On the contrary, she is behind it. Taking protection against smallpox either through variolation or vaccination amounts to sticking to the “shastras”, and that is what makes her happy.

A second strand is the representation of Edward Jenner’s discovery as “yet another secret” of the goddess. The second “secret” is obviously about cowpox vaccination, and the text speaks of the fondness of the goddess toward calves and her

“play” with them. The Jennerian vaccine is depicted as the goddess’s “nectar”, which is an apt phrase for the life-saving property of the vaccine. One can correlate this description with the goddess’s reworked iconography in the vaccination booklet, which I mentioned earlier. The cowpox vaccine, inasmuch as it is “another secret”, is therefore not unique and the first of this sort; already there had been a former “secret” in the form of variolation, which was lost due to negligence and disrespect. Moreover, in the conversation between the goddess and Dhanavantri, which is presented in the text as having commenced in the past, this second “secret” of the cowpox vaccine is not yet already there, and will be discovered only in the “future” by “chosen persons” in the

West. In these descriptions, the cowpox vaccine not only falls along with the old remedy of variolation in the chronological scale, but both remedies are related to the goddess as well: the goddess is the source as well as the keeper of the “secrets” of the remedies; and inoculators were and vaccinators are her disciples or messengers.

What does it mean and what import does it have to call the new vaccine a “secret” of the goddess and to portray Dhanavantri as the first one to get initiated into it? To

81 enquire into this, I will take up analyzing a propaganda play on smallpox and vaccination, titled Dhanvantri: Vaicuri Cammantamana Or Natakam, published in 1933. 10 S.S.

Krishnasami, a health inspector, is its author, and the play was approved by the Director of Public Health, Madras.

The Play

The author, in his foreword, states his aims in writing this play. One of these aims is to correct people’s opinion that the money spent by the government to protect people from smallpox is wasted. Another aim is to enact the theme of the fruitfulness of child vaccination as well as revaccination, so that people may get benefits from that enactment and live long. Clearly, this is a propaganda play written by a health inspector for public performance.

The play lists the narrative spaces of events at the start. The story is situated in heaven (Swarkkalokam), a smallpox- afflicted village called Sukanandapuri (“The city of good health”), and in a town called Suseelanakaram (“The city of good discipline”), where the health inspector has his office. In Sukanandapuri, the drama mainly unfolds in locations such as a playground, a river’s bank, the Mariyamman temple, and the village headman’s office. In the beginning, the text also lists characters representing different caste groups, such as Pillai, Naidu, Scheduled community and Brahmins. The characters are a varied lot, such as the priest of the Mariyamman temple, students, village headman, accountant, health inspector, vaccinator, clown, a sage called Dhanvantri, Munsiff (a post in Judicial services), the god Sarveswaran (Siva) and the goddess Ananda Mariyamman

(Blissful Mariyamman).

10 A government circular by the Director of Public Health (1933) lists a few more plays related to vaccination, such as Saroja, Vaisoori lingan, and Sugajeevani, written by health inspectors from various places. The list includes Dhanvantri too, which, to my knowledge, is the only play available now.

82 The plot is built like this: In heaven, the god Sarveswaran is informed by his court minister about the ravaging smallpox on earth. The god sends for ‘those who are fond of religion’ (matabimanikal) and asks them to go to the earth to educate people so that they are saved from smallpox. One of the matabimanikal replies that they can create cowpox in cows of the earth, and adds that one of them would also instruct Dr. Jenner, who is living in a small village of the English country, to invent a preventive against smallpox. An emissary soon appears in Jenner’s dream, introduces himself saying that he comes from Sarveswaran, reminds Jenner of the cruelties of smallpox, and informs him that of all the animals living in the world, the cow is the best and that is why it has been called the “Kamadhenu of the world.” The emissary directs Jenner to check the udders of cows to know the “secret.” Jenner examines the udders of cows with a microscope, and on seeing the scars on the udders similar to those caused by smallpox he concludes that vaccine (ammaippal) can be prepared from the cows. (The Tamil word “ammaippal” which denotes both “milk [pus] of measles and poxes” and “milk of the mother.” As we will see, at the end of the drama, this Tamil word will be played with to convince people to undergo vaccination.)

As Jenner is undertaking his research, the emissary goes to him again, hurries him up, and instructs him to check the palms of the cowherds who milk the cows. The emissary informs Jenner that he would find scars, similar to the ones which he saw on the udders of cows, on their palms too. He also divines that within a week Jenner would get to know the matter through a woman. Jenner soon encounters Mary, a cowherd woman who visits the smallpox-afflicted houses freely. Mary informs Jenner that once she came across pustules resembling smallpox pustules on the udders of cows and she burst them

83 open. She says that when she took the fluid underneath the tips of her nails, she heard a voice: “Woman, you can go to houses afflicted with smallpox and can do service.

Through the udders of cows, I, milk of the mother, have entered you. Smallpox would not ‘fetter’ you. Be courageous.” From his conversation with Mary, Jenner comes to discover that cowpox would be capable of preventing smallpox attacks on human beings.

By this new method, he first vaccinates his children and then the entire village. The

“English king” gets to know this and bestows on him a gift of “one lakh gold coins.” The

“English king” gives necessary instructions to his minister to carry out vaccination programs.

In the second part of the play, in Sukanandapuri, the villagers discuss the prevalence of smallpox in the village and the deaths and disfigurements caused by it. Fate as well as anger of the goddess Makamayi (Mariyamman), who has not been given abhishekam (worshipful bathing of the icon) for years, come up in their talk. Amidst their discussion, they hear a voice announcing, “O People, In order to save you, I have dispatched my emissary. He will render good to you. If you do abhishekam to me tomorrow, I will disclose my secret in detail.” The village head immediately arranges for an announcement to be made to the entire village regarding the abhishekam of the goddess. Meanwhile, the village Munsiff prepares a report of the disease and sends the report through the village watchman to the health inspector at Suseelanakaram.

The next scene unfolds with an elaborate discussion among villagers on smallpox: its symptoms, spread, precautions to be taken, and the importance of vaccination. At this time, they hear the tom-tom announcing there will be an abhishekam at the Mariyamman temple the next day, with the visit of the vaccinator, “ammappillai”, to the village. (The

84 phrase “ammappillai” in Tamil means “child of the mother”, implying that the vaccinator is intimate to the goddess who treats him as her son. It is worth mentioning that the

‘traditional’ healers, who make pearls of ammai “roll down” [or remove them] from the body by singing lullaby songs to the goddess, are also called “ammappillai” in villages even today.)

The play then presents the sage Dhanvantri, who meditates on Siva. Dhanvantri is the name of the divine physician, and the play suggests that the sage and the physician are the same. (We already met him as “Dhanavantri” in the “Anecdote” leaflet before.)

Ananda Mariyamman visits Dhanvantri, who asks her about the ways to alleviate the sufferings caused by smallpox. Mariyamman informs him that god Sarveswaran, pleased by the worship of the sage, sent Mariyamman to him to share her secret with him. Then,

Mariyamman shares her secret with Dhanvantri:

O Sage, of all quadrupeds in this world, are not cows the best? …I too

like the calves of cows and I play with them. Therefore, I would send my

pearls of smallpox into them. As I would send all my power (sakthi) into

the calves in this manner, when the calves grow big into cows, I will get

into persons who milk the udders of these cows. …. Smallpox is a

contagious disease. …. But when those who milk the cows and into

whom I have already entered visit smallpox-afflicted houses, smallpox can

do no harm to them. …My child, My secret that power against smallpox

could be imparted in this way has been discovered by a public health

worker, called Doctor Jenner, living in a small village in the English

country, with the help of an emissary from Eswaran. The secret is to

85 prepare vaccine (ammaippal) from the finely brought up calves of cows.

(44)

Mariyamman then goes on giving details about the “seed lymph” and describes the method of preparing vaccine from the calves. She also announces to Dhanvantri about the arrangement of abhishekam to a maiden-goddess (who is she herself) in the village. She instructs the sage to share her secret instructions with people when they invite him for the abhishekam.

Next day, the villagers assemble at the Mariyamman temple. Meanwhile, the health inspector visits the village and is brought to the temple with due respect (with band music). Before visiting the temple, the health inspector visits the houses that have smallpox, notes the details down, gives a small lecture on pearls of smallpox and then reaches the Mariyamman temple. The priest at the temple gets possessed; he divines that as people did not take care of Mariyamman, she started “playing” in the village, and as she is now satisfied with their abhishekam, they need not fear anything. The priest also asks the people to bring sage Dhanavantri from the river’s bank as he holds a secret which he might impart to the people. The sage is brought to the temple and he shares the secret of the goddess:

“Mariyamman has a child,” and that [child] is “milk of the mother” or the

vaccine (ammaippal). Those who come to impart the “milk of the

mother” (vaccinators) are her emissaries. Therefore, it is the duty of every

one of you to have the “milk of the mother” without abusing those

emissaries. This is the secret. (56)

86 The health inspector extols the sage as god himself and thanks him for imparting the wisdom of the medicine to him and to people. The sage, in turn, blesses the health inspector and asks him to talk about smallpox to those who are present there. The sage then advises the villagers that the health inspector has arrived there for their benefit. He adds that the emissaries of Mariyamman (vaccinators) are going to visit the village the next day, and everyone should undergo vaccination and live safely.

The next day, the villagers assemble at a public building in the village. The health inspector and a vaccinator visit them. The vaccinator sings songs in which he praises the

“compassionate” government that has arranged for vaccination in every village in order to reduce mortality and disfigurement caused by smallpox. The clown joins him with a song reminding the people that the vaccinators are Mariyamman’s emissaries and people should take good care of them to avoid the wrath of the goddess. The vaccinator sings of the procedure of how to take care of a baby after vaccination, of the preparation of the seed lymph, and of Jenner’s invention of the vaccine. Finally, a villager thanks the

“compassionate” government that helps them, and says that the villagers should pray to

Sarveswaran so that the government can protect people through protecting the righteous duty (dharma) for a very long time.

Mariyamman’s “Child” and “Message”

I have given a detailed account of the play in order to uncover layers of intricacies in the text. In contrast to the smaller “Anecdote” leaflet, which just presents a dialogue between the goddess and Dhanavantri, the father of medicine, this lengthy play elaborates a public sphere involving people from several communities who participate in discussions about smallpox and vaccination, and about related activities of the

87 community. The leaflet as well as the play draws on the strategy envisaged by Dubois and travels along the path of the earlier text of Ellis. In constituting the authenticity of the

“alien”, historical vaccine, both invoke divine figures and mythologies as Ellis’s text does. Yet the play moves a step further than Ellis’s text. In the play, the history of the smallpox vaccine is not only simply recast within the Hindu puranic framework, but characters from Britain, such as the ruling sovereign of Britain, his ministers and Edward

Jenner, the inventor of vaccine, are brought in. Fitting well within the nationalist sentiments that were bubbling in the early twentieth century in colonial India, the play establishes that an Indian Hindu god is the generative force behind the historical invention of the vaccine even in the land of the colonizers. While the play concedes that

Jenner is the inventor of the vaccine, the invention could take place only after the intervention of Sarveswaran. The name Sarveswaran implies god Siva, and more appropriately it could be translated as the “god for all (sarvam).” Thus, the vaccine might be a European invention; yet the impetus and guidance to invent it are imparted by the Supreme One, who is nonpartisan and to whom the colonized and the colonizing are equally subjects. Bringing in Sarveswaran helps the text to articulate an alternative universality that goes against the grain of the dominating universality of the “civilizing mission,” embedded in the colonial rhetoric of the “medical benevolence” of Europe helping the “superstitious,” colonized other.

Secondly, the texts of both the “Anecdote” leaflet and the play, in employing the phrase “secret of the goddess” to describe the “scientific” vaccine, take on the “secular” discourse of science and transform it into something esoteric, and thereby, appropriate it to the Indian context. In the leaflet, the goddess employs the phrase “initiation into her

88 mysteries” as she shares information on the “healing art” with Dhanavantri (Dhanvantri).

It is Dhanavantri, who is shown as belonging to the lineage of learned Indian men, who gets to know the “second secret” of vaccination first from the goddess. In the play too, even though the practical implementation of the “secret” in the form of vaccination takes place through the colonial officials, a health inspector and a vaccinator, the knowledge of the “secret” is imparted to people through Dhanvantri, who is the first to get instructed by the goddess. Such articulation, which appropriates the knowledge of vaccination as something belonging to “indigenous” physicians-sages, creates a wedge between the knowledge of science and the power of science. 11 For the texts seem to argue that although the power of medical science is exercised through the project of vaccination by the colonial government, the knowledge of medical technique is always already possessed by “indigenous” physician-sages.

Finally, the Jennerian vaccine itself is constituted as something not alien. The deities help in this enterprise. The “secret” of the vaccine is not the “secret” of Europe; though it is unearthed in Europe, it still has been the “secret” of the Tamil goddess. In the play, the goddess is willing to share her secret now with the villagers because they have satisfied her with their abhishekam. More importantly, the vaccine, referred to in Tamil as “milk of the mother” (ammaippal), is her own “child”. It is worth noting that the “milk of the mother,” through its metonymic connection with child, for which it is food, gets to be called “child” itself. The goddess sends her “child” through her emissaries, who are

11 A big debate has been going on from early eighteenth century and till as late as in 1980’s among public health administrators, Indian public and scholars of history of medicine about whether Dhanvantri, a classical Indian physician, has mentioned cowpox vaccination in his medical text or not. Commenting on the claim made in 1820’s by a man from Tamilnadu that Indians had known the vaccination technique even before Jenner as a “pious fraud”, Dominik Wujastyk (1987) suggests that it could not have been possible because cowpox was not reported in India prior to 1800’s. The “pious fraud” might be viewed, from the perspective of this play, more as an indigenous attempt to create a wedge between knowledge and power in the realm of science, than as a “false” claim to appropriate credit for the invention of the vaccine.

89 vaccinators, and demands that people bear it on their body. At another instance in the play, the emissaries or vaccinators are referred to as the “children of mother/goddess”.

The point is: the villagers should welcome both the messengers (the vaccinators) and the message (the vaccine), for both the message and messengers are her children. The leaflet too adapts a similar argument when Mariyamman says that if people welcome her

“special messengers” carrying the “nectar” of vaccine, it will be the “summit of her happiness,” and warns them that if they reject the “messengers,” she would “smite” them with her “trident of smallpox”.

From Counterfeit to Authentic

In the first chapter, I discussed the conception of “pearls” of ammai as the seal of the goddess, indicating her sovereignty over the body of a person. V.V Ramanan’s article at the turn of the century (1900-1902) also brings in the “pearls” of ammai into the picture. According to him, people believe that they invite the wrath of the goddess if they do not place themselves under her “merciful sway” or if they allow the “counterfeit pearls” to be smuggled into her port. In Ramanan’s account, thus, the religious conception of ammai intermingles with the resistance to the fake pearls of vaccine: what is granted by the goddess is believed by people to be genuine, whereas what is administered by the state is regarded as false; while the imprinted seal of the goddess is, therefore, preferred, the affixed seal of the government in the form of vaccination is resisted.

When we closely read the discourse of pearls in Ramanan’s article and in these propaganda materials, the issue in question appears to be not so much the effectiveness- in-itself of the new pearls of vaccine, but about how authentic the pearls are. The

90 authenticity is posited a priori to the usage of the new pearls, and not subsequent to it.

This a priori prefiguring of authenticity appears to be something that cannot be dislodged from the actual worth of vaccine itself. Reading the play and the leaflet, one can say that what these texts do is to forge an authenticity for the vaccine. The play does this by bringing in Sarveswaran as well as the goddess to lead the general context of invention of the vaccine by Jenner and the specific context of its introduction in the village respectively. Sarveswaran occasions the invention of vaccine and Mariyamman vigorously advocates it. Moreover, at the Mariyamman temple, the divine physician

Dhanvantri advises the villagers to undergo vaccination. The health inspector not only offers worship at the temple but also reveres the divine physician as god and thanks him for imparting wisdom to him and to others. The textual enterprise of imparting authenticity to pearls of vaccine attains its peak with the public announcement by

Dhanvantri at the temple that the vaccine is the goddess’s child. This act establishes the vaccine as nothing less than prasadam or the goddess’s grace-filled gift, which needs to be taken in by the devotees. We should remember that the leaflet also describes the vaccine as the “precious nectar” of the goddess, which she leaves in the cows as her

“blessings”, thereby implying vaccine as the goddess’s gift.

One might wonder why the play strives to present the vaccine as “authentic.”

Ramanan’s narrative gives clues for this: The “counterfeit” pearls cannot be smuggled into the “goddess’s port”. The “port” can mean a place like a village where the goddess has her sway; but it can mean the body as well, considering the vaccine is physically imported into the body. Pearls of another kind from the outside, here, the vaccine, imply currency that is “counterfeit,” that does not hold value in the port. Ramanan remarks that

91 the goddess’s wrath would be incited by vaccination and she would then “play away…with the population”. The goddess’s putting in pearls in the body is called her

“playing” (vilaiyattu) in Tamil. Her “playing away” indicates her taking away the unauthorized, counterfeit pearls of vaccine, and such an act amounts to her taking away the lives as well. Hence, the new pearls of vaccine need to be constituted on par with her pearls of ammai, so that these new pearls could hold currency in her “port”, which is the human body. And, these texts of public vaccination campaign precisely do it: they invest in the enterprise of rendering vaccine as that which belongs to and which is authorized by the goddess. Further, we saw earlier that the pearls of ammai are the royal seal of the goddess, a part of herself, affixed on the body. By describing the vaccine as the “child” or “nectar” of the goddess, the vaccine is depicted to have belonged to the goddess and is part of the goddess. People could no longer object to its being imported into their

“bodies-ports” as valid currency, or its being affixed on to their bodies as her seal.

In constituting authenticity for vaccine in the name of the divine figures, these propaganda texts perform three things: First, the underlying hopeful idea of the texts that authenticity for a historical, “scientific invention” could be created by drawing in mythologies, rejects the significance of any history/myth divide. “Fact” and “fiction” interweave in the texts with the sole purpose of presenting the ‘new’ pearls of the

Jennerian vaccine as being on par with the existing pearls of smallpox. Secondly, these texts pay due regard to cultural recognition for the goddess and cultural practices of her worship in the course of validating the smallpox vaccine. As one sees from the play, not only is the absence of the proper worship of the goddess Mariyamman cited as a reason for the outbreak of smallpox in the village, but also a special worship in the form of

92 abhishekam to the deity is arranged by the villagers before their undergoing vaccination.

This special worship to satisfy the goddess is not depicted as “superstitious” or something antithetical to “scientific” vaccine; instead the worship guarantees the villagers their attainment of the “scientific” vaccine as the “secret” of the goddess. In a similar vein, in the leaflet too, when Dhanavantri accepts his “powerlessness” against smallpox, the goddess rewards him with the “second secret” of the cowpox vaccine. Thirdly, the texts counter the “civilizing mission,” articulated in terms of “medical benevolence” of the colonizer: the vaccine technique has arrived from the West and has been introduced by the colonizers; but this does not mean that the vaccine technique needs to be construed as the “medical benevolence” of the colonizers. In no ambiguous terms, the propaganda texts portray the vaccine as a “blessing” and the “gift” of the goddess in striking contrast with the colonial, administrative records, which depict the vaccine as a “blessing” from

Europe. In fact, the play refers to the British government as “compassionate”, yet the

“compassion” unfolds in the text in the context of disseminating the vaccine technique among people and not in the context of discovering the technique. And, ultimately, the colonial authorities represented by the government are merely instruments to carry the goddess’s “message” so that it reaches people.

In the beginning of this chapter, I discussed the popularity and prevalence of the goddess-associated cultural practices for ammai in Tamilnadu. At the outset one can say that the religious worship of the goddess cannot be understood through a psychological functionalist approach: Arnold’s understanding (1993) that people resort to religious worship to “gain some form of control” over dangerous diseases like smallpox is flawed, for the worship of the goddess in connection with lesser harmful varieties of ammai very

93 much exist in the post-smallpox era. As we have seen, the propaganda materials try to constitute smallpox vaccine as being as “authentic” as smallpox itself by depicting the vaccine as the “secret,” “message,” and “child” of the goddess. Such a reframing questions the existing scholarly positions that pitch the indigenous culture against the civilizing rhetoric of the colonizer (Brimnes 2004), and creatively challenges the chasm between what Frederique Apffel Marglin (1990) posits as “logocentric” and “non- logocentric” modes of thought, with the former mode aligned with the imposition of medical, scientific rationality from the Government “above,” and the latter, belonging to people “down” and recognizing the goddess.

Conclusion

From the above discussions, I observe that the actual practice of promoting vaccination in the field of Indian towns and villages seems to be at variance with the idea of it as inscribed in the colonial administrative records. In the previous chapter, I have shown that the civilizing rhetoric accompanying the “medical benevolence”, as one gets from the colonial administrative records of vaccination, operates on the same track with the civilizing rhetoric promoting the streak of Christianity, which we come to know of from the major ethnographic texts on South India. Both constitute the goddess worship as a challenge along the path of civilizing Indians. On the contrary, public campaign discourses either gloss over this perception of the goddess worship, as one can see in the restraint these discourses adopt in referring to the goddess disparagingly, or draw upon the goddess for their cause.

Long back, in the early nineteenth century, Dubois suggested such a strategy of negotiation with the goddess and Ellis appears to have tried this out. Although one cannot

94 assert that this strategy of negotiating with the goddess’s worship in promoting the vaccine was always adopted throughout the course of the vaccination project, we do get evidence that this strategy was definitely present as a significant strand in the colonial propaganda of vaccination. Adapting this strategy might not have been due to the respect for and recognition on the part of the ruling British for India’s cultural pluralism; 12 and as

I discussed before, the increased participation of Indians in the public health administration and the intensifying nationalist sentiments could have contributed in their own way to this strategy, in due consideration of the force and strength of the goddess- related cultural practices in the subcontinent.

The leaflet “Anecdote of Mari Amma,” after presenting the dialogue between the goddess and the father of Indian medicine, says something at the end to its readers: “This is no myth. It is not a figment or [sic] the imagination. It is a plain truth” (4). Yet, we know it is a myth, and in it the message of urging use of the modern medical technique is couched with a hope so that it appeals to people. Dubois’s vision, over a hundred years earlier, of the goddess’s active role in the era of vaccination has come to the foreground now, with these vaccination propaganda materials. Dubois, an astute ethnographer, had already charted the way in which the modern medical technique would be assimilated by the “natives”. Indeed, his observations played a forerunning commentary on modernity in suggesting that in modernity’s course of flowering in the Indian soil, the popular, cultural practices need not be displaced by “rational”, Western science; and, on the

12 Arnold observes that “Medical monopoly, and not cultural pluralism, was their [the British’s] goal” (157).

95 contrary, it is possible that the science could be given an ‘indigenous’ cast and assimilated within the framework of indigenous cultural practices.13

Perceiving the discourses of smallpox and vaccination from this framework helps us to comprehend the contemporary significance of the goddess-related cultural practices in South India. The idea of interpreting the smallpox vaccine as the blessing or prasadam of the goddess, so that it can be borne on the bodies of people and be accepted by them, could be a precise starting point to trace the articulations of the bodily subjectivity in the

Tamil context. Since the goddess worship has time and again encountered the colonial rhetoric of the European civilization in colonial ethnographic and public health discourses, and since the goddess has been positively incorporated within the colonial field maneuvers for propagating the modern vaccine, this tracing will also amount to an inquiry into the emergence of the modern subject as a historical site of such encounter and incorporation.

13 Along these lines, in the discussion of contemporary healing ritual of ammai in chapter six, we shall see how European allopathic medicine is incorporated within the ritual framework under the figure of the goddess. Further, there is a crucial difference in the way Mariyamman is conceived in colonial vaccination propaganda discourses and the way in which Mariyamman is seen in the Tamil context. I will explore this difference in Chapter Eight.

96 Chapter Three

Affliction, Materiality, Signification

Chapter one began with a brief ethnographic discussion of the body afflicted with ammai in relation to the goddess, and the discussion subsequently led us to the historical colonial context of smallpox vaccination. Drawing from my conversations and from an article by Ramanan, published a century ago, I discussed the authority that the goddess is believed to have over the human body during ammai. I also analyzed how the conception of this authority influenced the colonial understanding of the popular resistance to vaccination and the organization of public campaigns promoting the vaccination. In this chapter, I explore how and by what modalities an afflicted body is identified “as”

Mariyamman.

Habitual Practice

In South India, Mariyamman’s perceived presence and influence appear to transcend the categories of religious faith, perhaps, because ammai is not confined to those who follow any particular religious faith; I will cite some examples to help comprehend this: I have met more than a few Muslim as well as Christian families who spoke to me about their interaction with the goddess and her priests when someone in the family falls sick with ammai. I heard from some of them about their active participation in temple festival activities too. For instance, in Kozhumam, near Pazhani, two Muslim men told me that they arrange water booths and buttermilk booths during local

Mariyamman festivals. They also participate in other festival-related activities such as pasting festival notices on the walls and helping to organize the crowd of worshippers at the festival every year. One of them even told me that Mariyamman is similar to a

97 goddess called Mariam Beevi that they themselves have: he says that Mariam Beevi got the pearls of poxes from a male Islamic god analogous to Mariyamman’s getting her pearls of ammai from Siva, and, like Mariyamman she too bestows and cures ammai.

Similarly, I have heard of Muslim women visiting temples of Mariyamman and attending festivals at places like Natham and Nilakkottai, near Madurai. Two Muslim women friends of mine from Thanjavur and Chennai told me that they follow customs similar to those followed by Hindus, such as hanging a bunch of margosa leaves above the door of the house, cooking food without seasoning, and strictly practicing sexual abstinence, when a family member suffers from ammai. They call these palakkavalakkam, which can be literally translated as “habitual practices” which these families seem to have been following for ages. In an identical vein, an extended Muslim family from Pudukkottai spoke to me on ammai and the goddess; I am reproducing excerpts from my conversation with a woman called Majubilla (M) from that family:

Perundevi (P): Could you tell me how children get ammai?

M: People say it is because of heat; some say it is due to the goddess. But

we don’t believe in it.

P: That’s why I ask you this. What do you think of the goddess?

M: We should not believe in her. If we do, people would even denigrate

us. Yet our children get ammai. How can we ask it to go? If one gets

fever, it would go away if medicine and injection were administered. But

ammai is not like that. Ammai makes us afraid. We have to keep our

house clean (cuttam) and safe (pattiram).1

P: So what would you do?

1 The Tamil term “cuttam” indicates the sense of “pure” as well as “clean.”

98 M: We should maintain cuttam. We should conduct ourselves with cuttam.

It is better to make the child lie on a white cloth. Then we hang margosa leaves above the doorstep.

P: Why?

M: Because on seeing these leaves, those who are not clean would not visit such houses, where Amma [mother] has come. Those who are from the houses of death or those who ask for alms would not approach our house. Nor can these houses give alms to beggars. Even if guests visit us, they should not stay with us for long. They should leave at once.

…

P: Do you generally go to Mariyamman temple?

M: During Mariyamman festival at Tiruvappur, we go to the temple and do archanai [a puja where several names of the goddess would be recited]. Some of us even take a vow to tonsure the heads of children at

Tiruvappur Mariyamman temple and do so.

P: Do you read Mariyamman Lullaby when a family member has got ammai?

M: We get water [the abhisheka water, which is the water used for bathing the icon of the goddess] from Mariyamman temple when someone has ammai. When my husband was nine years old, he had ammai. His parents called someone to read the lullaby for him. As the ammai was severe, they even obtained the gruel from a washerwoman’s house and

99 gave it to him. [This is a general custom followed in Tamilnadu when

someone has a severe attack of ammai.]

From the conversation, one can discern ambiguity in the question of Majubilla’s belief in the goddess: for at one point she asserts that the family does not believe in the goddess although she talks about its drawing on Mariyamman’s support through singing the Lullaby or getting the abhisheka water. Moreover, she also mentions their taking vows in the name of the goddess. Notwithstanding this ambiguity, she expresses the observance of certain practices during ammai, which are analogous to what a Hindu family would follow. This shows that not only do these practices have a wider appeal for people of different religious faiths at a cultural level but as indicated by my Muslim friend’s term “palakkavalakkam,” these practices exercise significance and draw patronage irrespective, even sometimes, of the “religious faith” to which people belong, although such significance and patronage might be of varying degrees.

This makes me propose that during ammai, the authority of the goddess over the body is constituted in and through the habitual practices observed at the house. The term

“habitual practice” did not make its first appearance in the utterances of the Muslim women; rather, I heard this phrase quite commonly used across the cross-sections of religion, gender and caste as an immediate response to my inquiries related to ammai.

Sometimes, although a detailed description of the conduct of these practices or of the beneficial consequences these practices confer upon the individual, family, and community would eventually follow, the phrase “habitual practice” would be used by my addressees as if it were an obvious, self-explanatory response to my curious “Whys?” with the supplementary, detailed descriptions validating the “obviousness” of the phrase.

100 For a Long, Long Time

When I visited Amudha’s house, her sixty-five year old mother-in-law too said it was their palakkavalakkam to keep the ammai-arrived child inside without exposing him to the outside world and to keep water at the doorstep of the house so that family members or visitors wash their feet before they enter the house. I asked her how long they had been following such practices. According to her, these customs have been there

“for a long, long time (kalam kalama),” and she even retorted: “Can anyone know the origin of Amma (mother)?” Along with the phrase ‘for a long, long time,’ another similar phrase ‘for a very long time’ (romba kaalama) was also used by temple priests or devotees sometimes when they spoke about certain practices performed at the temple, probably, thereby, asserting the cultural legacy of such practices. Time in these expressions has nothing to do with a specific point in a historical backdrop; it, rather, refers to an immemorial process, which has been there forever and which eternally eludes human calculation.

“Habitual practice,” through such references of elusion, assumes an originary aura around it; and this naturalization connects with Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of habitus, which, for him, is an “embodied history, internalized as a second nature and so forgotten as history” (1990, 56) The habitus, according to Bourdieu, “ensures the active presence of past experiences, which deposited in each organism in the form of schemes of perception, thought, and action, tend to guarantee the ‘correctness’ of practices and their constancy over time, more reliably than all formal rules and explicit norms” (54). For Bourdieu, the historically incorporated habitus, the “structured and structuring dispositions,” is the

101 principle that generates and organizes practices; and, in turn, the habitus gets “constituted in practice and is always oriented towards practical functions” (52).

Although Bourdieu defines the habitus in terms of “active presence,” he seems to underpin such a presence in terms of an abstract, unconscious structure rather than in terms of conscious and willful activity. Bourdieu argues inasmuch as the habitus is

“unconscious,” we do not interrelate the two worlds of social conditions, the one in which

“the habitus that generated was constituted” and the other in which it is “implemented”

(56). This causes what Bourdieu calls the “forgetting of history,” which makes the habitus get internalized as “second nature” (56). Such internalization renders practices as

“autonomous” activities and the actors involved in practices feel as if they are free agents, acting spontaneously and willfully.

Following Bourdieu and not varying from him in a major way, scholars including

Catherine Bell and Sherry Ortner deploy this structural model of the habitus. Catherine

Bell in her Ritual Theory Ritual Practice (1992) identifies the habitus as a critical tool to inquire into the “act in itself,” and emphasizes the need to address the “socially informed body” in this process. In her discussion, she equates the Bourdieu’s notion of the “sense” of “the socially informed body” with the socially acquired or possessed “knowledge”.

Bell’s creative interpretation attempts to shift the over-determining “unconscious” of the habitus into a strategic, “knowledge” of the participants, although this “knowledge,” for her, does not have the ultimate word on the actual practices. However, this creative interpretation remains a half-hearted measure, for notwithstanding this reading of hers,

Bell seems to fall back upon Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, when she posits “a fundamental ‘misrecognition’” of performers as “intrinsic” to the practice of ritual and

102 writes: “In simpler terms, we can say that practice sees what it intends to accomplish, but it does not see the strategies it uses to produce what it actually does accomplish, a new situation” (87). Thus for Bell although “knowledge” is inscribed in the habitus, a participant cannot know how the “knowledge” is being exercised in the course of practice. In other words, “knowledge” does not include knowledge about oneself in practice in Bell’s account. In denying this self-knowledge in practice to the participant,

Bell positions herself with Bourdieu.

In her engaging with practice theory to inquire into the high religion of Sherpas,

Sherry B. Ortner introduces the idea of two synchronic worlds on whose interface practice operates, perpetually transforming one into the other. The first one is the objective world, that “appears as system and structure, constituting actors, or confronting them,” and the second world is the subjective one where it “appears as culture, as symbolic frames derived from actors’ attempts to constitute that world in their own terms by investing it with order, meaning and value” (1989, 18). Ortner’s concern lies with the translation between these subjective/objective or inside/outside worlds (18). Ortner accords significance to intentional activity of participants; yet this significance is contained within a dichotomous framework of the objective/subjective and inside/outside, with this framework taken as something pre-given and real, even though these categories, for her, are translatable from one to another.

Habitus and “Schema”

Against the above backdrop, when I speak of “habitual practices,” my concern is not so much with looking at practice as an “act in itself,” or practice as an “overall framework” within which the “subjective” structure of the habitus and the social world

103 mutually get translated into one another. Rather, in this work, I will be trying to understand how this formation of the habitus is made possible through goddess-related discursive practices and how the mutually formative correspondences between the habitus and socio-cultural products get grounded in these practices. In other words, instead of positing a “pre-existing” subject inhabiting a structure, which generates and organizes goddess-related practices reconstituting the socio-cultural world and reconstituting itself, I will look into how the “subject” itself is marked as such by and through its participation in these practices.

I observe that inasmuch as the presence of the goddess or the schema operates as the “principle of intelligibility” in the contexts of ammai and arul, it is structurally akin to the habitus which is the organizing principle of practices that foreground the contexts of

“possession” or of Mariyamman’s “presence” in the body. The generative impetus that the schema is endowed with, which enables its involvement in the production, renders it as the generative principle akin to the habitus as well. However, as I understand it, the schema or the presence can be articulated only through its being actualized though practices and not as an a priori positionality that determines the practices. Moreover, signifying practices organized around the schema that operates as the “principle of intelligibility” are involved in the performative production of the body as the goddess in and through these contexts of “presence.”

In getting such an understanding of the habitus and of its production through performative practices, I am indebted to Butler’s critical inquiry into Bourdieu’s idea of the habitus. Butler recognizes the significance of the theoretical move of Bourdieu in forging the habitus in his “effort to avoid the pitfalls of subjectivism and idealism”

104 (“Performativity” 1999, 117). While the dispositions created by the habitus do not determine actions of the subjects “causally”, and therefore, while actions are not performed according to subjectivistic agenda, actions are not exclusively governed by the social “given” either. Yet, although Bourdieu visualizes practices as generating “at the site of conjuncture between the habitus” and social “fields”, Butler argues that it is still the “objective agency attributed [by Bourdieu] to the field” (117-18) that overdetermines the habitus, and due to the “objective agency” attributed to the field, the capacity of the habitus to “alter” the “social fields” is undermined in Bourdieu’s theorization.

Although Bourdieu projects something like an “epistemological encounter” between the heuristically separated as well as converging “subjective habitus” and the

“objective social fields,” according to Butler, this “encounter” itself is a “belated and imposed scenario” (“Performativity” 1999, 119) inasmuch as the habitus itself is predicated on the social “field as the condition of its own possibility” (117), and the habitus is always already a site in which the “objectivity” of the “social field” is inscribed. The “practical mimeticism” between the habitus and the social fields in

Bourdieu’s narration projects an “already formed subject” acting in an “epistemological confrontation with an external and countervailing field” (“Performativity,” 118). Thus

Bourdieu’s proposition, which is based upon the perfect mutual “adaptation” between the habitus and the social fields, displaces the constitutive question of “formation” of the subject or habitus in and through practices. This displacement is effected by the descriptive accounting of a heuristically constructed “encounter” between the a priori dichotomous positions occupied by the habitus and social fields.

105 The constitutive question of the “habitus” or the “presence” of the goddess through bodily practices became a major concern of my research precisely due to the dynamics of events that I gathered in the fieldwork. Whereas a major portion of this dissertation is dedicated to thinking through these events, I will briefly cite two interrelated phenomena that first directed me to this approach. In the initial stages of my work in India, I came across one undated chapbook text called “Mariyamman Urpatti

Natakam,” which could be literally translated as “The Play of Producing Mariyamman.”

The play dwells on the story of the goddess Renuka, the wife of sage Jamadagni, who gets beheaded by her son and later becomes the goddess Mariyamman in the course of the play. While the play gives us a script of enactment of “producing” Mariyamman, the performances at Mariyamman temples during her festivals are almost always about making the goddess “arrive” in the human bodies. Furthermore, in contrast to these festival performances which produce the goddess as an embodied phenomenon, the healing performances that take place during ammai are about peacefully sending away the goddess present in the form of ammai pearls from the body.

I could sense that whether it is making the goddess arrive in and through temple performances, or whether it is singing to the goddess, requesting her to roll down from the body during ammai healing, or enabling a proper ambience at home for the goddess to leave the sick person, in and through all these events there emerge certain discourses of body, which is invested with or which is reinforced with the presence of the goddess.

During ammai and during festivals, ideally this investment not only makes the body submit to the goddess, but it produces the body as that of the goddess herself. I consider that it is worthwhile to investigate how and under what conditions a body, invested with

106 Mariyamman’s presence, is produced in these contexts. Such an inquiry might be useful for inquiring into the genealogy of subjectivity or interiority in its relationship with body, and I will engage with that task later.

Choice of Terms

I think I should stop here briefly to clarify my choice of certain terms before proceeding further. My conversationalists in Tamilnadu use the terms “story” (katai) as well as “history” (carittiram), when they narrate disparate “events” such as the goddess’s birth, marriage, her gaining power to implant and cure ammai, her gaining power to subdue her enemies etc. I have not heard of the word “myth” as such from them.

Moreover, even when the term “story” is used, I am given to understand that such usage aimed to span a large distance along the time scale in their recounting the occurrences of the past, rather than affirming a sense of fictitiousness of these occurrences. Drawing from the above, in my references to predominantly narrative discourses of the goddess and ammai, I prefer to use the term “hi-story”, thereby simulating the sense with which katai and carittiram are used by people. Similarly, I am inclined to draw upon the term

“performance,” sometimes implying by it just an “event” associated with goddess worship, and sometimes underscoring the “spectacular” attribute of such an “event”, depending upon the context, that is, whether it selectively restricts audiences or whether it is open to all. Further, by deploying “performance” I follow the Tamil term “nikalcci”

(nikalcci means both performance and event in Tamil), used in the printed invitations of temple festivals. The term “nikalcci” is most often used by my field friends to refer both to audience-restricted and audience-sought-for performances that take place during the goddess festivals. Regarding healing events of ammai at home, I would prefer to call

107 them “rolling down the ammai,” a phrase in conformity with “ammai irakkutal” (literally meaning “making the ammai descend”), the Tamil phrase used by the healers themselves.

I hesitate to use the term “ritual,” for I have not heard of this term. If at all, I am inclined to use this word or any associated modification of the word such as “ritualization”, it would only be for the purpose of translating field realities into an “objectified” scholarship in order to communicate my ideas to audiences of the academia clearly by virtue of following some established terminologies and categories in the religious studies scholarship.

Further, my heuristic employment of “hi-story” and “performance” cannot be identified as strictly dichotomous complementarities. While the performances dealt with in this work often draw upon narratives about the goddess, hi-stories, by lending themselves through a variety of tellings and retellings not only inform and orient the actions, but sometimes they constitute themselves as potential actions. To cite a specific instance, in Mariyamman festival at Dindigul, a particular telling of the hi-story of the goddess performatively mobilizes Dalit communities to affirm their rights in participating in the festival on an equal footing with other communities, and, through this participation, try to forge their united identity. I will discuss the illuminating case of Dindigul

Mariyamman temple in one of the subsequent chapters. Prima facie what I want to point out here is that hi-story and performance mean much more than the simplistic understanding of them as narrative and action. By these terms, I indicate “discursive practices of narration” and “discursive practices of performance,” with an emphasis on the performative role of these practices in producing the bodies invested with the presence of the goddess and corresponding subjectivities, inasmuch as such practices

108 trace a “codified or iterable [repeatable]” pattern. 2 Also, by “practices” I wish to emphasize that these practices of narrations and performances are not static, but are dynamically productive.

Practices and Anecdotes

I have proposed that the materialization of the body as the goddess during ammai is perpetually reinforced at home by habitual practices that network with the practices of narrations and performances of the temple festivals (see Introduction). In order to ground the discussion of “habitual practices” in the context of ammai, first let me give an account of these practices, which are quite commonly observed. I will organize these details into six categories, such as (1) The shadow, (2) Doorstep, (3) Mark of respect, (4) Other routines (5) Food and cooking, and (6) Follow-ups. Obviously the classification, like any other classification, is arbitrary. I intend to organize the fruits of my research into habitual practices under categories in such a way that I locate a particular fruit under a category which appeals to me as fit for that fruit, although placing it under any other category/categories should be as relevant as the chosen one. In this account of habitual practices during ammai, I will be presenting both restrictive and mandatory practices that should be avoided or followed comprehensively under these headings. While I will be locating the obvious and subtle interconnections of these practices with narrations and performances about the goddess throughout this work, my presenting these details now is only to provide an introductory approach to the subject of ammai. I have assembled the details drawing from my conversations with families, priests and healers. Further, I will

2 For a discussion of the Derridian idea of iterability, see Jonathan Culler (1997, 99). For a discussion on performative theory of ritual, see Bell (37-46) and Tambiah (1979). I employ “discursive practices” in a way similar way to how Catherine Bell employs “discourses,” in her drawing upon Bourdieu’s ideas on dynamic practices with Foucault’s emphasis on discourses’ “formation of their objects and their unity” together (Bell, 54).

109 be citing extensively from Ramanan’s (1902) century old observations of “religico- medical treatment” of ammai from his article “The Small-pox Goddess” as supplementary narrations along with my data for better elucidation of the subject.

The restrictive as well as mandatory practices appear to be almost similar across

Tamilnadu, although it is very much possible that there are local variations. I did hear some contradictory do’s and don’ts concerning issues such as providing non-vegetarian food to the ammai-arrived person or regarding the presence of those who are observing child-birth “pollution” (tittu) in the ammai-afflicted house. I have noted the variations below. In the list, “household” includes the person upon whom ammai has visited, unless

I specifically state otherwise. In presenting the details culled from the conversations, I highlight in bold letters the practices that conversationalists in the field consistently listed out as those that are commonly followed; I italicize the practices that I perceive from the conversations as those that are commonly followed although these practices do not make a consistent appearance in the list provided by the conversationalists; and I use a normal font for presenting the practices that were specially mentioned in the accounts of a few families or just one family. I believe that this way of organizing could give an idea of the relative significance of the practices, in spite of my subjective assessment playing an obvious role in this presentation.

A cautionary word of realism would be: all or some of these restrictive or mandatory practices might be adhered to by a family in full or in varying degrees depending upon factors such as caste (for instance, concerning food restrictions), neighborhood (for instance, whether it is urban, small town or rural), and presence of elders in the family (some remarked to me that they follow only a few of these practices,

110 and told me that had there been an elder person present to advise them on how to do these, they would have followed their advice). Proximity to the sites of Mariyamman worship also seems to influence the degree and extent of adherence to these practices.

For instance, when I was conversing about seeking the help of allopathic treatment for ammai in Samayapuram, a middle-aged woman Gomathi, working as a teacher remarked to me: “People might resort to doctors in your place Chennai, but it definitely does not take place here. It should not be done. Mother is here.”

I heard a similar remark from a woman healer called Muttukkkannu in

Pudukkottai. Muttukkannu is a woman in her mid-sixties and is from a place called

Kaveri Mills in Pudukkottai. She is an ammappillai, meaning the “child of the goddess”, who is sought for by families by villages in and around Pudukkottai when ammai strikes them severely. My conversation with her provides great resources for reflecting on the subject of ammai. While I reserve my elaborate interaction with this interesting woman for Chapter Eight in this dissertation, I cannot do without citing her in my discussion right now about habitual practices during ammai. One of my first questions after I met her was about seeking allopathic medical care during ammai. She rebutted at once: “No, we don’t. Because we adhere to the culture (panpadu) of the village, by the habitual practices of the village. We have certain restrictions (kattuppadu) and certain methods

(murai) here by which we go. But I won’t say whether it is right or wrong to seek a doctor for ammai.” Her non-committal stance about seeking allopathic care will be analyzed later in this dissertation. My interest now is only in pointing out how her reference to the “culture of the village” using the “we” (nanga) relegated me as an outsider to the practices of the village during ammai.

111 On both occasions of hearing these comments from Gomathi and Muttukkannu, I felt the need to respond immediately that I have grown up in a household that did not and would not normally go for allopathic medical treatment for ammai. In fact, I suffered from measles and chickenpox, when I was 14 and 23 respectively. For measles, I did not go to any doctor. During chickenpox, on the third day when the pustules started spreading over my body, I had high fever and my mother was oscillating about whether to call a doctor or not. Later, upon elaborate consultations within the family and with neighbors, a doctor who was running a small clinic opposite our house visited me. After checking my temperature, which, at that time, was very high, he asked my mother to administer Crocin

(paracetamol) pills for every six hour till the fever subsides. He said that since it was the

“mother” who had come, he would not give any other medicine and I would get okay in due course. Even after the doctor’s visit, my mother was not convinced about starting

Crocin medication. I vividly remember her prayer to the goddess Mariyamman, who has her abodes in Tiruvappur, Narthamalai and Samayapuram. All these places are in or close to Pudukkottai in Tamilnadu, from where my mother hails. Addressing the goddess, my mother tucked three one rupee coins in turmeric-stained white cloths as an offering (or as penalty?) to these temples, saying that she was going to give Crocin to her daughter only because she cannot tolerate her daughter suffering from high fever. She added that the goddess should forgive her act by which she did not mean to disbelieve in her, but rather she as always had surrendered her daughter’s well being to the goddess, and only after informing the goddess she started giving the medicine to me. After these utterances, she gave me one pill of Crocin (Paracetamol). My fever subsided, but my mother would not give another pill to me, leave alone let me complete the doctor’s prescription. When I

112 recall the occurrence of the ailment now, I am pervaded by a strange smell of margosa leaves, turmeric, oozing pustules and my mother’s sari. Though I do not remember exactly which practices were followed in my house, I do recall the sight of a bunch of margosa leaves tucked under my sheet and the unshaven face of my father, looking worriedly at me. Now at the age of seventy-eight, my father remembers the episode and remarks: “My routine was disturbed then. I skipped my daily prayers to Perumal (Vishnu) for fifteen days. You can add it in your chapter: when ammai stays at our home, we should not worship Perumal.”

This event took place seventeen years back. A few recent instances involving those whom I knew closely would be better entry points into the subject of the contemporary prevalence of practices during ammai. In March 2003, when there was a chickenpox epidemic in Chennai, and in our ten-apartment complex in the posh Besant

Nagar locality, someone in one of the apartments was affected by chickenpox. The apartment’s entrance was marked with a bunch of margosa leaves. The afflicted neighbor

Sita had been working in a foreign embassy at Chennai. Hailing from Udagamandalam near Coimbatore, she had been living in Chennai for the past forty years. Once she was diagnosed with chickenpox, Sita said that had she known that it was only chickenpox, she would not have ventured to the doctor’s-- she did not go out for twenty-eight days until she got fully cured. Sita had adhered to the “consistently” followed practices during ammai—she did not have a bath throughout these twenty-eight days, no visitors were entertained at her house during this period, etc. Sita got instructions about these practices from her helper-maid and her mother, who took care of her throughout the period of ailment and for some time after that. Although Sita had the allopathic medication for

113 fever prescribed by the doctor, that did not seem to dissuade her from observing the conventional practices.

In the same month, our domestic helper Kala’s immediate family, her son and her daughter, were affected by mumps, another variety of ammai. Her family migrated from

Tindivanam in Central Tamilnadu some thirty years back seeking a better livelihood, but had ended up pulling on its existence in an unfortunately crowded hut settlement close to our apartment in Chennai. Kala’s family adhered to most of the practices that are commonly followed during ammai. Kala’s mother, an elderly woman who was in her seventies then, set off for the goddess Renuka Ellamman’s temple nearby, took her bath there and proceeded to perform an act called “gathering pearls.” When ammai does not seem to heal normally or when the pearls are perceived to be severe, someone from the household (normally the mother/grandmother of the sick person), would have a bath early in the morning, worship the deity Mariyamman, and go from house to house begging for old rice (or sometimes, uncooked rice). The rice thus gathered would be administered (if the rice is uncooked, it would be cooked and then administered) to the person with ammai and the remainder would be distributed to people. Performing this act is called “gathering pearls” (mutteduttal). So, Kala’s mother gathered pearls of cooked rice from nine adjacent houses, gave the rice to her granddaughter and grandson, and distributed the rest to her neighbors. Unlike Sita, Kala did not seek allopathic medical care for ammai for her children. When I asked Kala later about this, she sounded offended: “Sister, how can we go to a doctor, when amma has come? We have never done it and will never do it.”

I narrate these instances in order to suggest that the habitual practices might make an obvious appearance in varying degrees at households during ammai, whether or not

114 allopathic medical care for it is sought for or not. My suggestion has its own limitations, for I did not venture into conversations with families consisting of non-believers or atheists (in fact, a writer-friend of mine asked me why I did not work with families belonging to the “atheist” group of Dravidar Kazakam on the subject of ammai), or for that matter with any “rationalist” families with or without political affiliation, who definitely live in Tamilnadu and would have a different idea on the subject altogether.

Since my approach to ammai is framed by my interest in practices of narrations and performances associated with the goddess worship, there has been a bias on my part regarding my choice of conversationalists: notwithstanding a non-descript hue of randomness that marked my choosing conversationalists and/or in being chosen by them to speak to, “rationalists” or “atheists” do not figure in this study. Like any ethnographic discourse, this discourse too operates within certain colored territories of delimitations.

The Shadow

The term “shadow” (nizal) is used with a negative connotation implying deterioration or crisis in a person’s health during ammai. Although sometimes another term “sight” (parvai or dhrushti) is employed with similar negative connotations,

“shadow” appeared quite commonly in my conversations. An analysis of the negative connotations of the “shadow” should be applicable to the “sight” as well. When it is remarked that someone’s “shadow” should not fall on the ammai-afflicted person, it is indicated that if it happens so, the health of the ailing person would worsen. In the scenarios of ammai, the shadow is perceived as being cast by persons who are in or who have come from certain stages of life or situations in life. The shadow is not reflective of an inscribed essence in the person as such. For instance, the essentialized caste ideology

115 does not have any stake in determining the shadow. Those who are regarded as “low” caste are not considered to bring the negative “shadow” as such. The sex of a person does matter in the matters of shadow, but as I understand it, more than the essentialized sexual definition of a person, certain situations or stages of life wherein bodily fluids are involved seem to offend the goddess inhabiting the body.

Shadows bestow darkness in contrast to light. Perhaps, the body with ammai, in which the goddess inhabits, is offended by the darkness spread over her by the literal and metaphorical shadow of persons, who carry with them the rem(a)inder of certain situations or stages of life in which they have participated or to which they have been party. Perhaps, the shadow of such persons falling upon the body belonging to the goddess during ammai strikes an unfavorable contrast with the auspicious, circulating light (aratti) bestowed by the burning camphor or the light of the ghee-lamp upon the icon of the goddess at the temple occasionally and regularly.

An elderly woman Savithri, who is seventy years old, from Chennai recounts an episode of “shadow” relating to ammai in her family:

The incident took place some forty years back. My third elder brother, who was twenty-two then, was suffering from chickenpox then. In those days we were living in a big house that extended from one street to another with front and back entrances opening into both the streets. One evening, when my second elder brother was entering the back entrance, the brother with ammai, lying down in the front room, even without seeing the entering brother, started shouting: “I cannot bear this, I am going to take away the malar (flower).” [Malar, later, Savithri said, indicates the “eye”. She reminded me that in Mariyamman temples, offering the eye- shaped metal or mud figurine, called colloquially as kan malar (the eye flower), to the goddess takes place]. My second brother could have come from the house of a woman with whom, we thought, he had an affair. We did not know that at that time. My mother went to the back entrance and saw my second brother standing there. She shouted at him to get away from the place, asked him to stay in a temple for that night and warned him not to enter the house the next day without first having a bath. Then

116 the pucari from the Mariyamman temple was called for and he sang songs to cool the goddess down. Only he told us that the second brother committed a “mistake” and entered the house, which made the goddess ferocious (ukram). Even the songs could not control the goddess. The goddess was shouting: “I will show who I am before I leave this place.” She took away the toe: the index toe in the right foot of my ammai-visited brother got twisted and would not work properly from then onwards. She spared his life though.

Savithri, on hearing my doubts about bodily infirmities resulting from chickenpox, says that it does not really matter whether it is chickenpox or smallpox.

Even in vilaiyattammai (the “playful ammai”) these things could happen, for

Mariyamman cannot bear with such “mistakes” relating to women (pombalai vishayam).

This is the view, which Muttukkannu also subscribes to:

You playfully think that it is the ‘playful ammai.’ But if you don’t follow

the restrictions and proper methods carefully or if you do not observe

cuttam, ammai will hiss (cirum). No one can guarantee your life.

The word “cirum” connotes a snake’s hissing in fury. The term reworks the connection between the goddess and the snake, which merits a detailed discussion later.

If the shadows of the “unclean” and “impure” fall on the ailing person, Savithri warns, either death or bodily handicap might result. Or, at least, the pearls of ammai would not descend normally, and, instead, these would spread on the body manifold and increase in their size causing agony to the person. The safeguarding measures against the shadow are:

 Where a family member is afflicted with ammai, sexual intercourse should not

take place in that household. In other words, complete abstinence from sex

should be followed. It is required that everyone in the house remains sexually

“cuttam.” It is even observed that if a married man or a woman gets ammai, the

117 spouse should not stay in the same house where the ailing person stays. Members

from the spouse’s family should not visit the house.

 Outsiders who have accumulated “impurity” (cuttam inmai) on account of

having had sex within a short time before (or the previous day) should not enter

the house. It is believed that if their shadows fall on the ammai-afflicted person,

ammai would be enraged.

 The women, who have delivered and are in the period of the observance of “child-

birth pollution” (pillai petta tittu), or those who have come in close contact with these

women, should not cast their shadows on the afflicted person and should stay away

completely from the household. This “staying away” is expressed in varying degrees:

according to some, these women cannot even stay in or even enter the house during

this time; for some others, the women can have access to the house, but they should

not see the person suffering from ammai; for some others, these women can see them,

but they should not come close to or touch the afflicted person. Moreover, if an infant

is afflicted with ammai, her/his mother can feed and take care of her/him, and it is

thought that the goddess, being a mother, would not take offence due to these acts.

 Those who are observing the “pollution period” relating to a death (catittu) or

those who have accumulated such “pollution” by having visited the house where

death has recently occurred should not cast their shadow.

 None in the family can go to a barber for shaving. The shadows of recently

shaved men are dangerous.

 The person with ammai should not sleep on a bed or a mattress. Again, this is to

avoid the shadow of the sexual intercourse, which could have possibly taken place

118 over the bed or the mattress prior to the occurrence of ammai in the house. Instead of

the bed or the mattress, a white dhoti can be used as a sheet; or a sari, especially that

of the mother of the person concerned, can be used.

 Menstruating women, however, pose a different dilemma. The women whom I spoke

to say that the presence of menstruating women is not so much an offence as that of

the presence of those who have been involved in the sexual act. According to some

women, although menstruating women should stay away from an ammai-afflicted

person, it is practically impossible to send menstruating women away from the house

when anyone in the family is afflicted with ammai; for others, since menstruation is

part of a woman’s body, over which she cannot have control, the goddess would not

take offence due to the presence of menstruating women.

Savithri even remarks that if an ammai-afflicted woman is menstruating, she should not be kept at a distance as “untouched” in a house, although in the absence of ammai, she would normally be kept at a distance during the period of menstruation.

Ramanan’s sarcasm, nearly a hundred years before, upon some of the above observances during smallpox is worth looking at:

Now, what are the actual restrictions obtaining under the infected roof? A

pure virgin, a wife, that did not enter into sexual relations with her

husband the previous night, a bachelor of unsullied morals, a married man

that “knew” not his bride within the past 12 hours, and all widowers and

widows of no loose character might go into the sick room and visit the

patient. One that has had a recent shave or an “oil-bath,” a maiden or

woman using scented cosmetics or “painted with saffron” will never be

119 allowed to reach the bedside of the patient, not one who had just returned

from any outstation. …The inmates should be free from all ideas of

“wedded-life” till the Goddess “goes out of the house; if they are not, they

would quit the house altogether. The entry or retention of people

happening to be of a different description from the above, is sure, it is

thought, to kindle the raze of the imperious and sulky divinity; as a

consequence, the patient might suffer enormously from the pangs of the

disease, if the Goddess in her anger is so forgiving as not to make away

with him. The malformations and the deformities incidental to patients

emerging out of a bad attack such as blindness, lameness and other

disfiguring distortions and even occasional paralysis are nothing else than

punishments inflicted by Mari for violating her dictates. (146-147)

Doorstep

Mariyamman, referred to as the “woman with margosa leaves” (veppilaikkari) is believed to carry these medicinal leaves for curing all the illnesses in general and ammai in particular. The sign of a house visited upon by ammai is a bunch of margosa leaves hung at the entrance door. I learnt from Savithri that it is this sign that temporarily saved the legendary Umatturai, the deputy of the Panchalankuricci chieftain Virapandiya

Kattabomman, from the hands of the British, when they pursued him after his escape from the Panchalankurichi castle. Savithri informs me: “The British were afraid of only one thing in India: it was ammai.” How did she come to know this? Savithri said that the film Virapandiya Kattabomman portrays this and she wanted me to watch that film.

120 Like Savithri, another woman M from a village near Palani drew my attention to the story of Umatturai in which margosa leaves and ammai figure. She narrated:

When the white men were pursuing Umatturai, after his escape from

Panchalankuricci castle, he came across our people [Pallar]. They gave

refuge (adaikkalam) to him. On seeing white men coming behind them, a

woman in the house in which he stayed, asked him to lie down on the floor

and inserted margosa leaves on the upper door-frame. On seeing the

margosa leaves, the army of white men got scared and stopped at the

doorstep. When they asked the woman, she told them that periyammai

(smallpox) has visited her husband. On hearing this, the white men got

scared and went away from there.3

The sign of margosa leaves generally serves the function of deterring outsiders from entering the house, and this function was strategically and successfully deployed by the Pallar woman to keep away the British. But why would the outsiders be kept outside during ammai? Kala explains to me: “Sister, we do not know who is clean

(cuttamanavanga) and who is not. Why should we take a ‘risk’ [sic]? It is better to be guarded when ammai has visited the house.” For Muttukkannu also, the leaves are associated with the specific function of guarding the house: “On seeing these, the unclean (cuttamillatavanga) won’t approach the house. The leaves would deter them.”

3 A chapbook, The Story of Lord Kattabommu of Panchalankuricci (Panchalankuricci Kattabommu Durai Katai), composed by Adaikkalam Srilasri Chidambara Swamigal (1939), mentions the incident of a Pallar woman’s protecting Umatturai. The woman speaks to the British: I do not know the face of Umatturai, nor do I know your face It is my husband who has got ammai and sleeps on the cot … Come inside the house, will I, a Pallar girl, indulge in mischief? Vaicuri, said she and cheated thus, and the army men got up and went.

121 In the practices during ammai, the doorstep with margosa leaves hanging above operates as a boundary to keep the house secure the house as the habitat of the goddess, in and through keeping the possibly “unclean” others away. The boundary is respected so much that the dirty clothes, alms, and even trash are not allowed to go out of the house. Expectedly, social intercourse is restricted to the very minimum. Consider the following observances:

 The person having ammai should not venture out of the house.

 Outsiders should not be allowed inside the house, when a family member has ammai.

Should they enter the house, they wash their feet before their entry. Also, if a family

member who has gone out is re-entering the house, he should wash his feet with water

before entering. A pot of water (preferably turmeric water) must be kept at the

entrance of the house.

 Alms should not be given to beggars.

 Conducting auspicious ceremonies like ear-piercings or weddings should be

strictly avoided. Nor can anyone from the house attend such ceremonies during

this time.

Injunctions, more stringent than these, have been recorded by Ramanan (1900-

1902):

Again, within the house itself no tasteful toilet or gay decoration is

permitted. There should not be any loud outburst of laughter, nay, any

indication of merriment, and everything ought to be grave-looking without

even a shadow of light-heartedness. They are not to hold a sumptuous

banquet inviting friends and relations,… (147)

122  No clothes should be sent out of the house for dry-cleaning or washing.

Mark of Respect

“The white man entered the Thanjavur Mariyamman temple disrespectfully with his boots. The amman got annoyed by this and she put pearls all over his body. He lost his eyes,” informed Muttukkannu. Our conversation was centered on the subject of how the person with ammai should be treated by others. It was in summer 2004, and we both were heading for a house in Vagaippati, a small village, which is about ten miles from

Pudukkottai. She was required to visit a house in that village, as three members of a family living there were afflicted with chickenpox. As soon as we got out of the auto- rickshaw, she looked at my chappals and remarked: “See, I do not wear chappals as I am always invited by the houses in which ammai has arrived. The chappals are not liked by

Mariyamman.” Then she recalled an incident about the white man’s disrespect for the goddess. I asked how she came to know this and she referred to the Tamil film Ati

Parasakti in support of her response.

In Nilakkottai near Dindigul, Bhagyalakshmi narrated a hi-story relating to the

British and the goddess: “People say that once a group of white men on horses, from a place called Chattakkaranmedu, crossed the temple of Mariyamman here. But they did not care about the temple and did not get down from their horses. Immediately, one of them got ammai. They understood the power of the goddess, got down at once from their horses, removed their boots, entered the temple and worshipped her. Soon, the pearls descended (scabs came off).”

The goddess’s fury with the white man’s entry with his boots into the temple was also narrated to me in Mariyamman shrines of Thanjavur and Irukkangudi (north of

123 Tirunelveli). In the hi-stories of these instances, the goddess punishing the white man with ammai and blindness would restore his health and eyesight once he realizes his folly and apologizes to the goddess. Although in Indian houses, footwear is not usually worn inside the house, during ammai this convention is strictly followed. And, one occasionally gets to hear remarks such as that of Muttukkannu’s about Mariyamman not liking chappals drawing from such hi-stories of ammai and blindness resulting due to disrespect for her.

 None should enter the house with chappals or boots on. If anyone behaves to the

contrary, the goddess would be enraged and would spread at once on the body.

 No god should be propitiated or camphor lit inside the house. The temple of the

goddess alone can be visited by a family member during this period.

 Floors should not be cleaned with the broomstick. A bunch of margosa leaves

should be employed for cleaning the floors. The house is required to be kept

cuttam, and it is better to wash the house with water everyday.

 A small brass pot with margosa leaves immersed in it (karakam) should be kept

beside the head of the ammai-afflicted person. The vessel of water represents the

goddess overseeing the patient’s health.

In Ramanan’s article, one finds reference to the decoration of the “pot” as soon as eruptions on the skin are seen. The pot happens to be worshipped as the goddess and daily offerings are made to it:

A battered and bruised big brass-pot, of antediluvian appearance, the

outcome of indigenous industry, is chosen, and filled with water it is left

in a room that may be temporarily set apart in order to invoke Mariamman

124 for consultation and advice on various points in connection with her

specialty. The mouth of the pot is plugged with a bunch of margosa

leaves, which, in turn, is surmounted by the husked cocoanut with the

“kudumi” not torn off. The ground immediately in front of the sacred pot

is converted into an altar for Mari, on which will be found displayed to

view, all the various things supposed to be her pet food. We can expect to

find a handful of a peculiar preparation of roasted rice, known in Tamil as

“Aval,” a bottle of cocoanut-toddy, some cigars and a few young

cocoanuts of big size with a portion of the greenish rind chipped off.

(1900-1902, 142)

Describing the food offered to Mariyamman, thus, Ramanan makes this teasing comment:

For we must remember that whatever may be her savage or barbaric look,

in point of smoking or drinking she is inferior to no fashionable of this

dawn of the twentieth century. She is not a member of any “Temperance

Association” or “Temperance League” and teetotalers in her opinion are a

set of inane noodles. (142)

 Sometimes, water used for bathing (abhisheka) the goddess’s icon and the sacred ash

are brought from the temple and are administered to the person.

Ramanan mentions the smearing of ashes over the forehead of the patient and sprinkling of them into the mouth of the patient “in order to stave off virulence of the contagion to any bad degree” and the “watering on all sides” of the goddess’s temple for her “mind” to “grow cool” (144). He also observes that a special bathing of the icon of

125 the goddess in the temple with “milk, honey and clarified butter” and with the “water of tender cocoanuts” as “intermediate ablution” serves the purpose of alleviating “any further suffering or molestation from Mari” and of “lessen[ing] the burning sensation and the itching, so incidental to the contagion” (144).

 To enable or fasten the cure, an offering (like a rupee coin tucked into a turmeric-

stained white cloth) is kept aside for the goddess and/or a special worship (like

archanai) is performed at the goddess’s temple and/or a debt-vow (nerttikkadan) is

undertaken to be performed in future during the goddess’s festival or immediately.

Two more special vows are narrated in Ramanan’s article (1900-1902, 145-6).

The first one is a “dance vow” undertaken by the family when they are panicky about the condition of the person with ammai and the vow is fulfilled during the annual festival of the goddess. The fulfillment of the “dance vow” amounts to arranging for an over-night dance drama in front of the house, which, the villagers as well as the goddess icon brought from her temple for the purpose would attend. When the dance drama gets over in the wee hours of the next morning, the goddess would be offered camphor light, incense and betel nuts, and would be carried back to her abode. Ramanan’s article tells us that the dance drama could be about a king from the Mahabharata, which suggests that the performance could have been a Mahabhararata “terukkoothu” (traditional street play) too (146). The second “rite” to “honour the presence of the goddess” is distributing rice gruel (kanji) to people “every second or third day” during “the patient’s agonies” until the pearls “‘blacken’, shrivel, and tend to slough” (146). The purpose of dispensing the gruel, Ramanan remarks, is that “those who partake of it will surely have an attack of pox, but never of a fatal or dangerous nature as they voluntarily implore her ‘to set her

126 seal’ on them” (146). While the distribution of gruel is common nowadays, observing and fulfilling the “dance vow” are rare.

Bath and Beauty

Savithri, in her recalling of anecdotes of ammai in her family, observed: “People say, this goddess [ammai] looks good, the other goddess is even better, another one is very beautiful. For instance, they say, the chickenpox goddess and the smallpox goddess are more beautiful than others like the ‘playful ammai’. But all ammais show their traits.”

At first I could not comprehend what she means by the “beauty” or the “good looks” of the goddess. I wondered whether the adjectives are for the icons of the goddess, who have different names like “smallpox goddess” or “chickenpox goddess”. But then she indicated that the adjective concerns the body of the person on whom ammai has arrived upon.

How is a body on which a particular variety of amma or the goddess considered

“fine” or “beautiful?” “Once these varieties of the goddess arrive upon a body, they render it beautiful,” says Savithri. She adds: “Since the body is fettered with beauty

(udambil alagu puttidum), there is no need for any other jewel. All jewels can be removed from the body. Even the tali [the auspicious thread or jewel marking a woman as being married] should be removed when ammai strikes.”

Ramanan records a popular belief in prolonging the ceremonial custom of sending

Mariyamman away to her abode.4 The “popular belief,” he writes, makes sure that the goddess gets full “opportunity ‘to play herself out.’” (149). Perhaps, the beauty of the body is realized in proportion to the play of the goddess. The marks of authority of the

4 I will discuss this ceremony later, in the next chapter.

127 goddess, thus, also are the marks of beauty bestowed by the goddess upon a patient’s body materialized as her own body.

In his description of the period of confinement of the afflicted person, who is not allowed to leave the “four walls of the house,” Ramanan provides us with a glimpse of the cultural imagination of the “decked” body during ammai:

In a word, he [the patient] will never be permitted to step outside the

threshold of his house under any contingency whatever, for fear of fretting

the Goddess by making a public exhibition of her “robe of pearls,” which

she, in her extreme grace, has seen it fit “to deck him with.” The public

ought not to gaze upon him when he has not yet doffed her costly and

handsome “robe of pearls” given to him by Mari for a short wear, and that,

in private. When the pustules have sloughed and shrunk in, and the scabs

have pared off, when nothing but black circular marks dots the body of the

patient, as the outcome of the attack, Mari may be said to have taken off

her “robe” and not till then. (1900-1902, 150)

 The person having ammai is prohibited from bathing until the pearls of ammai

“descend” from the body. However, a few conversationalists indicated that following

this injunction is impossible during the summer, and hence a minimal bath without

wetting the hair can be done.

Food and Cooking

Muttukkannu and I were sitting at the verandah of the house that we visited in

Vagaippatti. She had just then completed her healing performance and was resting. She was telling me that in the house a small girl, who should be of eight or nine years, with

128 chickenpox had improved from what she had seen of her ten days back. “Her condition was bad, the pearls were this big,” she showed with her fingers the size of a blackberry.

“Probably she should be alright in the next few weeks,” I said hopefully. Muttukkannu agreed and then she asked me whether anyone told me about the convention of offering

“kani” (fruits) to the goddess. I said, “No”. She continued:

When we visit a house, if we find that the pearls are richly showered, then

we ask those in the house to give kani to Amma (Mother). Seasonal fruits

would be bought and kept on a large plate (tambalam). Two women would

hold the plate. Remember, the plate should be full of fruits, and you

should not keep just one or two. When the women hold the plate in front

of Amma, another woman would spread her sari’s border (munti) in front

of Amma and would ask her madippiccai (“lap-begging”). Amma would

eat whatever she wants from the plate, and the rest will be shared among

others as prasadam. If Amma takes fruits from the plate and eats, then it

means that the life is safe.

“Will the person be able to eat fruits?” I was wondering how the sick person could eat these many fruits, considering ammai could have left him with a loss of appetite. Muttukkannu replied: “Definitely. If amma intends to eat fruits, she will.”

Obviously, her reply reaffirmed that it was the goddess who would choose or not to eat the fruits. For her, the afflicted human person was the goddess.

In Tirupuvanam near Madurai, Kaliyammal and Mariyammal, who are usually invited to sing about the goddess during festivals and in homes when the attack of ammai is acute, told me that one can expect the ammai-afflicted person to demand any food or

129 drink. They laughingly asked me: “Do you know that there is the arrack-amma and the chaya-amma (tea-amma)?” I was astonished and replied: “Are there mothers like that?”

“Yes,” they continued:

I have seen an ammai-afflicted girl who would ask for tea and drink it all

the time. Similarly, the mother might ask for arrack too. If she asks, then

we have to give it. Otherwise she won’t descend from the body easily.

You know, sometimes, she would specify the house where a particular

food is cooked and would demand that. In a house where I went to sing

the Lullaby, the woman [ammai-afflicted woman] asked us to get the

moccaikkuzampu (the cooked tamarind sauce with beans) from the house

of a washerman nearby. See, she knows what food is cooked in that

home.

 During ammai, food should not be seasoned with mustard seeds, lest the goddess

would spread on the body like the mustard seeds that scatter from the oil. I also

heard from Amudha in Erode and Unnamalai in Coimbatore that during ammai

turmeric should not be used in cooking, although I have not heard of such a

prohibition anywhere else. Amudha also added that since Mariyamman has lost her

“marital auspiciousness” (mangalyam), the “auspicious” turmeric should be avoided

in cooking. However, many others contested this view saying that the goddess can

never be “inauspicious”.

 Acts such as grinding (araittal) and pounding (idittal) etc. (which generally

generate noise) should be completely avoided, lest the person with ammai suffer

from headache.

130  Non-vegetarian food should be avoided. This observation varies from family to

family, and it does not reflect the family’s food routines or the geographical locations

of their residences. Some make a relaxation to this injunction saying that whatever the

person seeks, one should offer that food, even if it is non-vegetarian; some are of the

view that since Mariyamman likes fish and especially dry fish, one should give it to

the person in order to please the goddess; whereas, some others say that fish or dry

fish should be given to the person, not because Mariyamman likes these, but precisely

because she dislikes these being a Brahmin woman, and, therefore, would go away

from the afflicted body.

 Tender coconut and buttermilk should be given after the fever subsides. These drinks

would cool down the goddess.

 When the ammai is perceived to be severe, it is customary to visit a washerwoman’s

house early in the morning, get from that house either gruel or the rice of the day

before, and give it to the ammai-afflicted person to eat. The washerwomen, who

belong to the maternal household of the goddess, are close to the goddess. Therefore,

on eating their food, the goddess is pleased by the consideration of the people whom

she has visited, and, would therefore, leave them for good.

 When the ammai is perceived to be severe, mutteduttal (gathering the pearls) is

performed for the pustules to disappear from the body.

I have briefly referred to Kala’s mother who engaged in mutteduttal for her grandson and her granddaughter. The vow undertaken and completed by Kala’s mother was a brief event. On the contrary, we get an overview of an elaborate performance of mutteduttal in Ramanan’s account, in which we find similar acts of gathering and

131 distributing food, organized around the karakam decorated in the ammai-afflicted house.

Ramanan delineates “gathering pearls” as “mock-begging” indulged in by a caretaking, old woman of the ammai patient at the house. With all scorn for the woman, perhaps, in the service of the person inhabited by the goddess, Ramanan calls her a “skinny, ugly

‘priestess’” (142):

Now to go back to our skinny, ugly ‘priestess.’ She rises quite early in the

morning, goes to a tank in the vicinity, bathes and returns home with a

narrow-necked brass-pot filled with the tank-water. … . As soon as she

comes home, she casts off her wet garments and puts on dry clothes that

were kept in a lonely spot beyond the polluting reach of any other human

being. After wearing her garments, she begins a course of mock-begging

at the houses in the street, demanding from their inmates in the name of

Mari “measures of pearl.” In each house, they present her with ‘cold rice’

in great ceremonial austerity. … . Then she enters the room of ‘sanctum’

[the place where the decorated karakam is kept] in the house, empties the

water that was put the previous day from the brass-pot, and replenishes it

with the tank-water newly brought at dawn. Afterwards, all the old

offerings on the altar are removed, and new ones are substituted in their

place. Thus, the old “cold rice” is taken away and the new “cold-rice”

eked out by “begging” is thrust in its stead.

Meanwhile crowds of children and boys are making their appearance into

the infected house at the especial request of their parents that Mari might

condescend to come down and “play.” …One belief is that each grain of

132 the “cold-rice” is a “pearl” of Mari, and their consuming the food will be

instrumental in bringing about a mild invasion of pox. And the old water

of the brass-pot is also dashed on the body of these innocents, as it is

thought that it is nothing short of the holy “purulent matter” of the small-

pox pustule. Some of the younger boys are brought near the bedstead of

the patient that they may readily receive “the grace of Mari.” (142-3)

Follow-ups

In addition to the above, sometimes there are certain other habits followed in pouring the first few pots of water on the person after the ammai descends. The first bath can take place only on particular days of the week. After it is ascertained without doubt that the ammai pearls have descended, water is kept in the mid-day sun, and the first bath of the cured person is administered at around noon. Then, on two subsequent days two more baths would be administered likewise. It is also customary that after the first bath takes place, rice flour mixed with sugar and ghee is distributed to the children in the neighborhood. Ramanan also delineates a detailed process of the bath after ammai’s descent from the person. His account includes details about the oil chosen for the bath from the ingredients of water used for the bath and the bath method administered upon the person to manner of wiping the body after the bath (1900-1902, 148-9). In Dindigul and Karur districts, a small pot (catti) is marked with black and white dots and is kept upside-down outside the house. It is believed that the pot would safeguard the recouping person from the “dark” or “ghost” which might take the life away since the goddess has

“descended” from the body now. I shall discuss this practice in Chapter Six.

133 One interesting event Ramanan mentions is the ceremonial feast given to a widow on the day of the first bath after the “descent” of ammai from the body. Although no one has narrated to me about this kind of feast after ammai, his information insightfully invokes the connection between ammai and widowhood. This connection merits a close analysis and I will return to it in my discussion of hi-stories of the goddess.

Body Matters as the Goddess

The habitual practices provide one with clues to understand how and under what conditions materialization of the body as the goddess is effected during ammai. In the analysis of habitual practices, I will draw on the model of performative acts materializing the sexed subject as proposed by Butler (Gender, 1999; 1993) and the model of “co- extensive” materiality of the prison institution and of the prisoner as proposed by

Foucault (1977). I think that these models are crucial as critical tools of analysis concerning body and subjectivity, although the context of my inquiry is different and the findings might evolve so as well.

The habitual practices during ammai entail certain strategies and techniques in foregrounding the presence of the goddess in the body. In using the concepts of strategy and technique, I draw from David Scott’s deployment of these concepts for analyzing the

Sinhalese yaktovil performances (1994). Like Butler who acknowledges the advantage of the framework of habitus by Bourdieu (see my discussion on this earlier in the chapter),

Scott also perceives Bourdieu’s concept of “strategy” as useful for transcending the dichotomy posed between “structuralist objectivism” and “agent-centered subjectivism”

(Scott, 207-8). At the same time, following Talal Asad, Scott critically interrogates

Bourdieu’s notion of “strategy” as that which, being relegated by Bourdieu to a “practical

134 sense of things”, still perpetuates a dichotomy between “theoretical aims” and “practical aims.” Scott’s perspective of “strategy” emphasizes certain “rational, even theoretical” understanding in practices (209). One can note that such a notion challenges the importance given by Bourdieu, and later by scholars like Bell, to “misrecognition” of participants of practices like ritual performances.5

While I agree with Scott’s arguments concerning “rational understanding” in practices, I intend to use the concept of strategy in a slightly different way. In an ammai- afflicted house, in materializing the afflicted-body as the goddess, habitual practices entail a set of operations, like hanging margosa leaves, keeping off visitors, placing a vessel of water near the afflicted person etc. Going by Scott’s analysis of yaktovil (210),

I would observe that these individual operations could be called “techniques.” Unlike

Scott, instead of formulating the concept of strategy as an overall framework entailing a

“combination of techniques” (209-10), since I think that the combination of techniques and their execution are not randomly adapted in habitual practices such as that of ammai, and they are citational, I would like to formulate the concept of strategy based upon iterability or citationality of these operations in the home-contexts of ammai-affliction.

The repetitive character of these operations gives a certain performative force to these operations. I suggest that the performative force of the operations is the strategy embedded in habitual practices during ammai.

In an ammai-afflicted household, we encounter two types of operations: identificatory and exclusionary. By the latter term, I mean taboos and prohibitions,

5 According to Scott, the concept of strategy “speaks to the procedures involved in the organization, regulation, and reorganization of socially conditioned bodies and subjectivities” (209) Secondly, “the concept of strategy focuses on the specifically practical uses of rationalities and procedures operating in a field of differential moral forces or in a field of power” (Scott, 209).

135 which constitute necessary conditions for identificatory operations in the process of successfully mobilizing a body as the goddess. On a complementary plane, the identificatory operations function to materialize a body as the goddess, thereby validating the exclusionary operations. Whereas in their enactment the identificatory operations address and allude to a body with ammai as the goddess, the exclusionary operations produce necessary conditions facilitating the acts of addressing and allusion. I consider the operations as performative, because they are basically citational and reiterative, structurally tracing similar paths. Right from the hanging of margosa leaves at the onset of ammai to keeping the pot of water beside the patient to restricting outsiders and observing other specific injunctions to prescribed baths with margosa leaves at the descent of ammai-- these operations appear to trace similar paths during the occurrences of ammai.

The exclusionary operations retain their force because they always come with a threat of punishment, if they do not function properly. We have heard of the possibility of bodily injuries, disabilities and even death if the restrictive practices are not complied with. In contrast, even though the improper functioning of identificatory operations might amount to taking a risk with the health of the patient, their proper functioning seem to facilitate the positive healing or at least lessen the injury in the process of healing of pustules. The offering of fruits or performing abhisheka during ammai substantiates their facilitating role. For evidence of identificatory operations lessening the injury, one can refer to Savithri’s anecdote: in her narrative, the expressions of fury identified as that of the goddess’s helped to remove the sexually errant brother from the premises of the

136 household. The goddess took the toe of the ammai-afflicted person, and yet saved his life.

One can speak of two sets of exclusionary operations: In the first set, the ideas of

“security” (or “safeguarding) and “cuttam” function as key tropes. These operations, with their emphasis on safeguarding or security, minimize the danger that might arise from contamination with bodily matters that carry the rem(a)inder of potentially “unclean” and “impure” situations or stages of life: one can consider the prohibition on personal and/or social and/or commercial transactions that involve correspondence with bodily dirt, wastage, and sexual fluids (consider the prohibition relating to alms to beggars, sleeping on the bed, throwing trash, wearing footwear, imparting dirty clothes to washing, shaving and using the broomstick everyday) and with those who might possibly carry these (consider the prohibition on intense social intercourse such as weddings, ceremonies, feasts etc. or the restrictions on visitors). Through these operations, the house is produced as a safe, isolated territory. These exclusionary operations set forth the materiality of the body of the house in and through safeguarding and protecting the house from “impure” and “unclean” influences, and constituting it as a territory befitting the

“arrival” and the “stay” of the goddess in the person living in the house. The marking of territory is further realized with the deployment of communicative signs such as the bunch of margosa leaves hung over the doorstep and occasionally, a pot of turmeric water kept at the doorstep.

While the first set of operations constitute the house as a territory of the goddess, a second set of operations works at creating a prestigious space at the house, which is singularly occupied by the goddess. For instance, the familial space of worship during

137 ammai is occupied exclusively by the goddess and resorting to deities other than

Mariyamman is prohibited. Or if we take the prohibition on wearing jewels: inasmuch as the goddess or ammai itself is a manifesting jewel on the body, no other jewels can have a stake over the body. Even acts such as seasoning with oil or pounding and grinding that can create manifestations analogous to conditions of ammai are prohibited: One can imagine mustard seeds in hot oil popping up and spreading like pustules or imagine a head-ache that could be caused by pounding or grinding. In other words, symptoms or manifestations prerogative of the goddess should not resemble the results from any other humanly act.

Let us turn our attention to identificatory operations: when a person is suspected as having any variety of ammai, it is customary that an old woman, usually a widow, is called for to identify whether it is really ammai or not. If it were a case of ammai, one of the first remarks would be something like, “It is Mahamayi,” or “It is the mother.” With this “interpellation,” the first identificatory operation of the afflicted person with the goddess is advanced. Ramanan teasingly describes this first act of identification although his reference pertains to the instance of smallpox:

As soon as the state of delirium has passed, and small pinkish vesicles

have made their appearance on the body, the inmates of the house get hold

of some of the oldest-nearly always widowed—crones in the village, to

diagnose the case properly. …And so the old women with their shrivelled-

up skin, toothless mouth and white-hooded face, who are a hideous

spectacle by themselves, crowd round the bed-stead of the patient in the

early morning, remove the sheets off his body, and start an inspection of

138 the eruptions on it. Meantime the patient is crying aloud unable to endure

the agonies, and after deep deliberation the women unanimously pass the

verdict, “It is a case of Maha-Mayi. She has strewn her pearls richly. Put

up a ‘Pot’ in a separate room and invite her.” (1900-1902, 141-2)

But the process of identification does not stop with the first act of calling the ammai as the goddess. For the afflicted body to be taken and regarded as the goddess, these operations should take place perpetually throughout the period of ammai. The operations are performative because in their getting enacted, they directly address or allude to the body with ammai as the goddess. From Ramanan’s article, we get a glimpse into scenes of identification, in which words spoken by the afflicted person in “delirium” are taken as the words of Mariyamman herself:

Mari, they say, speaks through him for the time, and true and trained

interpreters could make out her intentions easily. Queries like these are

put to him, “How many houses you propose to visit? Where do you come

from? What time you will stop in our place? How many deaths there

might be at the village?” (144)

Moreover, when the sufferings of the smallpox- afflicted person increase with itching and burning, Ramanan points out that friends and relatives would even pray:

The only commiseration for all this he can legitimately expect from his

friends and relations, is an address to him now and again as, “Maham-m-

mayi! Please don’t fret. Maham-m-mayi! Please don’t be angry. I beseech

you not to trouble the child, I shall present you with an offering of a

139 couple of mud eyes, and I shall give you a cooling, refreshing bath of

tender cocoanut water.” (141)

Although it is the “disappeared” smallpox to which Ramanan is referring, even now one does commonly come across the operations of direct identification of the body afflicted with ammai as the goddess. Consider, for instance, Muttukkannu’s account of offering fruits to the person afflicted with ammai as an offering to the goddess. Or for instance, Savithri’s rendering about the angry utterances of her ammai-afflicted brother that were marked as the utterances of the goddess. Consider also how the cooling abhisheka of the icon of Mariyamman at the temple is perceived to cool down the goddess in the house, and how the body with pustules is described as the “beautiful” body of the goddess, or how it is considered necessary to give the food that the goddess likes to the ammai-arrived person in order to keep her cool. When smallpox prevailed in the land, it was even deemed sacrilege to burn the ammai-afflicted boy, for it was thought that such an act would amount to burning the goddess herself.

The performative, identificatory operations deployed to materialize the body as the goddess are at their peak with one significant operation. The operation is that of decorating the karakam, the pot with margosa leaves and water, at the onset of ammai.

The decorated karakam marks the visit of the goddess to the house on the one hand (see

Ramanan’s remarks cited by me earlier); on the other, the karakam, placed at the bedside of the ammai-afflicted person, is considered as the goddess herself who oversees the cure of the afflicted person. With the arrangement of the karakam, the correlative materialization of the house as the temple along with the materialization of the body as

Mariyamman reaches its near fulfillment. Although in the fieldwork I have not heard of

140 the elaborate decoration of karakam in the ammai-arrived house and offerings made to it daily until the goddess leaves, I learnt that a small vessel of water with margosa leaves immersed in it is kept at the bedside of the person. The vessel with water and margosa leaves is functionally a karakam and one can say that this practice of keeping a pot of water with margosa leaves has been derived from the elaborate procedure of the karakam decoration described by Ramanan.

There are a few issues, however, that are left un-addressed. First, do these exclusionary and identificatory operations always function successfully in their materializing the afflicted body as the goddess? In other words, can the work of signification of the body as the goddess get completed in and through these operations?

Obviously my reply would be in the negative. The fact that the exclusionary and identificatory operations need to take place perpetually throughout the period of ammai indicate that the materialization of the afflicted body as the goddess never gets completed and that it is a ceaseless process. The process, like processes involved in any performative act, is always “contestatory,” if I may draw the term from Butler. There could be ruptures and creative manipulations throughout these operations. Although I will not be able to talk about these in detail, in Chapter Seven I briefly discuss how the failures are dealt with. Secondly, how are certain transactions, things and deeds considered taboo and how are certain others preferred during ammai? What informs the template of do’s and don’ts in these habitual practices? I would respond that inasmuch as the materializing body is the goddess Mariyamman, the exclusionary as well as the identificatory operations inform and are informed by the hi-stories and performances

141 relating to the goddess Mariyamman and her festivals. We will soon look into these hi- stories and performances in detail.

Thirdly, there is another issue which has been perturbing me since I set upon this research. How can one understand the ‘conventional’ norm that governs the identification of the ammai-afflicted body as the goddess? In other words, what could have been the triggering condition for first of all identifying a body afflicted with ammai as the feminine and as the goddess? I intend to engage with the third issue first in and then proceed to the first two in the subsequent chapters.

142 Chapter Four

Eyes, Holes, Pearls:

Genealogy of the Identification of the Goddess with Ammai

Section 1

Body, Anthill, Serpent

As I set out to locate the triggering condition for identifying the body with ammai

(poxes and measles) as the goddess, I should clarify that my interest here is not to trace the “origin” of this identificatory operation. My concern, rather, is to schematically unearth as well as deconstruct the essentialism associated with the taking of the ammai- afflicted body as the goddess. The deconstructing operation would eventually land us on the landscape of the hi-stories and performances of the goddess. Further, this operation might be a precise starting point to forge a discourse of the goddess’s worship from a

“materialistic” perspective: for this discourse will be founded upon the body, which

“matters” and “means” (Butler 1993) as the goddess during ammai. It helps us to interrogate how the “presence” of the goddess, actualized through the materialization of the body as the goddess during ammai, is entitled to play the role of a key criterion—as a

“principle of intelligibility” or as a “schema”—underlying the materialization. In the path of this inquiry, some doors might open for us to look into such issues as the establishment of Mariyamman as an absolute sovereign force having authority over the human body and over the snake and the rain, the elements with which she is also identified.

The lesion of ammai is referred to as “mother pearl” (ayi muttu), and even the pus oozing out from the lesion is called “mother’s milk” (ammaippal). In Mariyamman

Talattu (“Mariyamman Lullaby”), a song which is sung in front of the person suffering

143 with ammai, the goddess is addressed as the mother with milk oozing from her breasts, perhaps connoting the oozing pustules of ammai. 1 Another song on the goddess,

Mariyamman Varnippu (“Description of Mariyamman”), which is available in the palm leaf manuscript collection from the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library (D 2164), reads as below:

The pearls that are strung dance, Milk oozes from the two breasts,

Devi, you grant boons to the deserving. (lines 24-25)2

Thus, the body with ammai is not merely a “sacred” body; it is the body as/of the goddess, and, therefore, phantasmatically feminine and divine. Why should a body with ammai be marked as the feminine and as the goddess? The commonsense answer would be: the goddess, the feminine divine, occupies the body during ammai, and hence even a male who is afflicted with ammai should be revered as “amma” (mother). Perhaps this is the instance of an effect masquerading as a cause. It is equally possible to propose that the identification of ammai with the feminine and Mariyamman might have led to the eventual belief that Mariyamman occupies the body in the form of ammai. If this is the case one can argue that there is a clear misogyny at work in such identification of an affliction, a bodily condition of painful ailment, with the feminine and with the goddess.

However, in order to pursue the above argument, one needs to establish that ammai comes under the perceived category of ailment. Here, I am afraid, one cannot proceed with certainty. Textual sources such as songs on the goddess and ethnographic narratives do not seem to be concerned about naming ammai as an ailment. One can see

1 As I have discussed in the first chapter, Mariyamman Lullaby is recited in front of the ammai-afflicted person to enable cure. 2 These lines also appear in the published version of Mariyamman Lullaby (4). When I use songs from palm leafs I will give the corresponding line numbers, and when I use printed texts I will give the page numbers in parentheses.

144 an array of descriptions about ammai described otherwise from these sources, in which one can find references to the hi-stories of Mariyamman. While I will be discussing these descriptions in detail, I will start my inquiry with one significant image of the body during ammai provided in these descriptions. This image is one that which provides us with and configures our sense of a body with ammai in its wholeness.

The Anthill-Pearl and the Anthill with Pearls

The image I am speaking about is that of an anthill. Mariyamman Lullaby and other songs like Mariyamman Varnippu deploy the anthill image in addressing the body afflicted with ammai. Let me narrate an extract of Lullaby to get an idea of this image:

The thousand-eyed adorned one [Alankari] please come

The pearl of nail (or the biggest pearl)3 selected from sixteen

thousand pearls

The biggest pearl (or the pearl of nail) woven with a hundred

thousand pearls

You grew and were raised in the six-thousand-eyed pearl

arayirankan muttutanil

attal valarnthezuntal)

The eye of the cobra (nagam), Mother, a good poisoned snake (pampu)

The eye of the Sesha, Mother, a small poisoned snake

The five-headed cobra, Mother, prattles and plays with you

3 The term “animuttu” can also be translated as a pearl of finest quality. But I am avoiding it here because the translated version would be more cumbersome, if I accommodate that sense too.

145 The ten-headed cobra, Mother, gets embedded (patintu) and plays

with you

The red-headed cobra, Mother, joins and plays with you

The black-headed cobra, Mother, protects your temple

Sakti adorns herself in conjoining with snakes like Seshan

Sakti adorns herself in conjoining with snakes called cobra

…

The beautiful snakes, you adorn yourself with them as ornaments.

(n.d., 25)

Mariyamman Varnippu follows an analogous narration, but here a reference to the anthill occurs as such:

The finest pearl (or the pearl of nail), selected from a thousand pearls,

The pearl of nail (or the finest pearl), chosen from sixteen thousand pearls,

You grew and raised in a thousand-eyed anthill

….

Sakti adorns herself in conjoining with snakes like Sesha

(lines 160-2, 171).

The image of an anthill with holes and serpents strikes an obvious sympathetic correspondence with a body having ammai in the form of pustules. The image of pustules puncturing the body goes along with the image of the gamut of holes-eyes that mark the body of the anthill; and, the body upon which the pustules by their very arrangement draw strings or lines shares a common iconic imaginary with the body of the anthill upon which serpents or snakes crawl.

146 Perhaps the image of serpents over the body of the anthill helps one to comprehend the perception of ammai as jewels flowing over the body materializing as the goddess during ammai. For instance, a version of Mariyamman Lullaby, which is available in the palm leaf manuscript collection in the Government Oriental Manuscripts

Library (D 1747), questions whether ammai in the form of the goddess is “pearls or corals or whole blue gems” (line 73). The song also renders the body as a “golden swing” or “palanquin” with the “presence” of the goddess as ammai (lines 106-8). A palm leaf manuscript of another song on the goddess, Patam (“Verse”), compares ammai to the

“ornament of pearls,” through which the goddess has “embraced” the person (D 1750, lines 17-20). Further, the goddess herself is called the “Pearl of Pearls and the first Pearl

Marimuttu,” that is, she is not only the grantor of the pearls and the jewel, but she is actualized on the body as the pearls and the jewel as such. Or, in other words, the materialization of the body as the goddess cannot be understood other than by its materialization as the goddess who is always adorned. It follows, therefore, that the already adorned state of ammai does not need any other jewel.4

The descriptions of ammai work through the images of eyes, holes, pearls and the anthill. The eyes, holes and pearls are equivalent terms, and the correlation between them could be obtained from a popular vow: a debt-vow for Mariyamman is to carry what one calls an earthen “thousand-eyed pot” (ayirankan panai). Sasikumar, a pampai singer from Dharmapuri describes the “thousand-eyed pot” made of earth, which is carried with

4 Is it due to this perception that the human-made adornments are removed during ammai? If I extend my imagination, unlike many varieties of ammai, mumps manifests without pustules. Is it because of this that a person with mumps is required to borrow a jewel and wear it on the body during the period of ammai? This is a plausible condition where the body is being materialized as the goddess without a jewel. Is it due to this that mumps is called “ponnukku vingi” or the “yearning for gold” and therefore a jewel is put on the body? The act of “borrowing” a jewel also makes sense for ammai is not only described in terms of jewelry, but it is also always depicted to be the “grace” that “arrives” from outside in materializing the body.

147 a lamp with a wick lit inside it: “The pot is our body and the holes in the pot are ammai.

The light flickering inside the pot is our life (uyir). We carry this because the goddess saved our life.” From the description one gets an idea that the “thousand-eyed” pot is carried by devotees during Mariyamman festivals for fulfilling the debt vows related to ammai, although practically the vow is being performed for various other reasons including the boon of a child in the family, the boon of employment or marriage, etc. The vow appears to relate more to the “protection” granted by the goddess during ammai.

An appellation of Mariyamman goes, “She, the thousand-eyed” (“Ayiram kannudaiyal”). One comes across this name in narrations, in songs about her and day-to- day references. In Nilakkottai, a hi-story narrated by Bakkiyalakshmi speaks of the eyes of the goddess correlated with pustules of ammai too:

There was a woman living in a village nearby. It was long time back. At that time there was Mariyatta present everywhere. The woman thought it was contagious and she wanted to get out of the place. During those days, there was no bus or train. One had to go by walk. So, she started walking with her children. There was a banyan tree on their way. She thought of taking rest in the tree’s shade. She sat under the tree. An old woman with a walking stick was passing by. She asked the woman, “Are you resting?” The woman said, “Yes, amma.” The old woman—she was very old—told her that she also wanted to sit there for sometime and sat down. She then asked: “My head feels very itchy. Can you look for lice for me?” The woman thought the oldie was bothersome. The old woman insisted: “People say if you don’t help and look [for lice] at the itchy head, then you are a great sinner (arum perum pavi). So please do so. Just a little.” The woman thought: “She is really old. Let us do it.” Then she just parted with her hands two hairs in the old woman’s head. There were eyes all over. On the other side of the head, again she parted two hairs. Again, there were eyes all over. “Your head is full of eyes,” the woman shouted and got up in fear. The old woman then said: “Is it so? Is my head full of eyes? So from which eye do you think you can escape? Can you escape from these eyes? Who do you think I am? I am the thousand-eyed.”

148 I wanted to ask what happened to the woman on hearing the words of the goddess.

But after narrating the story, Bakkiyalakshmi did not want to proceed further and said she could not speak. Her daughter-in-law told me that she got arul while narrating the story.

And it seemed so and I could not talk to her much later that day. However, the thousand eyes exhibited by the goddess in the literal sense in the hi-story could very much be the ammai pustules, which the woman wanted to escape from by getting out of the village.

“The six thousand eyed pearl” in the Lullaby is analogous to the “thousand-eyed anthill” in the song of Description. It is the place where the mother goddess “is raised and grows up.” The sign of the pearl in these descriptions metonymically implies the whole body woven with pearl-like pustules during ammai, which corresponds to and which shares a common appearance with the anthill. At another level, with the anthill’s holes being its eyes, following the clue given in the Description, one can read the “six thousand eyed pearl” in the Lullaby as the anthill itself. At a further level of transformation, both the anthill-pearl as well as the body-pearl can be the goddess-pearl, since the goddess is narrated as the “finest of pearls” and is named as the one with

“thousand eyes.”

Ananku and Mariyamman

The possibilities of intricate layers of interpretations of these songs prompt me to propose that the body of the anthill with holes could provide an iconic template to get an idea of the body with ammai. Yet the question remains as to why the body afflicted with ammai (as well as the anthill with holes) is called the goddess-pearl. Or, in other words, why should an ammai-afflicted body be marked as a super-human, “sacred” phenomenon? First thoughts on this made me recall a much-debated Tamil conception,

149 “ananku”, which was made popular by George Hart ([1975] 1999). He describes it as a sacred power believed by Tamils to “inhere in certain objects and persons and to be activated in certain situations” (81). This immanent sacred power, Hart says, “was not a force that worked for human welfare, but rather was capricious and potentially malevolent” (81). Hart’s deliberations have been challenged by V.S. Rajam (1986), who observes that Hart’s understanding of ananku as a “dangerous, sacred power” does not unfold the multiple significances the term had for Tamils and is “reductionistic.” 5

Further, Rajam points out that the term has undergone semantic change over time and if one speaks of the conception of ananku she needs to contextualize the usage rather than generalize it (261).

Rather than dwelling on Rajam’s critique of Hart on ananku, my interest here is to show that ananku could still serve as a useful template for understanding the materialization of the body during ammai. Hart points out that ananku as a term used to denote the deity draws “from a root meaning to afflict” (21). From the paragraph cited by Rajam, the meaning of ananku as a verb “to afflict” is also confirmed. But one learns from her that ananku need not always be a dangerous and/or sacred power. Nevertheless,

Rajam says: “Because it was believed to be a source of distress, a deity or god in classical Tamil poems is mentioned in association with ananku or is metonymically referred to by the term ananku (47, 55, 68, 72, app.) (264).” If I go by Rajam’s perspective, inasmuch as ammai is an affliction, and since a deity was “believed” to be the source of affliction, this deity-source could possibly be taken as ananku.

5 See Rajam’s critique: “Hart's blanket interpretation of ananku as ‘a potentially dangerous sacred force’ distorts our sense of its usage in its various contexts in Tamil literature and gives to the early Tamil poems a more mystic touch than necessary” (267).

150 Rajam’s proposition, however, would not help us when one considers

Mariyamman’s traditionally “believed” responsibility in healing ammai. Nor does interpreting “ananku” as the “source of distress” help us to figure out the occasional description of ammai as the grace or a benevolent gesture of the goddess in the songs.

The Lullaby details the role of the goddess to heal ammai in a picturesque manner:

Like puffed rice, you rise, fatten up and dance

Dancing you raise and roll them down (irakku), Mother

The pearls on the head, Mother, roll them down saving the child

The pearls on the face, Mother, roll them down at first

The pearls on the neck, Mother, roll them down, Beautiful maiden

The pearls on the shoulders, Mother, roll them down, Turantari

The pearls on the chest, Mother, roll them down Mother

The pearls on the stomach, Mother, roll them down you,

Maiden of beautiful form

The pearls on the thighs, Mother, roll them down Devi

The pearls on the knees, Mother, roll them down Meenakshi

The pearls on the ankle, Mother, roll them down Kamakshi

The pearls on the feet, Mother, roll them down to the world

Roll them down to the earth, Begetting Mother, Protect us. (15-16)

Not only is Mariyamman the harbinger of the cure of ammai but even the pustules of ammai are considered as her grace or her benevolent gesture to protect people. One question that I consistently raised was about the motive of the goddess in afflicting people through ammai: “If you say that the goddess puts ammai, why should she do so?”

151 Responses to this from my conversationalists are like these: “Mariyamman puts ammai on children because she is fond of them;” or “She likes to do so, and how can we say anything about mother’s wish?;” or “She is joyful in her festival times and therefore she plays with us during her festivals as ammai.” I should mention that in Dindigul, I did get responses that emphasized the sorrow felt by the goddess due to her husband’s “death,” which makes her put pearls of pustules on people, causing them suffering. Nevertheless, narratives of ammai as ensuing from the goddess’s “happiness” or her “affection” for people or her intended “play” with them surfaced more frequently than narratives that depict ammai as an expression of the goddess’s negative emotions like sorrow or anger or her tendency to afflict.

Interestingly, facilitators of healing called ammappillai-s (persons who are invited to homes to sing the Mariyamman songs, especially the Lullaby when ammai is severe) like Muthukkannu from Pudukkottai and Pushpavalli from Tayamangalam inform me that the mother visits the house in the form of ammai in order to thwart an evil or tragedy which otherwise might befall the house (members). According to them, ammai is a protective gesture of the goddess preempting the bad fortune, which is otherwise in store for the family.

Mariyamman songs also emphasize the “affection” of the goddess for human beings. In the form of pearls, the goddess is believed to arrive with “compassion” to dwell in the human body (D 1747, lines 95-96). The body with ammai, being narrated as a “golden swing” or “palanquin,” appears to have achieved this state due to the

“devotion” felt toward the goddess:

Has she stood as blessing in the form of a golden swing?

152 Has she given this boon and protected me

Thinking that “she is a devotee,” and bestowing me with this palanquin?

(D 1747, lines 106-8)

Thus, one can probably not proceed from the “afflicting” nature of ananku to unearth the identificatory operation of ammai with the goddess, because such a proposition neglects the protecting benevolence attributed to the goddess.

There are scholars such as Kamil Zvelebil (1979) and T. Burrow (1979), who have provided different interpretations of “ananku.” According to Zvelebil, ananku can be beneficial, in the sense that it can destroy “enemies of god and men” (Zvelebil 1979,

167). Burrow derives the word ananku from the “root an-, ‘to approach,’ ‘to join,’ ‘to dwell inside,” and observes that “ananku” means “the possessing spirit” and “the state of possession” (1979, 283 [cit. after Dubianski 8]). Drawing from Burrow’s conception, one can argue that ammai-affliction is a form of “possession” by a “spirit” or a deity (here,

Mariyamman), and therefore, the source and the sufferer are identified as one and the same during ammai. This idea appears perfect, although it is implicated with a major taken-for-granted notion: if one contends that the source of affliction as ammai can be perceived as an ananku meaning a deity, and if one contends it is the deity that “inhabits” a person in and through causing ammai, it amounts to first taking the deity as a given, a priori source of affliction.

Alexander Dubianski’s interpretation of ananku offers a framework that can be used to connect the notion of ananku with the deity of ammai and an ammai-afflicted body. According to Dubianski, ananku is an inner “abstract power” on the one hand and

“a spirit, an unidentifiable deity” on the other, and these “two meanings are so closely

153 interlocked in their usage …” (8). Dubianski further qualifies this inhering “power” as a

“natural power” and not a “supernatural power” (10). He proposes that the “characteristic expression” of this “natural power” being “heat or/and fire,” ananku could be perceived in the same order as that of tapas, which produces an ascetic heat (10). Drawing from

Dubianski, one can propose that ammai, which is always associated with heat accumulated in the body, belongs to the similar order of power as that of ananku and tapas heat. It is possible to suggest that ammai as a bodily expression of heat came to be regarded as a localized power immanent in the body and associated with an “imaginary” deity.

However, there are certain issues concerning ammai-affliction that cannot be addressed adequately with the proposition of ananku and its expression in the form of heat. First of all, what could have been the conditions in which a deity or a god is taken and is considered as the source of ammai and the “inhabitant” during ammai, considering that there are several other ailments (such as stomach ache or some skin diseases) that are conventionally associated with bodily heat in the Tamil context? How is the belief in a deity that underscores such taking and consideration constituted? Furthermore, how can we understand the instance of ammai affliction, where the sufferer as well as the source or deity is actualized in/as the singular ‘afflicted body’ of a person? Asking these questions will help us in the deconstructing enterprise concerning the identification of an afflicted person as the goddess Mariyamman during ammai.

The “Presence”

A significant dark shadow, which the “belief” part does not illumine, is cast by the consistent references in narrations of the goddess Mariyamman addressing her as or

154 associating her with the snake/s and with the anthill. Not only does one commonly come across the anthill in or adjacent to Mariyamman temples, but one also hears references connecting Mariyamman to the anthill and the snake in the hi-stories and songs of the goddess in general as well as in the narrations relating to particular shrines of the goddess.

Let me provide a sample of these narrations: In hi-stories about her temples, one often finds that Mariyamman reveals herself to be staying inside the anthill or sometimes in the form of a cobra. In some hi-stories, Mariyamman announces herself as living in the form of the anthill itself. Usually Mariyamman announces her stay in these forms either by appearing in a dream or through an utterance of a person in whom she arrives or through an oracle from the sky.

In Punnainallur near Thanjavur, the main icon of Mariyamman itself has been carved from the earth of the anthill. According to the hi-story of the temple, provided by

Pushpa Ashokkumar in on the temples of the goddess (2002), Mariyamman revealed her living as a “formless (aruvam) anthill” in a forest of punnai trees, three miles east of

Thanjavur, to Venkoji Maharaja Chatrapathi, who ruled Thanjavur from 1676 CE to 1683

CE, in a dream. At once, the king arranged to build a roof upon the anthill and a road leading to the location of the habitat of the goddess. It was his son, king Tulajaraja, who ruled Thanjavur during the first half of the eighteenth century, who decided to make the icon. The hi-story goes that Tulajaraja’s daughter, afflicted with smallpox, was losing her eyesight. The goddess appeared again in a dream to Tulajaraja and asked him to come to her place with his daughter and worship her. The king went to the place of the anthill with the princess. As soon as the camphor light was circulated for the goddess-anthill,

155 the “flower that was hiding the eyeball withered,” and the eyesight of the princess was restored. The king was extremely happy and arranged to construct a temple for

Mariyamman and her icon, made from the earth of that anthill, was installed.6

Nellukkadai Mariyamman temple in Nagappattinam has a legend as well, in which Mariyamman announced her “presence” through a dream. It was to a woman,

Mariyamman appeared in the dream. Four hundred years back, Mariyamman first went to the house of a woman called Periyanayagattammal, engaging in the trade of rice

(nellu), as a customer to procure rice. But then she did not say who she was. In the night,

Periyanayagattammal got a dream in which the goddess told her: “I am Mahamari. I am in the form of an anthill under a margosa tree near your house.” Next day, the woman went to the tree, saw the anthill, applied turmeric and vermillion upon the anthill and started worshipping it. Many years later, a small copper icon of the goddess was made which eventually became the icon of worship by people (Arulmigu Nellukkadai Sri

Mariyamman temple Stalavaralaru, n.d)

According to another hi-story from Kiranthankudi near Kumbakonam,

Mariyamman emerged in the form of a stone icon from a cluster of anthills in a forest of cankam trees and bushes near Kiranthankudi village. The hi-story, as one comes across it in Ashokkumar’s book, involves a newly wed girl. Long ago, when a wedding procession including the bridegroom on a horse and the bride on her foot was passing along a cluster of anthills in a forest area of cankam trees, Mariyamman arrived in the

6 Ashokkumar writes: [The king] wanted to disarrange the form of the anthill so that he could embellish it further. During that time, Sri Sathguru Sadhasiva Brahmendira Swamigal visited him, and it appeared as if he came there to encourage the plan of the king. With Swamigal being instrumental in carrying out his plan, the king arranged to establish the form of ‘Mari’ from the earth of the anthill for the goddess (Ambikai) who was relating with the anthill. (52)

156 bride and informed the villagers that she was residing in the anthills. The goddess asked the villagers to take her out and build a temple for her, and assured them that she would give her protection in turn. The icon of the goddess was discovered among the anthills, and a temple was subsequently built by the villagers.

Similarly, Tulukka Cudamani Mariyamman at Puduppatti near Salem revealed her stay inside an anthill surrounded by a dense forest. According to the temple legend, which has been published by the temple (1981), once a Mohammedan Nawab camped in that area with his troops. The Nawab ordered that the area be cleared to enable his soldiers to stay there and in the process the anthill was demolished. Soon, the eyesight of the Nawab and his soldiers was gone and they cried out. An utterance of the goddess resounded in the sky: “Since you have committed this act inadvertently, I forgive you.

You all should stay here and worship me with devotion. If you do that, I will restore your eyesight.” The Nawab and his soldiers followed the advice, worshipped the goddess and got back their vision. It was this Nawab who is said to have built a shrine for the goddess in the form of a stone icon emanated from the anthill. He also gave a lot of land and subsidies to the temple. Since the goddess showered grace on “Tulukkar” (Moslems), she is believed to have acquired the name, the “gem of the head” (cudamani) of

Tullukkar”.

According to the sthalapurana (temple hi-story), published by the temple administration at Bannari near Coimbatore, a long time back a cow daily visited a place covered with anthills near which there was a small stone lingam,7 and poured its milk

7 Lingam, as my conversationalists call it, means a stone icon, which reveals itself in its “self-born” (svayambu lingam) form. As I learnt in the field, a lingam need not necessarily be associated with Siva and his phallus.

157 there.8 The owner of the cow, who was a Vellala Kavundar, was dismayed that he could not get milk from the cow. He, therefore, followed the cow and came to this place. On seeing his cow’s deed of showering the lingam with milk, he assembled the villagers there. Mariyamman descended in a man in the crowd and announced that they should build a temple for the goddess Bannari Mariyamman who was in the form of a lingam in that place. A temple for the goddess was soon built.

In Surampatti Valasu, a place near Erode, again it was a cow that was pouring milk on the anthill housed within the forest of cankam tree bushes and thorns which led to the discovery of the Mariyamman icon. Uzhavan C. Periyasamy (2002) tells us that a

Vellala Kavundar called Nanjappa Kavundar, who owned the cow, found out about this first and he set on demolishing the anthill with his hoe. But at one point his hoe seemed to hit a stone inside the anthill and blood gushed out profusely. Immediately, he lost consciousness and was brought to his house. However, that night the goddess

Mariyamman appeared before him, and announced to him that she had incarnated in his land to protect his town, cattle herds and people, led him to the place of the anthill and disappeared. Nanjappa Kavundar saw blood oozing out from the place. Aggrieved, he dug the place and discovered the triangular stone icon of the goddess. On seeing the blood flowing from the “back” of the goddess, Nanjappa Kavundar treated it with medicinal leaves. He also built a green shamiana for her and started the first worship in

Surampatti valasu.

8 The motif of shedding of milk by the cow revealing the “sacred” site is dealt with elaborately by David Shulman (1980). See Shulman’s discussion on “Milk, Blood and Seed” (1980, 96-103). For a detailed discussion on the “self-milking cow” and bleeding icons, revealing the sites of the divine in India temple legends, one can also look at Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi’s work The Self-milking Cow and the Bleeding Lingam: Criss-cross of Motifs in Indian Temple Legends (1987).

158 The goddess Bhavaniyamman, who is also called Mari Bhavani, of Periyapalayam near Chennai in her form as a stone lingam also seemed to have had her abode in an anthill housed in the midst of thickly grown margosa trees. S.S. Raghavachariyar in his work (2004) on the history of Mariyammans states that a long time back, when a trader of bangles was passing by, he slept under a tree. When he woke up and was preparing for his onward journey, his bunch of bangles fell inside an anthill nearby. To retrieve his bangles he started demolishing the anthill. When he hit the anthill with an iron stick, soon blood sprung up from the anthill and the lingam also appeared to his view. The trader got panicky and he applied turmeric and vermillion powder (kumkumam) upon the lingam, and the flow of blood stopped at once. The trader left, but that night in his dream the goddess appeared and told him that she was the goddess Bhavani and asked him to build a temple for her. The trader mobilized people from his caste called Balija Naidu in order to build the temple. They all joined together and got the goddess a temple

(Raghavachariyar 181). Her devotees say that Bhavaniyamman, at times, takes the form of a cobra.

In Tiruverkadu, Karumariyamman is believed to do tapas (meditative/ascetic act) staying inside the anthill. It is believed that akin to Periyapalayam Mari

Bhavaniyamman, Karumari also appears to her devotees in the form of a cobra. One of the elderly temple priests Nagaraja Gurukkal explains the name Karumari. His narration plays with the meaning of “mari” as an adverb indicating “change” or “mutation:”

The goddess was first born as the daughter of the Pandiyan king of

Madurai: she was Minakshi. In the next yuga, she was born to Dakshan:

hence she was called Dakshayani or Parvati. In this Kaliyuga, she is born

159 not from a fetus (karu) but she has assumed a changed (mari) form which

is that of a snake in the anthill.

It was another Karumariyamman temple at Tiruverkadu which I visited first when

I embarked on my research on this subject. The temple, which is at about 1 km distance from the prime Karumariyamman temple, was established by the grandfather of Madurai

Muttu. Muttu is the seventh and the contemporary diviner or “sign-teller” in the generation of diviners or “sign-tellers.” He says, the goddess Karumariyamman is thought to descend in them, stand above their heads or crowns, and decipher, through them, the signs in order to divine what is in store for those seeking the goddess’s divination. Muttu divines on two days, Fridays and Sundays, in a week, and on the day when I visited him he was free since it was a Thursday. I sought his permission to take a picture of a lamp called “pati lamp”9 inside the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine and placed on the side of the main deity along with another long-stemmed lamp (kuttu vilakku) at a distance of, perhaps, half a foot from it. Earlier Muttu remarked to me that this pati lamp lit in the direction of the south (the direction of Yama, the god of death in

Hindu mythology) is the lamp of wisdom. The brass lamp was about a foot in width, five to six inches in depth and it looked beautiful, decorated with the figurines of Parvathi and Siva as presiding deities at the front, with their thrones supported by the figurines of

Siva’s troops or Ganas. On the sides or the brim of the lamp, finely carved small figurines of deities such as Ganesha, Visnu, and Brahma could be seen. Enthralled by the beauty of the lamp, I expressed my desire to take a picture of the lamp and Muttu generously agreed. I was using a digital camera. I clicked it and at once there appeared a light in the form of a snake traveling from and connecting the radiant flame of the pati

9 The Tamil term “pati” means both a husband/lord and a sacred place.

160 lamp with the flame of the long-stemmed lamp. I was taken aback and Muttu who was standing near the goddess came to my help to ‘receive’ what had just happened. He explained to me that it was the goddess Karumari, who, in the form of the snake of light, had chosen to give her darshan (which can be described as an act of “seeing” indicating the bestowal of grace by the deity upon the devotee) to me and had bestowed her arul

(compassionate grace) upon me. In fact, within its premises, Muttu’s Karumari temple also hosts a small cluster of short anthills just behind the main shrine, and cobras are said to inhabit them. One can also see another icon of Mariyamman, placed in the midst of these anthills.

While the above narrations foreground the correspondence between the goddess and the anthill/the snake, I should add that such a correspondence manifests itself obviously in the goddess’s temple festivals too. Occasionally, the dancers who dance with arul in these festivals are identified as Mariyamman by means of this association of the goddess with the snake. The “presence” of the goddess Mariyamman is ideally confirmed by certain marked gestures that articulate the arrival of the goddess in the body, and these marks stress the relationship between the goddess and the snake.

Experienced performers such as Gnanaraj, a singer with the utukkai drum, from

Pondicherry, and Suyambu, a bow song performer from Nagercoil who are significant participants in Mariyamman festivals tell me that if anyone in the festival dances with a posture where she intertwines her arms like a hood over her head or if anyone makes a

161 hissing sound like a snake during the dance, most probably the deity arrived in her should be Mariyamman.10

At times, the healers of ammai also deploy the association between the snake and the goddess. Muthukkannu, whom I have cited before, believes that she is both the snake as well as the goddess, and seems to deploy this dual identity in convincing the people around her of power to heal. These references amount to an overview and the snake-

Mariyamman link will figure more in the course of this dissertation when I focus on the goddess’s hi-stories, performances and healing. Right now, in order to ground the present discussion of ananku and the snake, I think the evidence provided by the Mariyamman songs, which we have been discussing would suffice.

I already discussed the portions from Mariyamman Lullaby, sung during ammai which foreground the snakes as adornments and as playmates of the goddess. Secondly, the descriptions in the song not only call the goddess the biggest of pearls, which is the anthill, but they also depict her as someone who is brought up in the anthill. Identifying the goddess as the snake, the song addresses her as the “vengeful, snake-maiden,” emphasizing the avenging quality generally attributed to the snake:

You would see to it that it bites, like the poison that is not out of a bite

You would see to it that it stings, like the poison that is not out of a sting

The snake-maiden Nili, Mother, You are the vengeful Marimuttu. (34)

Although it is not clearly rendered, the poison, which afflicts but which is not out of the bite or the sting (of a snake) implies the harmful pain associated with ammai. The verb “cirutal” meaning “snake’s hissing” indicates the increase in severity of ammai, and

10 Although both the performers told me that their guess should be validated by the utterance of the person concerned, when the person would say she is ‘so and so’ upon the customary question asked by the performer regarding who she is.

162 it is mentioned already in the account of habitual practices. When the “shadow” of certain persons falls over an ammai-afflicted person, it is feared that “ammai would hiss,” with the sentence emphasizing the analogy between the goddess/ammai and the snake.

Thirdly, in the Lullaby snakes are described as a part of her body, the plaits of the goddess, while at the same time the goddess also remains distinct from them:11

Five or six serpents form your gathered valorous plaits

Vimali, you remain there above these plaits and speak tenderly. (33)

Reading these lines closely show that Mariyamman has snakes as part of her bodily appearance, yet she is also someone who is distinct from the snakes and who rules over (literally “sitting above”) the snakes. Here, it is noteworthy to recall the remark made by some of my conversationalists (Velmurugan, a performer of utukkai drum,

Tyagadurgam; Dindigul; Bhagyam, a singer at Mariyamman temples, Melur; and

Bhagavati Gurukkal, a priest, Kovilpalayam) that the first pearl of ammai is put by the goddess at the crown or top of the head (mudi and uccittalai). An amman-dancer in Melur

Mariyamman temple says, “She is a small lamp seen at the crown first.” Velmurugan observes that when Mariyamman asked for a boon of pearls of ammai from Siva, she asked him: “When a child has ammai, I will pull the hair at the top of its head. If the hair comes in my hand, you should permit me to take away the life of the child. If it does not come, I will spare it.” Velmurugan adds that if the goddess “pulls” the hair forcefully,

11 The association of snakes and matted locks of hair has been a powerful theme of scholarly analyses. For instance, see Gananath Obeyesekere’s work on “personal symbols and religious experience” in which he explores the representation of matted locks of hair as a bundle of snakes, and addresses it as a “personal symbol” that operates at the levels of both personality and culture (1981). In his inquiry into the folklore and cult of Aravan or Kuttantavar in Tamilnadu, Alf Hiltebeitel presents a local narrative that speaks of snakes forming a stiff body of Aravan from his skeleton and thereby enabling him to participate in the Mahabharata battle (1998, 149). Aravan is the son of the snake-maiden Ulupi and Arjuna.

163 then the ammai-visited child will meet its death within fifteen minutes. He recalls a common saying by people: “Mariyamman takes away the life by pulling the hair.”

Interpreting these intricate and complex narrations regarding ammai, where the crown or the top of the head or the hair figures as a key trope, one can say that the serpents as the plaits of the goddess on her head can be correlated with the painful

(“stinging”?) and powerful (“valorous”?) pearls of ammai upon the crown or the top of the head. One should remember here that the ammai-afflicted body is the goddess as such. The next description, “speaking tender words sitting upon the plaits” is a gesture of kindness that is contrary to Mariyamman’s “pulling” the hair, causing the child’s death.

“Speaking tender words” amounts to the goddess’s saving the person from death.12

Thus, while in the first line the goddess is described as the one with snakes forming her plaits, a part of her body, in the second line she is rendered as someone who is distinct from and who can be present other than her bodily appearance. Likewise, in

Velmurugan’s narration too, one can see that the goddess is depicted as someone who can act from outside the body and decide the fate of it that she visits it herself in the form of ammai. The above narrations articulate Mariyamman both as an immanent power present in the ammai-afflicted body as well as an autonomous, sovereign authority that determines the fate of the body that can exist apart from it and outside it.

12 Mariyamman’s “standing” above the crown and speaking is a common description for Mariyamman’s “sign-telling” or “divining” too. One can recall Madurai Muttu’s remark that the goddess stands above his head/crown and speaks. Madurai Muttu also uses the phrase “mudippalakan” or “the (male) child of the crown/head” meaning the human male medium through which the goddess speaks. Since “mudi” also means crown, this phrase also indicates that the selection of a person who holds this prestigious position of serving as the goddess’s medium is similar to the selection of a king.

164 Forging the “Presence”

Consider a common expression indicating the ammai-affliction, such as “amma(i)

[mother as well as ammai] has visited” (“amma(i) vantirukku”) to indicate the state of affliction of ammai, and here one can see how the “arrival” (from outside) connotes the

“presence” as pustules. At the same time ammai is also expressed as that which is inside the body that comes out and manifests externally. Let me cite two of my conversationalists here. Both Velmurugan and Kala respond to my question, “Where does ammai come from?” Velmurugan says: “Ammai is inside the body. From inside it comes out on the body as pustules that can be seen with our naked eyes,” whereas Kala responds: “Ammai comes from the inside of us.” When I asked, “What is inside?”

Velmurugan repeats what he has said: “Inside means inside the body.” Kala, however, attempts to explain: “Sister, it is said that ammai resides in the stomach and it arrives from there.” If one draws upon the anthill template, these apparently contradictory expressions indeed point in a discernible direction and guide us along the path of deconstruction of the discourse of the ammai-manifested body as the goddess.

I have proposed that the anthill and the ammai-afflicted body share the same imaginary, pointing out figurative correlations between pustules and holes, between the strings of pustules on the body and serpents crawling over the anthill, and lastly, between the unified field of the anthill and the body, with both described as the “biggest pearls.”

Let me look at the serpent-anthill connection a little more, in the light of the narrations that we just discussed. The anthill is not just a field upon which the serpents crawl and move. The anthill indicates a sense of an abode of serpents where they dwell or live. The anthill is a “home” to serpents, it is where they “grow” or “grow up”. In the proposition

165 of the shared imaginary between the ammai-afflicted body and the anthill, this significant constitution of the anthill, that is, the anthill being the “home” to serpents, is lacking.

This significant element is missing in the ammai-afflicted body, and I speculate that consequently this missing part could have been supplied by creatively forging a dwelling

“presence” within the body that manifests as pustules. Seen in this light, narrations (such as Kala’s and Velmurugan’s) which explain that “ammai comes from inside” could have been the result of an attempt to replicate the dwelling “presence” in the ammai-afflicted body analogous to the presence of serpents in the anthill, suggesting something staying inside coming out.

But the anthill has not ‘originally’ been a home of serpents: it is that of the termites, in which the serpents, with their superior force, invade and stay over. The anthill, rather, becomes the home for serpents. Correspondingly, the dwelling “presence” that manifests as pustules of ammai could have been perceived as that which originally arrives from the outside, enters aggressively into the body and stays over. Analogous to the snake that takes “possession” of the anthill, “possession” by a superhuman force from outside the body could have been conceived to mark the condition of ammai. Such thinking potentially shifts the immanence of the dwelling “presence” in the ammai- afflicted body to an eminent plane from which such “presence” is deemed to have originated, thereby, according this “presence” autonomy and self-agency.

To recapitulate my arguments, drawing from the sense that the anthill is the habitat of the serpents, it is possible that first, similar to that of the serpents in the anthill, a dwelling “presence” that manifests as pustules is simulated. Secondly and simultaneously, since the anthill is taken possession of by serpents that come from

166 outside the anthill, going by analogy, the dwelling “presence” during ammai could have been envisaged as that which has arrived from outside the body, eventually possessing it.

Common references to the possession of the body by the outside force, that is, the goddess, during ammai, which are prevalent along with references to an inside “ammai” that manifests on the body as pearls validates this manner of envisioning of the autonomous, sovereign, pre-existent force.

Drawing from the above discussion, it follows that this envisaged autonomous force could be a derived effect constituted by the figurative imaginary commonly shared by the anthill and the ammai-afflicted body. In other words, the “belief” about the deity’s

“presence” in or the “possession” of the body during ammai could be a conjured effect that actually derives from the material manifestation of the body during ammai affliction.

Thus, my speculation is that in ammai, the process of materialization of the body, its

“mattering” as well as its “making sense,” is founded upon the iconic template common to the ammai-afflicted body and the anthill. But again a few crucial questions remain: how and by what process is the autonomous force conceived as a feminine deity

Mariyamman? How can one speak of the benevolence attributed to the goddess in healing the pustules of ammai, or for that matter, how can one understand the pustules being expressed as the goddess’s grace?

I have two routes to pursue here: anchoring again on to the conventional thought of ananku, I trace the first route. Rajam (1986) cites two classic literary sources, the

Paripatal invocation and an Akananuru poem (no. 108), which locate the ananku upon the snake’s hood (268). Ananku, in these references, is used in the sense of “potence” says Rajam (268). However, in literary sources, not only is the hood of the snake

167 associated with ananku, but rather ananku is located in the snake as such. I will take two poems from Narrinai, a classical Tamil anthology dealing with the akam (inner/love) traditions to explicate this: In a poem where the hero who narrates his agony or affliction of separation from his beloved tells a girlfriend of the beloved: “Without causing any benefit, the snake with dots on it spits poison and afflicts life (uyir anankum). Similarly, you too without considering about doing any good, are killing me by laughing at me.

…Without making fun of me, please tell me the mind of my beloved” (Na, 75). The ananku here comes as a verbal form indicating the undue affliction or suffering caused by the poison-spitting action of the snake. In another poem, a girlfriend of the heroine chides the hero for coming along a small path where the snake with ananku dwells (168). Here, the ananku is given as a fearsome quality inherent in the snake.

From these poems, one can contend that analogous to the ananku’s location in the snake, initially the dwelling “presence” during ammai was possibly conceived as ananku.

And, at some point later in the history, with the “semantic shift” in the meaning of the ananku to increasingly denote “celestial women” in the post epic period (Rajam 266), the ananku as the “presence” could have been identified as a celestial woman or the goddess.

However, I am wary of sticking to this route, since the serpent-ananku connection does not adequately account for lavish descriptions of benevolence that appear in ammai- related discursive practices.

168 Section II

Sprouts of the Body, Sprouts of the Field

The second route that I am more inclined to adopt begins with the material of the anthill. The particles of the earth being shaped into the anthill still embody the prime qualities of the earth, its cultivability and fecundity. While the anthill becomes the home for serpents in lieu of being shaped so, the earth, which it is made of, exists and is discernible as such outside this shape too. At a first reading, the cultivable and fertile earth presents itself as a receptacle by virtue of these qualities. The earth is the receptacle of two categories of seeds—those from the sky, that is, the seeds of the rains, and the seed of crops, sown into it.

Yet, the earth is not merely a receptacle of the categories of seeds. Similar to the sky that is a productive site of generation of the rain seed, the earth is a productive site of generation of the crop seed. The earth is always implicated with the possibility of presenting itself as a cultivable or a cultivated field, and the actualization of this possibility is effected through the seed of rain along with the seed of crops generated by the earth. It is worth noting that the body, not yet afflicted with ammai, which is analogous to the earth not yet cultivated, appears to be rife with a similar possibility of getting cultivated with ammai.

Here I introduce a secondary template to arrive at the signification of the ammai- afflicted body. This template is the figure of the cultivated field, with crops raised in it indicating the earth penetrated by the seeds from the sky and the seeds produced earlier by the earth itself. I draw this template from a performance in Mariyamman festivals called mulappari meaning the “sprouting seedlings” or “sprouts.” The performance of

169 growing and offering “sprouts” could be found occasionally in Mariyamman temples throughout Tamilnadu although it is considered more popular in south Tamilnadu.13 In south Tamilnadu beyond Pudukkottai, mulappari is a common name for sprouting seedlings or sprouts in south Tamilnadu, whereas, in central and north Tamilnadu, growing sprouts is typically indicated by the names palikai and navadhanya (Hiltebeitel

1991, 54).14

Let me first focus on mulappari performances of the south Tamilnadu here. The basic components of mulappari comprise planting grains or pulses in pots filled with natural fertilizer, margosa stems, straw, sheaths of millet (kambam) and maize (cholam), and occasionally some earth for seven or nine days, frequently watering and taking care of the growing sprouts, and then relegating (“dissolving”) the seedlings to a water resource nearby (see figure 2). The event of relegation is called “malaiyerutal” meaning

13 Kannan, the priest at the Aruppukkottai Mariyamman temple, observes: The mulappari ceremony in Mariyamman temples becomes more significant as one travels from Pudukkottai to areas south to it, like Kamudi, Madurai, Aruppukkottai, Virudunagar and Tirunelveli. I would say that although the performance of carrying the decorated pots to water resources is spectacular, since they are taken out in a huge procession of hundreds in Mariyamman temples located in Tamilnadu in southern Tamilnadu (like in Madurai, Melur, Aruppukkottai, Virudunagar, Nilakkottai, Andippatti, Kamudi, Tirupuvanam, etc.), the ceremony of sprouts appears to be existent in northern, north-western and central areas of the state too. I have seen a small number of pots of mulappari grown at the houses of individuals and being carried in procession in Chennai (Mugapper) and in Salem (Annatanappatti, Johnsonpet and Gugai). In places like Valangaiman (near Mayavaram), Panruti (near Tindivanam) and Tiruverukadu (Chennai), the sprouts, called palikai and navadhanya are grown at the Mariyamman temples during festival periods. Further, the constituting ingredients of mulappari being predominantly pulses in Mariyamman festivals in south Tamilnadu strike an interesting contrast with the “nine grains” sown in the temple ceremonies of Mariyamman in central and northern Tamilnadu. Hiltebeitel also speaks of the typical ingredients of navadhanya or the nine grains in the sprouting rites linked to the Draupadi cult in areas located around Tindivanam in central Tamilnadu (1991). 14 Hiltebeitel (1991) describes these terms in his discussion on sprouting ceremonies associated with the Draupadi cult in the north-central parts of Tamilnadu: The little rite before us is known under many names, the most typical for Tamilnadu being navadhanya (Tamil navataniyam), “nine grains”; ankurarpana, “the casting or offering of sprouts” (Sanskrit); mulappari, apparently referring to the tender seedlings; palikai, the “little pots” in which the navadhanya is sown, a term that can also mean “young damsel” (Tamil lexicon) and that, from a Sanskrit derivation, could mean “The Protectress” (Biardeau 1989b, 142 n.28); and pali, seeming a shortened form of palikai… as describing the action of placing the navadhanya on the ground (apparently from the Tamil word pali, “to give”). (54-55)

170 “sending off” the goddess, and it is significant to note that this term is also used for the first bath that occurs after the pearls of ammai pustules descend from the body.

The “sprouts” in large groups of pots are usually grown in the premises of the

Mariyamman temple (for instance, in Melur and Aruppukkottai Mariyamman temples), but sometimes they are raised in a place common to the community like a mutt, like the

Mutaliyar community does in Tirupuvanam. It is also common that pots from various houses are kept in a particular house, which plays a lead role in the performance of

“sprouts.” In Nilakkottai such is the case, and I have seen the pots from neighbors, gathered and kept, at a house from where they were taken to the Mariyamman temple before cast away in water. In Kamudi too, I came across a woman, in whose house she and her neighbors were growing the seedlings. The grains planted in the pots are mostly varieties of pulses (payaru vakai). In Melur and Kamudi, black bean (moccai) is preferred for growing the “sprouts” for the goddess. In Nilakkottai too, two or three varieties of pulses (such as karamani, tattaippayiru and moccai) are grown.

Women perform dances called kummi (a dance performed with sticks in their hands or with simple clapping) and vazttu (songs of benediction interspersed with undulating [kulavai] sounds) going around these groups of pots with sprouts, either daily or on alternate days. But the kummi dances with vazttu songs following them are performed without exception on the day of mulappari being “dissolved” or being cast into the water. The kummi dances start from the place where the “sprouts” are grown and are continued at the temple after these are brought in procession. Then the sprouts are taken to the water resources such as tanks or rivers and at the banks of the water resources again, the kummi dances are performed around the sprouts. The sprouts, which

171 are addressed as the goddess Mariyamman in the kummi, are correlated with ammai too.

I first sensed the connection between ammai and the sprouts when I spoke to two elderly women singers Minakshi and Kaliyammal in Tirupuvanam near Madurai. These women take responsibility for raising and keeping a group of pots with sprouts related to

Mariyamman temple in Tirupuvanam. When they were singing some songs for me,

Kaliyammal told me: “The sprouts are also the goddess. In both what we call ammai and the sprouts, sowing takes place.” The connection appeared again later when the healer

Muthukkannu explained the varieties of ammai like chickenpox, smallpox, and measles, describing them as different rice varieties such as IR 8 and IR 20 (modern yielding rice varieties) that grow on the body.

In Melur too, women singers and a pucari at the Mariyamman temple reinforced the idea of ammai as seeds. In her rendering of the pustules as seeds, Dhanabhagyam, who is a mulappari singer in Melur, recited the following lines:

Like the green grams, she spreads throughout the body

Like the flat grams (tattaippayiru), she swells throughout the body

Interestingly, from Dhanabhagyam I learn that these lines form part of a mulappari kummi song. The pucari at the Melur temple confirms that the “sprouts” and ammai are alike because they both “grow.” I learnt from the pucari at Melur that in villages of the southern areas, a practice called “mutteduttal” (gathering pearls) related to mulappari similar to what people do during severe attacks of ammai is still in vogue.

Before the seeds are planted, seven children, mostly little girls are chosen by the village who would go from house to house to gather grains. Later, the collectively gathered grains would be distributed among the houses for growing the sprouts.

172 When I requested Bhagyam, another woman singer from Melur, to sing a few songs on mulappari, she complied with my request. Her first song in the “tananai tananai” tune of the kummi, opening with addressing Mariyamman as ammai, asks her to

“descend” from the body and the song soon moves to the description of the mulappari festival at her temple (see Appendix). The song untied a few knots that were puzzling to me and these knots were all about how to grasp the significance of obligatory vows at

Mariyamman temple and how they are connected with ammai. I will engage with this fascinating song in a following chapter. As of now, suffice to note that the landscapes of the body and the field, cultivated with seeds sown in these and with growing crops of ammai and vegetation, provide one with one more shared iconic imaginary, analogous to the one shared between the anthill and the ammai-afflicted body.

This shared imaginary is asserted and reinforced by similarities in habitual practices followed during mulappari and ammai. The sprouts are grown inside a closed space like a room and entry to the room is restricted. Only the care-taking woman of the house, if the sprouts are grown in the house, or the pucari of the temple, if they are grown in the temple, or an appointed care-taker, if they are grown in a common place like a mutt, can go inside the room. The strict restriction is akin to the restriction followed for the ammai-afflicted person, who is kept away from the eyes of others, in a house.

Dhanabhagyam says that to grow mulappari the heart-mind should be clean

(mana-c-cuttam): “The sprouts should grow even and green. They should not rot in the pot, nor should the seedlings shrink. Only a pure/clean heart makes the sprouts grow well.” When I asked her about sexual relationships at home during their growth (I used the phrase ‘pay patukkai cuttam’ meaning the ‘cleanliness/purity of the bed and

173 mattress,’ which is an idiomatic expression for abstaining from sex at home),

Dhanabhagyam responded:

That is what I meant by the clean-pure heart-mind. One should follow all

that is followed during ammai. Like, the house should be wiped with

water everyday; no clothes should go out of the house; especially, one

should not visit the house which is polluted with death or the house where

the puberty ceremony of a girl is performed. It is better to avoid going to

weddings too. The food should not be seasoned, nor pulses be fried or

cooked with kuzambu (a side dish for rice). No fire should be lent, nor can

it be borrowed.

One can recall that all these practices, except the last one, are adhered to during ammai too, which I have discussed earlier in the previous chapter, and they reinforce the resemblances between ammai and the sprouts. Kaliyammal, a mulappari singer in

Tirupuvanam, also gave me an account of these practices ending her narration with the statement: “Ammai and mulappari are similar (ore matiri), amma.”

The proper growth of sprouts is considered an auspicious sign indicating the family’s welfare. “Their long growth assures the family of all prosperity in store for it,” says Dhanabhgyam. Interestingly, here the auspicious sign seems to operate at a different level from the “auspiciousness” conventionally associated with particular types of females, say young girls or married women whose husbands are alive. For instance,

Dhanabhagyam, Bhagyam, Minakshi and Kaliyammal, all the women mulappari singers who are sought for by houses and temples to sing, are all widows. They are not considered in any way “inauspicious”. To a specific question to the male pucari at the

174 Melur temple: “Do widows also plant seeds and grow mulappari?” the pucari replies at once and men surrounding him join him: “For sure they grow mulappari. Not only that.

It is they who are most sought out for this. They are big people (periyavanga) and we need them.” Consider also, for instance, the mulappari song:

The virgin comes and sprays sprouts to get united in marriage

The widow comes and sprays sprouts to get a position in Kailasam

(heavenly abode of Siva)

The woman demon (iruci) comes and sprays sprouts to give birth to Indra

The young woman sprays sprouts to live here happily

The barren woman comes and sprays sprouts and begets a son too.

(87, Mulappari Kummippadalkal, Aruppukkottai)

The participation of widows, or if we go by the Melur pucari’s words, the preference for them, is reminiscent of Ramanan’s jottings (1900-1902) about widows being sought for in ammai for deciphering the first signs of the smallpox as well as for taking care of the afflicted. Moreover, Ramanan speaks of a customary feast offered to a widow on the day of the first bath after the descent of smallpox:

An old widow is specially “hired” to discharge the onerous duty of impersonating Mari on that day, in connection with some ceremonies in which her “function” plays a paramount part. Being thought to be the vicegerent of Mari for the time, she is requested to partake of the sumptuous feast before others, as a mark of honour and respect. Whatever the widow does, is believed to be inspired by Mari herself. After her meal is over, she is presented with a lot of cakes prepared for the occasion, fruits and other edibles, not to mention a few silver coins, all of which she takes in a long of piece of cloth, and ties it round her belly. Holding in one of her hands a large bunch of neem leaves, and in the other, some “sacred ashes” taken from the altar of Mari maintained in the house, and rearing herself to her full height, she approaches the patient, who is ready for the ceremony after the “farewell bath” in the morning, and blesses him by wafting the bunch over his head three times, and by rubbing the ashes

175 on his forehead. Then, without uttering a word, and with the bunch of neem leaves and the sacred ashes held steadily in her hands, she suddenly rushes out of the house and proceeds in a southerly direction “at the pace of a running bullock”. (1900-02, 150)

Similarly, in mulappari sending-off ceremonies, before lifting the pots toward water resources in a procession, it is customary to submit food offerings to the seedlings.

While egg, drumstick, lentils, dry fish, and eggplant figure in the offerings, sometimes chicken is also prepared for the occasion. After a brief puja with camphor lights, betel leaves, areca nuts, coconuts, plantain, flowers and incense sticks, this food offering takes place and then the pots are lifted.

Summarizing the above discussion, parallels between ammai and mulappari appear in these areas: (a) the collection of seeds in villages before growing mulappari and the collection of rice or food during acute attacks of ammai, with both known as muttteduttal; (b) growing the seedlings in a room with restricted entry and keeping the ammai-afflicted person in a room with restricted entry; (c) raising the mulappari for seven or nine days, a period that could be compared with the period of ammai’s presence in the body; (d) following several similar injunctions during the growth of sprouts and during ammai; (e) the final performance of “dissolving” the seedlings in water and the first bath that happens after the “descent” of ammai pearls from the body, with both identified as “malaiyerutal,”” or “sending off;” and (f) participation of widows in the contexts of ammai and their active participation in the sprouting performances as well.

From these, I contend that the sprouts in the earthen pots and ammai pustules manifesting in the landscape of the body form representations of each other. The sprouts grown in the earthen pot, however, are transposable into a larger scenario, which is a real agricultural field cultivated with crops. The agricultural field undergoes the same events

176 as that of the sprouts—sowing of seeds, watering, taking care of the sprouts, and checking for bad and rotten crops etc. Drawing from these, I propose that the transposable image of the body afflicted with ammai into that of the cultivated agricultural field, reproduced in the image of the pots with sprouts, could account for the materialization of the body with ammai as the woman on the one hand, and for forging the eminent, autonomous source in-charge of ammai on the other.

Mari, the Celestial Rain

I have argued earlier that the divine force imagined in and as the ammai-afflicted body could be a derived effect constituted by the figurative imaginary commonly shared by the anthill and the ammai-afflicted body. I proposed that since the anthill is the habitat of the serpents, which take possession of the anthill arriving from the outside, a dwelling

“presence” that manifests as ammai is conceived analogous to serpents in such a way that its origin is posited outside the body. Imagining the body with ammai as that which is possessed by this outside force while, at the same time, conceiving it as the site of manifestation of this possession as “presence” in the form of pustules have helped to formulate the autonomous, pre-existent force with self-agency.

What happens to this framework as now I have proposed a secondary template of the body with ammai as a cultivated field or land? How does such a framework create a space for the divine phenomenon? Unlike the first framework of the anthill, here the operation of the autonomous force could be conceived at two levels. At first, one can stumble upon the fact that analogous to serpents that enter the anthill and inhabit it, here too, the seed of crop or grains, sown into the field, inhabits the field. Although the seeds of crops are sown into the earth from the outside, the seeds originate only from the earth.

177 The seeds of crops, hence, cannot be considered on par with serpents that arrive at the anthill from the outside inhabiting it. In other words, the crop seeds are not external to the earth as the serpents are to the anthill.

But there is another significant element pertaining to field and cultivation, which will be more relevant in grasping the conditions of formulation of a sovereign deity for ammai. The template of agricultural field offers an image for the sovereign deity: it is the rain from the sky. The celestial rain is necessary to make the grains grow and bring forth a cultivated field; and correspondingly, in considering the crops of ammai on the landscape of the body, one can expect a force from “above” that has been imagined on par with the rain. It cannot be a mere coincidence that the term Mari, the proper name of our goddess, is the term for rain and cloud in Tamil. It can be speculated that deriving from the dynamic imaginary shared between the agricultural field and the body with ammai, the raindrops participating in the agricultural cultivation as well as the phantasmatic raindrops facilitating as well as participating in the cultivation of ammai sprouting on the body have ended up sharing the same name “Mari.”

The term “Mari” meaning rain and cloud one encounters quite frequently in classic Tamil literature: for instance, the term with these significations appears in

Narrinai poems (141; 190; 192; 244; 253; 265; 312; 314; 334; 379; and 381) and in

Kuruntokai poems (66; 91; 94; 98; 117; 161; 168; 200; 222; 251; 259; 289; and 319).

Although the Tamil lexicon gives other meanings of the term “Mari” as death and ammai, it is worth noting that “Mari” does not appear with these negative significations in the earlier classic anthologies. This suggests that the figurative resemblances between the body with ammai and the agricultural field could have played a significant role in the

178 naming of the goddess as Mari. It is possible that inasmuch as a phantasmatic, celestial force, instrumental in the manifestation of ammai, is conceived analogous to the celestial rain, instrumental in bringing forth the cultivated field, the celestial force of ammai is identified as Mari, and consequently the name Mari came to be shared by the rain and the deity, passing from the former to the latter.

Ammai as the Shower of Grace

Rajamma, a healer of ammai from Nattam near Dindigul, sings of the goddess: “If you say Mari, the rains would flow. If you say Devi, honey would flow.” The usage of the term “Mari” to refer to rain and to the deity throws light on the perception of the deity as benevolent. I mentioned earlier that the text Mariyamman Varnippu calls the goddess

Mari the “pearl of pearls” and the “first of pearls” (line 195). The pearl goddess is rendered as a shower of pearls in a version of Lullaby. In the cited portion of the song below, one can see that the description of the goddess Muttumari (“Pearl Mari”)

“playing virulently” conflates the image of pouring rain with the image of the stream of pearls of ammai on the body, indicating that both are expressions of the benevolent grace of the goddess:

Has she playfully arrived here for fun

For the people to celebrate her habitually?

Has she arrived here playfully with a poor pretext

For dwelling with grace and arriving here, considering me as poor?

…

Is she the wealth of rain hiding the sun?

Seeing the dry crops in the land of Pari

179 Has she arrived to play virulently (viriyamaka)?

Is she the relentless Pearl Mari, who, for the red rice to grow

Roared as thunder with lightning and showered as rains from the clouds?

With the sky becoming dark and the sunlight fading

Has she stood blessing the flow of rain (mari)? (D 1747, Lines 93-104)

The pearls of rain as they embrace the earth produce another set of pearls like the grains, cereals and other pearls of crops that bud forth. Let me cite a portion from this

Lullaby that further addresses her as all these pearls:

Is she the mother pearl, pearls of rain, pearls of ammai, or of sugarcane

Is she pearls of bamboo, or of red paddy, or the playful Marimuttu?15

(D 1747, Lines 71-2)

While as pearls of rain, Muttumari metonymically stands for and ensures the earthly plenitude, as the sprouting pearls of the earth, she is the embodiment of plenitude. As the sprouting seeds of crops Muttumari constitutes the cycle of the birth of crops, their growth, harvest and re-entry into the earth in being sown; as rain, she ensures that the seeds grow. Inasmuch as pearls of ammai are recalled at the same level with other types of pearls of crops, the pearls of ammai that sprout on the body correspond with these earthly seeds and are taken as plenitude and prosperity; at the same time, since the description of the goddess “playing virulently” comes along with the description of

Mariyamman as the rain, ammai pustules replicate the celestial rain pearls ensuring such plenitude and prosperity.

15 I have taken some liberty in this translation: at one place I have translated Marimuttu as the pearls of rain and another place I simply retain it as her proper name.

180 Considering the parallels between the goddess with the rain and with the grains deriving from the template of the agricultural field, it is the figuration of the goddess as the rain that establishes her as a force and power, belonging to all and partial to none, and therefore, universal. First of all, although the rain nourishes the earth, it originates from the sky, from the above. In Tamil, the word “van” which means the sky also means rain.

The didactic text Tirukkural has its second chapter titled “vancirappu” or “The glory of rain” placed next to the first chapter titled “Benediction to god.” The second chapter’s verses are devoted to describing the crucial significance of rain for the world and perpetuation of its beings. The first couplet of the chapter compares rain to elixir that bestows immortality whereas the last couplet states that the world cannot exist without the rain. Two significant traits are attributed to rain in classical poetry: one is the generosity of the rain, which would not expect any return or which cannot be repaid for its blessing water the world with water. One comes across references to this attribute in verses of Tirukkural (211), Narrinai (112) and Kuruntokai (91). Another characteristic of rain is its impartiality, since it showers anywhere and everywhere on the earth.

Consider the following lines from the classic Purananuru that juxtaposes the king

Bekan’s giving gifts to people:

Like the rain (mari) which has the tradition

Of not restricting itself and

Pours into the dry tank and the broad cultivated field alike

Or instead of helping such deserving places

Pours into the uncultivable land,

Bekan, whose feet are adorned with anklets and

181 Has a wild (matam) elephant, is

Ignorant in giving.

But he is not ignorant

When the troops of others strike. (Pur. 142)

While the figuration of the deity of ammai is conceived as analogous to the rain, the generosity and impartiality marks the nature of the deity too. The goddess’s throwing pearls of ammai at will and in all directions devoid of partiality is a narrative pattern that one comes across in the songs. Consider, for instance, a song, Sri Mariyamman Katai

(“The Story of Sri Mariyamman”) that depicts the goddess with measures of various sizes like marakkal, nazhi, padi and uzhakku, which are generally used to measure grains:16

She measures pearls with marakkal and comes around the planet —she

Throws them at her will—if one

Knows her greatness and submits to her, she comforts by transforming

them.

She measures pearls with nazhi and comes around countries—she

Throws them in four directions—if one

Believes in her, she grants comforts.

She measures pearls with padi and comes around the world—she

Throws them all around randomly—if one

Submits at her feet, she is considerate and grants comforts.

She measures pearls with uzhakku and comes around the town—she

Throws them on the body—if the heart melts

16 This song appears in an undated chapbook published by a women’s group in Aruppukkottai. This chapbook also contains songs on sprouts, which I cited earlier.

182 And one submits to her, she immediately grants comfort. (78)

The generosity and impartiality of the goddess, derived primarily from the image of the rain, is extended to her managing and distributing earthly plenitude. I have already discussed the representation of the goddess in terms of varieties of pulses or grains in mulappari songs, and in narrations of healers and singers. In addition, she is also represented in narrations as the power that ensures the proper distribution of food grains or seeds among people. Consider, for instance, a song of benediction sung by Lakshmi in

Aruppukkottai before the procession of mulappari:

The rain pours in the north, the water flows along the fields

The ducks swim across the waterways

The crane flies, the kuruvai rice is being sown

Since the Pallars (the caste of land laborers and farmers) who have

sown the rice go hungry,

The Ati Para Eswari (the first goddess) opens the granary

And comes to bestow the grains in padis.

Make, Make the kulavai sound of the ornament of golden gems.

Perhaps, the concern of the goddess for the hungry have-nots, here, the laborers of the land who are alienated from their labor, which makes her bestow the rice grains on them, is transposed into her grace and protection during the ammai affliction. See the description in the Patam song, where ammai is represented as an ornament of pearls that embraces the body and “protects” one in the face of “differences” encountered in the world:

183 Like an ornament of pearls, Mother

You have embraced me so that you can protect me

From differences… (D 1750, lines 17-20).

I think that this description ensues because, in this world of rich and poor, the pearls of ammai show no prejudice and ensure a possibility that they could arrive upon anyone erasing “differences.” The Lullaby explains this better by portraying the goddess as the “rioting sister [of Visnu or Kannan]” who has taken all the pearls of the world in order to divide them [among people] equally (lines 21-22). Mariyamman is praised as the one who “lavishes a boon of flowing pearls even upon those who have none by their side, asking them to fear not” (D 1747, lines 23-4).

Mari Bites and Blesses

In the above passages, drawing from the ceremony of sprouts and literary evidences and through deploying the templates of the anthill and the agricultural field, I have suggested the ways through which constitution of Mariyamman as a materialized embodiment during ammai and installation of the goddess as the absolute sovereign force determining the fate of human bodies could have occurred. The venomous bite of the snake in correspondence to the biting pain and suffering ammai played a role in foregrounding Mariyamman as a “vengeful snake-maiden.” In an attempt to comprehend the positive understanding of the goddess and ammai, my discussion has traced the naming of the deity as Mari in association with rain, the association that has contributed to projecting the goddess and ammai as graceful and benevolent.

Two hi-stories gathered from Tiruverkadu relating to Karumari illustrate the dual equivalence of the goddess Mariyamman with snake and with rain. While silent on the

184 subject of ammai, the hi-stories are perfect illustrations of how the construction of narrations about the goddess that establish her as an absolute and sovereign force, pertaining to a sacred place (sthalam), rework the equivalence between the suffering of the ammai-afflicted body and the snake-bite on the one hand, and the grace showered as ammai and the benevolence of rain on the other.

“Karu” denotes “black/dark,” an adjective, and “Mari”, as already explained, denotes “rain” or “cloud”. “Karumari” is the name of the goddess Mariyamman at

Tiruverkadu, and the name foregrounds the attributes of benevolence and vengeance attributed to the goddess. The hi-story narrated by Kuttiyappa Mudaliyar depicts the grace bestowed by the goddess on his family analogous to rains:

Our family gave the land for the Tiruverkadu temple in 1937. Before that

there were harijans (dalits) who were sign-telling at this place. They used

to give life-sacrifices such as goat and chicks to the goddess Karumari. As

my father and other neighbors were opposed to that practice, they went

away to another place called Perumalagaram, from where they continued

with their sign-telling. It so happened that my father at one point went to

get sign-telling from them. The goddess said [through the sign-tellers]:

“You deprived me of my home. If you find a place as home for me, then I

will save for seven generations.” On hearing that, we gave the land….

Karumari means karumukil (the dark cloud). She bestows compassion

(karunai) upon people like the rain that saves the world.

There is another temple called “Tiruverkadu Atina Alayam” near the main temple, in addition to the temple with which Madurai Muttu is connected. Murugesan, associated

185 with the administration of the “Atina Alayam”, relates another hi-story pertaining to the place:

There was a big ground in the north of Tiruverkadu, where sixty oil

presses would be at work in those times. In that place, the goddess was

worshipped in the beginning. The legend goes that the goddess destroyed

the town in fury due to a sacrilege committed in her worship by not

offering tambulam (a set of betel leaves and nut, usually a gesture inviting

or sending off the guest, who is the goddess in this context). When people

asked her for pardon, she said that the destruction of the town was

destined and promised that the place would regain its glory after some

time. Years later, an utukkai (an hour-glass shaped drum) singer Palayam

fell down all of a sudden at that place. People thought he was bitten by a

snake and were trying to revive him. The man blurted out: “I have the

name Karumari and I bit him as a karunagam (black cobra). He has no

shortcomings; neither is his life under threat. I am going to keep my

promise through him. I will dwell in his crown through his twenty-one

generations, and will divine the future through him, and thereby alleviate

your lack. I will punish him if the sign-teller indulges in pride and alludes

to himself as the god.” It is his descendants who made Tiruverkadu

popular.

The hi-story hinges on the omission of offering tambulam, which might be an act preceding or following the core performances of and forming part of the puja to the goddess. The omission becomes a lapse that fragments the chain of “ritual” performances

186 constituting a sacrilege befitting punishment. The wrath and punishment of the goddess indicated in the first part of the narration are foretold as possibilities that are always in store too, for the sign-teller is warned by the goddess against deifying himself. Even the sign-telling faculty is bestowed upon Palayam only after an act of biting by the goddess in the form of cobra. The vengeful nature of the goddess is emphasized in foregrounding her form as a snake. Whereas, in the first hi-story, Karumari translated as the “dark cloud” is represented as the source of grace as rain, the latter hi-story, with the karu or

“black/dark” standing metonymically for the color of the cobra, transposes the nature of the cobra, in terms of its inflicting fear and revenge, to the goddess.

Surpassing the Snake and the Rain

Recapitulating the above discussions, in the instance of ammai, with the simulation of an image analogous to the serpent inhabiting the anthill and to the rainwater inhabiting the cultivated landscape, the materialization of the afflicted body as a site inhabited by the “presence” of a specific force is triggered. Since, in the process of forging the force, the origin of this force is simultaneously being posited outside the afflicted body, corresponding to the model of serpents and rain that “arrive” from the outside in order to take possession, respectively, of the anthill and the land, the force could be conceived as an autonomous, overpowering, and therefore, a super-human force that “arrives” in the body marked with ammai as well. With the stone icons or lingams of

Mariyamman retrieved from anthills eventually leading to establishment of her shrines, that is, in the literal enactment of the exteriorization of the deity from the anthill, the simulation of the force of divinity comes a full circle, for, in fact, it is the model of the

187 anthill along with its serpents that has been a fundamental influence in inaugurating this force. I will discuss this in detail toward the end of this chapter.

While the generosity and impartiality ascribed to this “visiting” force during ammai draw from the attributes of the rain, its vengefulness and afflicting nature draw from the attributes of the snake. Although these benevolent and malevolent markings produce the force as that which can shower grace or give suffering and thereby regulate the bodies during affliction of ammai, the force exceeds these markings. In other words, although the imagination of an autonomous force with self-agency presiding over ammai is accomplished in accordance with the models of the snake and the rain, and although this force is marked with the characteristics of these two models and has even shared the name of one of those (Mari, the rain), the force is stipulated to be superior surpassing these two. Such stipulation is not surprising, for in order to be regarded as absolute and ultimate, the force should be constituted in such a way that it is not exhausted by these attributes drawn from these two models.

Indeed, such constitution is evident if one recalls how the cultural discourse relates the snake and the rain to Mariyamman. While on the one hand the snake and the rain are equated with Mariyamman, on the other hand, Mariyamman is shown as someone who is superior to the snake and the rain and also as one who presides over the snake and the rain. By the relegation of the key elements, the snake and the rain, partaking in the models of the anthill and the cultivated landscape to a subservient, secondary status with respect to the goddess, the contribution of these models in the constitution of the goddess is obliterated. In order to perceive the superiority accorded to the goddess with respect to the rain and the snake, one can recall some of the descriptions

188 seen before, in which she is represented as an authority in charge of these elements and controlling these elements: “With the sky becoming dark and the sunlight fading, Has she stood blessing the flow of rain (mari)?” or “Five or six serpents form your gathered valorous plaits, Vimali, You remain there above these plaits and speak tenderly.”

Moreover, in her iconic representation, occasionally one encounters the five-headed serpent with its hoods serving as an umbrella for Mariyamman. Similarly, it seems to be a customary practice to worship Mariyamman for the onset of rains. Uzhavan C.

Periyasamy in his book on Surampatti valasu Mariyamman temple records a performance called “mazhaichoru” (“rain-rice”) enacted by women for getting rain. In this performance, Mariyamman is invoked as the presiding and controlling deity of rain.

Rain-rice

A practice in which women exclusively participate appears to have been instructed by an elderly woman in whom the goddess Mariyamman descended some five hundred years back, writes Uzhavan C. Periyasamy (2002). Women get a big pot from a potter’s house, keep it on a virgin girl’s head and go from house to house, calling out

“rain-rice” and seeking old rice. The householders would give old rice along with tamarind water. Another girl in the gathering crowd would collect onions in the lap of her sari. The women need to procure these things from every house of the village without considering caste or creed. Then this pot would be brought before the Mariyamman shrine. After singing songs praying for rain, the women would mix the rice and tamarind water well and distribute it among them. According to convention, they should take this food in their two hands and should not use any vessel. The women would then take a vow before the deity that they won’t wash their hands unless the rain comes. After they

189 eat the food with gathered onions, an elderly woman (among them?) would feign leaving the village saying, “I am going out of town as there is no rain, I am going of out of town.”

This old woman would be cajoled and consoled by other women who would assure her,

“Please return, certainly it is going to rain.” The old woman would then return as if she was unwilling to come back. As soon as the old woman would come back to the

Mariyamman temple and pray, the rain would pour with lightning and thunder (105-6).

I collected a similar hi-story relating to rain-rice in Manapparai. The narrator is a theatre actor and director called Periyasamy. The only variation in his version is the procurement of the pot. Periyasamy says that the pot should not be obtained from a potter; instead it should be stolen from the backyard of a woman, who is perceived by the women as the one who is quarrelsome and uses a lot of abusive words in quarrels. Once a pot is stolen from such a woman’s house, she would swear more and it is believed that if she swears more, the more would be the rain flow.

When one reads the narrative of rain-rice, one cannot fail to notice the motifs of old woman and the act of gathering rice, the motifs which also appear in the context of ammai. One can recall Ramanan’s account of a customary farewell feast given to an old woman, usually a widow, whom he calls the “priestess of Mariyamman” and who has been taking care of the smallpox-afflicted person, on the day of the first bath after the descent of ammai pearls. The old woman after eating the feast should run away, writes

Ramanan, from the house after eating the feast and gathering other offerings and she should never look back. Ramanan also mentions the gathering of pearls of old rice from neighboring households by this old woman during the period in which she is in charge of the afflicted person. I have discussed how the practice of gathering pearls of old rice is

190 still being followed during the acute attacks of chickenpox and other prevalent varieties of ammai, although I have not heard of the customary feast to an old widow on the day of first bath after the descent of ammai in current times. But old women, especially widows, do have a significant place in the discourses of ammai even today, and as I have discussed earlier, they are specially sought for to identify whether the attacking affliction is ammai or not, and their appearance in dreams is considered to predict the imminent onslaught of ammai in the family.

Reading all these accounts together indicates that the ceremonial one day performance of rain-rice combines the “gathering pearls” during ammai and the event of sending away of the old woman. The rain failed hitherto and which is expected to fall after the rain-rice performance can be compared to the first waters of bath after ammai’s descent, poured over the body which has not seen water hitherto. Like the instance of ammai-affliction, here too a positive expectation prevails for the waters to flow and for the affliction of dryness to go away soon. Yet there are obvious reversals in the deployment of motifs. Instead of the old woman who “gathers pearls” of old rice during ammai, here it is the virgin girl who is instrumental in “gathering of pearls” of old rice on the day of the mazhaichoru performance. Instead of the gathered old rice being distributed by the old woman among children during ammai, here in mazhaichoru, it is the old woman who receives the distributed rice. The grand feast served to the old woman on the day of the first bath, is, thus, replaced by the simple food of collected rice.

Instead of the requirement that the woman should run away after eating the feast in ammai, here, the woman who feigns to go away from the town is cajoled and brought

191 back. Unlike in ammai, where the woman needs to be sent off before pouring the first waters, here, the woman is required to return for the rain to pour.

In the instance of bodily affliction of ammai, perhaps, the care-taking and pearl- gathering old woman, the “priestess”, who is gladly sent off, represents the goddess

Mariyamman in her role of afflicting with ammai. In the instance of mazhaichoru, the old woman who is entreated to stay and who comes back to worship the deity, hinting at her

“priestess” aspect, seems to represent Mariyamman in her role of facilitating or bestowing rain on the town. Mariyamman, who is conceived as being present in the body as ammai and who is conceived as the source of ammai, is wished away with the offering of a grand feast, where as, contrastingly, in the mazhaichoru performance, Mariyamman is offered simple rice, but she is sought for and received back, for the rain to come. The discourse of ammai as the form of both grace and affliction of the goddess Mariyamman works at the next level here: with the pearls of ammai having descended from the body and with the first bath of the body nearing, the realistic idea of ammai as an unwished-for ailment overrides the creative notion, prevailed hitherto, of understanding ammai also as a sign of the benevolence, as the grace of the goddess. But the goddess is not exorcised of her benevolence altogether; rather the sign of benevolence and the grace of the goddess reappears again at another time in the guise of the goddess’s bestowing the pearls of water in the form of rain upon the world through mazhaichoru performances.

192 Section III

The Deity of Ammai as the Feminine Power

In the above discussions, certain directions have shown up regarding how the super-human, autonomous force presiding over ammai could have been mapped in the sexual register of identification. I have proposed this “presence” as a parallel to the images of the serpent and of the rain. Do the serpent and the rain have a stake in determining the sexual identity of the “presence” of the force forged? One source, which might be of help to grasp the association of these elements with any particular sex, is again the ancient classical literary texts. Interestingly, one does not come across any categorical symbolic correspondence made between the rain and the snake with either of the sexes, the feminine or the masculine, in the Tamil classic literary texts. The serpent has been conventionally associated with ananku, but ananku, referring back to my earlier discussions on the concept drawing from Rajam and Hart, cannot be confined to the masculine or the feminine identities and it is of varied significations and imports, at least until the post-epic period, during which it came to be increasingly regarded as a feminine power.

In the case of rain, one does not encounter any conventional decisive identification of the rain with the feminine or with the masculine, although according to

Tamil poetic traditions, the god of rain is Indra, a male god. In classical texts, one finds textual references to rain where its attributes are invoked to describe the characteristics of a hero or a heroine. For instance, the generosity of a male patron is compared to the generous rain (Pur. 142) or the cool eyes of the heroine are described as “mazaikkan” or

“rainy eye” (Kur. 72, 86, 222, 259, 286 and 329). Thus, the association of the rain as

193 well as the snake with any particular sex cannot be made unambiguously as informed by these texts. However, the templates of the anthill and the agricultural field themselves offer us help with this enterprise. With the earth of the anthill and of the field/land being regarded as the feminine, I can propose that the body with ammai came to be materialized as the feminine body as well.

The “Feminine” of the Field

The land as well as the agricultural field are conventionally associated with the feminine in Tamil literary sources. Consider the phrases “nilamennum nallal” meaning

“the good woman called land-field” or “nilam pulantillal” meaning “the housewife that is the field of land-field” appearing in the chapter on “Plough” in the second century Tamil didactical text Tirukkural (no. 1040 and 1039). In these instances, the land is used in the sense of an agricultural field. One can also see the explicit sexual suggestion linking a woman with the field ready for cultivation and a man with the plough in the following

Kuruntokai verse:

What He said

The village of the girl,

Who has large eyes that torment men’s hearts

And who is beautiful, with large shoulders that dance like bamboo,

is far away

and is difficult to reach.

My heart dashes toward her,

like a ploughman with one plough

who hurries

194 To his field when it is wet and ready.

I suffer! (Orezuvanar, Kur. 131)

But this conventional association in the Tamil context seems to be at variance with the dichotomous understanding of the field and seed in terms of ‘passive female’ and ‘active male’ categories, with the former remaining as a yielding inactive site and the latter acting upon it. Even in classic Hindu texts like The Laws of Manu which appear to embody the patriarchal voices and values, such a reductive dichotomous framework is advanced but ambiguously, as Wendy Doniger shows (1997, 169-73). Doniger points out that the idea of feminine seed has been advanced in “Hindu folk beliefs” and “Hindu folk stories,” and in “later Hindu thinking” after Manu (172). Referring to Valentine Daniel’s work The Fluid Signs (1984), she also points out how “Tamil villagers cynically reject the whole concept of the seed and the field in favor of the concept of female seed”

(Doniger 173; Daniel 163-70). Daniel’s discussion of the sexuality of Tamil people focuses on a Tamil perspective concerning the mixture of sexual fluids (intiriyam) of women and men underlying procreation and intercourse (163-81). The female intiriyam, as one gathers from his discussion, is distinct from the menstrual blood of the woman, although it undergoes a cyclic transformation similar to the cyclic period of menstruation every month and over a woman’s lifetime (Daniel 165).

However, the relationship between women’s menstruation and flowering of crops manifests obviously, as one gathers from the Tamil terminology “puppu” denoting the first menstruation of a woman. “Puppu” can be translated as “flowering,” and is overtly connected with the flowering of crops. In Tamilnadu it is customary to celebrate the first menstruation with pomp and the celebration is called puppuccatanku. This makes one

195 consider menstruation as the decisive phase that guarantees the later phases of ripening or bearing fruit that would give forth seeds. It is also worth noting here that in Tamil myths, blood is not only considered as “dangerous and polluting,” but is also considered as a

“substance imbued with power, a creative medium” (Shulman 1980, 105). As a “creative medium” blood itself is “seed.” Citing Elmore, David Shulman notes, “In south Indian village myths, creation from blood is an alternative to sexual procreation” (1980, 104).

Moreover, Shulman also points to the south Indian belief that while it is believed that blood in the body gets transformed into “more powerful substances” such as seed in the man and milk in the woman, it is also thought by some that blood turns into “the red

‘seed’ of the woman that is mingled with the male semen to create a child” (Shulman

1980, 104). This sort of understanding ruptures the reified, exclusive equivalence of the seed with the masculine in the “agricultural metaphor” of field-woman and seed-man discussed by Doniger.

Puppuccatanku underscores the capacity to bring forth or produce or bear the seeds, and the feminine is celebrated as the generative site of the seed. Unlike the orthodox “agricultural metaphor” which posits the seed as if it has an a priori independent existence outside the field, or in other words, as if the seeds come from somewhere and act upon the field by entering it, the flowering ceremony of

“puppuccatanku” provides an alternate framework where the contextual association of the seed and the plant/crop is emphasized. The vision it offers is inclusive in its projecting the seed as being contained within the feminine, borne by the feminine and brought forth by the feminine. Perhaps, one can derive from all this that it is the feminine that possesses the seed or it is the feminine to which the seed belongs a priori although in

196 the event of its being sown upon the field, it resembles the male seed entering the female body. Such a perspective that allows for the feminine identity of the seed also helps to grasp the thought behind the deployment of the same term “nilam” to refer both to the cultivated agricultural field with crops ready to give forth seeds and to just the land which is not or which is yet to be prepared for cultivation. “Nilam”, in either sense, is conventionally regarded as the feminine.

However, notwithstanding the recognition that the ceremony of puppuccatanku gives to the female seed of menstruation, the male right is established upon the seed and the male right appropriates it within the matrix of reproductive heterosexuality. In

Chapter Five, I shall return to this subject and analyze this appropriation in detail. I think, right now, for the purpose of further discussion in this chapter, understanding the Tamil conception of the feminine seed will suffice.

The “Feminine” of the Anthill

Interestingly, the conventional association of the woman and the land-field also figures in the representation of the anthill as the feminine in the literary sources. As a literary device of “suggestion”, raiding an anthill denotes the sexual aggression of a male upon a female. For instance, consider the Narrinai poem that compares the hero with a bear and the body of the heroine suffering due to love-sickness with an anthill (Na. 125;

Shulman 117). In another Narrinai poem, a girl friend of the heroine suggests that upon separation from the hero, the body of the heroine would be afflicted with love-sickness, as an anthill is raided by a male bear (Na. 325). Thus a chain of associations linking the woman with the earth, both as the material of the anthill and of the field, is evident.

197 The chain of associations is supported by ethnographic evidence provided by mulappari performances related to Mariyamman temples, where the earth from the anthill is also deployed for growing the sprouts during temple festivals. In Nilakkottai

Mariyamman temple I was told by a woman that she and her friends use the dung of goats and cows with which they mix the earth taken from a nearby anthill and this mixture is used as a base for growing the sprouts. I could not gather much information from her at that time. But later I could gather some resourceful details about the role of the anthill in sprouting ceremonies in two other sites, Panrutti and Tiruverkadu, in central and north Tamilnadu respectively

There is an illuminating performance of cultivation of the sprouts involving the anthill in Padaiveettamman temple in Panrutti near Tindivanam. Perumal, the chief pucari at the temple, says that Padaiveettamman as Renuka Mariyamman first took her abode in a place called Padavedu near Arani, and Panrutti is one of the places where she took her seat next. The temple is visited by thousands of people on the day of cetal

(needle-piercing) and the car festival, which falls on the tenth day of the yearly festival conducted for thirteen days in the month of Ati (July-August). On the second day of the festival, the day on which the sacred thread is tied around the wrist and the flag is hoisted in front of the shrine announcing the commencement of the festival, the “nine grains” are sown in twelve small containers made of dry leaves (palikai), which represent the

“twelve suns.” The containers are kept in the northwest end of the yagacalai (“the sacrificial hall”), located in the northeast corner of the temple. The group of containers are called Somagundam, and among these are placed three pots decorated with mango leaves (kalasam), which are said to represent the moon and his two wives Rohini and

198 Krittikai. The sprouts are grown there for nine days, attended by persons who have tied the sacred thread on their wrists. On the next day of the cetal festival, the sprouts are cast into a nearby tank. The connection between the sacrifice, the goddess and the sprouts merits a detailed analysis, which I will do later. For the present purpose, I will confine my narration to a key event that marks the selection of soil for the grains.

The magnificent plaster (cutai) figure of Padaiveettamman in the shrine has a huge anthill that spreads on the sides and along the back wall of the inner shrine and runs about fifteen feet in height. Perumal says the goddess lives in the form of snake in the anthill, and every day milk and egg are offered to her. During the sowing of sprouts, some earth from this anthill is taken and is carved into the figure of Bhumadevi or “the earth goddess.” A puja with flowers and camphor light is then performed for this figure.

Gnanaskanda Gurukkal who is in charge of sowing the sprouts and performing the

“sacrifice” at the yagacalai says that since the inner shrine is too small to conduct the puja to the earth goddess and since there is a “living snake” in the anthill which should not be “disturbed”, for the sake of convenience the figure carved out of the earth is usually brought out of the inner shrine of the goddess and placed at the nearby shrine of

Vinayaka and then offered this puja. After this puja is performed, earth is taken out of the stomach of the figure of the earth goddess thrice, and this earth is then used as the base soil in which the nine grains are sown. When I asked Gnanaskanda Gurukkal about the significance of the earth of the anthill in the ceremony of sprouts, he said: “You cannot think of palikai without the anthill. Generally the earth of the anthill is sacred and it needs to be used for sowing the grains. In this temple the goddess is Vanmika Mari

199 (“Anthill Mari”), the goddess is present in the form of anthill itself. Hence it is even more necessary to take the earth from the anthill for this purpose.”

Taking the earth from the anthill as the soil for growing sprouts does not appear to be an isolated phenomenon observed in just Panrutti temple. In Tiruverkadu

Karumariyamman temple too, it is the anthill that once extended into the inner shrine and which now is still housed inside the temple premises and provides the earth material for the ceremonial sprouts to grow. The goddess Karumari is said to have assumed the form of a snake dwelling in the anthill, as I mentioned earlier. In the Tiruverkadu temple the sprouts are grown not during Ati, but during the Navarathri festival (“nine nights,” during which the goddess is believed to do tapas) in the month of Purattasi (September-

October). Nagaraja Gurukkal at the temple calls the sprouts ceremony by the Sanskrit name ankurarpana. Analogous to the Panrutti temple, here too, the nine grains are grown in twelve containers for the nine days of navarathri in the yagacalai of the temple.

Again, here too, the soil for growing the nine grains is taken from the anthill. Then a puja is performed for the collected sand with the recitation of bhumi sukta (“The hymn to the earth”) before taking it in the twelve palikai containers. The bhumi sukta addresses the earth as “mother,” and through the recitation of the bhumi sukta the femininity of the earth of the anthill is reaffirmed.

These are some of the instances where the conventionally conferred feminine identity upon the anthill as well as the earth is reiterated through festival performances.

After rendering the earth from the anthill as the “mother earth,” the feminine identity is made operational by reinforcing the generative force of cultivation of the earth in the form of the miniature agricultural fields of palikai with sprouts growing in them. The

200 feminine identity conferred and reinforced upon the anthill as well as the earth or the field could have paved the way for identifying the landscape of the body sprouting crops of ammai as the feminine.

With the ammai-afflicted body being materialized as a woman, the “presence” of the force forged in the body with ammai thus materialized could have been identified as the feminine. With this feminine force being simultaneously imagined to have come and originated from outside, analogous to the snake and rain “arriving” from outside, constitution of this force as an autonomous presiding goddess of ammai could take place.

Thus, in addition to and simultaneous with the immanence characteristic of the body materialized as the force called goddess during ammai, the force called goddess could be established as a sovereign power with an autonomous existence, which can be apart from the human bodies and outside the human bodies, albeit with an authority to arbitrate upon these bodies through afflicting them and blessing them through ammai.

Although the “presence” of the goddess is actualized only in the process of materialization of the body as the goddess during ammai, the “presence” is taken as an essence in itself, apart from and a priori to the process of actualization of it as it is. I have shown in this chapter drawing from hi-stories, songs and performances related to

Mariyamman that such a taking of the “presence” is triggered by virtue of the existence of two common iconic templates, one, shared between the anthill and the ammai-afflicted body, and, another, shared between the cultivated field and the ammai-afflicted body.

The Body Temple

I have proposed that the simulation of the “presence” of an autonomous deity in the ammai-afflicted body comes full circle with the extrication of the stone icons of the

201 goddess from the anthill in many hi-stories of Mariyamman temples. As we have noted in these hi-stories, the revelation of the goddess at a local shrine is accompanied by an act of violence, often indicated by the oozing of blood and/or by the showering of milk, as in the saiva sthala puranas (Saiva temple myths) discussed by Shulman. 17 Shulman employs the brahmanical sacrificial framework to analyze the “birth” of the divine “seed” in the form of the divinity from the anthill, although, he points out, in Tamil myths the

“element of violence necessary for the birth of the divine seed” is “accentuated” (119).

For him, the anthill “represents the sacrifice, and is in, particular, the locus of the seed/remnant produced by the sacrifice” (119). Interconnecting the myths of castration of Siva as Hatakesvara with the revelation of Siva as Valmikinatha (“lord of the anthill”) from an anthill in one and the same Saiva temple of Tiruvarur, Shulman observes:

The anthill myth of Tiruvarur seems to describe the sacrifice and rebirth of

Siva, whose appearance in the anthill is connected to the birth of seed

through violence. The anthill is the locus of the vastu, the remnant of the

sacrifice that produces new life. As Valmikinatha, Siva submits to death in

order to gain more life, while as Hatakesvara he is castrated in order to

become fertile again. The linga in the anthill may also be a transformation

of the serpent, who embodies the symbolism of the sacrifice as rebirth

from death. The serpent dwelling in the anthill is the fiery seed of

creation. Yet this level of symbolism is blurred in our myths. (1980, 131)

But the extrication of icons or lingams of Mariyamman from the anthill in the present context of our discussion is different from the above, if not altogether. At first,

17 Shulman notes that “blood is the very instrument of revelation in the origin myths of shrines” (1980, 105).

202 one might be tempted to hastily conclude drawing from the examples of appearance of lingams of Siva in the anthill that the stone icons of Mariyamman have also been named lingam. However, it needs to be borne in mind that the Mariyamman icon can still be lingam in the sense of lingam being primarily reworked from the notion of the feminine seed. In the inquiry into the ceremony of “flowering” of a girl, I looked at the possibility of how the plant’s “flowering” metaphor, in contrast to the orthodox “agricultural field” metaphor, tends to preserve the notion of the “seed” with the feminine. If it is so, the exteriorization of the lingam from the anthill or the generation of the Mariyamman icon from the anthill underscores the regeneration of the feminine divinity from the feminine seed.

Here I want to digress a little to discuss a rare epithet “anazhagi” meaning

“masculine beautiful maiden” for Mariyamman that I encountered in her songs. The

Lullaby pleads with her: “Anazhagi Mari-pearl, Protect your slaves.” In Gingee, I came across an interesting narrative that accords a beard and a mustache to the goddess.18

Elumalai, a pucari in a Mariyamman temple in Gingee, explains the birth of the goddess

Mariyamman as “Atiparasakti” or “The primordial Sakti,” who, according to him is the first divinity of the earth. In his narrative, he speaks of a male figure with a sword who guards the goddess. Pavadairayan, the guardian figure, according to him, has the sword to “shave” the beard and the mustache of the goddess.

“Does the goddess sport a beard and grow a mustache?” I ask him.

18 Mariyamman’s mustache in this narrative is related with Renuka’s sporting of a mustache. Ellamma- Renuka of Saundatti in Karnataka is a goddess with mustache. See Assayag (1992, 394) cited in Hiltebeitel (1998, 151). A significant hi-story of Mariyamman, as we shall see in the next chapter, speaks of her as a changed form of Renuka, wife of an ascetic called Jamadgni. A classical version of Renuka’s story is available in the Sanskrit Mahabharata.

203 “Yes, they grow very long every day. To remove them daily, she keeps

this man [Pavadairayan] who has a sword.”

This conversation at once provokes me to enquire about the epithet “anazhagi” that I had already encountered, and he responds that the goddess Mariyamman is more authoritative or has more power (atikaram) than any male god and that is why she is referred to by this name. Although I have not heard of any hi-story along these lines from any other person, I did share Elumalai’s hi-story and asked my field conversationalists

Velmurugan, Muthukkannu, Jayalatha, Bhagavati Gurukkal about the meaning of the epithet. When I expressed to them that the epithet seems to suggest the possible androgyny of the goddess, none of my field conversationalists would encourage my comment. According to them, the term as well as the hi-story is an allegorical statement that the goddess is stronger, more authoritative and more courageous than all others including male gods. Even Elumalai, who shared his great account on Mariyamman’s beard retorts when I air my view: “No, Mariyamman is a female. She is our mother amma.”

What one grasps from these conversations is that the goddess Mariyamman holds a strength or authority or courage superior to that of males or male gods, and yet she seems to hold these only in her capacity as a feminine divinity. The feminine-gendered suffix in the compound word “anazhagi” (an + azhagi) itself emphasizes her as the

“beautiful maiden” (azhagi) even though it denotes her as “male” (an). Perhaps, one can argue that Mariyamman’s growing beard and mustache can be correlated with

Mariyamman’s developing a masculine phallus too. But my conversationalists tell me that mixing these two are like mixing apples and oranges. Further, why should one

204 conflate the goddess’s comparatively greater authority or power or strength, even if it unfolds, whether allegorically or not, in some of her masculine bodily expressions, with the feminine generative capacity and the seed per se?

When I propose the generation of the icon of Mariyamman from the anthill, it occurs at first that this model of the perpetuating lineage of the feminine divinity is absent in classical or canonical resources, for instance, like those adapted by Shulman.19

But we get enough support for this argument from the occasion of the ammai-afflicted body itself. As I pointed out earlier, the pustules of ammai that mark the body are called

“ammai muttukal” which can mean “pearls of mother,” and the oozing matter from the pustules as well as the vaccine matter, procured from these pustules, is known as

“ammaippal” or “milk of the mother”. The ammai-afflicted body with its “milky” eruptions all over brings to our mind the anthill showered with milk by the cow. Further, if we consider smallpox in particular, the source of the smallpox vaccine that gets imprinted on the body is cowpox, which is regarded in India as another form of ammai.

With the ammai-afflicted body, materialized as the body of the goddess and as that of the mother, underscored by the oozing “milk” from these pustules-breasts, the body becomes the site of generation and creation too. To acquire one perspective on this subject, I would like to recall here the command of Mariyamman in the play on

Dhanvantri which I discussed in Chapter Two. In the play, the smallpox vaccine or “milk of the mother” is addressed by Mariyamman as her own “child”. And she asks people to bear this “child” of hers on their bodies. The “milky” matter, food to the child, is

19 Norma Elaine Craddock (1994), in her analysis of the tale of beheading of Renuka and of her eventual transformation into the goddess Mariyamman, employs the theme of Vedic sacrifice and its “necessity for continuation of life”. Instead of basing my inquiry upon the model of the Vedic sacrifice, which is predominantly a model of masculine divine regeneration, I am trying to approach the generation of the goddess Mariyamman from the immanent framework of the ammai-afflicted body.

205 transformed in her description as the “child” itself. From another perspective, the body with ammai is the site of generation, for a healthy, invigorated body is eventually born out of it. The correlation made between “ammaippal” or the “milk of the mother” with amruta or nectar-granting immortality in the play on Dhanvantri as well as in her songs that celebrate ammai is worth noting here. As amruta, the mother’s milk is the feminine seed, because it assures new healthy body and life. In fact, the Lullaby praises

Mariyamman as the one who “kicked Kala (the god of death) with her feet.”

In his discussion on the prevalent motif of the cow’s shedding milk on the anthill in the constitution of Saiva shrines, Shulman observes, “milk is also seed” and brings to our notice that “both blood and milk serve as allotropes of the seed won from death”

(108). Further, the milky eruptions mark the body as a site of finely inflicted wounds, a violently strung jewel of pearls, analogous to the “pierced” or “stepped upon” anthill

(Shulman 118). At times in their being described as “nine gems” (navarattinam) in the songs, the pustules of colors also reflect blood congealed in them, reminding us of the anthills oozing blood. Although unsaid in the songs, one can extrapolate the blood in pustules into the menstrual blood, the “creative medium” of the feminine divinity, through which she gives birth.

If it is so, it is the allotrope of the mother goddess’s seed—either her milk or her blood or both manifesting in and manifested as the ammai-afflicted body—that finds its expression in the form of the lingam icon in the anthill. The conventional perception of lingam as the masculine Siva should not make us lose sight of the fact that such a

“perceptual inversion is …not merely permissible, but mandatory in some circumstances” as Arjun Appadurai observes in his response to Gabriella Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi’s article

206 on “female lingam” (Ferro-Luzzi 1980; Appadurai 1980, 54).20 Even more striking is this: it is not necessary for the idea of female lingam from “inversion” of conventional

“perception”, for the female seed is recognized in the Tamil context as such (Doniger

1997, 173; Shulman 1980, 104). All this is possible if one accepts the dynamics of

“transformability of states”21—oozing pustule to milk or blood or both to female seed to divine head as stone icon or lingam or serpent (Appadurai 54).22

During ammai, drawing from a shared imaginary of the ammai-afflicted body and the anthill, the “presence” or possession is imagined in the body and it is simultaneously exteriorized and constituted as a super-human, autonomous force. The materialization of the ammai-afflicted body as the goddess is fundamental in the event of this exteriorization and constitution. The simulation of the “presence” in or possession of the divine force travels full circle with the literal exteriorization or recovery of the stone lingam of the goddess from the anthill in the temple hi-stories of Mariyamman.23 The recovery of the lingam inaugurates a set of moves leading to the establishment of the shrine of the goddess, who would eventually be the ruler of the place where the shrine is located. It is fascinating to see that, while in the instance of ammai-affliction, the body,

20 See Appadurai’s insightful observations (1980) upon “perceptual inversions” in his response to Ferro- Luzzi (1980): The female lingam, the bull-as-breast, the breast-as-lingam are all examples of a special type of compromise between the Hindu view of what is ontologically possible and what is epistemologically feasible. If Siva can be a bull, and Siva is subject to radical transformations, may we not justifiably see a female breast in the form of the bull and proceed to expect it to lactate? (54) 21 I draw this argument from Appadurai’s response to Ferro-Luzzi (1980): “Hindu thought may well be less concerned with the interchangeability of certain meanings than with the transformability of certain states, here those institutionalized in divine gender” (1980, 54). We shall return to this conception of “transformability of states” in Chapter Six. 22 In Karumariyamman temple as well as in Panrutti Padaiveettamman temple, the goddess is believed to assume the form of the snake or cobra. 23 This analysis might be applicable for Mariyamman icons recovered from landscapes or agricultural fields too. Since, I have not collected a good number of such temple hi-stories, I am restrained to extend my inquiry as of now.

207 materialized as the goddess, is simultaneously perceived as something like a temporary or

“visiting” shrine or habitat of the goddess; whereas, in the temple hi-stories, the anthill habitat of the goddess is replaced with a relatively permanent home for the goddess, perhaps, thereby relegating the anthill to be an impermanent habitat like an ammai- afflicted body for her. With the establishment of a permanent home, the goddess’s autonomy and sovereignty over persons and their places is now complete and total.

208 Chapter Five

The Broken Pot and the Beheaded Body: Chastity as Heteronormative Power

Introduction

The previous chapter explored the genealogy of identification of an ammai- afflicted body as the goddess Mariyamman. The analysis has unearthed the cultural conception of the goddess as a force at both immanent and eminent levels. But then how is the goddess constituted as a goddess of ammai through discursive practices? An analysis of discursive practices including narratives and festival performances would help us arrive at how the goddess is constituted as an originary essence and as a power (or sakti), who comes and inhabit the body during affliction as ammai and during festivals as arul. For this, I will be analyzing a cross-section of narratives or hi-stories of

Mariyamman and festival performances at selective Mariyamman temples, in this chapter and the next respectively. After undertaking an analysis of hi-stories and festival events, I shall move on to explore the strategies involved in materialization of the body as the goddess in the contexts of “arul” in festival performances. There are a few key strands of concepts that show up recursively in discursive practices. One such key concept is chastity as reproductive sexuality and virginity, and another is purity (cuttam). Both these concepts, as I will show in this work, are interrelated.

In this chapter, I will specially focus on the discourses of chastity or “karpu” and its “power” in the Tamil narratives of Mariyamman. As I will show in this chapter and the following ones, the discursive practices of Mariyamman foreground and advocate a condition of frugal sexual economy. By “frugal sexual economy,” I mean the existence and functioning of an economy of restraint concerning the utilization or expenditure of

209 embodied sexual resources and energy. The narratives articulate that the less one spends these resources, the more one can accumulate these. Such accumulated resources are perceived as “containing” a certain power that can produce miraculous phenomena; the phenomena could be transformations of an entity or being or new manifestations. While the frugal sexual economy appears in connection with both feminine and masculine sexes, as one sees from the narratives on the woman/goddess, this economy in the name of chastity is enforced for a woman/goddess in particular. In the narratives of the goddess, if the goddess fails to function within the frugal sexual economy regulations, she entails punishment, especially in the form of violent acts such as beheading.

Locating as well as deconstructing the operation of frugal sexual economy in the narratives of the goddess opens up a new approach to theorizing the “power” of chastity.

The South Indian cultural perception of a woman as a locus of this power, which is often regarded as “dangerous” and requiring a mechanism or an agent for its “control,” is uncritically represented in scholarship on the goddess. 1 Or, the cultural perception of chastity and its “sakti” or power is interpreted in terms of women’s “subordination” or women having a “subordinate social position” and entailing “suffering” due to patriarchal values and ideals.2 An analysis of the narratives shows that the “power” of chastity,

1 Many scholars including Shulman (1980) and Wadley (“Paradoxical,” esp. 166) talk about the “dangerous” or “terrific” power that a woman, especially, a virgin embodies. See, for instance, Shulman (1980, 138-41). See also Brubaker. According to Brubaker, chastity is an “instrument for the use of the man” (114), who uses it to his “advantage” (118). Particularly with reference to Renuka, he observes that Renuka’s power of chastity is Jamadagni’s “possession” (115). 2 See the discussion on Mariyamman’s sakti by Anne Van Voorthuizen (2004, especially 261-62). One can also come across a similar argument in Egnor’s essay “On the Meaning of Sakti to Women in Tamilnadu” (1980). Furthermore, Egnor brings out the connection between the power (sakti) of “karpu” and that of the “tapas,” which she interprets as “certain forms of self-denial” (1980, 17). She also argues that the meaning of sakti should be found in “a study of the union of action and idea” (25).Yet “karpu” as well as “sakti” is presented in her essay such that she does not interrogate how such power is construed as something “possessed” by a woman. One can also refer to James Lindholm’s article along with Egnor’s article in the same work that speaks of “karpu” (1980, 137-52). Citing Egnor, Lindholm again links woman’s “capacity to endure subordination and suffering” with sakti (147).

210 which is said to be localized in the body of the woman/goddess who has functioned effectively within the frugal sexual economy, is after all not an inherent characteristic or quintessential power of the woman’s/goddess’s body. 3 Rather than seeing the woman/goddess as an a priori source of the power of chastity, and tracing the course of narrative events to this pre-given source, I propose that chastity should be considered as an articulation falling within the “juridical” as well as “productive” heteronormative power and discourse.4 By juridical notions of power I mean a “reiterated acting” (Butler

1993, 225) of both “regulatory” and “prohibitive” power of heteronormativity, which organizes the feminine and masculine sexes in a certain way.5 As a “reiterated acting”, the heteronormative power regulates the reproductive sexuality of a woman in accordance with “pativrata dharma” or the codes of conduct governing a “chaste wife” by inscribing patrilineal norms of reproductive heterosexuality. On the other hand, as a

“reiterated acting” of prohibitive power, it inscribes the norms of virginity and absolute sexual control. As I will be discussing in this chapter, one can see these two types of operation of heteronormative power in the narratives of Renuka-Mariyamman. Yet, most importantly, heteronormative power, which is naturalized as the power of chastity and

3 Foucault’s theorization of power as “something which circulates” and which “functions in the form of a chain” is applicable here (1980, 98). 4 Consult my “Introduction” for how I use the term “heteronormative.” On the two types of operations of power, see Butler: “Juridical power inevitably ‘produces’ what it claims to merely represent: hence, politics must be concerned with this dual function of power: the juridical and productive. In effect, the law produces and then conceals the notion of ‘a subject before law’ in order to invoke that discursive formation as a naturalized foundational premise that subsequently legitimates the law’s own regulatory hegemony” (Gender, 5). 5 In drawing attention to Foucault’s idea of “power,” Butler delineates different “juridical notions of power” that “regulate political life in purely negative terms.” The negative terms she lists include “prohibition,” “regulation,” “control” and “limitation” (Gender, 4). In this work, I use “regulation” and “prohibition” attributing a shade of difference between these terms. While “prohibition” is very much a “regulatory enterprise,” I use this term specifically to indicate the instances where engagement in sexual activity, including reproductive sexuality, is absolutely prohibited. Further, Foucault and Butler have taught us to perceive “power” not as a “subject” that “acts” with an agency, but, rather as a “power” to be understood as “a reiterated acting” (Butler 1993, 225) that gets perpetually established and decentered through discursive practices.

211 localized in a feminine body, simultaneously operates as productive power, which materializes its effects in myriad ways.6 In the narratives, as one shall see, the power of chastity is always posited and presented with the miraculous phenomena through which it manifests. In the course of and along with the manifestation of miraculous phenomena, the woman/goddess is constituted as a feminine subject, as a chaste wife and virgin, within the heterosexual matrix.

The Tamil oral hi-stories of Mariyamman, which provide the origin of hi-stories of poxes, always deploy the trope of chastity. In the narratives, Mariyamman (or her earlier manifestation as Renuka) is bestowed by the Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu and Siva) or Siva with a boon of pearls of ammai, establishing her as the goddess of ammai. On deconstructing the narratives, one can see that this boon is given to the goddess in recognition of her effective functioning within the prohibitive heterosexual economy. The goddess’s power of affliction and its cure anchors upon and draws from the heteronormative power and discourse.

This chapter attempts to map the emergence of Mariyamman worship on the discursive terrain of heteronormative power, especially in its prohibitive and productive modes. Discerning the functioning of heteronormative power in the discursive practices of Mariyamman might provide a point of departure in the scholarship on Mariyamman.

As I shall discuss soon in this chapter, when Biardeau (2004) argues that the

Mahabharata version of the Renuka myth provides a “theology” of goddess worship, she reads Renuka’s beheading as a necessary consequence of the intermingling of varnas,

6 One can recall Foucault who observes that the individual is an “effect of power” as well as “the element of its articulation” (1980, 98).

212 because Renuka is a princess and her husband is a Brahmin (187). 7 According to

Biardeau, goddess worship is founded upon this beheading and its reworking at a popular level, where Mariyamman is made by joining Renuka’s head to the body of a woman of

“low” caste (112-13). In Tamil versions of Renuka-Mariyamman, Renuka’s ontological divine identity is more emphatic than the caste identity of her human birth.

The caste question, nevertheless, emerges later with the formation of

Mariyamman from the union of Renuka’s head with the body of a woman of “low” caste.

The narratives occasionally portray Renuka’s wish to get rid of this new “low” caste body.

However, the overt articulation of the regulatory caste order in such narratives of the goddess seems to consolidate the functioning of the heteronormative power, which masquerades as the power of chastity and which plays a major role in constituting

Mariyamman as the goddess. By saying this, I do not intend to undermine the discursive power of the caste order. As Butler observes in connection with racial inscriptions and regulatory power, “normative heterosexuality” is not the “only regulatory regime,” and the caste order does operate as a “vector of power” (1993, 88-9). But as I shall show in the course of my analysis, in the particular context of discursive practices of

Mariyamman, the discourse of purity of the caste order is advanced in such a way that it always works along with and reinforces heteronormative power.

.

7 See Biardeau’s remarks on this: “Separated from the ksatra and given to the Brahman, she can only die” (187)

213 Section I

Renuka’s Pot: Chastity as Regulatory Heteronormative Power

I will begin my discussion of the narratives of Mariyamman with the sakti karakam. The correspondence between Mariyamman festival events and the ammai- afflicted household is emphasized by nothing more than the motif of the karakam. We saw that conventionally a karakam or vessel with water is kept near an ammai-afflicted person. The karakam is believed to be the goddess Mariyamman who oversees the health of the person and facilitates the healing of poxes. We can recall the descriptions of this karakam and the puja performed to it in Ramanan’s article. During her festivals too,

Mariyamman is invited in the form of a karakam, called “sakti karakam.” This invitation is often referred to as “sakti karakam” or “sakti azhaittal” (inviting Sakti), “jalam tirattutal” (gathering the water), “punita nir konartal” (bringing/sprinkling sacred water) and “amman azhaittal” (inviting Amman). Inviting the goddess Mariyamman in the form of a sakti karakam takes place in temples in sites as variedly spread out across Tamilnadu as Chennai (north), Dindigul (southwest), Pudukkottai (east) and Coimbatore (west) across Tamilnadu. I will discuss the sakti karakam performances at two temples in detail in one of the following chapters. Let me first look at how the earthen pot figures in the discourses of Mariyamman, guiding us to explore the articulations of chastity and sexual economy of a woman.

In Tiruverkadu, a village near Chennai, in the house of Nagaraja Gurukkal, the chief temple priest at Devi Karumariyamman temple, a picture would draw our attention.

The picture was drawn by an artist from the Ananda Vikatan magazine, in the year 1968.

In the picture, one sees a small earthen vessel (kuduvai) in the shape of a jar, which is

214 kept near the icon of the goddess. Even in pictures of the goddess Karumariyamman, sold at shops in Tirruverkadu, one can see this earthen vessel.

As Nagaraja gurukkal informs us, in Tiruverkadu until the 1950’s, an earthen pot filled with water, adorned with turmeric paste and margosa leaves, was kept upon an anthill and was the major object of regular worship. The face of the goddess Renuka

Mariyamman was also inscribed upon the earthen pot. In those days, the concrete structure of the temple was not built. 8 The water in the pot was changed every day.

Later, even when the goddess’s whole form (bimba rupam) with both the head and body was made and installed, the pot was not left out, but instead, has been kept beside the main icon since then. The procedure of changing water in the pot has continued. During the sakti karakam event in the festival of the Ati month, this earthen pot was taken to the

Kuvam River, for getting decorated as karakam. Since, the earthen pot developed cracks, a copper pot replaced it and since the kumbabhsishekam in 1975, the copper pot has been in use. The copper pot is always kept near the goddess inside the sanctum; on the day of the sakti karakam it is taken out and is placed upon the anthill before being taken to the

Kuvam River for getting decorated.9

The earthen vessel, worshipped on normal days and celebrated in the form of sakti karakam during the festival, and the anthill upon which it is kept has a hi-story. This hi-

8 The concrete structure was built later. Also it was thought that the “head” is a fragmented part of the goddess and it would be better to worship the goddess in her “whole” form (bimba rupam) with both the head and body. Soon, the “whole” goddess icon was established. The big rajagopuram of the temple was built in 1964. 9 The anthill, which is now located to the northern side of the sanctum, also gets special attention during the festival: every Sunday during the festival, it is adorned with flowers in such a way that the decoration reproduces the form of a snake. Eggs and milk are placed upon it and people throng to worship it.

215 story is a version of the story of Renuka, wife of the sage Jamadagni, who transforms into

Mariyamman after being beheaded and resurrected by her son Parasurama.10

Hi-story One: Karakam Kept near Beheaded Renuka

Renuka is a form (amsam) of Sakti. Born as a princess she was married to a Brahmin muni (sage) called Jamadagni. The couple gave birth to four sons and the youngest was Parasuraman. Renuka was such a powerful pativrata (a devout wife) that she could make a fresh pot everyday out of the wet sand in the riverbank and bring water to her husband in that pot. Thus, everyday, she would make a fresh pot and fetch fresh water for the husband’s daily puja. One day, it so happened that when she was drawing water from the river into the pot made by her, a Gandharva (celestial musician) was flying above her. On seeing his image in the water, Renuka thought in her heart-mind (manasu) for a moment, “What a man” (ippadi oru purushana!). She just thought so, and did not do anything wrong, but immediately the pot of sand dissolved into the water of the river. (See figure 3) She felt miserable, thinking, “Ayyo, what has happened!” The muni Jamadagni saw all these with his all-seeing eye (jnana drushti) and he got enraged. He called his sons to go and behead their mother who had erred on the path of dharma. The first three sons refused and Jamadagni cursed them turning them into plants and small rocks. The fourth one, Parasurama, however, complied with his father’s command and went seeking his mother.

Renuka did not feel like coming back to her house empty-handed and she was sitting on the riverbank and crying. On seeing her son Parasurama approaching her with his axe, Renuka started running in fear. Just then, a cobbler woman was coming from the other side. On seeing her, Renuka went and hugged her in fear. Parasurama saw this and beheaded them both with a stroke of his axe. Before leaving the place, Parasurama took an earthen pot with water and kept it near Renuka. An anthill grew there.

Parasurama then went back to his father, who granted Parasurama two boons. Parasurama wished his brothers (annankal) back to life as his first boon and for the second boon, he asked for his mother to feed him rice (annam ida). Jamadagni granted these boons. He also gave Parasurama a stick and sacred ash to revive his mother. Parasurama came running to the place where he beheaded his mother and in his haste he inadvertently joined his mother’s head to the cobbler woman’s body. (See figure 4).

10 Similar and variant versions of Renuka’s hi-story have been cited by scholars. For instance, see Sonnerat 1782, 245-47; Whitehead 1921, 116-117; Beck 1981, 126-27; Biardeau (1989) 2004, 112-13; Meyer 1986, 15-6; Nabokov 2000, 110-11. Also see “Patavetu Sthalapuranam: The Story of Renuka Devi” in Craddock’s dissertation 120-142. My list of references is selective and not exhaustive.

216 Since Renuka’s body was transformed, she came to be known as “Mari” or the “transformed one.”11 Jamadagni did not accept her back as his wife, since her body had changed. After Jamadagni’s death, Renuka entered fire. Siva sent rains and doused the fire. Mari then asked Siva for some means to sustain herself. She got a boon of pearls (muttu varam) from him and then with that boon began to rule over this world.

This hi-story gives a clue as to why Mariyamman in the form of Sakti is preferably invited from a water source, especially from a river. It is on the bank of a river that Renuka gets beheaded and is constituted into her transformed form as Mariyamman.

Renuka’s son Parasurama plays a seminal role in this constitution. Craddock has pointed out that Parasurama made Renuka transcend the state of wife of Jamadagni to that of universal mother/goddess (61). Yet this hi-story not only delineates how Renuka became

Mari, but it also provides a key link in the form of the pot that extends from the hi-story and enters the realm of festival performance.

There are not one, but two pots, the unbaked one that broke and the baked one kept by Parasurama, that figure in this hi-story. These pots are not just containers but have special connotations. The raw pot could hold water because of Renuka’s “wifely” chastity (karpu), as if it were baked and had developed a crust-like surface through the fire of chastity in Renuka. The association between a woman’s chastity and fire is a common theme in Tamil literary discourses. Kannagi burns the city of Madurai by throwing a breast of hers, with the fire of her chastity. In contemporary Tamil speech, in emphasizing a woman’s chastity, comparing a woman with fire is common. Draupadi, who is celebrated as a chaste wife of the five Pandavas is said to be born from fire.

Yet the fragile nature of the raw, wet pot manifests in its breaking at the crucial moment when Renuka gets “distracted” from the path of chastity. The narrative uses the

11 The term “Mari” is an adverb meaning “transformed.”

217 breaking pot as a device for foregrounding Renuka’s “feminine” vulnerability. One can recall Daniel’s observations about Tamil speech, in which “metonymy is far more prevalent than metaphor, the bias of figurative language even tends away from metonymy and swells toward synecdoche” (1984, 107). He also refers to Hayden White to clarify the distinction between metonymy and synecdoche, pointing out that synecdoche is “not merely a case where the part stands for the whole in which the whole is reduced to one of its parts, but the part selected to represent the whole suffuses the entire being of the whole that it represents.”12 In Renuka’s example, as Renuka looks at the Gandharva, she wavers, as if the vulnerability and fragility of the raw pot have imbued her entire being.

Although as per the narrative Renuka’s distraction pertains only to her thought and heart, the vulnerability extends to her body too, and risks and subjects her body to the fate of splitting, a fate very similar to that which the pot that she held in her hands has been subjected.

Later, when a baked pot is placed by Renuka’s son Parasurama, the pot prefigures the reconstitution of the fragmented body parts of Renuka into her new form as the goddess Mariyamman. It is kept by Parasurama as “desired” by his mother before her beheading. Why does Renuka desire the pot? Is it because a whole new pot could have saved her from her husband’s wrath? Or does the whole new pot represent her desire to regain a whole new body? The new pot operates as a memento of her unfulfilled desire, an emblem of an ideal state of wholeness, which is achieved by Renuka only as Mari, that is, after her body gets “transformed.” Renuka is beheaded, but she regains her wholeness in the form of Mariyamman. As one can read from the hi-story, her loss of wholeness or

12 Thus, in the example ‘He is all heart,’ the person is not metonymically reduced to the organ of the heart; rather, certain conventionally attributed qualities, such as gentleness, kindness, generosity, and the like, are believed to suffuse the person’s entire being” (Daniel 107).

218 disruption is momentary. After some time, Parasurama comes back and remakes her into a whole new form, of Mariyamman. An anthill grows at the site of beheading. Together, both the growing anthill and the pot kept by Parasurama mark a spatiality and temporality that have witnessed Renuka’s splitting or creation of Mariyamman.

In the hi-story the raw pot that can hold water, which serves as an index of the power of chastity that has a discursive locus in Renuka’s body, is actually the regulatory heterosexual power that operates in disguise. “Everyday she would make a fresh pot out of the wet sand,” observes the narrative. She makes the pot as a service to her husband, who performs a daily puja or “ritual” of worship at home. The word “everyday”, which innocently indicates a routine, implies the perpetual production of Renuka as a “chaste wife” within the reproductive heterosexual matrix of regulatory power, which co- extensively produces the miraculous phenomenon, that of ‘the fresh pot holding water’.

In other words, both Renuka as a chaste wife and the miraculous phenomenon are produced as “effects” of the regulatory power of reproductive heterosexuality.

I should mention that never once have I heard a story of Renuka which did not mention Renuka’s routine of getting water and the related miraculous phenomenon that

“emanated” from her “power of chastity.” One can even see a stacking of such phenomena or accentuating of their miraculous nature in the narratives. (For example, in hi-story two, which I will soon discuss, Renuka transforms water into a pot in her hands.

Similarly, in another hi-story that will follow, everyday Renuka draws water into the shape of a pot, just by twirling her little finger. She then carries this pot on her head with a snake as a towel (cummatu) to keep the pot on. In a story collected by Whitehead,

Mariamma (Mariyamman) was “so chaste in mind that she could carry water in a mass

219 without any vessel, and her wet cloth would fly up into the air and remain there till it was dry” [116]).

I will move on to another version of Renuka’s hi-story along with a hi-story on the “throwing of pearls by Mariyamman,” which was sung by Gnanaraj with his accompaniments at the premises of Senkazhuneer Mariyamman temple, Puducherry.13

Here, I will give a summary of the hi-story of Renuka (hereafter I will refer to it as hi- story two) told by Puducherry-based utukkai singer Gnanaraj.14

Hi-story Two: Uma to Renuka to Utalmari

A conversation between Siva and Uma took place at their abode Kailaya. Varmarajan, the king of Raimagiri, and Mainavathi, his wife, were childless and did tapas (penance) for a long, long time to get a boon of children. Siva was yet to show his compassionate face to them and so Uma reminded him that his devotee is bigger than him: “People say: ‘Big is this universe, it was the creation of Brahma, Brahma was born from the black Mal’s (Vishnu’s) navel, the black Mal sleeps on the waves of the ocean, the ocean is contained in the short Muni (Agasthya), the short Muni was born from a pot, the pot is made of some sand from the earth, the earth is borne by the serpent Adhisesa on one of his shoulders, Adisesa is a ring on the little finger of Uma, Uma is contained in Siva, Siva is contained in his devotee.’ But you don’t seem to show any compassion toward your devotees.” When Uma chided Siva thus, he asked her to be born to the king and the queen as their daughter with the name Renuka. Siva also

13 Later I attended his performances at two places: at Mariyamman temple in Mukaiyur and at Karumariyamman temple in J.J. Nagar, Mugapper in 2006. What he sang in these places did not deviate much from his song at Puducherry. In fact, in Mukaiyur he had to cut his performance short, because a light-music performance of Tamil film songs by a troupe of singers had been organized by the temple authorities nearby on the same night, and people who attended Gnanaraj’s performance soon started deserting his performance to attend the light-music performance. 14Gnanaraj’s hi-story provides information such as the birth-star and month of birth of Renuka, the color of the sari that she was wearing when she saw the Gandharva, the names of all the sons and parents of Renuka and Jamadagni, the name of the woman who was beheaded along with Renuka, etc. It also graphically delineates how Renuka was brought up in the palace and how her wedding took place, and how Renuka encountered bad omens. Such intricate and comprehensive attention to details could be part of the narrative strategy employed by a performer for the public performance of a “myth.” Although reflecting on such devices of story-telling would be intellectually rewarding, this is beyond the scope of my work at present. My interest, rather, lies in understanding the interconnections between the versions of Renuka’s story told by different narrators. To the extent possible, I will try to preserve the flavor of these hi-stories in their Tamil rendering.

220 promised that he would be born as a son to Rishiya rishi, a son of Brghu, and his wife Satyavathi, and after getting educated in the Vedas, Sasthras and fields of knowledge akin to those, he would marry her.

Renuka was born from a sacrifice performed by the king and the queen, on a full-moon Friday, under the Revathi star, and in the Chittirai month. When she attained puberty and a ceremony was performed for that, enquiries came from kings from distant lands seeking her hand. However, Renuka wanted to travel and see places before her wedding and her parents agreed to that. In her travel, she came across a hill called Javvadu hill, where Siva, born as a sage or rishi in the name of Jamadagni, was doing tapas. After killing a female demon, with blood on her body, Renuka climbed the hill and reached the hut of Jamadagni. But as soon as her shadow fell on the hut, the sacrificial fire was doused and Jamadani’s pot of water rolled down, spilling the water on the floor. Jamadagni got angry and cursed her that she would become utalmari (“the one with her body transformed”) in the final days of her life. Renuka pleaded with him to remove the curse, but the rishi said he could not withdraw it. Instead, he granted her a boon, and Renuka asked him to marry her. Jamadagni first refused saying that he was a brahmachari (a celibate), but eventually he agreed. Renuka and Jamadagni got married and five sons, Anuvan, Tanuvan, Rupanan, Tulbagni and Parasuraman (I will refer to Parasuraman as Parasurama to maintain consistency), were born to them.

Renuka engaged in acts of devotion to Jamadagni and she had an ability to transform water into the form of a pot and bring it from a river nearby to Jamadagni’s puja everyday. Jamadagni, like several other rishis before (the hi-story speaks of these rishis and their wives too), wanted to test his wife and, therefore, arranged for a Gandharva to distract her. Renuka saw several bad omens that day on her way to the river. As she was gathering the water in the form of a pot in her hand, in the water she saw the “shadow” (reflection) of a Gandharva flying in the sky. For a moment she thought that the Gandharva was as beautiful as Manmatha, the god of love. Jamadagni saw this in his vision and in his anger he made the water-pot that was gathering in her hand break and get dissolved in the water. Renuka obviously failed in his test. Jamadagni wanted to test his sons too for their obedience. He asked them to go and behead their mother with a magic sword that he would give them. Except for Parasurama, all his four sons refused, and due to their father’s curse they got transformed into trees, plants, vines and bats. Parasurama demanded that if he did what his father wanted, he should be given three boons, to which Jamadagni agreed. Parasurama looked for Renuka. He saw her talking to Virayi, a woman belonging to a caste “made lowly”.15 Virayi was a cobbler woman.

15 Not only this singer, but generally the performers of the story are particular that they do not say “low caste” (tazhnta cati) even once, and instead say “caste made lowly” (tazhttappatta cati). Nor do they use the word “Paraiya” meaning outcaste. This is expected, considering the rich history of social reform

221 On seeing Parasurama approaching with the sword, Renuka pleaded that she was ready to die because whoever is born in this world will die at some point of time but she was worried that he would incur the criticism of people who would call him a sinner who had killed his own mother. She also told him that if he killed her, his sin would continue to visit him for twenty-one generations.16 Yet Parasurama beheaded both her and the cobbler woman.

On beheading Renuka, Parasurama laughed. Because, once upon a time, when Siva went down to the earth to provide rice for people, Parvathi was waiting for him. Then, Brahma, desiring the divine courtesan Tilottama, pursued her. Tilottama entered Kailasa, Siva’s abode. Following Tilottama, Brahma stopped at Kailasa. Brahma, similar to Siva, had five faces in those days. Parvathi, therefore, mistook Brahma for her husband and started worshipping his feet. Brahma was embarrassed and started withdrawing his feet. Parvathi looked up, looked at Brahma closely and immediately cursed him: “You impersonated Siva. Hereafter you will have only four faces and not five.” The case of Brahma was brought to the divine court and Vishnu was the judge. Vishnu addressed Parvathi: “You failed to discriminate between your husband and a stranger. The mistake is yours and yet you have cursed Brahma. Since you have plucked Brahma’s head and are laughing at that, in my sixth incarnation as Parasurama, I will, in turn, pluck your head and laugh at it.” Due to this curse of Vishnu then, now Renuka was beheaded.

Parasurama went back to Jamadagni after killing Renuka and asked for the three boons promised by his father. As his first boon, Parasurama requested that his brothers be brought back to life. For his second boon, he wanted to be absolved of the sin of having killed his mother.17 As his third boon, he wanted his mother alive. Jamadagni agreed and he gave a gem-embedded cane, magic water, and sacred ash, blessed with the five-

movements including anti-caste movements, led by Periyar E.Ve. Ramaswamy Naicker and other Dravidian movement leaders that twentieth-century Tamilnadu had witnessed. In some versions, the woman beheaded along with Renuka is said to be a cobbler and in some others she is said to be a “Paraiyar.” 16 Biardeau (2004) has interpreted the act of killing as something done to eradicate the births of unlawful Ksatriyas in order to protect the earth from them as well as protect the Brahmanical order. The coveting of the cow of the Brahmin Jamadagni by the king Kartaviryarjuna symbolizes this unlawful attitude. It is to be mentioned that in the Tamil versions of Renuka, the coveting of the cow as well as the enmity between Parasurama and Ksatriyas is rarely referred to. Further, the identification that Biardeau forges between Renuka and the cow as victims of varna confusion is not referred to by my consultants. 17 In discussing the folk myth of Renuka-Mariyamman, Shulman points out that “no sin attaches to the matricide in contrast to the fear of killing a woman (strivadha) that troubles Vishnu and Rama” (1980, 265- 266). Contrarily, in the version told by Gnanaraj, which I am presenting in this chapter, Parasurama specifically asks for a boon that would absolve him of the sin of killing his mother. Even before his asking for the boon, when he approaches Renuka in order to kill her, she persuades him not to kill her, because such an act would bestow the sin of matricide upon Parasurama.

222 lettered chant (Na-ma-si-va-ya meaning “hail Siva”). Parasurama came running with all these things to bring his mother back to life. He took the head of Renuka and inadvertently joined it to Virayi’s body. Similarly, he joined the head of Virayi to his mother’s body. He sprinkled the sacred ash and magic water on these bodies and touched them with the gemmed cane. Both were brought to life. Virayi’s head which was connected to Renuka’s body became the goddess of boundaries (Ellaiyamman) and went away. Renuka got up and looked at herself: “Son, this is not my body.” Parasurama understood his folly and tears rolled down his cheeks.

Parasurama went with Renuka to their ashram-home and asked his father to take his mother back. Jamadagni did not want to take Renuka back because her body had been transformed now, to a body with which she could not enter the ashram. Parasurama realized his folly of joining a different body to his mother’s head, yet he got angry and told his father that he would not stay in the place where his mother was not allowed. He left his place along with his brothers to do tapas in the hills of Potikai. Renuka asked her husband to tell her a way to sustain herself in this world. Jamadagni gave her nine types of pearls, namely Cinnammai, Periyammai, Ceezhpari romakkal, Kotuva, Kottamalli, Veppampu, Tattammai, Karumpanaivari, and Cempanaivari (all these are different types of poxes), and told her that in the future, she would become the goddess Mahamayi of ammai with the help of her brother Kannan (Krishna).

As Renuka was wandering in the forest with these pearls, a king named Karttaviryajuna visited the ashram of rishi Jamadagni with his army. Karttaviryajuna was ruling Kishkinthapuri and he had one thousand heads and two thousand arms. On learning that they were hungry, Jamadagni invited the all-bestowing cow Kamadhenu from the heavens in order to appease their hunger. The cow came and fed the warriors. The king desired to have the cow but the rishi said it belonged to the heavens and needed to be returned. After failing in his attempt to convince the rishi, the king tied him to a tree and dragged the cow along. Parasurama came to know this through the rishi Narada and was enraged. He encountered Karttaviryajuna on his way, fought with him, killed him and retrieved the cow.18 Advising his father to render help to only those who deserved it, Parasurama went back to continue his tapas.

On hearing of his father’s death, Karttaviryarjuna’s son Kandan Karkkodakan came to the ashram, shot an arrow at Jamadagni and killed him. An oracle informed Renuka of Jamadagni’s death, who decided to do sati at her husband’s funeral pyre. But since her body had been transformed now and since even the touch of her shadow or of her finger

18 Although Biardeau traces Kattavaraya to Kartaviryarjuna, who is considered to be the son of Mariyamman in hi-stories prevailing in and around Trichy area, whoever I spoke to never acknowledged that they are the same. See Biardeau (121).

223 were considered to be sinful by her husband, she thought that she could not burn with him at the same pyre. Hence she created a separate fire beside the funeral pyre of her husband and entered it. Vishnu knew she was going to be Mahamayi of the world soon and hence ordered Varuna, the god of rains, to quench the fire in the pyre lit by her.

Renuka got up from the fire that was quenched. When Renuka fell into the fire, that part of her life was over. When she emerged unharmed it was like her taking another birth. She was no more a widow and she could wear vermillion powder and flowers like an auspicious woman. As Mariyamman, our mother, she protects us. There is a history about how Mariyamman threw the pearls of ammai over the Devas and the Trinity (Brahma, Vishnu and Siva). That is another hi-story.

The hi-story unfolds two curses. Renuka’s beheading and her transformation into

“Utalmari” are determined by two earlier moments—other-worldy and this-worldly. As

Parvathi, she mistakes Brahma for Siva, and gives to Brahma a puja (worship) that she

“owes” to Siva. This earlier moment that she encounters as Parvathi invites the curse of

Vishnu upon her and makes her take birth on earth. As Renuka, when she proposes marriage to Siva who is in the form of Jamadagni, she exhibits her willingness to give herself. Unfortunately, this moment also results in the second curse from Siva-Jamadagni.

Later, like a déjà vu, Renuka directs her attention, which she owes to her husband Siva-

Jamadagni, to a stranger, which occasions the materialization of the curses.

In the above narrative, again we encounter the pot twice. Renuka could transform water into a pot and this pot breaks and dissolves, when she looks at the Gandharva, since she is distracted by his beauty; before that, there is another pot too, which is placed near the sacrificial fire of Jamadagni. The narrative suggests that the pot that rolls upon the floor spilling the water is what douses his sacrificial fire, as Renuka’s shadow falls upon the hut. The quenching of the sacrificial fire marks the end of a life of celibacy for

Jamadagni, since he marries Renuka after this incident. Later in the narrative, as Renuka

224 shows interest in the Gandharva, water cannot be contained in her hands in the form of a pot, which breaks and dissolves into the flowing water of the river itself. In this hi-story too, similar to what we saw in hi-story one, the water-pot breaks, suggesting that the fire of chastity in her has been extinguished, making the invisible container break. While the spilling out of water in the first pot determines Renuka’s becoming “Utalmari”

(“transforming body”) in the future through Jamadagni’s curse, the spilling of water from

Renuka’s hands into the river materializes his curse. Obviously, the breaking of the water-pot is a testimony to her failure in the test of chastity conducted by Jamadagni. The

“everyday” routine of Renuka appears in this narrative too. Instead of a fresh pot made out of wet sand, in this narrative, a mass of water gets shaped into a pot.

There is a suggestion in the narrative that Jamadagni takes revenge against

Renuka, as if he makes Renuka pay for her distracting him through her distraction by the

Gandharva. As Renuka’s shadow falls on his hut, his sacrificial fire is put off and his pot rolls down spilling the water on the floor.19 Analogously, on seeing the shadow of the

Gandharva, who is “arranged” by Jamadagni to test the chastity of Renuka, the water-pot in Renuka’s hands breaks and dissolves, indicating the extinguishment of the fire of her chastity. Although Parasurama does not place a water-filled pot or karakam near the beheaded bodies in this hi-story, the significance of the karakam is embedded in the course of the narrative. Interestingly, this hi-story of Renuka was performed by Gnanaraj

19 The spilling of water indicating spending of sexual fluid is discussed in the forthcoming pages in this chapter. In the “Padaveetu Sthalapuranam,” a huge fight takes place between Renuka’s army and Jamadagni’s army, before Renuka meets Jamadagni. At one point in the fight, Renuka orders Camundi Devi to kill Jamadagni’s army and Camundi burns them with fire from her third eye. Upon this, Jamadagni summons all the sacred waters in the three worlds into his jar and throws the water on the fire caused by Camundi to extinguish it (Craddock 123-4).

225 on the day of inviting the sakti karakam at the two Mariyamman temples in Mukaiyur and Mugapper.

Renuka as a Victim of Intermingling of Varnas

In the analysis of Renuka’s beheading and reuniting, the making of the goddess/es and the confusion of varnas have been the focus of scholars. According to Shulman, the difference between the Sanskritic and Tamil folk version lies in the “double nature” given to the goddess in the folk tradition. A “’lower’” element is absorbed by the goddess, and this provides a hierarchy of goddesses with “some legitimacy” (1980, 265). The “split and reunited, slain and revived” mother is situated primarily within the paradigm of

Vedic sacrifice: identified with the “source of death and new life” that the Vedic sacrifice stands for, the ambivalent nature of the mother--nurturing and benign as well as aggressive and seductive—is illustrated (1980, 265). For Biardeau, the making of two women into deities—“one of whom is of higher caste, while the other is worshipped by the lowest castes” (112-3)—is the “practical effect” of the popular developments of the epic version.20 The “complementarity” in terms of castes of these goddesses facilitates her arguments in situating Mariyamman at the center of the village, as representing

“purity” and “victory, and goddesses such as Kali, as representing “impurity” and

“bloody war” at the boundary.21

20 Please see a discussion on this in Biardeau, especially her argument regarding the “link” between goddesses, which, according to her, “matters” more than the essentialist hierarchy implied by the “head” and the “body” (112-3). 21 The notions of “complementarity” and “center-periphery” dialectics appear to be sustained by the Vedic sacrificial paradigm. The Vedic sacrificial complex of yupa or post plays a prominent role in this reworking of the popular development of the Mahabharata myth of Renuka: the symbolic element of the sacrificial post is emphasized at the center, with the post functioning as the husband-victim (Jamadagni or Kartaviryarjuna) of the goddess at the center; whereas, at the periphery, the post finds its “sanguinary reality,” in the form of “multiplication of animal victims, bloodbath, and the buffalo sacrifice” (see Biardeau, especially 227). The cow, coveted by Kartaviryarjuna in the hi-story, is identified with Renuka by Biardeau. The subsequent killing of Kartaviryarjuna makes him a victim. Jamadagni is also killed in the

226 Moreover, Biardeau sees in Renuka “a figure of the Earth doomed to disorder by the confusion of varnas.” Renuka was a Ksatriya who married a Brahmin man, and due to this cosmic disorder, “she can only die” (Biardeau 187). This analysis fits in with

Biardeau’s tracing Renuka to the figure of a field, uttara vedi, which is the main altar ground, symbolizing the cosmic order of heaven-earth in the Vedic sacrifice. The

Mahabharata version of the myth, according to her, provides a “’theology’ of the structure of goddess worship” as it underwent “popular developments” (Biardeau 112), and the reworking of the asvamedha sacrifice into war has facilitated these popular developments. 22 Craddock also brings in the model of sacrifice in her analysis of

Renuka. 23 According to Craddock, “Renuka is a chaste, gentler figure” who is transformed “into an angrier, ambivalent figure” by her son’s violence (1994, 61).

Parasurama, through his reconstruction of his mother, makes her “absorb both the

Brahmin and the Untouchable within herself,” rendering her “divine” (Craddock 60). The dichotomy between Renuka as an ordinary woman and Mariyamman as a divine figure is maintained in the essays of other scholars such as Voorthuizen (2004, 260) as well.

I think there are crucial differences between the Mahabharata version and “local” versions, which Biardeau and Craddock have overlooked. In the classical Mahabharata

(3.116.1-18), where we come across Renuka’s story, the breaking of the pot that alludes

hi-story and hence Biardeau identifies both these figures with the post kept in front of Mariyamman in her temples. The doubling of the goddess is also traced to the mythical doubling of the great goddess in the Devi-mahatmya, the Sanskrit purana text of the fifth or sixth century C.E, into Candi, who remains victorious, and Kali, who takes in the blood of the demons, during the goddess’s battle with them (Biardeau 124). 22 The “theology,” according to Biardeau, is facilitated by the reworking of the Vedic horse sacrifice (asvamedha) into war. Biardeau, however, refers not only to the great eighteen-day war between the Pandavas and Kauravas in the epic, but also to the reworking of the asvamedha sacrifice into the destruction of Ksatriyas or warriors that is performed twenty-one times by Parasurama in one version of the story of Renuka (229). 23 Craddock also argues that “Renuka’s beheading and emerging from the earth in an anthill link her to ancient ideas of sacrifice and its necessity for the continuation of life” (188).

227 to Renuka’s distracted state and her impending fate does not appear. More importantly, the resurrected Renuka is admitted back into the house by Jamadagni. Moreover, although the intermingling of varnas (or its popular representation “caste”) appears in

Tamil oral versions of Renuka’s hi-story, in these versions, the intermingling is rendered secondary to her ontological divinity. 24 That is, even when one hears of Renuka’s

Ksatriya origins in some versions, her divine status precedes this Ksatriya identity.

Renuka is always described as an amsam (part) or incarnation of Sakti.25 In some hi- stories, even her birth is described as extraordinary: either she is born out of a sacrifice or she is seen as a child on a lotus or she is born with four hands. In the hi-stories, the intermixture of castes is decreed to enable the birth of the goddess in this world: In one version of the narrative, the intermixture of castes, enabling the birth/formation of the goddess, is decreed like a penance for an outrageous deed of a divine couple, Brahma and

Sarasvathi. In another version, which we shall see in the next chapter, the intermixture occurs as the only option available in producing the deity.26

In the Tamil versions of Renuka, the intermingling of castes makes a discernible presence only when Mariyamman is formed and constituted in such a way that Renuka’s head is joined to a body belonging to a “low” caste. But then most versions of the story go still further. Renuka-Mariyamman has to wait for some more time to be established as a goddess of ammai. In hi-story two, even though Jamadagni gives her the pearls of ammai, he predicts that Renuka will become the goddess of ammai in the future, with the

24 In the other stories of Mariyamman that do not derive from Renuka, such intermingling even attests to the authority of the goddess to arbitrate upon such matters. We shall look into this in the next chapter. 25 One can also refer to Sonnerat’s rendition of the story of Renuka. The story introduces Renuka as a goddess: “Mariatale [Mariyamman] was the wife of the penitent Chamadaguini (Jamadagni) and mother of Parasurama. The goddess commanded the elements; but could not preserve that empire longer than her heart was pure” (148-50). (emphasis mine.) 26 See hi-story seven in this chapter and hi-story nine discussed in Chapter Six.

228 help of her brother Kannan (Vishnu). As we have seen in hi-stories one and two, Renuka attempts to commit sati after her husband’s death and is established as the goddess of ammai after this. This is significant and I ask the readers to keep this in mind as we will return to this subject soon.

The sakti karakam, the form in which the goddess is invited to the temple during her festival, or the figure of the pot—either as water-filled or water shaped into its form—appears in the narratives of Renuka. In fact, in one narrative (hi-story one) we find two pots and one of these plays the role of the sakti karakam during the festival. When the sakti karakam is invited, there is a general rule: only an unmarried man, preferably not the eldest in the family, should carry the karakam.27 This rule brings Parasurama to mind, since he is the youngest son of Renuka and it is he who keeps the second pot near the beheaded Renuka. Craddock points out about Parasurama’s “construction” of his mother as universal mother or the goddess: “Parasurama dismembers his mother, then remakes her into the goddess Mariyamman, so that she is not only his own mother, but everyone’s mother. Renuka’s son is her first devotee…. “(111). Parasurama plays a role in transforming Renuka of the private realm into Mari of the public realm. The narratives say he does not do this advertently. Indeed, he realizes his folly and tears flow down his cheeks (hi-story two). The beheading of Renuka by Parasurama and the following

“misrecognition” by him, which enables the transformation of the domestic Renuka into the public Mariyamman, inverts a common theme that we encounter in Shulman’s “Tamil temple myths” (1980, see 97 and 107, for instance): out of misrecognition, a devotee

27 There are exceptions to this rule. For example, in Mugapper temple, a married man carries the karakam every year. Also sometimes, the pucari of the temple carries the karakam, or the privilege to carry the karakam is passed on hereditarily.

229 would hurt a deity latent or hidden in a stone or anthill, which would eventually result in the revelation of the deity and manifestation of the deity in the public world.

Although Renuka is always already divine, the ontological divinity that marks her birth does not rescue her from decapitation. I suspect what lurks behind this fate is a discourse of chastity that situates the feminine body within a restricting sexual economy.

One can consider that the interchange of Renuka’s body with a “low” or “outcaste” body is a ruse to exclude Renuka from the domestic realm to maintain the functioning of this sexual economy. In order to map the discourse of chastity and the functioning of this sexual economy, I would like to discuss the hi-story of Sukanikai, who is transformed into Karumariyamman.

Section II

Sukanikai-Karumariyamman: Chastity as Prohibitive Heteronormative Power

Like Renuka’s hi-stories, this hi-story also draws a parallel to a story in Book

Three of the Sanskrit Mahabharata (3, 121-23). Incidentally, Renuka’s story could be found just a few pages before this story. This is a story about Cyavana Bhargava and

Sukanya and it is told by Lomasa to Yudhisthira. As we shall see in due course, the Tamil version deploys a few other tropes that flow beyond the Vedic sacrificial paradigm of sacrificial order and violence and the “center-periphery” dialectical model emanating from it. As readers could expect from the above discussion, Sukanikai is not just a

Ksatriya woman as rendered in the Mahabharata, but she is the sixty-third Sakti.

230 Hi-story Three: Sukanikai and the Medicine Men

Sukanikai, the sixty-third Sakti of Saktis, was born to a king. The king was so fond of his daughter that wherever he went, he took her along with him. When Sukanikai was eight years old, one day, as the king went hunting in a forest, he took her with him. In the forest, a munivar (rishi or sage) called Bhargava was doing tapas. He was so steadfastly engaged in his tapas that he was oblivious to an anthill that had covered him in the course of his tapas. His eyes alone were visible through the anthill. The eyes were shining like small embers of flame. When Sukanikai saw the light shining through the anthill, she pricked one eye with a thorn. She repeated the act with the other eye too. When the king saw what his daughter was doing, he got upset and asked the sage to forgive them. The king also said that he wanted to do a penance to compensate for the mistake of his daughter. The sage asked the king to give him his daughter as his wife. Not for any pleasure, but to serve (tondu) him. The king refused to do this saying that she was a young girl and left the place.

Sukanikai attained puberty. The country was attacked by severe famine. Several died in thirst and hunger. Several ate sand for food. The king did not know what to do. Then, a great man (mahan) visited him one day and told him that due to the sin committed toward the sage, the country was suffering and added that only his daughter could save the country from perishing. The daughter heard this and went to the forest and got married to the sage. As soon as she married him, her country received rains and became prosperous.

Sukanikai was serving Bhargava. She would go to a river every morning to bathe and fetch water. One day when she went to the river, the Asvini Devas (divine physicians and the sons of the Surya, the sun god) met her on her way and wooed her. As Sukanikai opened her eyes with anger, fire sparks came out and the bodies of the Asvini Devas started burning all over. They could not bear the heat and howled. They went everywhere to get rid of the heat, but could not. Finally, they came back to her and asked her to take the heat back, and she, in turn, asked them to give it to a tree nearby. They gave their heat to the tree and were relieved of their burning sensation. They were happy and wanted to give back something to her. They made Bhargava young and restored his eyesight too. The tree then said to Sukanikai: “Mother, I was fine so far. But when I got your sakti (power) obeying your words, my leaves, stems, flowers and fruits became bitter due to the heat. Nobody will like me.” The goddess then replied: “Since you have obtained my veppa sakti (power of heat), you will be called veppa maram (margosa tree). You will be the tree of my place (sthala virutcham). Without you, I will not be celebrated.” The margosa tree asked her: “You will get gruel from people. What will I get?” To that

231 Mariyamman said: “On the third or fifth day after the gruel-pouring ceremony, people will give you porridge (sir kanji) and celebrate you.”

Sukanikai and Bhargava were enjoying life. One day the king visited the daughter. When he saw his daughter living with a young husband, he thought, “My daughter has strayed from her path,” and got enraged. He hid himself and cut his daughter Sukanikai into two pieces. As soon as he cut her body, her body became black in color. Bhargava came, saw what had happened and with his power joined her head to her body. She got up and said: “Since my body has become black in color, hereafter I will be known as Karumari (Black Mari).” Then she left the place.

In the Sanskrit Mahabharata version, as Sukanya (in Tamil, Sukanikai) pricks the eye of the sage, the king’s escort starts suffering from severe constipation. The king realizes that it is due to the wrong done to the sage by his daughter. The king wants to compensate for the mistake and when the sage asks for his daughter as his wife, the king grants his wish immediately. After Sukanya’s marriage, the Asvini Devas set their eyes upon her and Sukanya spurns them. The Asvini Devas propose that they will make her husband young and restore his eyesight, and after that she choose one of the three. After consulting her husband, she agrees to their covenant. The gods ask Bhargava to jump into a lake and the Devas too to jump into it, and come out of the lake as Bhargava comes out.

All three look alike in appearance. “Decided with heart and mind,” Sukanya chooses her husband correctly. Bhargava is happy and entitles the Asvini Devas to drink Soma hereafter. He also asks the king to arrange for a sacrifice in which after a feud with Indra he offers Soma to Asvini Devas.

It is noteworthy that in the Tamil hi-story of Sukanikai, we do not encounter the incorporation of the “lower” element in Renuka or the creation of two deities.

Sukanikai’s body simply “transforms” into black resulting in her name “Karumari.” In some versions of Renuka’s story (for instance, hi-story one and hi-story four), the

232 creation of the second deity is left out. Even when I enquired about the body of Renuka, the story-tellers remarked that they did not know about it or that it was simply left uncared for.

If one looks for “pollution” due to the act of beheading and blood, one finds such

“pollution” in Sukanikai but there is no intermingling of “purity” and “pollution” in the rejoined Sukanikai. Nor is there any “doubling” nature of the woman or goddess. As for as the “center” representing the head and “periphery” representing the body (and the violence), we remain clueless (Biardeau 2004, 122). Yet, the hi-story corroborates in some way Biardeau’s paradigm of sacrifice (but soma instead of asvamedha): for, in the

Mahabharata version, as soon as Bhargava gets his eyes and youth back, as a thanksgiving gesture he grants to Asvini Devas entitlement to Soma. Bhargava arranges for a Soma sacrifice by the king, Sukanya’s father. In the Tamil hi-story, after restoration of Bhargava’s eyesight and youth, the splitting and rejoining of Sukanikai take place.

Structurally the events of Soma sacrifice and of “splitting” and “reuniting” occupy analogous positions in the Sanskrit and Tamil narratives. One is even reminded of a passage (6.4.3) in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, which describes the creation of the first woman by Prajapati: “Her lap is the vedi (area between sacrificial fires), her hair the sacrificial grass. Her skin is the soma press, her labia the fire in the middle” (Black 2007,

137).

There are definitely differences in the Tamil oral-literary version: While the sin committed by the king’s daughter against the sage results in famine in the entire country in hi-story three, it creates constipation in just one person in the Mahabharata version. In the Mahabharata, Sukanya agrees to a covenant proposed by the Asvini Devas only after

233 consulting her husband. Later, she is subjected to a test, conducted by the Asvini Devas.

On the contrary, in the Tamil version, she simply burns the bodies of the Asvini Devas through her power. The Mahabharata version underscores an exchange of benefits between men and gods—Bhargava gets his youth and eyesight and the Asvini Devas get entitlement to Soma— enabled by the steadfastness of the princess. But in the Tamil version, more than exchange, offering is highlighted. By casting their eye on Sukanikai, the Asvini Devas commit sacrilege. With their suffering alleviated by the goddess, they restore Bhargava’s eyesight and youth for the goddess.

The hi-story of Sukanikai deploys the tropes of rain and heat to foreground the power of Sukanikai. Sukanikai burns the Asvini Devas with the power of heat. The heat that ensues from Sukanikai reminds one of suggested discourses of the heat of chastity, which appears to have maintained the unbaked pot as a baked pot or transformed the formless water into the shape of a pot in the narratives of Renuka. But here the fire of

Sukanikai is active, unlike the fire that loses its power in Renuka’s narratives, and imbues the bodies of the Asvini Devas with a burning sensation. The heat, the burning sensation, and the healing margosa leaves certainly draw upon the image of ammai and its healing.

Ammai is believed to be caused by accumulated heat in the body.

A trope complementary to heat comes in the form of rain in the hi-story. The motif of rain also asks us to revisit the hi-stories that we discussed before. We ran into the motif of water held in Renuka’s hands: water cannot be contained in them and spills out.

But the spilling of water in these hi-stories is in no way comparable to the volume of water as rain that Sukanikai’s hi-story speaks of. The association between rain and the lawful marital relationship that Sukanikai adopts stands in juxtaposition to the association

234 between the spilling of water and Renuka’s sexual distraction from the marital bond. At first, one might be tempted to think that the former association reinforces the woman as a cultivable field and the rain as the masculine seed of Bhargava, with underlying notions of perpetuating patriliny and the transference of gift as impregnating seed from the masculine to the feminine.

Nevertheless, interestingly, Bhargava and Sukanikai have a non-sexual relationship and remain childless. One can also note that immediately after Sukanikai’s first menstruation, famine attacks the country.28 As soon as Sukanikai fulfils her penance of marriage, rain pours. If we take this into account, the rain in the narrative context alludes to the feminine sexual fluid (intiriyam) or seed suggesting that Sukanikai has now been made potent and that potency/power has been transformed into a resource for public good. This interpretation would make sense, considering that the spilling (or wastage?) of Renuka’s sexual fluid is mentioned in one version of Renuka’s story, which I heard in

Gingee. Jeyaraman, the story-teller, remarked about the spillage: “On looking at the beautiful Gandharva’s reflection in the river, she became wet (avalukku eeramayidicchu).

The water which she was drawing into the form of a pot broke.”

Sukanikai, or for that matter, Renuka, are divine beings right from birth. Yet, the ontological divinity that marks their extraordinary acts (such as holding water in the unbaked pot or in the form of a pot or making someone’s body burn) is sustained only when chastity is perpetually practiced by these women. Although Sukanikai’s chastity is underscored in both Sanskrit and Tamil versions, in the Tamil versions, it is much more

28 The association between the menstrual fluid and woman’s seed was already discussed in Chapter Four.

235 than marital fidelity and takes on an ascetic dimension29, as Hart has observed in his remarks on the distinct notion of karpu. The Tamil hi-story of Sukanikai alludes to her chastity as sexual celibacy, when Sukanikai marries the old Bhargava for the sake of her country and people. The ascetic side is further emphasized, as Bhargava seeks Sukanikai in marriage only to do non-sexual “service” to him.

Why should the narrative subject Sukanikai to beheading? Sukanikai is “loyal” to her husband. In fact, with her power she could get her husband in much better shape than at the time of her wedding. In order to understand Sukanikai’s beheading, one should get acquainted with another shade of chastity that is more emphatic in the Tamil culture.

Tamil classical literary as well as ethnographic spaces provide a dual articulation of chastity. “Dual” because on the one hand, chastity is articulated as loyalty and “devotion to one’s husband”, and on the other hand, chastity has acquired a socio-cultural meaning of virginity and celibacy. In the discourse of Tamil ethnographic spaces, even a “normal” sexual relationship between a woman and her husband is discouraged or prohibited.

Whether one agrees or not with the notion of the ananku or innate power that a virgin is said to possess, Tamil discourses of chastity often move from articulating “chastity as devotion to one’s husband” to articulating “chastity as virginity” (Shulman 1980, 148;

Rajam 261-65). Hiltebeitel shows how Draupadi, the wife of the five Pandavas in the

29 Hart also argues that chastity is one of the “sacred values of the southern culture” which eventually disseminated into North India through the spread of cultural and literary elements (1974, 166). Although the Tamil term “karpu” and the Sanskrit term “pativratyam” sound alike, they have different significations: while pativratyam means “keeping one’s vow to one’s husband,” karpu in addition to faithfulness “signifies the restraint of all immodest impulses, and the sacred power acquired by a woman who has such qualities” and has ascetic overtones (Hart 243). To throw light on the difference between the significations, Hart even compares the words for rape in the two languages. In Tamil, rape is called “karpalittal” meaning “the destroying of chastity,” but in Sanskrit it is called “balat sambhoga” meaning “enjoying a woman by force,” and “dusana” meaning “spoiling.” Hart also demonstrates how “dusana” appears to indicate the sense of the Tamil word, although its signification in the early days was different (243-44). Moreover, even though the associations between the image of rain and fertility and legal marriage, and between the spillage of water and the extra-marital distraction are implied in the narrative, a broader conception of chastity organizes the events of the narrative.

236 Mahabharata, is considered “unequivocally a virgin” (kanni) in her cult in Tamilnadu

(1991, 362-4). When Hiltebeitel and I were doing fieldwork on “Women Worshipping

Draupadi” in Dharmapuri in Tamilnadu in the year 2002, we were told that Draupadi was never touched by any of her husbands. In the prevailing South Indian “folk” versions of

Cilappatikaram, Kannaki is described as someone who “does not know her husband’s body and perhaps never even touched him” (Beck 1972, 25; Hiltebeitel 1991, 363). Such a conception is found in Sinhala versions of the story of Kannaki too (Hiltebeitel 1991,

363).

If virginity, as Shulman (1980, 148) says, is considered as a “kind of tapas”, and its loss as “squandering of accumulated energy,” then chastity as virginity indicates an absolute frugal sexual economy in force. Whether or not her male-partner is her husband, wasting her sexual resource is unwelcome and potentially entails punishment. One should also note here that the miraculous phenomena that Sukanikai causes, namely, the rains and burns, are produced by Sukanikai when she has a non-sexual relationship with her husband. The couple start “enjoying” their life after his youth is restored. “Enjoyment” alludes to sexual enjoyment. The king is enraged by this “enjoyment” and beheads

Sukanikai, thereby rendering this ‘inappropriate’ enjoyment impossible. The act of killing makes amends for Sukanikai’s perceived lapse. As Sukanikai is revived, she is reconstituted as ‘another’ goddess and her husband leaves her. With the killing of

Sukanikai, prohibitive heteronormative power stages a comeback. In reconstituting the

237 goddess, the prohibitive heteronormative power produces the goddess once again as a valorized feminine subject. 30

Renuka’s Tapas

Jamadagni’s expulsion of Renuka from home in the Tamil folk stories can be comprehended against this background. The exclusion assures a formidable distance between Renuka-Mari and Jamadagni and thereby thwarts any possible wastage of her sexual material.31 In fact one can see that in the narratives, the married goddess’s unspent sexual resources are directly foregrounded in the idiom of tapas. I came across a version of Renuka’s story that tries to negotiate between Renuka’s marital life and her chastity as tapas. Here I will give excerpts from the story. This narrative contains a self-articulation of the chastity of the goddess as she declares her “power” to get water from the river just by twirling her little finger:

Hi-story Four: Renuka, the Desiring Sakti

Renuka is the amsam of Esvari’s Iccha sakti. One day, Siva and Esvari went to a garden to play with each other. Enamored by the beauty of the garden, Esvari asked Siva: “Swami, even a small farmer owns a forest. He ploughs his land. What do we have? Even our children, the “elephant- headed” and the “six-headed”, are not with us. Let us create a garden for us. We will plough the land and do farming. Siva did not agree to it: “Woman, we don’t need all these. This is a hill. How can we plough this land and cultivate it?” Esvari said, “Oh, my brother would help us.” Siva would not consent to her, and starts putting forth arguments. But Esvari refuted him and referred to her brother all the time saying things like, “Let us ask our brother. My brother knows everything.” She was praising her brother like anything. Siva then asked her: “In order to plough the land, we need a plough. We need bulls. We need ropes to tie the bulls. Where

30 I asked Gnanaraj: “What happened to Bhargava after Sukanikai rises up as Karumari?” His remark indicated that sex is driven out of the realm of Karumari: “Bhargava just left, after this how can there be a family life (kutumpa vazhkkai)?” 31 One can note that along with the ascetic anger of Jamadagni, available in both Sanskrit and Tamil versions, “ascetic power” in the form of the chastity that embodies Renuka is specially featured in Tamil versions.

238 will you get all these?” Esvari at once said, “We can use two of your hairs as ropes.” Siva got furious by this suggestion and cursed her: “You are like your brother. You like your children. Since your desire is such, your brother Perumal (Vishnu) will be born from your womb and will cut off your head.” Esvari then asked worriedly: “Swamy, when will I come and join you?” Siva replied: “You have desired to have pleasure (inbasugam) with your husband. We will have pleasure one night giving birth to four children for one jamam (measuring unit of time for night). After that one night, we will not have any pleasure and we will do tapas. After getting four children, you can come back here.”

Esvari never had an ordinary birth. Never was she born out of an ordinary stomach. She was born in a lotus flower. A king called Varmarajan and his wife took her from the lotus flower and brought her up. Siva was born as Jamadagni to Satyavati and her husband who was a maharishi. Even his birth was not ordinary. He was born from rice mixed with milk. Although Renuka was a Ksatriya, a princess, she had to marry a Brahmin, because her horoscope was like that. At the time of her birth, in her horoscope, the planets were like this: Saturn was in the fifth position, the planet Kethu in lagnam and Ragu was in the tenth position. Whenever a girl has such an alignment of planets, she would marry a man from a “lower” clan (nica kulam). [In this narration one can see, the Brahmin is portrayed as inferior to the Ksatriya]. Such a girl’s life would not be good. Narada arranged for the marriage of Jamadagni and Renuka. As said earlier, they had pleasure for one day and had four sons. After that, both were involved in tapas.

Everyday, Renuka would get water from a river nearby. Ganga and she always quarreled, since both had the same husband Siva.32 When Renuka first approached the river, Ganga did not allow her to take water. Renuka told her to leave their quarrel aside, because Renuka was also a pattini (chaste woman) and she wanted to get water. Still Ganga did not yield to her. Then Renuka, spinning her little finger drew the entire water of the river into the form of a pot in her hands. Ganga realized her folly and apologized to Renuka. Then Renuka told her; “Whenever I will come to you to take water, I will just spin my finger and water should come into my hands as a pot. Because I am a pattini (chaste woman).”

Renuka gathered water into the shape of a pot with a snake as a towel (cummatu) upon her head to carry the pot. One day, she happened to see Kartaviryarjuna’s son, who was also called Gandharva, flying above in the sky. He had a thousand heads and two thousand hands. She saw his beauty. It was fate. She thought, “I have a husband. He is all beard. There is no way to live happily with such a man.” As she thought this, her

32 In the puranas Siva is said to have two wives: one is Esvari (also known as Parvathi or Sakti) and the other is Ganga (the river Ganges). All sacred waters including rivers are considered to be a form of Ganga.

239 chastity was plundered (curaiyati vittatu). The water-pot did not come into her hands. …

After Renuka was resurrected with the body of another woman, she did not want to have that “low” body. She meditated upon fire (Agni) and the body was burnt by fire. The burnt body was buried in the earth. The head is worshipped as the goddess Utalmari (“the body-changed”).

(My remarks: In her next incarnation, she would be born as Uyirmari (“the life-changed”) and get a boon of pearls from Siva. Uyirmari is considered to be Utalmari’s younger sister.)

The images of plouging and gardening in the story suggest sexual pleasure and begetting offspring. Yet Esvari’s “desire” for sexual pleasure and her inclination to have children is not considered appropriate to her divine status (Siva refutes her desire saying,

“We do not need all these”). Siva casts the curse of decapitation upon her, and bearing this curse Esvari leaves her divine abode to be born as Renuka. After her reproductive maternal function is fulfilled, Renuka’s sexual desire manifests again when she sees and longs for union with the handsome Gandharva. As Esvari compares Siva to her brother

Vishnu, Renuka now compares her husband Jamadagni to the king. The narrative suggests that Esvari compares her brother to Siva in terms of sexual prowess. Yet the comparison is subtle. In contrast, her comparison of the king to Jamadagni is overt and obvious. With a shift in her desire from an indirect expression to have a garden and children with her husband to a direct enunciation of a desire to have a sexual union with another man, the breach in her divine status is complete. The curse that has been set to roll in the divine realm reaches its destination now in the human realm.

The heteronormative power in both its regulatory and prohibitive modes organizes this narrative. The goddess’s sexual interest even in her husband is discouraged and earns her the curse of getting beheaded. The one night of pleasure that Siva grants to Esvari is

240 only for procreation. The narrative specifically allows for a time-lapse between the spelling of the curse and its materialization. In this time-lapse, the heteronormative power regulates the reproductive sexuality of Renuka, who fulfills her maternal function within the norms of patriliny, giving birth to four sons. As in the narratives that we saw earlier, the regulatory power constitutes Renuka as a chaste wife within the heterosexual reproductive matrix and it erases her from the scene when the norms of marital fidelity are violated. When she is reconstituted as Mariyamman, the prohibitive mode of heteronormative power takes over. Mariyamman is cast away from the domestic realm, thereby preempting any possible sexual activity on her part. Eventually, she enters fire and her body gets burnt.

In Dharmapuri, I came across a story of Renuka, which presents Renuka as untouched by Jamadagni. Sasikumar, a musician playing the pampai instrument, told me this story. “If Renuka is not even touched by Jamadagni, how can she and Jamadagni give birth to children?” I asked him curiously. To this question, he gave a thought- provoking and strange response, invoking Kunti in the Mahabharata: “One could get children without touching anyone in those days. How did Kunti beget the five Pandavas?

It is through the stones given by a rishi to Kunti when she was a little girl.”

How can one understand the discourse of chastity in its dual modalities, oscillating between them—as virginity and as marital fidelity ensconced in the system of reproductive heterosexuality—in the Tamil context? I suggest one can trace such dual avatars of chastity to the puberty ceremony, the ceremony performed for the first menstruation for girls, celebrated in Tamilnadu. Butler refers to the political construction of the bodies building on the ideas of Mary Douglas (Butler 1999, xxxi). Douglas

241 conceptualizes bodily orifices as symbolizing a body’s “specially vulnerable points”

(Douglas 121). Building on Douglas’s observation about orifices, Butler points out that

“the rites of passage that govern various bodily orifices presuppose a heterosexual construction of gendered exchange, positions, and erotic possibilities” (Butler 1999, 169).

On the one hand, in Tamil culture, especially among non-Brahmins, the first menstruation of a girl or “puberty” is celebrated with much pomp and celebration, as I mentioned in the Chapter Four. This ceremony, called “puppuccatanku” (“ceremony of flowering”) or “manjalnirattu vizha” (“bathing in yellow/turmeric waters”), is a special feature of the Tamil culture. The celebration of the first menstruation of the girl provides an occasion for establishing the male right over a woman’s body. Ideally, the girl’s maternal uncle (or sometimes her male cousin, who is the maternal uncle’s son) “should” be informed first about the girl’s attaining puberty. This male member is assigned the first right to perform the necessary rituals including pouring the turmeric water on the girl on the third day. He also brings the seer (gift including a jewel and saris for the girl). In early days, this man would erect a thatch for the girl to stay in on the days of the first menstruation. The man who performs these roles is considered as having the legitimate right to marry the girl. The male right over the female body is thus established when the orifice of the vagina sheds its first menstrual blood.33

Drawing from these details it can be proposed that the “puberty ceremony” is a major rite of passage in the Tamil context through which a woman’s adult body is produced in a heteronormative economy. How does this explain the two notions of chastity, as a regulatory power and prohibitive power? As a regulatory power of the male

33 What I have described here is the ideal way in which the puberty ceremony is celebrated. There are and there could be transformations and manipulations in the conduct of the ceremony. Also, nowadays girls do have the negotiating power to choose their partners.

242 right, it writes the name of the father (of the child that the girl will subsequently bear) on the first seed of the menstrual blood. At the same time, inscribing the name of the father is possible only when a model of the “pure” seed without any name written on it is available. Only such a model can guarantee that the menstrual seed as materiality can be produced for and appropriated under the male right. The discourse of chastity as virginity produces such a model of the seed as/in its pure materiality. A male who violates a virgin goddess and gets punished needs to be understood within this framework: the punishment, that a male encounters in touching the virgin seed should be construed as a cultural mechanism in the service of protecting this materiality as a paradigmatic model, rather than a sign of the inherent power of the woman to punish her violator.

The “flowering” of a girl, interestingly, surfaces in a hi-story of Renuka supporting my arguments. In this hi-story, which is collected by Meyer (1986, 15-16) in

Gingee, as Parasurama approaches to kill Renuka, she runs into the hut of a “Cakkilicci” or cobbler girl, “who had just reached puberty” (16):

Parasurama also ran inside and, thinking that he was cutting off the head

of his mother, he cut off the head of the Cakkilicci woman—it was dark

inside the hut. Then his mother ran out of the house, and Parasurama ran

after her and cut off her head. (Meyer 16)34

34 Meyer interprets this incident as a way to restore the chastity of Renuka, which was sought as a boon by Parasurama to his father (16). Meyer writes: “The Cakkilicci, whose body Renuka gets, is a girl that has just reached puberty. Renuka—now Mariyamman—is a virgin again, unmarried. Only in this way can the boon that her chastity be restored be fulfilled” (56). However I think it is necessary to rethink such substantial notions of chastity located in a woman’s body and that is a major objective of this chapter.

243 Parasurama beheaded the cobbler girl who has just attained puberty. The girl stayed in a hut. Had any puberty ceremony been performed for her? The narrative is silent, but the tone of the narrative suggests that the menstrual seed is “fresh” and not yet allocated to any man. Parasurama’s beheading preempts the girl from marrying a man and from entering into a matrix of reproductive heterosexuality. A paradigmatic model of pure materiality of the menstrual seed is thus produced and guaranteed. It is the body of the Cakkilicci woman, which is joined to Renuka’s head, in creating Mariyamman. The figure of Mariyamman—with the head of Renuka, who has been a chaste wife (until she saw the Gandharva) and the virgin body of the cobbler girl (embodying the pure materiality of the menstrual seed)—is, thus, constituted as a paradigmatic ideal of chastity, informing its two operational modalities in the Tamil context.

There are discursive practices related to Mariyamman where Renuka does not appear. In these narratives, one can see the discourses of chastity emphasizing the modality of virginity more than that of marital fidelity. In some Mariyamman temples in and around Pudukkottai and Trichy (such as Mariyamman in Vayatthur and Narthamalai)

Mariyamman is said to have married a man but not lived with him. In many others (such as in Samayapuram and Valangaiman), she is said to be a virgin. In and around

Mariyamman temples of the site (Pudukkottai and Trichy), a ceremony called

“pooccorital” (“showering flowers” on the goddess) is a major event that heralds the

Mariyamman festival. In one such temple, I heard a hi-story about the virgin

Mariyamman’s first menstruation under a tree that had just blossomed with red flowers, which I shall discuss in the next chapter.35 Right now, since I have discussed Renuka’s

35 The person who told me this hi-story connected it with the devotees’ needle-piercing. I shall discuss the connection between menstruation and the falling of blood drops due to needle piercing in the next chapter.

244 chastity in the form of tapas, I shall pursue the motif of tapas in the articulation of chastity. In Mukkanamalaippatti, a village near Trichy, I heard a hi-story (told by

Azhakammai, a “local” healer of ammai) on Muttu Mariyamman, which brings in the motif of tapas literally, in underscoring the functioning of the prohibitive heteronormative power.

Hi-story Five: Flowers to Pearls

Mariyamman is not one but seven in number and they are all divine virgins (teyva kanni). They came from Malayala country (malayala desam meaning Kerala) to Tamilnadu. It is said that one of these sisters was doing tapas for Esvaran at the bottom of a mountain there. She took seven lemons, on which she kept seven coconuts, on which she put seven needles, onto which she tied strings of jasmine flowers. On top of all these, she stood and was doing tapas. Then Esvaran (Siva), the one who has created and is sustaining all of us, was also doing tapas on top of the mountain. On seeing the girl’s tapas, he became curious. He came down and asked her for details (vivaram) of her tapas. The girl asked him, in turn, to tell her the details of why he came all the way to ask her this. Esvaran was piqued. Asking “Oh, you want the details?”, he threw on her a garland of flowers, which fell and sat around the neck of the girl doing tapas. She just let it remain on her neck for an hour, but after that she threw back the garland, which had become a string of pearls, saying, “I wore the garland that you threw on me. Now let us see whether you can wear the same garland for at least half an hour. Let us see whether these are false pearls or shallow pearls (poy mutho, pokku mutho?)” Immediately, pearls of ammai spread over Esvaran’s body. Unable to bear the pain and the burning sensation, Esvaran pleaded with the girl to remove them. But Mari told him she would not do it unless he brought her brother Kovilan36 or Renganathan from Srirangam to her. Renganathan and Mari were not on talking terms with each other then. So Esvaran needed to go two or three times to request him to come. Finally, Renganathan came and told Mari, “Amma, Esvaran is the one who has created and who is protecting this entire universe. You have thrown the pearls on him. Take them.” On listening to Renganathan’s words, Mari brought a big winnow, took a branch of margosa leaves, and touched Esvaran’s body from head to toe three times. Pearls, pearls, pearls. The

36 The hero of Cilappatikaram, Kovalan, comes to my mind here. Is it not at a place in or around Trichy that Kannaki and Kovalan are teased by someone as sister and brother and get a curse from the Jaina monk Kavuntiyadigal for that inappropriate remark? Vishnu, especially in his incarnation as Krishna or Kannan, is also called Kovalan.

245 entire winnow was filled with pearls. After Esvaran’s pearls were removed, he made a promise (vakku) to Mari: “Seven worlds below, seven worlds above, those ten thousand that fly, those eight thousand that have descended on ground, from the tree, from the leaf, from the sparrow, from the crane, from the fish, from the water, from the creeper, from the bunch. You, who put pearls on all these and play, will be celebrated as the ‘one with margosa leaves’ (veppillaikkari).”

Mariyamman does not entertain Esvaran’s enquiry about her and punishes him for violating her body by throwing a garland on her without her consent. The garland that

Esvaran throws on her betrays his desire for her or implies his marriage with her. Esvaran suffers for his act. The garland of flowers that he throws on her becomes the string of pearls which turns into poxes spreading on Esvaran's body. And, she draws back these poxes as pearls in her winnow. The narrative foregrounds a series of miraculous transformations—from flowers or actual pearls to pearls of ammai to actual pearls—as an index of Mariyamman’s power.

The hi-stories discussed in this chapter suggest that accumulated sexual resource as underscored by a woman’s chastity is necessary to produce miraculous or extraordinary phenomena. Renuka’s stories feature phenomena such as a fresh, unbaked pot holding water or water getting shaped into a pot. In Sukanikai’s story, one finds pouring rain and burning pain.37 In the story of Mariyamman’s tapas, these miraculous manifestations are a string of pearls and pustules of ammai. The discourses attempt to convince us that a woman’s control over her impulses maximizes the sexual resource to produce miraculous phenomena, and her loss of control wastes away this resource. Since miraculous phenomena “provide” indices of a woman’s power, this power is predicated

37 We find references in Tamil classical literature to a chaste woman’s ability to bring rain. For instance, a couplet of Tirukkural puts forth that “if a woman who worships her husband, and not god, upon her rising, commands the rain to pour, it pours” (Tirukkural 53). Similarly, Cilappatikaram foregrounds the worship of the chaste woman Kannagi for bestowing rain. Manimekalai also tells the story of a chaste woman called Atirai, who can command rain to pour.

246 upon her control over impulses. It draws upon her effective functioning within the frugal sexual economy and renders her as its fictive origin.

Concerning the association between miraculous or extraordinary phenomena and accumulated sexual resource, I am tempted to cite a conversation that I had years back. In the new town of Cuddalore, our family lived for fifteen years with a group of families who were devoted to Satya Sri Saibaba. In one of their houses, every week there would be singing of bhajans with an elaborate puja to Saibaba’s life-size picture. Occasionally, we would hear that ashes poured from the picture of Sai Baba and on hearing this neighbors would crowd there immediately. Once I asked an elderly woman, another neighbor, about this phenomenon of pouring ashes. She told me that it is possible for

Baba to pour ashes, because as a result of his observance of brahmacharya all his blood and semen (vintu) had turned into ashes. His sakti (power) is such that he can do it anywhere anytime.

Saibaba’s example is not exceptional. One finds that this connection between power and sexual celibacy is forged for men in textual sources too. Was not rishi

Rsyasrunga, who never even knew how a woman would look, invited to step into a country in order to put an end to famine and make the rain pour? 38 One finds such examples that attest to the conception of accumulation of power in both feminine and masculine sexes. But there is a crucial difference. While frugal sexual economy is prescribed as an ideal way of life for men (are not such men regarded as mahans, or great men, who stand above ordinary men?), it inscribes as a normative condition for the

38 See Voorthuizen (2004, 262). She describes the cultural notion of acquiring power by ascetics through “self-sacrifice” and “renunciation.” She points out a similar notion of increase in power or sakti of women when they lead their lives as “good pativratas” and “lead[ing] a karpu life.” However, I consider it necessary to rigorously deconstruct this notion of “sakti” of women rather than describe it as it is. This chapter especially interrogates the “power” or sakti of chastity and locates it as heteronormative power.

247 feminine sex, as one gets from the narratives of the goddess. I should mention here that one comes across references of everyday women who became goddesses through their chastity in Tamil cultural discourses.39 This elevation in status, however, does not take away the demand for effective functioning within the frugal sexual economy. In order to maintain goddesshood, the frugal sexual economy should be perpetually in force. The frugal sexual economy unifies the goddess and the ordinary woman under the overarching normative chastity.

Section III

The Eye: Instantiation of Reproductive Heterosexuality and Revenge

The discourses of chastity underscoring a frugal sexual economy as a normative condition have helped us to deconstruct the taken-for-granted notion of chastity as an inherent “power” of a woman. An alternate discourse of chastity as a regulatory and prohibitive heteronormative power has moved us toward seeing how the goddess is constituted as a feminine subject in the narratives. In fact, I gathered a story of Renuka in

Gingee that delineates the genealogy of reproductive heterosexuality and the constitution of the goddess as a feminine subject:40

Hi-story Six: The Eye

In those days it was all one (ore mayam). The mother got produced in the heat. She looked around her, but did not find anything. “I am lonely,” she thought. Hence she started a sacrificial ritual (yaka velvi). She performed

39 Kannaki of the classical version of Cilappatikaram is one such example. 40 The hi-story has similarities with the story of Ammavaru (Whitehead 133-34) and of Ellamma (Oppert 465-466). In the story narrated by Whitehead, Ammavaru has overtones of Mariyamman in appearance too. For instance, she wears a yellow sari, sports an hour-glass drum, and has a moustache (127-8). A variant form of Ellamma’s myth prevailing as Mariyamman’s myth has been discussed by Shulman (1980, 241-3).

248 the sacrifice because she did not have any companion. First, a son was born. Since the child could not bear the heat (of the sacrificial fire), he cried out, “Amma” (mother). Immediately, the goddess took him out of the fire and made him sit down. Since the child called her “Amma”, she thought he would not be of any use to her. The child was Brahma, who had become her son. She performed the sacrifice for the second time. Another child emerged. He wanted to escape the heat and started calling out, “Tanga” (This word in spoken Tamil means “to stay” as well as “sister”). Since he called her “Tanga,” she took him out and made him sit down. He was Vishnu. She was annoyed by the developments, because she was doing the ritual only to form a bond (sexual bond) with someone. She performed the sacrifice for the third time, this time with anger. A figure (uruvam) emerged from the fire and shouted, “Ati!” (a disrespectful as well as intimate way of addressing a woman). She then decided, “Oh, he is the one I should have.” He was Siva. She asked him to marry her. But Siva did not agree. He said, “You produced me and now you want to marry me. This is troublesome and impure (cuttamillai).” Then, instigated by Brahma and Vishnu, he asked for the eye that the mother had on her forehead. Without the eye she could not have been performed the ritual. She gave her eye to Siva. They say that this is the reason why women should wear dots (tilakam) on their foreheads. It is only to hide the scar that the removal of the third eye has caused.

Although Siva had got what he wanted from the mother, he did not marry her and he was rather afraid of her (I interrupted Jeyaraman here: “Why should he be afraid? The power of the mother is gone now since the eye is removed.” Jeyaraman explained it through a beautiful modern analogy: “Why are we afraid of officers (of the Government), although they are retired, even if they don’t have power now?”). Siva burned her since with the loss of her eye her power was gone. From the heap of ashes Parvathi was created. Siva asked her to be born from the sacrificial ritual that Dakkan (Daksa) performed. Mother in the form of Parvathi left him under the care of her brother and then took birth as the first of hundred daughters born to Dakkan. After she grew up, she came again in search for Siva, but could not find him. Her brother told her that although he had held the hand of Siva tightly, he slipped away somehow. Meanwhile, Siva hid himself in a forest and climbed upon a bamboo tree. The goddess declared, “Wherever he is, let him come now.” As she pointed with her finger, the big forest was in flames. Siva got afraid and hid inside a tree trunk. All the trees were burning except this tree, which remained green throughout the fire. Mother and Vishnu went there. Mother said: “Tie the tali (the thread indicating the married status of a woman).” He tied the thread around the tree.

But the enmity (pakai) was not over. All these events happened in Kruta and Treta yugas. In the Dvapara yuga, Mother and Siva became Renuka

249 and Jamadagni. Jamadagni then arranged for Renuka to be beheaded. Renuka turned into Mariyamman and threw pearls of poxes on Siva and other gods, taking revenge on them.

In the beginning, the story says, it was all one. The mother dwelt all alone. “It was all one” can also mean “the sex was all one.” With the creation of the Trimurti, the masculine sex first arrives on the scene. The hi-story, at first, does not specify that the

“lonely” mother specifically seeks a “male” companion. Nevertheless, in the course of the narrative, we find that the goddess creates only male gods one after another, as the course of desire veers into the heterosexual realm. The story does not say why the partner that the mother sought should be a “male.” Since the mother successively creates

“male gods,” the desire that imbues the mother’s body is articulated a posteriori as being heterosexual from the “beginning.” Such articulation produces the materiality of the mother’s body as that which is invested with the norms of heterosexism, and incorporates the materiality of the mother’s body within these norms.

As the goddess persistently demands that the male deities “marry” her--

“marriage” here alludes to a sexual relationship-- she has to get rid of her eye. The narrative mentions that Siva, with the instigation of Brahma and Vishnu, asked for her eye without which the mother could not have performed her sacrificial ritual and created them.41 The story suggests that the loss of the eye amounts to the loss of the originary generative site of creation.

41 Does the eye allude to vagina here? It could be so. We find a reference to a vagina-eye interchange in a Tamil story. Indra, the king of gods, took the form of rishi Gautama and had a sexual relationship with Ahalya, his wife. Gautama, with his power of austerities, cursed Indra to have a body full of eyes. In a Tamil version of this story, told by my mother, Indra was cursed to have a body full of vaginas. My mother also added that since the story is told in “public,” in order to avoid embarrassment, vaginas are referred to as eyes. Perhaps, since Indra violated one vagina, he was destined to have many of them, with the threat of the violation that Indra would face becoming manifold.

250 Unlike in the Ellamma-Adisakti’s myth that Shulman discusses (1980, 241-3), in this hi-story the three gods are not born from her “directly,” but from the sacrifice

(sacrificial ritual) that she performs. More than the “incestuous lust” of the mother for her sons, what seems to bother the sons is her “power;” since she created them, and the fear that perhaps she might even destroy them. “Men never want be under the control of women,” another hi-story-teller specifically states (see hi-story seven). What does the story suggest when the masculine sex asks the goddess to surrender her originary generative site, her eye? It does not suffice to say that the Trimurti are afraid of her power which is symbolized by her eye. It does not suffice if one identifies this power as the power of a virgin. The story points out that the Trimurti are afraid of the goddess’s power in its specific modality, namely her autonomous power to herald creation all by herself.

Their demand for her eye is their demand for a role in creation. The Trimurti achieve their demand, and their achievement also enunciates a shift from creation from one, that is from the mother, to reproductive heterosexuality. The instantiation of the reproductive heterosexuality is, thus, articulated as a necessary consequence of, as well as “punitive justice” for, the sexual desire of the mother. As a necessary consequence, the feminine subject is enabled and “intelligibly” constituted through its position or place in the reproductive heterosexual matrix. As “punitive justice,” the reproductive heterosexual matrix is set to regulate the feminine subject positioned or placed in it.

The first mother loses her valuable eye for the sake of her desire. Siva who has gotten the eye from her does not give himself to her. Another hi-story (hi-story seven) puts it straight: “Siva cheated her.” In fact, according to this hi-story, the Trimurti burnt down the mother. In this story of our discussion, Siva makes the mother be born through

251 a sacrificial fire, again suggesting the act of burning. The goddess is made to be born through a sacrificial ritual, similar to how Siva is created by the mother. With this new birth of the goddess due to the mandate of the male god, the autogenetic creation of the mother, the first being in the universe as per this story, is rendered obsolete. The goddess

Parvathi, who is born from the sacrificial fire, is born into the heterosexual matrix.

Yet, Siva unsuccessfully tries to evade this newly born feminine subject Parvathi and marries her reluctantly. The eye, which is projected as the originary generative site and agency, is taken away from the mother. Yet, it seems that its memory continues to haunt Siva. The narrator says that women should wear dots on their foreheads to cover the scar, where the eye is plucked. The trace of the absent object directs the instinct of fear to another object, the vagina, associated with the eye. The vagina, in its being open and globular, is metaphorically associated with the eye, and, with its contiguous arrangement with the eye, is metonymically linked with it. The vagina, thus, does not constitute a “lack,” as modern psycho-analytic theories articulate; rather, it assumes a discursive position of a remainder that reminds one of the originary generative site--the eye of the goddess. The fear of the male gods is, thus, not one of castration that “the figural enactment of female” represents; rather, it is one of the perceived autonomous potential of creation that a female figure embodies. This story offers a radical understanding of chastity. From the story, we get that the discursive norm of chastity is actually a mechanism in disguise of the prohibitive and regulatory heteronormative power to control the autonomous creative potential of the feminine.

The story is one of revenge (pazhi). That is how the narrator worded it. The story of revenge helps to understand the epithet “vengeful Mari” in the Mariyamman Lullaby.

252 After her reluctant marriage while she was in the form of Parvathi, the goddess is again reborn as Renuka. Jamadagni punishes her for violating the norm of chastity. In a version of Renuka’s story, which is recorded by Meyer (1986, 15-16) at Melmalaiyanur, which is again near Gingee, the “eye” reappears. Expectedly, the “eye” is not that of Renuka but on the forehead of Jamadgani (who is an incarnation of Siva). Let me cite excerpts from the story:

One day, the Amman (Renuka) went as usual to the tank to scoop up water. At that moment, a Gandharva by name Kattaviriyarjunan flew by above. As she collected the water and looked at the fish, she saw the Gandharva and thought: “How is it possible that such a beautiful person could have been created.” At that moment she lost her chastity (karpu). Jamadagni knew by means of the eye on his forehead that Renuka had lost her faithfulness and, decided not let this pass unpunished. (Meyer 15)

The “eye” possessed by Jamadagni provides him “knowledge” of Renuka’s failure in “maintaining” her chastity. The “eye” represents the regulatory masculinist gaze on the feminine body and occasions the punitive action of beheading. But the story does not end with the splitting and rejoining of Renuka’s bodies. The reconstituted

Mariyamman avenges herself and throws pearls of poxes on the Trimurti and other gods.

At Panrutti Padaiveettamman temple, I gathered a hi-story, which delineates

Mariyamman’s throwing pearls of poxes on the Trimurti and male gods. A talented utukkai singer called Sundaramurthy shared with me this fascinating story. I will first present it and then analyze it:

Hi-story Seven

From Beheading to Burns to Boils to Boon

This is Kaliyugam. Yama’s rule does not prevail in this age. Now Mariyamman’s head plays the role of Yama. Do you know, besides ammai, 4448 diseases have their leader as Mariyamman? Why has Mother

253 become like that? If we need to know that, we should go into her previous history. It was she who created the Trimurti-- Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. But the Trimurti took revenge on her. Men never want to be under the control of a woman. It was so in her case too. Siva even got her precious third eye and cheated her. The Trimurti burnt her with the eye. In order to bring Brahma, Vishnu and Siva under her control, the goddess took the form of Makamayi (Mariyamman). Renuka’s story is Makamayi’s story.

Makamayi has only a head. You know it. When Renuka was born, she was born out of an intermingling of races (inamarram). Her father was a Vedic Brahman called Bhagavan. Her mother Ati was a Paraiyar woman. To these two, Renuka was born. Bhagavan wanted to produce a deity (teyvam)42 from the power earned by his tapas. He was doing his tapas in a dark forest and the tapas was about to end. Where he was doing tapas, there was a river. Suddenly it rained heavily and the river started swelling. Some people were with their cattle that were grazing. On seeing the flood, they ran away. A girl was left behind and she went into the hut of a washerman to escape the rain. Just then, the Brahmin rishi came by the river bank. He had just got a boon as reward for his tapas, that a deity could be produced by him within a certain period of time that is three and a three-quarterth of a nazhikai (a measure of time). He was getting upset that the boon would go to waste since he could not find a girl. On seeing him, the girl called him inside. He refused to do so telling her, “I am a Brahmin. You belong to a “lowly made” (tazhttappatta) caste. I need to produce a deity shortly.” The girl insisted, “Join me. You can come out of your meditative silence (nishtai).” The rain also intensified. So he took this girl as his wife. In that night itself, a child was born to them and they named her Renuka.

Renuka was well brought up. Even when she was five years old, Renuka was devoted to Siva. As she attained a marriageable age, she was married to Jamadagni. The couple gave birth to four sons. Parasurama was one of their sons. Due to a previous curse, Renuka was beheaded by their son Parasurama. Eventually, when Parasurama wanted to bring his mother back to life, Renuka’s body and a cobbler’s woman’s body got interchanged. Parasurama inadvertently joined his mother’s head with the cobbler woman’s body. Renuka meditated on the fire god Agni (Agni dhyanam) since a “lowly made” (tazhttappatta) body had been joined to her head. Fire blackened her face, and due to this she got the name Karumari (“Black Mari”). Boils erupted all over her body due to the power of the fire. Thus, ammai first came upon the mother. She tried various remedies to cure the boils but nothing worked. Finally, when she plucked some margosa leaves, made them into a paste, and applied them over the boils, it helped her a little, but the boils did not subside. That which we see as the anthill came forth only due to the pearls that the

42 “Teyvam” is a gender-neutral Tamil word.

254 goddess had had (puttu varathe ammanukku irukkara muttu taan). The body of the mother, since it belonged to a lowly made caste, had been buried in the earth. The mother asked the Trimurti, “How can I take care of this worldly kingdom?” They gave her a basket of 4448 diseases and a basket of pearls. On getting the basket of pearls, the mother took a handful of pearls and threw them over the Trimurti. Then she put them over Yama, the god of death. They were all suffering and the pearls that they had did not go away despite all the remedies they tried.

Then, for the first time, the goddess spoke through Yama’s wife: “Do you know who I am? I am Mariyamman, the god (teyvam) of the age of Kali (kaliyugam). You should worship only me in this age. No one should even blame Yama when someone dies.” The four gods then asked the goddess to take her pearls away. She, in turn, asked them to offer her gruel. They prepared gruel and offered it to her. Even now, when someone is affected by ammai, he cannot eat. He can only swallow gruel. Mariyamman also demanded that Yama should build her the first temple. Yama agreed and built her the first temple. It was in the place now called Samayapuram. The four gods also requested the mother not to throw such strong pearls upon the foreheads or throats of human beings, as she had thrown upon them. She agreed. But even now, when one gets pearls of ammai upon the forehead or in the throat, no one can save him. Her pearls are that powerful.

If gods have suffered due to her pearls, how much suffering would we, the human beings, have? In order to escape ammai and such suffering, we put cetal (piercing pins) into our bodies. There is a line in Mariyamman Lullaby: “(As) Her chariot runs at the crown (or noon) and (as) the cetal of blood moves.” The cetal created with a hook, hung from the above, piercing the back of a person (“hook-swinging”), and suspending him in air is called the “cetal of blood.” When the goddess enters us, she enters our blood appearing as pustules of ammai. No pearl of ammai is a pearl of our skin. They do not relate to our skin. Pearls come up from the prime root bone (ani ver elumbu) in our body. From inside, they come up as an anthill (ulliruntu putta varum).

(told by Sundaramurthy)

This hi-story articulates the revenge of the goddess. Trimurti obtain her eye in hi- story six; in this hi-story, Mariyamman gets a basket of pearls of ammai from them. One can note a contradiction here: even before the Trimurti hand over to her a basket of pearls

255 of poxes, she already has ammai. In that case, how can the pearls of ammai, given by the

Trimurti, be considered as a boon?

In the narratives which speak of the goddess being afflicted with ammai, the boils that the goddess suffers turn into ammai pustules (as in hi-story seven). In some other narratives, the goddess is not afflicted by ammai, but she has boils. A close-reading of these narratives shows that the boils are an index of heteronormative power in the name of chastity. In some narratives, Renuka wants to become a “Sati” as her husband dies. As

Renuka enters the fire, the male gods send rains and she emerges from the fire with boils

(hi-stories one and two). In other narratives, Renuka simply burns her body by meditating on fire with the intention of destroying her body (hi-stories four and seven). According to the narratives, she does this because her body belongs to a “low caste” woman. At the same time, the destruction of the body can also be interpreted as an act of obliteration of the body from the scene. When Renuka-Mari’s body is burnt by fire (either through her

Sati when she enters the fire or through meditation upon the god of fire), with this bodily damage, the working of prohibitive sexual economy is guaranteed forever.

Thus one constant motif in the stories is that of “boils,” which the goddess gets on burning her body. The burning of the goddess’s body is either preceded by the boon- giving act of male gods or it is followed by it. Further, even if the goddess gets the boon of pearls before being subjected to burning, as in hi-story two, there is a lapse of time before she effectively exercises it upon others as Mariyamman. That is, she effectively gets established as the goddess of poxes only after she has boils.43

Hi-story one: Renuka enters the fire (sati), Siva’s boon of pearls

43 This observation stems from the versions of Renuka’s story that I gathered. There may be different versions too.

256 Hi-story two: Jamadagni’s boon of pearls, Renuka enters the fire (sati).

Hi-story three: Sukanikai burns the body of Asvini Devas (one can recall

that Sukanikai operates perfectly within the frugal sexual economy)

Hi-story four: Renuka meditates on fire, burns her body. In a story

sequential to this, Renuka is born as Uyirmari, performs tapas, and obtains

the boon of pearls from Siva.44

Hi-story five: Mariyamman does tapas for Siva, a garland is thrown on her

by Siva.

Hi-story five might appear to vary, but it does not. In hi-story five, Siva’s throwing a garland amounts to his granting a boon, because when Mariyamman throws that garland over Siva, he is afflicted with poxes. The boon of pearls amounts to an exteriorization of poxes, or their metaphorical equivalent, boils, from the body of Renuka, which are handed back to her. This act of exteriorization resembles the act of Siva, who obtains the eye from the “first” mother. But there is a difference: while the plucked eye is not returned to the mother, the exteriorized boils-poxes are given back to Mariyamman by the male god/s. The boon of pearls appears to be a patriarchal act of recognition for the working of the feminine within the frugal sexual economy. The accumulated sexual resource of the feminine, which is exteriorized and given back as a boon, becomes the power of the goddess. It is the power to afflict that the goddess is said to wield.

There seems to be another underlying theme too. The hi-stories present a story of the goddess who hosts the power of affliction in the place of her lost power of autonomous creation. Yet poxes are not merely affliction. Being perceived as a multitude

44 See hi-story nine in the next chapter.

257 of eyes, poxes still allude to the goddess’s autonomous creative potential.45 Perceived as a cultivated field, an ammai-afflicted body and ammai--that is, the field of the body and the seed that grows there--are both identified with Mariyamman.46 Nonetheless, in the hi- stories, the seed as pearls of ammai is represented as a boon given by the male gods. The demand of the male gods for a participatory role in the creation, articulated subtly in the story of the eye, manifests emphatically (and strangely?) in the stories of the boon of pearls given to Renuka. In other words, the regime of reproductive heterosexuality is reinforced as a figure of affliction.

There is one hi-story, a hi-story of Sukanikai, in which the image of the boon finds its inversion as an offering. But the hi-story nevertheless ascertains the functioning of prohibitive sexual economy. When the goddess afflicts the Asvini Devas, the prohibitive sexual economy is in operation. The male gods Asvini Devas in turn give

Sukanikai’s husband his youthful form as an offering. But again when this economy is disrupted by the couple’s “enjoyment,” Sukanikai is killed and separated from her husband. In other words, the “offering” is taken away.

Conclusion

This chapter has contested the notion of the feminine body as a locus of the power of chastity. Located within the feminine body, chastity establishes a frugal sexual economy as a normative condition for women. The notion of the power of chastity suggests that functioning within a frugal sexual economy and accumulation of sexual resource thereby can produce miraculous or extraordinary phenomena. These phenomena are mobilized as supporting evidence to the argument that a feminine body is an

45 See our discussion in Chapter Four about the conception of poxes as eyes. One can recall the epithet of the goddess: “The thousand-eyed one.” 46 See Chapter Four for a discussion on the feminine “seed” and “field.”

258 immanent locus of this power. Failure to function within such an economy brings in punitive retribution such as beheading. In the narratives of the goddess, where one comes across such retribution, the reconstitution of the goddess takes place. After ensuring that the reconstituted goddess functions within an absolute frugal sexual economy, she is recognized with a boon of power to afflict with poxes.

The chapter argues that it is the “reiterating acts” of heteronormative power, in both juridical (regulatory and prohibitive) and productive modes, that regulates, prohibits and produces the feminine body as a locus of chastity. As a regulatory power, it regulates the feminine body within a reproductive, patrilinial economy in the name of chastity. As a prohibitive power, it forestalls feminine sexual activity by installing virginity and separation from the spouse. But the power of chastity not only acts in its juridical capacity. In its simultaneous reiterating acts as a productive power, it constitutes the feminine subject within a heterosexual matrix. As a material effect of the “reiterating acts” of productive heternonormative power, the “chaste” feminine subject as the goddess is perpetually produced co-extensively with its other effects that often take the form of miraculous phenomena. In the hi-stories that we discussed above, when the perpetual materialization of the power into its effects fails (for instance, when the pot in Renuka’s hands cannot hold the water anymore), or when there is no occasion for the materializing of miraculous phenomena (as in the case of Sukanikai who “enjoys” life with her husband in the latter part of her hi-story), the goddess is not only deprived of her goddess-hood, but she is also killed. The feminine subject is thereby obliterated from the narrative. The goddess is then reconstituted as a deity possessing the power of affliction of poxes within and through the prohibitive heteronormative power. The figure of

259 Mariyamman, as I have discussed, embodies the operational modalities of heteronormative power in both its regulative and prohibitive modalities. The puberty ceremony celebrated for girls in Tamilnadu has guided us to theorize the functioning of the heteronormative power in its two modalities in the Tamil context.

The goddess, who suffers beheading, burning and poxes, is the object-site, which is constituted by “a reiterating act” of the heteronormative power. At the same, she is also constituted as a subject-agent who exercises her power to afflict others with poxes and measles. The suffering body of the goddess in the narrative forges a way for the identification of an ammai-afflicted human body with the goddess. At the same time, the afflicting power “exercised” by the goddess over other gods (as in hi-story seven and some other hi-stories that we will explore in the next chapter) installs her as a deity with eminent authority over others’ bodies.

260 Chapter Six

Body Body Everywhere: Impaled Son, Burnt Husband and Others

Section I

Introduction to Mariyamman Festivals: “Force Relations” and Bodies-nodes

The Rolling Eye

The hi-story of the eye of the goddess that I analyzed in the last chapter provides a chain of actions of mutilation and revenge. The “first” mother trades her eye for the sake of her desire and the scar of her loss is inscribed in all women. Unsuccessful in quenching her desire, the mother takes a new birth as Parvathi and manages to marry the still reluctant Siva. In her next birth as Renuka, Siva, born as Jamadagni, beheads her.

Finally, the reconstituted goddess Mariyamman avenges herself on Siva and other male gods by afflicting them with smallpox. Hi-story eight, which will be discussed soon, also refers to Mariyamman’s afflicting the male gods.

Recalling the associations of eyes with ornamental pearls as well as pustules, and the holes of an anthill (see Chapter Four), one can immediately conceive that in avenging the loss of one eye, the goddess bestows several eyes in the form of pearls of poxes.

Moreover, as I mentioned earlier, the eye also has a metaphoric and metonymic association with the vagina. Along with the associated images such as eyes, holes, the vagina, and pearls, the image of the egg is brought forth in one version. In a version of hi- story six, which I gathered in Chennai, the mother gives birth to the Trimurti by hatching an egg that she, in the form of a snake, has laid. In another version of the hi-story, it is

261 again the “fairest of her thousand eggs,” which is taken away from the mother by the

Trimurti (Shulman 1980, 472-73 n. 265).

The association between the eye, vagina and egg brings to mind the “metaphoric trajectory” of eye, vagina, and egg in the Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille (1987). It is as if the plucked eye rolled over the body-spaces of victims of the goddess’s revenge, leaving its traces along the path that it draws on their bodies, with the traces emerging as new eyes. It is as if the eye-object, shifted from its place, maps its own course of revenge on bodies of the male gods by planting itself incessantly along its course, mushrooming into a multitude. The eye, dissociated from its “original” function of autonomous creation, becomes an index of affliction.

In a combined reading of the two hi-stories six and seven, one can discern two metaphoric chains that allow a shift of elements between them. These chains are similar to what Roland Barthes (1972, 239-248) detects in Bataille’s Story of the Eye.1 First, there is a paradigmatic chain of “substitutive” objects: eye, boils, holes, pearls, and pustules, similar in their “globular shape.” Secondly, there is another paradigmatic chain of bodily states marked by plucking, beheading, burning, affliction, piercing (of needles in the cetal vow), which are similar because they all entail suffering in some way. The two chains also relate with each other in a syntagmatic way. A sign from one chain could relate to a sign from another chain: the eye is plucked, burning causes boils, pustules indicate affliction etc. Furthermore, as Barthes demonstrates in his analysis of Bataille’s text, occasionally the signs from the two chains interlink in unexpected ways (like the eyes that urinate in Bataille’s text) forming “radical” syntagmatic extensions. For example, in hi-story seven, the boils that the goddess has turn into pustules, from which

1 Martin Jay has succinctly summarized Barthes’s analysis of Bataille’s text (1993, 220-21).

262 the anthill emerges. Descriptions such as “eyes of an ammai-arrived body” or “pearls embedded in an ammai-afflicted body” are frequent (see Chapter Four). Similarly, descriptions of “eyes” and “pearls” making up the anthill also persist. The syntagmatic chains thus available in the discourses introduce a reader to a rich imaginative repertoire of the body.

From Symbol to State

Construction of such paradigmatic, metaphoric chains and the exploration of the syntagmatic relations between the elements of the chains, however, will not help in comprehending the visualization of one bodily state as another. For instance, how are different states—by “state” I mean a certain condition—such as an afflicted bodily

“state,” an earthly habitat of serpents, and a form of landscape—instituted as imagistic representations of each other in the discursive practices of the goddess?2 In Chapter Four,

I explored the association between these states and argued that these states share an iconic cultural imaginary. A genealogical analysis of the identification of the ammai- afflicted body helped me to argue that the conventional feminine identification of the anthill and of the cultivated field facilitates the identification of the afflicted body as the feminine, and leads to an eventual instantiation of the feminine as a superior force acting in an eminent plane. The feminine that marks the ammai-afflicted body and controls the afflicted body from an eminent place can be any force. But the discursive practices name and identify the eminent force as Mariyamman. The practices forge the correspondence of the ammai-afflicted body with the anthill and cultivated field, pin down the force as

Mariyamman, and regard these states as Mariyamman. As readers can recall, in my

2 I get this sense of “state” as a condition as well as a mode of being from Foucault’s The Order of Things (1970) although Foucault has not defined “state” as such.

263 analysis, I drew extensively from the discursive practices of the goddess Mariyamman, especially from her songs like Mariyamman Lullaby, temple legends and temple festival performances like “growing sprouts.”

First, I want to point out that these are not the only states; there are certain other states, such as the karakam, the body in which the goddess “arrives” as “possession” or arul, the fire-pot, and the thousand-eyed pot etc, which figure in the habitual performative practices at the home and at the temple, which are considered to be the goddess Mariyamman. Such consideration is akin to what Appadurai notes with respect to the lingam: he points out the lingam does not merely ‘conventionally’ represent Siva, but in some sense it is Siva. Bringing this to our notice in his response to Ferro-Luzzi’s article on the “female lingam” (1980, 54), Appadurai suggests that we shift our attention from symbolic signs to an order of “states,” and reminds us of the predominance in

“Hindu thought” of the “transformability of certain states” rather than the

“interchangeability of certain meanings.” 3 Further, he observes that in constituting this

“order,” Hindu thought is more biased towards indexical signs than to symbolic signs, which is pertinent to my discussion in this chapter.

In interpreting the ethnographic sources, I too have found the paradigm of symbol to be unhelpful. A “symbol” represents a “universal” and is tied to this “universal” by virtue of this representing function. In lieu of its “universal-marking,” the meaning- making is always already programmed within the symbol. The “function of the symbol

(its ideologeme) exists prior to the actual symbolic statement,” argues Julia Kristeva

([1970]1986). A symbol’s ‘conventionally’ rooted function can restrict a scholar from

3 I have already suggested the dynamics of “transformability of states,” as proposed by Appadurai, in the discourses of the shrines of the goddess (see the discussion on transformability from oozing pustule to milk or blood or both to female seed to divine head in Chapter Four).

264 exploring other meaning-making possibilities. Biardeau’s reworking of the Vedic sacrificial post is a fine example of this restriction. Biardeau interprets the discursive practices in Mariyamman temples, deploying the symbol of the Vedic sacrificial post or yupa. She observes that the symbol of the Vedic sacrificial post is “splintered,” reallocating the symbolic element of the Vedic sacrifice at the “center” of the village and the actual violence of Vedic sacrifice in the form of impalement post and needle-piercing at the “periphery” (2004). Such a reading disregards how the impalement post or needle- piercing or their interconnections are staged in “local” discursive practices of

Mariyamman. Furthermore, as Kristeva observes, the symbol functions restrictively in a

“vertical dimension” due to its “universal-markings” (64-5) and this vertical dimension of a symbol makes one overlook the metonymic interconnection between states.

The discursive practices of the goddess in the contexts of both the home and the temple underscore the “transformability of states.” The notion of “transformability of bodily states” facilitates substitutive interlinking as well as a continuity between the states that materialize as the goddess in the discursive practices at the temple festival and the discursive practices followed at an ammai-afflicted home. And, this “transformability of bodily states” is grounded very much in the narratives of Mariyamman and ammai. In fact, hi-stories of Renuka-Mariyamman foreground the transformability of bodily states.

For example, consider hi-story seven, in which an ammai-afflicted body is one such state, when Renuka’s body is beheaded. The body is then reconstituted with her head and a different torso. Subjected to burns, the decapitated body turns into a charred body. The charred body soon turns into an ammai-afflicted body, and then into an anthill.

Mariyamman gets a boon of pearls. The transformability of the goddess’s body gets

265 reconfigured as the transformability of the bodies of others. The bodies of the Trimurti and Yama turn into ammai-afflicted bodies, fore-running the ammai-affliction of humans.

The ammai-affliction of the Trimurti, and subsequently of humans, brings about the body that undertakes the cetal vow or the needle-piercing.

I would like to note that in the context of Mariyamman worship, the “states” that we encounter in the discursive practices are mostly bodily states that are marked with the

“presence” of the goddess. The corporeal “presence” of the goddess could either be in the form of “arul” (“arrival” of the goddess materializing as the body as she is during a festival event), or it could articulate or allude to ammai or it could be both. I shall discuss the corporeal “presence” of the goddess as “arul” in the next chapter. This chapter’s prerogative will be the bodily states that allude to or articulate ammai. Some of these states that we are going to come across in this chapter are: a wooden post as a body that has suffered boils or that has been afflicted with ammai; a pot of sprouts that is addressed as an ammai-afflicted body; a body pierced with rods that is described in terms of a smallpox-afflicted body; a pot with water, which is visualized as an ammai-afflicted body; and an impalement that grows out of an anthill, which alludes to the ammai- afflicted body, etc.

Prima facie, I propose that the discursive practices of the goddess, both at the temple and at the ammai-afflicted house, carve out a field of power as “force relations” in which bodies emerge as nodes and traverse all along them. On the one hand, these emerging and traversing bodies-nodes foreground or identify with the goddess as a sovereign power. On the other hand, these bodies-nodes foreground or identify with the subject that is governed by or subjected to the sovereign goddess. I should say here that

266 these identifications do not preclude each other and rather these are both mutually conditioning and mutually materializing of each other. Let me introduce some examples here to explain this: During the administration of the debt vow, say needle-piercing, ideally it is required that the goddess manifests or arrives upon the body. Only as the materialization of the body as the goddess takes place, is the needle pierced. The needle- piercing as a vow, which is undertaken by a person in his capacity as a devotee or subject to the sovereign goddess, is thus performed when his body materializes as the goddess.

Or take a similar debt vow of the impalement stake that we will see later in this chapter.

The person ascends the tall stake in a condition of trance as the goddess has arrived in him. Or consider the instance of ammai. As we shall see in the last chapter of this work, during local healing of poxes, where the goddess is asked to shower compassion, an ammai-afflicted body is addressed as the goddess, while invoking her as the goddess of famous, “powerful” temples elsewhere.

On the one hand, a body materializing as the goddess during arul and during ammai is a body that attests to her power (of “presence”) at an immanent level. On the other, there is a sovereign body of the goddess toward which the vow is taken or prayed to by a “subject.” When I theorize this, one cannot help bringing Foucault to mind. Citing

Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Foucault (1977, esp. 28-9) talks of the double body of the King in the juridical medieval theology. The King has a sovereign body or his sovereignty itself is his body, which “remains unchanged in time” (28). At the same time, the King has a

“transitory body” which is perishable (1977, 28). However, interestingly the Queen

Mariyamman’s body that we are talking about is embedded in a different set of conceptions. As Europe ushered into the modern era, with the sovereign power of the

267 King dismantling and disappearing, the King’s body has found its double in the

“symmetrical, inverted figure of the King,” which is the body of the “condemned man.”

“As the product of its own reality,” the “subjected body” has given rise to the “modern soul” (Dumm 2002, 82-3).

Unlike the King’s body of the medieval age, which “has” the sovereign power and the condemned body as its double body consecutively, Queen Mariyamman’s body “is” the sovereign power and the body of her subject simultaneously. One can say, queen

Mariyamman does not have a double body, but rather, she herself is a double body. That explains her being the site(-object) of affliction/suffering and the (sovereign-)agent of affliction/suffering. She is both at the same time. The discursive practices either foreground the double body or emphasize one of these bodies, while presenting another as subtle, or articulating one of the bodies as an allotrope.4

In theorizing discursive practices of the goddess as a field of power, I draw from

Foucault, as I already discussed (See Introduction). According to Foucault, the discursive field is constituted by power in the form of force relations, and it is discourse that “transmits and produces power” (1978, 101-102). 5 The particular set of “force relations” I will be drawing attention to in this chapter is that of sexuality and gender. As we will soon find, the “force relations” of caste order go along with the agenda of heteronormative power. To ground my analysis, I will present an account of festival events at selective Mariyamman temples along with the narratives of Mariyamman.

4 The discursive practices pertaining to Renuka-Mariyamman belong to the first type of articulation. Those pertaining to Uyirmari and Kattavarayan pertain to the second and those that speak of the burnt and expelled “husband-post” of Mariyamman belong to the third. We will be reading about Uyirmari, Kattavarayan and the “husband-post” in the present chapter. 5 Further, according to Foucault, the discourses are not just “groups of signs (signifying elements referring to contents or representations) but as practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak” (1972, 49). The productive dimension of the power of discursive practices in constituting and enabling the subject is underscored in this observation of Foucault.

268 Connections between the contexts of ammai and festival will also be explored alongside to point out continuity in the discursive practices of these contexts.

Sites of Field Research

Unlike the worship of Ankalaparamecuvari (Meyer 1986) and Draupadi

(Hiltebeitel 1988; 1991), Mariyamman worship is not highlighted by a specific core area.

In Tamilnadu, Mariyamman is popularly worshipped in almost all areas. Yet, her hi- stories and festivals differ from place to place. What I intend to do in this chapter is to focus on three selective areas of Mariyamman temple sites in Tamilnadu. The varying discursive practices in these areas, in roping in the theme of ammai, produce the goddess in distinct ways. Let me explicate this. In the first area, say North and Northwest

Tamilnadu, the goddess Renuka-Mariyamman is both the site and agent of pox-affliction, as foregrounded in hi-story seven in the last chapter. In this area, which basically comprises Chennai, Chengelpet, Tindivanam and Villupuram towards the Southwest, extending in the West to Vellore and Dharmapuri, and including up to Puducherry (or

Pondicherry) in the South, Mariyamman’s festival is celebrated in the popular name of

Ati festival (“festival of the [Tamil] Ati month, which falls in July-August), notwithstanding the fact that sometimes the festival extends to the Tamil month of Avani

(August-September). The discursive practices that constitute the Ati festival in the temple sites in these areas are organized around Renuka-Mariyamman. From

Puducherry onwards if we go further south down to Perambalur and Trichy, the discursive practices foreground Uyirmari or Muttumari, who is considered to be the younger sister of Renuka. With Renuka disappearing from the scene of practices, the goddess as a site of pox-affliction is reworked into the goddess as a site of ascetic

269 meditation or tapas. With the eminent authority of the goddess over others’ bodies in the form of affliction made more emphatic, the goddess’s power of affliction is explicitly broadened into the power of arbitration in matters concerning social and caste order. On a complementary plane, the affliction of poxes is reworked into punishment in the form of the impalement stake for the errant. We encounter a new character named Kattavarayan in the discursive practices in these areas. In further Western Tamilnadu, that is, in areas such as Salem, Coimbatore, the Nilgiris and Erode, the discursive practices produce the goddess as the supreme agent of affliction and punishment. A different figure in the form of the goddess’s husband is produced as a victim-site of such affliction (or its metaphorical equivalent “boils”), and the death of her husband is administered by the goddess. The victim-site is presented in the discursive practices in the form of a post in front of the shrine of Mariyamman. This ultimate disjunction between the agent and the site consolidates the notion between “good” and “bad” pearls of poxes, the former as a routine play of the goddess and the latter causing the death of a person. Along with these three areas, I discuss one more Mariyamman temple from further South at Dindigul, where the victim-site is further split into two— a man, who is punished at an impalement stake and yet saved, alluding to a condition of “good” poxes, and a woman, who becomes an embodiment of “bad” poxes and waits for a chance to kill humans.

The choice of these field areas is arbitrary. Tamilnadu is a vast area and

Mariyamman is worshipped in every village and every town. Further, my work draws from selective temples in these three areas, although I have referred to discursive practices in other areas such as Kamudi, Melur, Tirupuvanam and Pudukkottai to throw light on the path of my analysis. (See map 1, for the temple sites that I refer to in this

270 work often.) One thread that connects and binds the materials is the consistent association of the goddess Mariyamman with ammai, which is enacted and reiterated through the discursive practices available in all these areas. Although Mariyamman is much more than a goddess of poxes, these distinct enactments and reiterations specially characterize her worship practices. In my analysis of the discursive practices, particularly I follow the trope of the body which is marked with and materializes with pain-infliction in the form of debt vow and/or festival enactment such as pin-piercing (cetal vow), impalement stake

(kazhumaram/kazhu), and burns (a festival element as the “husband-post” of

Mariyamman).

Let me discuss, at the outset, the disparate names of Mariyamman, which we will come across in this chapter. I will be discussing goddesses, who either have the term

Mari in their names or who have hi-stories that belong to the repertoire of Mariyamman’s well-known hi-stories prevailing in that area. Another basis for my discussion would be that all such goddesses are those who are specially worshipped for the ammai. For example, Mariyamman is known as Padaiveettamman (“the mother from Padaiveedu”):

Padaiveedu (or Padavedu) is a place where Renuka is believed to have settled down first, after she gets the body of a woman of the “lower” caste; Periyapalaiyattamman (“the mother from Periyapalayam”): Periyapalayam is a village located north of Chennai and here too, Renuka’s hi-story appears as the hi-story of the goddess, and the goddess

Periyapalayattamman is so popular that we have several temples named after her in North

Tamilnadu. Karumariyamman (“mother dark-mari”), again, has Renuka’s hi-story as her background, and her name is derived from the colors of the cobra and the clouds. All these goddesses are specially worshipped for ammai too.

271 There is a rich story on Mariyamman’s “throwing pearls” of ammai on male gods.

The story delineates habitual practices that are to be followed during ammai, such as hanging of margosa leaves at the entrance, distribution of rice with jaggery to kids, sexual restraint during the period of affliction etc. At the same time this story also gives an account of the institution of certain important practices at Mariyamman festival, such as gruel-pouring, cooking pongal, sacrifice of animals like goats, hens and buffaloes, and taking out a street-procession of Mariyamman on her mounts, and connects these practices with ammai. As a sequential story to the story of Renuka’s beheading, this story of “throwing pearls” is sometimes recited during Mariyamman festivals in North

Tamilnadu and Puducherry. The version that I present here was told by Gnanaraj at

Puducherry. After citing this story, I shall also give an outline of the Ati festival of

Mariyamman. As remarked by Velmurugan, the utukkai singer at Ulundurpet, the Ati festival is celebrated for “Utalmari” or “the body-transformed one.”

Hi-story Eight: Mariyamman Throws Pearls Renuka, the chaste wife of Jamadagni, lit up a separate funeral pyre and entered it after her husband’s death. But since she had to take an abode in this world as Mariyamman, Vishnu ordered Varuna (a god in charge of rain) to quench the fire and she got up from the pyre unharmed. Since all her clothes were destroyed by fire, she plucked some margosa leaves and covered herself with them. As she was walking, washermen who were washing their clothes saw her burns and gave her a piece of white cloth stained with turmeric. That is why yellow cloth is a favorite of Mariyamman. The women gave her gruel mixed with curd. Since they did not want to give her the gruel in their vessels, they gave it in a coconut shell.

Our mother came to drink the gruel given to her in a coconut shell Yes, in a coconut shell She came to drink the gruel, into which flies have fallen, Yes, to our place

272 Mother was satisfied and she told them that she would be born as their daughter in the future and disappeared from there.

Farmers who were harvesting in their fields saw the mother coming by their fields. They took raw rice, powdered it and gave it to her to eat. They also broke open the three-eyed tender coconuts and gave her the coconut water to appease her thirst. Some of them gave her buttermilk and some others cooked the raw rice that they had to prepare white pongal (a dish made with rice) for her.

Then the mother realized that it was time for her to establish herself as Makamayi on this earth. So, she went to the “auspicious milk ocean” (Tirupparkkadal) of Narayanan (Vishnu) and took several types of pearls of poxes, kept them in a basket and was walking.

Since Mari did not know then about how to make the pearls descend from the body, she thought the person who gave her the boon of pearls would also know how to remove them. She went to Siva’s abode Kailasam and threw pearls over Siva. Siva’s unchanging body changed and fever attacked him. He could not even get up and on the third day after that appeared on Siva’s body from head to toe. Siva then saw Mari, with disheveled hair and wearing sacred ash and a yellow cloth, standing at the entrance of Kailasam. Siva asked her who she was and she replied that it was he who asked her to become Makamayi (Mari) and gave her the precious nine types of pearls. 6 Siva complained: “Ayyo, I gave you a boon, but you placed your hand upon the head of the boon-giver.” Mari explained to Siva that she threw the pearls upon him because she needed to know how to remove the pearls of ammai, Siva taught her how to remove the pearls: “Take the glorious margosa leaves. Mix them with turmeric, arukam grass, sacred ash and sand from the anthill. Apply it on the body with pearls. One should not scratch the body with nails when pearls of ammai appear. One should use only the stem of margosa to rub the body. If the itching becomes bearable, rice should be soaked in water, mixed with jaggery and the mixture should be distributed to kids. Then the itching sensation would go away.” 7 After giving these instructions, Siva asked Mari to take her pearls away and sang a song (my remark: the lines that Siva sings also form part of Mariyamman Lullaby which is sung to an ammai-afflicted person):

The pearl on the crown, make it descend, pure woman The pearl on the forehead, make it descend, straight-eyed woman The pearl on the face, make it descend, give priority to it, amma The pearl on the tongue, make it descend, heroine

6 Jamadagni gives her pearls in Hi-story Two. The narrative now makes explicit recognition of Jamadagni as Siva. 7 In Tamil, both itching and soaking are expressed by the Tamil term “ural.”

273 The pearl on the body, make it descend, mother ….

When Siva pleaded in this manner with Mari to remove the pearls, she removed them all by gently rubbing his body with a margosa branch. Siva was immensely happy and presented her with a trident. He also cooked pongal for her and offered it to her.

Mari then went to the netherworld and put pearls on the king of serpents called Aravaraja. Aravaraja, tormented by pearls, asked Mari: “I have been carrying this world on my shoulders. Why have you done this to me?” Mari replied to him that she did not spare even her husband Siva. Aravaraja requested her to remove the pearls and she removed them. He offered a goat sacrifice in her honor. Aravaraja also requested her that she should come in a procession sitting on the mount of the serpent on the fourth day of her festival.

Mari left for Indralokam and threw pearls upon Indra, the chief god of Devas. His wife Indrani served him food during his illness. Mari got enraged because if a man gets pearls, his wife should not even see his face. But Indrani did not know this and due to her folly, Indra felt the pearls of ammai giving him excruciating pain. When Indra understood what had happened, he pleaded with Mari: “Amma, you are my in-law in a way. Your son Murugan is married to my daughter Deyvanai. Why did you put pearls on me?” Mother said she had brought only good pearls of fortune for Indra. However, as Indra complained of the pain, Mari removed the pearls. Indra was happy and offered Iravatam, his elephant mount. In Mariyamman’s festival, the goddess mounts the elephant on the fifth day of her festival.

Then she went to Satyalokam. She threw her pearls on Brahma and Brahma told her: “I am already fatigued because of doing the work of creation. Why this additional trouble for me?” He pleaded with the goddess to remove her pearls. Mari removed them and he gifted his mount of the swan to the goddess. On this swan mount, Mari ascends on the sixth day of her festival. Mari also asked Brahma to enlist ammai as one of the 4448 diseases that affect the nervous system. 8 Brahma conceded to this demand.

Mari proceeded to Guberalokam and threw pearls on Guberan, the god of riches. Guberan wept and said: “Amma, I will give half of my wealth, remove the pearls.” Mari laughed: “For me, love (anbu) is important. I don’t care for your riches.” He complained of tortuous pain and the

8 Does this indicate ammai is a recent disease compared to various other nervous diseases? The narrative suggests so.

274 goddess showed mercy and removed the pearls. Guberan gifted his horse mount to the goddess. She uses that on the eighth day of her festivals.

Then she went to the abode of Yama, the god of death. She gave the most painful pearl “karumpanaivari” (literally it means “lines of black palmyra,” referring to a variety of ammai that looks like these lines) to Yama. Yama wept and rolled on the floor. Karumpanaivari pearls are dangerous. Ninety-five percent of those who get afflicted with those pearls will die. It is difficult to cure this ammai. When Yama got these pearls, he prayed to the goddess sincerely. The goddess removed them, and he gave a buffalo in sacrifice to her. He also offered her seven cartloads of gruel. Mari demanded that he should not visit the place where she is. Yama assured her that wherever he sees margosa leaves he would never turn his face in that direction. That is why during ammai, we hang margosa leaves upon the entrances to ward off Yama. Even Moslems and Christians hang those leaves for this reason.

Mari thought: “I have been giving pearls to everyone, but what about my sons? If I don’t give pearls to my children, people would say I am biased.” Led by this thought, she went to Murugan’s house and placed the smallest of pearls upon him with love (anbu). Murugan asked her: “I am your pet son. Why did you do this? Remove them.” Mari removed them and said: “Since I have put pearls upon you, from now on you will be called Muttukumaresan (the pearl-son of Siva?).” Muttukumaresan offered her a sacrifice of hen.

Mari knew that in order to get firmly established in this world, she needed the help of Kannan, her brother. She, therefore, visited him and knocked on the door of Vaikuntam (the abode of Kannan or Vishnu). Kannan wanted to avoid her and told his wife Lakshmi: “Mari is coming to put pearls on me. I will escape from her. Try to manage her somehow.” He disappeared. Mari entered and saw her sister-in-law Lakshmi lying on the bed. She asked her: “Anni (sister-in-law), what happened?” Lakshmi replied: “I have been having fever for the past one week.” Mari then asked: “Where is my brother?” Lakshmi said: “Who knows? He would be in some gopika’s (cowherd woman’s) house.”9 Mari understood that her brother had done some trickery and through magic she discovered where her brother was. She could see her brother running. Mari pursued him. At one point, Kannan took the form of a toad and hid himself under a small rock. Mari found him again. She took the strongest of all pearls and put them upon the rock. The rock melted and the pearls reached the toad. The toad shouted “Amma” in agony and came out of hiding. It started shouting and jumping. The pearls were tormenting Kannan (Vishnu). In agony, he spoke whatever came to his mind (One of Gnanaraj’s songs, in

9 In the stories of Krishna (an incarnation of Vishnu), he is always shown flirting with cowherd women.

275 this phase of the story, comprises the ‘nonsensical’ sentences of Kannan).10

Kannan beseeched the goddess to take away the pearls. Mari, in turn, asked him for a boon. He agreed. Mari then told him: ‘When my flag is hoisted, I should hear your name Govinda.” Kannan promised that it would be so and he also told her: “When your sakti karakam is decorated, I will come along with you. In some temples, I will come in the form of a pot called “govinda karakam.” When people tie sacred threads around their wrists and when the puja takes place at your temple, my name Govinda will be uttered.” Thus, Kannan gave a boon to Makamayi.

This is the story of Mariyamman’s settling down in her temples, bestowing upon devotees whatever boons they wish during days and nights, and playing with them to offer her grace.

Section II

Ati Festival

I will give an overview of the Ati festival, drawing from four temples, Devi

Karumariyamman temple at Tiruverkadu, Navagraha Nayagi Annai Karumariyamman

10 Whenever Gnanaraj tells this story, he would narrate how Vishnu in the form of toad jumped hither and whither aimlessly, shouting meaningless, but rhythmic sentences. He would sing a “folk” song to explain the mad frenzy that the toad is in. The song is utterly absurd. And whenever Gnanaraj sings the song, the audiences would laugh merrily. Tattala, puttala, tavakkala (frog/toad) To whom did you get married? I got married to rice measured for a single man, To cook the rice measured for a single man I don’t find a pot with drawings, I don’t find an accountant To put a seal on the pot with drawings, I don’t find an infant To awaken the accountant from his sleep, I don’t find a baby monkey To feed milk to the infant, I don’t find a sharp knife To cut the tail of the baby monkey, I don’t find a small house Where the sharp knife was inserted, I don’t find an oven of fire To burn the small house.

276 temple at Mugapper in Chennai, Sri Periyapalayattamman temple at Muthialpet in

Puducherry, and Sri Padaiveettamman temple at Panrutti.

The Mariyamman festival begins with the “binding of boundaries”

(ellaikkattutal). An earthen pot is taken to a water source. It is filled with water, with margosa leaves dipped in it. Called “ellaikkarakam,” this pot is then taken from the temple along the boundaries of the village (or, if the temple is located in a town, it is taken to the cardinal points in four directions) along with a sword and/or trident. At each of these points, the ellaikkarakam and the accompanying weapon/s stop. After attending to the four directions in this manner, the ellaikkarakam along with the weapons is brought to the temple of the goddess and it is kept inside the shrine of Mariyamman.

After binding the boundaries, on the same day or a few days after, depending upon the length of the festival period, the tying of kappu or a protective thread takes place. The protective wristlet is a thread soaked in turmeric paste, and sometimes has a piece of turmeric tied to it. The threads are tied on the wrists of the pucaris, of the person who will carry the sakti karakam, on the wrists of important temple functionaries such as trustees, and on the wrists of those who have undertaken debt-vows. In some

Mariyamman temples such as in Panrutti, before tying the thread, flag-hoisting takes place in the morning. The flag-hoisting announcing the commencement of the temple festival is not a regular feature followed in all Mariyamman temples. Mariyamman is said to have her “kolu” or “presence chamber” in the festival days, and her static and processional forms are decorated with much attention on these days.

During the festival, she is also taken out in an “auspicious street procession” (tiru viti ula) around the neighborhood on one or more days. In small temples such as the one

277 in Mugapper, the procession of the goddess is taken out on the second and third day of the festival. In bigger temples, the goddess goes on a procession for most of the festival; for instance, in Panrutti temple, from the third day to the ninth day of the festival, the goddess sets out on a procession along the four streets surrounding the temple, sitting upon various vahanas or mounts, such as a lion (cinkam), demon (bhutam), serpent

(nakam), swan (annam), elephant (yanai), bull (risaba) and horse (kutirai).

Intense activities commence at the temple with the invitation of Mariyamman as

Sakti in the form of a karakam. In the Ati festival, the sakti karakam is the most popular event drawing crowds of devotees to the temple. A pot, mostly earthen and sometimes of copper or brass, is taken to a water source, such as a nearby river or tank or well.

Vermillion powder and sandalwood paste are applied on it. Scaffolded with sticks of margosa and covered with bunches of flowers, the pot is “decorated” into a “karakam,” and is brought back as sakti karakam to the temple.

Sometimes, another karakam called “govinda karakam” accompanies the sakti karakam. As Mariyamman is invited as sakti karakam, Kannan or Vishnu, who is considered to be her brother, is invited as govinda karakam. In many temples, the karakam, is brought along with a weapon or weapons, such as a trident or sword or wooden pole, originally taken from the temple to the water source. In Muthialpet, the trident of the goddess is taken along with the sakti karakam. In Panrutti, an iron sword

(two and half a foot long and with an iron handle) is taken along to the river with the pot, to be brought back. In Mugapper, every year, a man with a long iron rod pierced through his cheeks goes ceremonially with the sakti karakam. Other devotees carrying out various debt-vows, like carrying fire-pots or rods pierced into their flesh, also accompany

278 him and the procession to the temple. The karakam/s and accompanying weapons are kept inside the sanctum at the temple until the last day of the festival.

An unmarried man from the locally dominant caste group is chosen to carry the sakti karakam. When there are many competitors to carry the karakam, the task is generally assigned by drawing from a lot. Before the decorated pot or the karakam is lifted, songs describing Mariyamman are sung with the utukkai (hourglass shaped drum) and pampai (double-barrel shaped drum) along with a cilampu (jingling anklet). The performance of singing with this set of instruments is called “utukkaippaatu” or “utukkai songs.” As the procession starts, a bigger drum, called a parai, also accompanies the procession. The parai drum player leads the procession, and the utukkai and pampai musicians are at the end of the procession along with the persons carrying the sakti karakam and weapon/s. If other musical instruments such as the nadaswaram (a percussion instrument) and tavil (another type of drum) are deployed for the occasion, which is rather rare, the musicians playing these instruments follow the player of the parai drum.

The procession is stopped at several points on the way. The feet of the man carrying the karakam are washed by women as a mark of respect and devotion. Camphor is lit and circulated in front of him, duly regarding him as a deity. After the sakti karakam is brought to the temple, it goes around the shrine and then is kept in front of the sanctum sanctorum. In Mariyamman temples such as in Panrutti and Muthialpet, a needle called cetal is pierced into the cloth that the Mariyamman idol wears. Soon, the cetal vow for devotees begin, with devotees piercing needles into their bodies.

279 Then gruel of grains such as ragi (finger millet) or kampu (pearl millet), or sometimes porridge, is kept in front of the karakam and is offered to the one who has carried the karakam. After this takes place, widows come forward to have the gruel, and then it is distributed among the devotees. The gruel-serving continues on specific days for a few more weeks in some temples depending upon the local sponsors of the event.

Among the festival events, gruel-serving generally draws a large number of devotees and it is so popular that it occasionally stands for the festival itself: utterances like “When is the gruel-serving in the Mariyamman temple?” mean “When is the festival in the

Mariyamman temple?” The festival comes to a close with the offering of kumbam, offering of cooked rice and dumplings served on big banana leaves, to the goddess. Soon the disarrangement of the sakti karakam takes place near a water source. The ellaikkarakam is again taken to the boundaries. Songs praising the guardian deities are sung, the posts erected are removed and the binding (of the boundaries) is severed. In some temples, as in Panrutti, sprinkling of turmeric or yellow water also marks the close of the festival.

In small temples, the festival is spread across three days, and the last day is marked for serving gruel. For example, at the Sri Periyapalayattamman temple in

Muthialpet on the first Friday of Ati month, the festival begins with tying boundaries. On the third day, which is the first Sunday of Ati month, the sakti karakam performance takes place and gruel is poured. In the Panrutti temple, the festival of the Tamil Ati month is planned in such a way that the tenth day, marked for sakti karakam and cetal vows, falls on the last Friday of the Tamil Ati month. Occasionally, the tenth day might also fall on the first Friday of the next Tamil month Avani. In some temples, the festival

280 goes on for several days or even weeks. For example, in the Tiruverkadu Devi

Karumariyamman temple, the “auspicious festival of the Ati month” (tiru Atittiruvizha) goes on for more than eight weeks. At this temple, after sakti karakam is invited, serving of gruel takes place on every Sunday throughout the festival.

Temples sometimes feature ‘special’ festival events. For instance, the anthill is given prominence and is adorned with flowers (purralankaram) at Tiruverkadu temple every Sunday during Ati festival. This is not the practice in the Mugapper and Muthialpet temples. At the same time, in the Panrutti temple, although the anthill is not “decorated” during Ati festival, when earth is gathered for “growing the sprouts,” the anthill is specially worshipped. In Panrutti, the sanctum, where the pot is kept, also hosts an anthill. In the Tiruverkadu temple, sprouts do not grow during Ati festival, but they are grown during Navarathri festival in the months of September-October. However, growing sprouts during the Ati festival is virtually unheard of in the Mugapper and Muthialpet temples. Similarly, while women dress up in margosa leaves (veppancelai) and carry milk pots in the Muthialpet temple festival, I have not seen women wearing margosa leaves in the Mugapper and Panrutti temples. In the Panrutti temple, a flag is hoisted announcing the beginning of the festival; sprinkling of turmeric water upon devotees takes place at the end. In other temples, like the Mugapper temple, these events do not take place. Despite all these variations, there are certain salient events of the festival, such as tying of wristlets, inviting the sakti karakam, gruel-serving, performance of debt vows, taking out of the procession of the deity on one or more days, and offering of kumbam to the goddess, which are followed in most temples.

281 House and Temple

Why should Mariyamman or Sakti be “invited” to her temple, when she is always already present and available in the form of her icon in her temple? The event of

“inviting” arises only when someone is away from a place or context. As the temple is an abode of Sakti, why should she be invited from outside now? Sakti is invited because it is a special occasion, her “annual festival season,” observes Gnanaraj. Yet, he adds, inviting her from outside into the temple does not mean that she is not present in her shrine or away from her shrine. His remark reminds us of a similar observation with respect to the goddess’s arrival in the form of ammai in a body. Ammai is described in terms of the goddess’s arrival both from outside as well as emerging from inside, manifesting on the surface of the body (see discussion on this in the fourth chapter). This description befits the Tamil term for the divine, which is “katavul,” with “kata” indicating a sense of transcendence and “(v)ul” meaning inner or interior.

Moreover, if “inviting Sakti” underscores the seasonality of the festival, the characteristic of seasonality marks ammai too. Ammai is considered as a seasonal disease. One can hear remarks that connect ammai with the hottest season or summer of the year, like “It is summer, no wonder this child has poxes now,” or “One needs to take in cooling drinks like tender coconut or buttermilk in the summer season, otherwise ammai will strike.” I have also heard remarks interlinking the prevalence of ammai and the Mariyamman festival. In Pudukkottai and Salem I was told that the goddess arrives at the houses in the form of ammai during her festivals because the goddess likes to “play outside” during her festival. In Pudukkottai and Salem, the Mariyamman festival takes place in the months of February to April, and it is the period of early, hot summer during

282 which ammai is usually prevalent. Against this backdrop, an area of interest would be to ask whether and how far the dynamics of Mariyamman’s festival relate to the dynamics of the affliction of ammai.

I have to say that by interlinking habitual practices of ammai with the festival events of Mariyamman, I do not in any way suggest a deterministic or even a possible origin of festival events in the practices of ammai. In fact, in temples of deities other than

Mariyamman, such as Kaliyamman and Draupadiyamman too, similar festival events such as invitation of the deity in the form of sakti karakam take place. However, as we shall see, the same events take specific meanings in the context of the Mariyamman festival and these meanings indicate continuity between habitual practices of ammai and the festival events.11

Indeed, there are certain striking similarities between the contexts of ammai- affliction and the festival. An obvious correspondence is the importance given to widows and the encouragement given to them to take part in festival activities, unlike in other

Hindu temples. I was told that ideally widows should get the gruel first during the gruel- serving ceremony, although in practice, the person carrying karakam is also given

11 Sometimes the meanings that scholars attribute to elements of festival events vary greatly from the meanings attributed to these elements locally. Hiltebeitel points this out in his discussion on sakti karakam in Draupadi’s festivals. Hiltebeitel observes how the karakam and the ceremonial sword standing upon it are not interpreted as female and male erotic components by the local people involved with the worship, even though scholars such as Beck have interpreted those elements in that way (Hiltebeitel 1991, 455- 457). In Mariyamman worship, as we shall see, the sakti karakam as well as the sword are identified as the goddess herself, as Meyer and Hiltebeitel have observed concerning Ankalamman and Draupadi (Meyer 1986, 240; Hiltebeitel 1991, 457). Also Biardeau refers to a phrase used to “call goddesses” in Civanmalai. “Calling” or “inviting” the goddesses, in which a mare and a buffalo participate, is indicated by a phrase “ammai azhaittal” at this village (Biardeau 174). While Biardeau connects “ammai” with the Yajurvedic ritual sutras that mention “ambe” or “amba,” she makes an interesting observation too: “In Tamil, amba becomes ammai, which is the exact term used to designate the rite. Ammai is used in this form only to designate goddesses, although the more current term would be amman, and secondarily it also denotes the smallpox associated with the goddess” (176, emphasis mine). Biardeau, however, does not pursue the meaning of ammai as poxes further.

283 priority. The prominent role of widows makes us recall the role they play during ammai- affliction (see the discussion in the second chapter, drawing on ethnographic materials and Ramanan’s article). The grand kumpam feast also corresponds with the customary feast given to the widow at the descent of ammai as described by Ramanan in his article.

Similarly, the sprinkling of turmeric water marking the end of the festival correlates with the first bath after ammai heals, concluding the period of ammai. A remark from

Sundaramurthy, an utukkai singer from Panrutti, assures me of this correlation.

According to him, the purpose of the turmeric water ceremony is to “cool down” the mother, which, he says, amounts to sending away ailments of devotees as well. Both performances intend to send the goddess off (malaiyerutal) with love and respect.

Mariyamman’s Presence Chamber (kolu)

Mariyamman is believed to give audience in her presence chamber (kolu) at her temple throughout the period of the festival. The Tamil term “kolu” suggests her sovereignty and royalty. In the Mariyamman Lullaby, which is available as a chapbook and is sung to an ammai-afflicted person, the goddess is described as sitting in her presence chamber. A close reading of the relevant portion in the Lullaby would give a sense that the “presence chamber” means much more than her celebrated presence during her festival. Let me give an excerpt from the Lullaby sung by Savithri (from Chennai) here:

The first storey, it is the pavilion of palm-flower leaves

She delightfully sits in her presence chamber in the pavilion of

palm-flower leaves

The second storey, it is the throne of gems

284 Sitting upon the throne of gems, she conducts her reign

The third storey, there are corner-faced roads of flowers

In the corner-faced roads of flowers, in the front she is in her

presence chamber

The fourth storey, it is the pavilion of nine gems

In the pavilion of nine gems, the heroine has arrived to sit

The fifth storey, it is the throne that pressurizes

In the throne that pressurizes, the mother sits in her presence chamber

The sixth storey, it is the decorated choultry

In the decorated choultry, the mother has sat

The seventh storey is the throne that is inscribed (ezhutiya)

In the throne that is inscribed, Esvari is in her presence chamber

The eighth storey, there are broad platforms

On a broad platform, Vimali came and sat

The ninth storey, she is the intense Sakti

The intense Sakti, the pure one sat in her presence chamber

The tenth storey, it is a pavilion made of marble

In the marbled-pavilion, Pattini (the chaste one) sat in her

presence chamber

Descriptions such as “pressuring” and “inscribing” in the above lines allude to the pustule-filled body as her presence chamber in general and as her throne in particular during ammai-affliction. What about her audiences in the presence chamber when she sits as pustules of ammai? Unlike the temple where her devotees visit her, during ammai, the

285 goddess has only limited audiences. Is it because the grace or benefit imparted by the goddess during ammai is private and is zealously guarded, compared to her public presence during the festival? In fact, a mulappari singer Kaliyammal in Tirupuvanam

(near Madurai) told me that nothing, including trash, should go out of the house during the period of ammai, because this would amount to throwing prosperity, which has arrived in the form of Mariyamman, away from the house. There is also a custom followed in throwing trash after the pearls “descend” from the body. A camphor lamp should be lit as a mark of respect to the trash and then it is thrown outside. This indicates the belief that even trash that is present at the habitat of the goddess has a sacred value.

In her festival, before the goddess sits in the presence chamber at the temple, the boundaries of her regime should be marked, which reminds one of securing the boundaries of an ammai-arrived house. Let us look at this event more closely, since there are a lot of variations in the ceremonies performed at temples. I will cite a few events here. In the Muthialpet temple, Viruttam songs (verses sung in a Tamil meter called

“viruttam”) would be sung in honor of deities that are supposed to guard the four directions: Kali (North), Iyenar (South), Maturaiviran (West) and Pavatairayan or

Kattavarayan (East). A lemon is cut and thrown and then a wooden post is erected at each cardinal point and bunches of margosa leaves tied to it. In Panrutti, instead of a wooden post, a wooden trident is placed in each direction, after cutting a lemon and throwing it.

In the Mugapper temple, no wooden pole or trident is planted, but just a lemon is thrown in every direction on the day of the sakti karakam. No ellaikkarakam is brought separately there. However, it is explained by the trustees of the temple in Mugapper that they cannot follow all the ceremonies in a city as they follow them in a village.

286 On the function of the boundaries in the festival of the goddess, interesting observations have been made by Biardeau. She observes, the goddess “often becomes two goddesses, the one in the center (generally Mariyamman) and the one at the boundary (one or another form of Kali), the second being always subordinate to the first”

(2004, 308). In both the contexts, the goddess is the guardian of the village: “….she watches over its boundary and/or is at its center to ward off calamities….” (Biardeau,

308). In the “complementary scheme” of goddesses, Biardeau places the male deities who are in the form of “guardian, at once victim and devotee, brother, seducing husband, or ‘demonic’ son” devoted to her service both at the boundary and the center (308). At the center, the male deities represent the “symbolic” element of violence as a “post” in front of her shrine. At the boundary, they represent the actual violence that manifests as a buffalo sacrifice and multiplication of animal victims (308-9). Biardeau also argues that

Mariyamman at the “center” represents the brahmanical values of purity and her double

Ellaiyamman or Kali at the “boundary” represents impurity and blood-related violence.

Such a stacking of dichotomous categories requires contextualization, as practices of worship inform us. Is not Mariyamman described as “vengeful Mari” and “the snake- eyed Nili” in Mariyamman Lullaby bringing in the “warrior” goddess involved with

“violence” ruling the “boundary” in our mind? Moreover, I would like to point out that it is not always the goddesses that are the guardians of the boundary. As I just remarked about Muthialpet, sometimes, male gods also guard the boundaries in addition to their service as guardian deities to the goddesses. The hierarchical status between goddesses like Kali and male guardian gods is unclear in some cases. For instance, in Muthialpet accounts we saw that as Kali guards the direction of north, Kattavarayan or Pavatairayan

287 are said to guard the direction of east, although it might not always the case. Further, occasionally the center shifts depending upon the goddess for whom the festival is celebrated. For instance, although Kali guards the northern direction, at her festival, her temple assumes importance as the center. “Binding the boundaries” for the Kali temple now occupying the center takes place with deities like Pavatairayan, Viran and others as guardian deities.

It has been observed by Biardeau that the “center-boundary relationship can only be symbolic,” which, nevertheless, organizes a village as a “worshipping unit” and supply an “ideological order that compels the enunciation of a structured local unity, defined as an interior in opposition to an exterior” (see Biardeau’s discussions especially at page 315). I would like to note that the “symbolic spatial configuration” of interior and exterior is often encountered in Tamil speech in general: one can even find it in the age-old literary conventions of akam and puram in Tamil poetry. Yet, this spatial configuration is not static and not functionally concerned with organization of the worshipping unity of a village alone. For instance, when the entrance of an ammai- afflicted household is marked with margosa leaves to stop the visitors from outside, the demarcation of the center and boundary is enunciated at the level of the house.12 As we shall see in the last chapter, during the healing of ammai, the “local” healer always refers to the “ellai” or “boundary” in which Mariyamman resides. The lines that are sung to an ammai-afflicted person go like this: “Leave the boundary of Samayapuram and come

12 See next chapter for more discussion on the center-boundary dynamics.

288 here quickly to save this boy. …. Leave the boundary of Konnaiyur and come here quickly to make the pearls descend.13

In Panrutti and in Muthialpet, I was told that in the ellaikkarakam, the goddess

Ellaippitari (“Pitari of boundaries”) is invoked. For Ellaippitari, unlike Kali, there is no separate festival and this is the occasion on which she is celebrated. Since, the ellaikkarakam is brought to the shrine of Mariyamman it amounts to bringing Ellaippitari from the boundary to the center as well. While bringing the goddess of the boundary to the center, the guardian deities, who are invoked to guard the four directions, are also believed to participate in the festival. These guardian deities appear in the presence chamber of the goddess as well: Mariyamman Lullaby describes the goddess in her presence chamber along with other deities, such as Kattavarayan, Karuppu, Cinnan,

Pavatairayan along with Kali “who guards the town,” and seven Pitaris who guard the boundaries. Interestingly, in the Lullaby, one also finds deities such as Vinayaka,

Murukan, Draupadi and her five husbands, Laksmi, Sita, Rama, and Perumal (Vishnu), who were sitting along with her in the presence chamber (41-44).

One hears a rare ceremony of “binding boundaries” in some Mariyamman temples in northwest Tamilnadu, in which ammai is sent out of the temple before the festival starts.14 For instance, in a Mariyamman temple, situated on the highway between

Salem and Dharmapuri in Thoppur, ellaikkattutal takes place in the following manner. In the month of Panguni (March-April), on a Tuesday in the waxing lunar period of the month, an event called “ammai anupputal” (sending off ammai) takes place. A shed with

13 See the discussion in Chapter Eight. One should note that Mariyamman is not asked to “cross” the boundaries of these places, but rather, she is asked to “leave” the boundaries to come and take away the pearls of poxes from the afflicted body, which is she herself. 14 Indeed, there could be many other forms in which this ceremony is performed. Mariyamman temples are spread across Tamilnadu and I am dealing with materials from selective temples.

289 green leaves is erected in front of the temple. During the late-evening, a new earthen pot is half-filled with water and margosa leaves are immersed into it. A chicken is sacrificed for it. After that amidst shouts of “O…o” (utukkai and other instruments are not used for this), a man gets into a trance-like state and takes the pot. Mariyamman is said to arrive in him. Keeping the pot on his head he runs and drops the pot into a water source. (In 2006, he dropped the pot in a small concrete tank near a petrol bunk toward the east on the main road). Then the man is brought back to the temple. An important rule is followed now.

No one should talk and no light should be lit. Women should not come out. In the quiet atmosphere, a man from the Parayar community will go in all directions and announce loudly:

The country should flourish, good rains should pour,

The town should prosper, the pearls of rain should pour,

Good persons should come to this temple, Bad persons should go out.

After he announces this in the four directions and comes back, the temple lights are lit and a brief worship takes place. The next day, the temple is not opened and after that the festival starts. Further, throughout the festival period of twelve days, no visitor is encouraged to visit the temple and the neighborhood. If anyone is accidentally present on the day of the announcement, ideally she should stay there throughout the festival period.

When Senthil and Palaniyappan, who are associated with the functioning of the temple, were narrating this event, I was curious to know what they mean by “sending off ammai.” Are they sending the goddess away? They denied it and told me that it is all about sending away from the place the forces that would get uyirppali (death) that might occur due to diseases. “Is not ammai Mariyamman herself?” I asked. Immediately they

290 clarified: “We are talking only about ‘that’ ammai which would take our lives away from us. What we are sending away is the ‘bad’ (ketta) ammai and other such diseases.” An elderly man who was present there during the conversation added, “Why would

Makamayi take away life? Only when someone does a mistake by not being ‘pure’ these things happen.”

Since the “sending off” takes place from the temple of the goddess, the “bad forces” appear to have an association with the goddess. How can one understand the identification of ammai (as play) with the goddess as well as its dissociation (as a bad force) from the goddess? One can try to grasp this act in two ways. First, sending the

“bad forces” as ammai away from the goddess could mean cleansing the goddess of these

“forces.” Recalling the hi-stories of Renuka, it could be an act of relieving the goddess from her position as a “site” of affliction and constituting her only as a powerful agent of affliction having control over others’ bodies. At the same time, in this act one can also discern an implicit distinction in dual perceptions about ammai—ammai as a play and grace of the goddess and ammai as something unwanted and cruel that needs to be expunged. Furthermore, with the expulsion of the cruel ammai that takes away one’s life, the potential transformability of “good” ammai is underscored. The announcement wishing for the pearls of rain perceives this transformability from pearls of ammai to pearls of rain.

Let us look at the Lullaby (n.d) to analyze the notion of “death” in the cited conversation. The Lullaby, as it describes all the accompanying deities sitting along with

Mariyamman in her presence chamber, installs her as the chief of all guardians (meaning these other deities):

291 As the guardians praise, on the throne of gold

The commander of the guards (kavalatikari), the beautiful

woman, sat.

Your guard is for this house and seven houses from this

…

Let you guard safely amma, Beautiful Marimuttu

A theft might occur inside the fortification

Use your strong whip and guard carefully. (44-45)

Remembering that this song is always sung to an ammai-afflicted person, one can sense the “theft” implies death mentioned by Senthil and Palaniyappan. During ammai and festival, as the goddess, the supreme commander of guards, sits in her presence chamber along with other deities, she is expected to protect her presence chamber from theft.

But then something remains perplexing: why do people maintain silence and switch off the lights at the temple after the “bad forces” are sent? Does this amount to observance of mourning? Does the goddess (and the people) mourn the loss of a part of her? I will engage with these questions after exploring sakti karakam and cetal.

Sakti Karakam and Cetal

I have saved a chapter for analyzing the phenomenon of the arrival of the goddess’s “presence” or arul in the person carrying sakti karakam. Here I shall just describe how sakti karakam is visualized and how this visualization is connected with the karakam or the vessel of water kept near an ammai-afflicted person. When I asked

Velmurugan, the utukkai singer from Ulundurpet, about the practice of keeping a

292 karakam near the ammai-afflicted person, he explained the practice drawing from the pustules of ammai itself:

Mari means the pearl of ammai (he means pustule here), within pearl there

is Gangai. Therefore, we keep a pot with water near an ammai-arrived

person. Sometimes, it (the practice) is also called veppilaippadam (“lesson

of margosa?”)

Gangai, the name of a sacred river, is used whenever one refers to water in a sacred context. The water or liquid inside the pustule of ammai is visualized as Gangai and the pearl, here the crust of pustule, is conceived as the pot. One cannot miss the connection between the pot of water that Renuka holds and the miniature pots in the form of ammai pustules that an afflicted body hosts. It can be recalled that in the hi-story of

Renuka, told by Velmurugan (hi-story four), Gangai figures as the river, the water of which Renuka shapes into a pot. Further, the margosa twigs which are immersed in the karakam correlates with the twigs of margosa which are used to scratch the itching body during affliction.

As the pot kept by Parasurama in Renuka’s narrative provides continuity between the narrative and the festival performance, the pot kept at the ammai-afflicted household, in the form of sakti karakam, provides continuity between the habitual practices and festival performances.

How is the sakti karakam conceived? Sriramulu, one of the trustees of the

Karumariyamman temple at Collector Nagar, tells us:

Water in the karakam is blood; the threads that go around the pot are

bones and nerves; the lemon kept inside the pot is the heart; the camphor

293 piece lit and kept upon the water is life; the karakam is made up of five

cosmic elements (pancha bhutam) which are earth, space, wind, water and

fire; these elements are rightly present there/in the right proportion

(cariya). The karakam is nothing but our body.

From what Sriramalu has said the sakti karakam is our body in a balanced state.

But as one learns at Mariyamman temples such as the Periyapalayattamman temple in

Muthialpet and the Sri Padaiveettamman temple in Puducherry, the sakti karakam is not just kept as it is inside the shrine.

Let me describe how this festival takes place at the Sri Padaiveettamman temple in Panrutti. The sakti karakam is decorated on the bank of the Kedilam, which flows three kms to the east of the Sri Padaiveettamman temple in Panrutti. A sword measuring two and half a feet in length and an iron handle, which is originally taken to the river bank from the temple, is also brought along with the karakam. On reaching the temple, the sakti karakam is taken around the goddess’s sanctum three times. On the plate that contains the sword, a flour-lamp (or mavilakku which means a lamp lit in a mass of rice flour mixed with ghee and sugar) is placed and is pierced with a needle-like pin.

Jalantiran Chettiyar, the dharmakartha of the temple, circumambulates the sanctum three times while carrying this plate. As soon as the karakam is brought inside the sanctum, the pin which is pierced into the flour-lamp is taken and is pierced into the garment of the icon of the goddess. This icon of the goddess is called “Kaluttamman,” meaning she has only a head cropping from the neck. (Generally in Mariyamman temples in north

Tamilnadu, there are two icons: a big icon of a whole form and a small icon, which is just head, kept in front of it.) Immediately after this pin-piercing, the sword is pierced into

294 the sakti karakam. That is, the sword is kept touching the pot in such a way that it is sandwiched between the pot and the margosa leaves tied around the neck of the pot.

These two acts, piercing the pin through the cloth of the goddess and piercing the sword into the sakti karakam, are together called “cetal.”

After these events, devotees undertake performing the cetal vows. Devotees, both women and men, wear yellow clothes for these ceremonies. White clothes, soaked in turmeric water and dried, are worn on this day. Piercing pins, which are made of silver, gold or steel, into their flesh are carried by the pucaris. The pin-pierced devotees go around the shrine three times.

That is, they pierce pins into their flesh. Some pierce the pins into their tongues: some into their cheeks: some into their arms and legs: some others into their chest; and some pierce them throughout their bodies, and so on. Devotees undertake debt vows like they would pierce some eleven or fifty-one pins into their bodies.

Perumal Pucari and Devarajan Pucari at the Panrutti temple explained to me that piercing the pin into the garment of the icon and the sword into the sakti karakam amounts to piercing them into her body. Only after her body is pierced in this way, the debt vow of cetal is undertaken by the devotees. How can one understand the goddess being pierced with the pin and the sword? Devarajan Pucari related these acts to ammai.

We get Mariyatta on us [as ammai]. Before she planned to visit us in the

beginning, she thought that gods should have those pearls first. So, first

gods had ammai. Unable to bear the tormenting pain, gods went to the

Mother and asked her to remove the pearls. They argued with her: “You

have put ammai on us, we suffer from pain. You should put it upon

295 yourself. Only then you will know how this is.” On hearing these words,

the mother put pearls of ammai upon herself. That is why we pierce cetal

upon her. Ammai is produced (urpatti) by Mariyamman. Only when she

knows the pain of ammai, she would produce it on us properly. Only then

she would not give unbearable pain and would protect us from danger.

Only for that reason, we pierce cetal upon her.

This narration traces the direct correspondence between ammai and the cetal. It renders cetal to the goddess as a reenactment of the hi-storical self-infliction of poxes by the goddess. One can also see how hi-story seven, which we discussed before, is inverted in his version. The body of Mariyamman which is the originary site of pox-affliction in hi-story seven is now the site that receives poxes in consequence of her being an agent of affliction. While the narration emphasizes the eminent plane, on which the goddess operates holding authority over the body, including those of gods, the epistemic condition of the goddess that she is both the “site” and the “agent” of pox-affliction resurfaces.

Do the devotees undertake the vow of cetal for ammai alone? It is definitely not so. Personal or familial situations that might have nothing to do with ammai, but which could have required the intervention of the goddess, are cited as reasons for undertaking the cetal vow.15 Nonetheless, ammai still figures as one of the reasons for carrying out of the cetal vow. Can one say, the saving grace of Mariyamman, which is made available

15 As I conversed with the devotees who performed cetal vow at the Panrutti temple in 2006, I learnt from some devotees that either they or someone in their family have had some form of ammai and got healed without much of a problem. Three women and one man have undergone this vow for they have had chickenpox in previous years. Two women have performed this vow because their young sons were afflicted with vilayattammai in previous years. One man had suffered from mumps in the previous month and had performed the vow. There were some others who performed this vow for reasons other than ammai: one man has carried out this vow for he has had a severe stomachache and was cured after praying to the goddess; a woman said she performed the vow as a prayer to the goddess to keep everyone in the family without any sickness (novu nodi illaama) such as ammai; another young man told me that he undertook the vow because he has been doing it for the past two years and said he simply continued it.

296 primarily during ammai, has been expanded to other contexts entailing other types of illnesses or personal or familial hard times? Since such questions probing “origins” practices cannot be answered with any certainty, I will skip these futile enquiries and stick to my path of exploring the discursive correspondence between cetal and ammai.

Let me say something about the term “cetal.” The Tamil lexicon of the University of Madras equates cetal with cetil (1584). The lexicon describes cetilattam as “hook- swinging in honour of Mariyamma” (1584). Further, the lexicon defines cetil as “a mechanism consisting of a standing post with a long sweep at its top, on one end of which a person, under a vow, is suspended by a hook fastened into the integuments of his back and raised high in the air, is swung around” (1584). In the Nagappattinam

Mariyamman temple, cetal refers to this structure of a standing post, which is identified with the impalement stake, along with a long sweep. In the Valangaiman Mariyamman temple too, cetal (here it is called cetil) refers to a joint mechanism of an impalement stake and a hook-swinging horizontal pole. In the Konnaiyur Mariyamman temple also, one comes across vestiges of such structure.16 But the term cetal also refers to simpler forms of body-mutilation than hook-swinging. In Salem and Erode, the term cetal is used alternately with alaku indicating piercing needles (actually with a thickness of a quarter of an inch to half an inch, they could be called rods) into the flesh. In the Panrutti Sri

16 In her discussion on a ceremonial vow of “kazhumaram” at Nellukatai Mariyamman temple in Nagappattinam, Biardeau talks of a variant form of a structure of the vertical post, with a hookswinging post: The kalumaram [kazhumaram] serves, in fact, as a pivot, and the whole apparatus functions as a cetilmaram; that is, it is a variant form of the hook-swinging post. Devotees under vows relating to one of their children make an offering to Kattavarayan and confide the child to the Vanni priest [This priest plays Kattavarayan at this ceremony], who closes himself with the child in a kind of wooden cage attached to one end of the transverse pole. The other end is activated to send the child with the priest into the air in a rite that only remotely resembles a form of torture. (125-26)

297 Padaiveettamman temple and Muthialpet Periyapalayattamman temple, cetal refers to piercing pins into the flesh.

The meanings of cetal, notwithstanding their differences, thus refer to piercing caused by a certain thing, be it a hook or a needle or a rod, into the flesh. In the Panrutti temple, as soon as I started the conversation on cetal, the pucaris brought in the subject of ammai. Perumal Pucari observed that although the vow might be taken by devotees for various reasons, the vow is more often than not taken and observed for the cure as well as prevention of ammai. “Mother, please make ammai descend from the body in a good manner. I will do cetal throughout my body for you. Or sometimes they would pray not to give them ammai or any other illness,” said Perumal Pucari. But cetal vow is not common for Mariyamman alone, and it is performed for other deities such as

Kaliyamman and Murugan, who, unlike Mariyamman, are not specially worshipped for ammai. Perumal Pucari readily explained this locating the origin of the practice with

Mariyamman worship: “Cetal was originally done for Mariyamman. Other temples have borrowed it.” A similar view of cetal as pin-piercing was expressed by Jeeva, who was administering the debt vow of alaku at the Samayapuram Mariyamman temple (figure 5).

In my conversation with Perumal Pucari, he brought in the correspondence of

“maru cetal,” meaning alternate/repetitive cetal, which is an event that takes place at the

Padaiveettamman temple, with ammai as “maru mul” meaning “alternate/repetitive” thorn. Maru cetal takes place in an extended festival period at the Panrutti temple. The devotees who could not participate in the original cetal vow event can perform the debt vow of cetal at this second opportunity. According to Perumal Pucari, sometimes the devotees are not able to undertake this debt vow on the “original” day of the vow,

298 because of some “pollution” they face at that time. The “pollution” can be due to “death” or “child-birth” occurring in the family. Such persons are given a second chance to undertake the cetal vow. I would like to recall a specific discourse about ammai here.

When the “shadow” falls upon an afflicted person due to “pollution” or impropriety, the goddess is said to hiss with anger in the afflicted body and the withering pustules swell again and give trouble. This condition of pustules, which is known as “maru mul,” rings close to the phenomenon of “maru cetal” that one encounters in the Ati festival realm at

Panrutti. The extension of the festival period due to “pollution” is analogous to the extension of the period of ammai caused by the “shadow.” The reenactment of the cetal vow and the reappearance of the thorny suffering thus inform one another in the discursive practices of the goddess.

The connection between a body with ammai and a body undergoing debt vow thus works in two ways in the cetal performance related to Mariyamman. A body that undertakes the debt vow is perceived as that which either substitutes a body afflicted with ammai (when the debt vow is performed for prevention) or which reenacts the ammai affliction (when the debt vow is performed for healing). Now the question I would like to ask is what does this substitution or enactment mean? Let us look into hi-story seven, which outlines the origin of the practice of cetal, told by Sundaramurthi, to throw light on the path of our inquiry.

The line from Mariyamman Lullaby recited by Sundaramurthi creatively reworks the equivalence between cetal and ammai, under the overarching reference to the

Mariyamman’s festival as indicated by her chariot. I will cite this line along with his remark again:

299 “(As) Her chariot runs at the crown (or noon) and (as) the cetal of blood

moves.” The cetal created with a hook, hung from above, piercing the

back of a person (“hook-swinging”), and suspending him in air is called

the “cetal of blood” (utiraccetal). When the goddess enters us, she enters

our blood, appearing as pustules of ammai. No pearl of ammai is a pearl

of our skin. They do not relate to our skin. Pearls come up from the prime

root bone in our body. From inside, they come up as an anthill.

One can recall that these lines were narrated by him as he was explaining the origin of the practice of cetal as pin-piercing in Panrutti. But soon he invokes the cetal as hook-swinging, indicating a sense that both vows are substitutable in the discursive practices related to the goddess. Having said that, let me analyze how the connection between ammai and cetal is grounded in his narration.

The Tamil term “ucci” means both the crown of the head and the period of noon.

On the one hand, the chariot of the goddess running at “ucci” connotes its figurative running along the crown (perhaps, the parting of the hair on one’s crown might serve as a roadway to this imaginary chariot) of the human being. On the other it indicates the chariot’s “real” running along the roads at noon at her festival. Bearing in mind my earlier observation on ammai, it is believed that Mariyamman puts her first as well as the strong pearls on the crown of a person. Similarly, Mariyamman is believed to “reside” at the crown of her devotee, who she has selected as a fortuneteller. Madurai Muttu, the diviner in whom Mariyamman “arrives” at the newly found temple of Devi Karumari

Peedam, announces himself as “mudippalakan,” meaning “the son of the crown,” as I have noted earlier. Mariyamman’s “arrival” in the ucci (as crown) in the form of pearls

300 of ammai or as arul provides a visual economy of absolute devotion, with the devotee’s head, of all the parts of the body, first subjected to her manifested “presence.”17

The surrender of the devotee amounts to his subjection to Mariyamman’s queenly administration of justice and her exercise of sovereignty. An ammai-afflicted body as

Mariyamman’s court and the pustules as her seal of authority and power were discussed earlier. The chariot of the goddess running at “ucci” emphatically reinforces her authority over her devotees, tying up the ideas of sovereignty, justice and kingship. Mariyamman’s chariot running at ucci (as noon) is considered to be an assertion of her “victory” over the unjust and wicked. In Samayapuram, it is believed that if someone, say A, has wronged another person, say B, then if B fails to get justice by legal means or mediated negotiations, then it will suffice for B to say, “Let our mother (meaning Mariyamman of

Samayapuram) ascend her chariot” (enga aattaa ter erattum) on the day of her chariot. If

B utters such a statement, it infers he has brought in the goddess to arbitrate in the matter and it is his hope that she will punish A. I heard that people would be terrified to hear such a statement, because they know for sure that the goddess would render proper justice to the affected person by punishing the unjust. The running of the chariot and the administration of kingly justice would make more sense if it is read along with the Tamil lore of the Chola king Manuniti Cholan, who is said to have run his chariot over his son and killed him in order to render justice to a cow, whose calf was killed when his son’s chariot had run over it earlier.

Mariyamman’s chariot, similar to Manuniti Cholan’s chariot, does entail pain and blood in administering justice. In the Lullaby, the description of her chariot running at

“ucci” is immediately followed by another sentence “(as) the cetal of blood moves.” It is

17 A Tamil proverb goes: “For the body of eight jan (a measure of nine inches), the head is paramount.”

301 to be mentioned that in Samayapuram Mariyamman temple, on the day of her chariot, a large number of devotees undertake debt vows including cetal vow (here, cetal means the piercing of pins, big needles or rods into the flesh). As soon as Sundaramoorthy recited this line from the Lullaby, he brought forth the idea of Mariyamman’s entry into blood and emergence of ammai pearls as an anthill. The figures of chariot and cetal of the

Mariyamman festival are thus reconfigured within the framework of the ammai-afflicted body. While the running of the “real” chariot of Mariyamman is conjoined by the performance of obligatory vows including cetal, entailing pain and bleeding, pearls of ammai, first “running” along the crown, entail pain and bleeding. Analogous Tamil terms, “thervatam” meaning the “rope of chariot” and “muttuvatam” meaning “thread of pearls” participate in this reconfiguring task.

Section III

Virgin Mother and Her Son Kattavarayan

A discursive association between cetal (as hook-swinging) and the impalement stake with ammai-affliction is provided in Mariyamman Lullaby. The association is again brought under the overarching notions of justice, punishment and chastity. The association draws its force from a character called Kattavarayan or Kattamuttu (one can note that he has “muttu” or pearl in his second name), whom we come across in some of

Mariyamman’s hi-stories. I will present an abridged version of one such hi-story first:

Hi-story Nine: Kattavarayan’s Impalement In the beginning the world was born. In the world, Sakti was born. Sakti took several births. One of her births was Renuka. After Renuka, whom we call Utalmari or “the body-changed,” another Mari, who is called

302 Uyirmari or “the life-changed,” was born. Uyirmari was born to Ati and Bhagavan. Ati and Bhagavan are none other than Sarasvathi and Brahma, who were born in this earth due to a sin committed by Brahma. Once there was a competition between Brahma and Vishnu about who is the superior of them both. Siva put them to a test to settle the matter of superiority. He asked them both to find either his crown or feet, and whoever found it first would be deemed superior. Vishnu incarnated as a boar and dug the earth for so many years, and came back without success. But, Brahma, as he could not find the crown, falsely testified before the assembly of gods that he had seen the crown of Siva. Brahma managed to get a petal of a flower (tazhampu) that fell from Siva’s head as his witness. Due to his falsehood, Brahma and the flower were cursed. Then Brahma told Siva: “Primarily, it is not my fault that I told this lie. But Sarasvathi (who is Brahma’s wife as well as the goddess of learning), who is sitting on my tongue, made me say this. So, it is only appropriate you punish her too.” Thus Brahma made Siva curse Sarasvathi too. Siva told the divine couple that they would take birth on the earth. Brahma would be born as a Brahmin and Sarasvathi as a woman of “outcaste.” They would meet, make love and give birth to Uyirmari. After Uyirmari’s birth, their curse would be relieved and they could come back to their abode.

Brahma and Sarasvathi thus came into our world as Bhagavan and Ati. … They first met near Tenkasi (a town in south Tamilnadu) and without knowing Ati’s caste, Bhagavan first related to her. Later, they got married and gave birth to seven children. Kapilar, Avvai and Atiyaman are all three of their children (We can see how Tamil classical literary landscape is mapped in this hi-story: Kapilar and Avvai are well-known poets from the Tamil classical era. Atiyaman is regarded as the poet Avvai’s close friend and patron). The names to these children are given by the Trimurti themselves. In fact, these children of Tamil literature who are well-versed and hardworking (here the narrator joked and even called me a Deva) are Devas. Who else are Devas?

Uyirmari is their seventh child. As soon as the children were born, the parents Ati and Bhagavan would leave them at the place of their birth and move ahead. When Uyirmari was born, they were passing along a road called Omandur road, near a village called Uppankalathur. Ati gave birth to Uyirmari under the shade of a mango tree, which you can still see today. As soon as she was born, Ati and Bhagavan left that place. They took a sacred bath in the river Gangai and went back to Brahmaloka. Uyirmari had four hands from the birth. She was born with earrings, which were actually raksasas in the form of earrings, who were her guardians. … [I am skipping the details here.] A snake with its hood protected the child from the sun and rain. At that time, a washerman named Andi vannar came there. He took the child to his house, which was near Kollidam (a town in north Tamilnadu) and brought her up. But bringing her up was not

303 easy. When she went to school, everyone complained about her. She perennially quarreled with all other children. She struck others with the knuckles on their heads occasionally.

The rest of the time, she would erect a Sivalingam in the middle of the Kollidam River, and worship Siva. Gangai (water) first tried to kill her, but Uyirmari’s sakti was superior and she could continue worshipping Siva by constructing a sand lingam in the midst of the lashing waters. One day, she wanted to show her father who she is. She made people from all sixteen villages arrange for weddings at their houses and seek Andi vannar in connection with decorating the shamianas. As a washerman, it was his duty to get this task accomplished and if he failed to do so, it would lead to severe punishment. He might even be impaled. Since Andi vannar got overwhelmed and afraid, thinking about the work, Uyirmari promised him that she would do this work for him. She took the form of sixteen Saktis and decorated all the shamianas with beautiful clothes in no time.

Andi vannar arranged for the girl’s wedding with a boy. Uyirmari then refused, disclosing her real nature to him, and who she was: “I am not your child. Know me. I am the Sakti who rules the entire universe. I am the half of Siva. I have taken birth in this world to beget a son called Kattamuttu. My incarnation is only for that. I have come here due to a curse from Kailayam. Since you have brought me up, I will give you two honors. During the gruel-serving ceremony at my temple, you should bring salt from your house to give a taste to the gruel. You will carry my karakam at Samayapuram. Further, if ammai pearls do not descend (heal) from someone’s body, if he consumes nirakaram (rice with water) from your house, the pearls would descend at once.”

Mother blessed him, giving him salvation, and left for the Kampa River near Kanchipuram. There she erected a post sixty feet high, by conjoining the thirty feet high copper post of Kalabairavar and another thirty feet high diamond post of Kali. On the post she placed a lemon. Upon that she placed a copper needle. She placed her toe on the copper needle and did tapas. She did a fierce tapas (akora tavam), which is unfit for a woman. She did not close her eyes. She ate only the wind. She stood on her toe like this for twelve years and did the tapas. Siva’s body was burning like anything because of her tapas.

Siva appeared in front of her asking her what she wanted. She said: “I should have control over this world. Give me the different varieties of pearls.” She asked for several types of pearls so that she can rule this world. Siva first dissuaded her: “Don’t ask for this. You cannot manage this.” But the goddess insisted and Siva gave her the boon of pearls: “You should not throw the pearls just like that. You should take them in your hand, close it, and throw only those pearls which fall slipping between

304 your fingers. Also, you should not throw the biggest of the pearls all the time. If you throw one thousand pearls, only one of them should be big.” In an ammai-afflicted body, of all the pearls only one pearl would be the strongest and biggest. If there are more than one such pearl, then death alone would result. As Siva gave this boon, he himself was burning because of the power of her tapas. He wanted to leave the place soon.

But Uyirmari did not leave him easily. She said she had to test the pearls on him first. Siva pleaded with her not to do so. But she did not relent and threw the pearls upon him. Siva sang songs in praise of her and she removed the pearls. Siva told her: “From today, I will be your slave.” In the Mahabharata, Siva gave the Pasupatastira (a special weapon) to Arjuna. In the Ramayana, he gave Sivadanusu (a bow named after Siva) to Rama. Similarly, Siva gave a sword to the goddess. He, further, asked her: “Will you give pearls to Vishnu too? Or will you leave him since he is your brother?” Mariyamman said: “Definitely I will throw pearls upon him.” Thus, instigated by Siva, Mariyamman went to Vishnu’s abode to throw pearls upon him. Vishnu told her: “Amma, if I die who will give you the seer (the traditional gift including jewels and cloths given by a brother to the sister). Leave me. Every year, on the first Tuesday of the month of Cittirai, I will send you the seer. I will give you jewels, food and silk skirt. I will send them on my elephant. I will also send my bird Garuda at the time of your chariot festival. Mariyamman listened to all this, but said she would not yield to his “bribe.” She threw pearls upon him and Vishnu cried in pain. Since he is her brother, she took off the pearls at once. Vishnu promised her that he would send a silk skirt every year to her. Every year that is why, Renganathar (Vishnu) of Srirangam sends all these gifts to Mariyamman at Samayapuram. And then as instigated by Vishnu, she threw pearls on Brahma and then upon all the other gods. They bestowed various gifts on her including mounts, jewels, weapons, and buffalo sacrifice (given by Yama). Yama also gave her a promise that he would not take those on whom she put pearls.18 … .

Mariyamman made the four Vedas into four sticks, tied them together with the moon as the rope, put her basket of pearls over the sticks, and twirled it. The pearls fell upon this world and the other world. Many of these pearls fell in Kannapuram and Samayapuram where many children died. People were terrified. She appeared before them and asked them to worship her. This is the story of how Uyirmari took Samayapuram as her abode. …

After she took abode at Samayapuram, she was ferocious. She threw the pearls of ammai upon anyone at her will. People who were affected by her aggressive behavior decided to arrange for a wedding for her. Nobody came forward to marry her. Finally, they found a rishi named Bringi, who

18 I am leaving out a lot of beautiful narrative events in this hi-story.

305 came forward to marry her. The wedding was arranged in a grand manner and all the Trimurti were present. Vishnu came with his seer for the wedding. But then the goddess killed the rishi on the day of the wedding on the stage, where the wedding was going to take place. 19 After this furious deed of hers, the people of the town became even more frightened. They started blaming her that she was childless and that was why she killed children with ammai. Mariyamman was upset on hearing that. So she performed tapas toward Esvaran again to get a child.

…

Meanwhile, Kattavarayan was born from a deer that was playing in front of Mariyamman’s hut.20 Actually the name Kattavarayan was given by Mariyamman. Kattavarayan is also called the son of wind. (Is it because Mariyamman ate only wind during her tapas?) Kattu means wind. Mariyamman took the child to Siva, Vishnu and Brahma.21 The virgins from the Kolli hills helped Mariyamman to bring him up. They taught him magic and chant. Kattavarayan went to Kerala, enslaved a magician called Chinnan there, and later befriended him. Meanwhile, Ariyamalai, one of the seven virgin goddesses, was born to childless Saiva Brahmins in Puttur, after they did tapas for many years. According to her horoscope, at the age of sixteen Mariyamman’s son would marry her. The Brahmins were not happy about that. They built a fortress and brought the child up.

19 The rishi’s dead body was made into an utukkai, the music instrument that the goddess has in her hands. In the next chapter, I will discuss this hi-story in connection with the “arrival” of the goddess in the body as “arul.” 20 The story of Kattavarayan is another lengthy narrative account. Hence I give only the details that connect him with Mariyamman. Kattavarayan has several births before he came to Mariyamman, who raised him up. He was first born from a lemon which was placed in a pond in a place called Puttur. A Brahmin woman saw the fruit and ate it. Immediately, she conceived. As she was climbing the stairs of the pond, she gave birth to Kattavarayan. She abandoned the child near the pond and ran away. A Paraiyar woman, who came by the pond, saw the child and brought him up. But since the parayar woman’s house caught fire, she thought the child brought misfortune and left the child at a Kali’s temple nearby. Then Kattavarayan turned himself into a dew drop and entered a deer playing nearby. From the deer again he was born. The child was then brought up by a hunter, but a childless king came to see the child and he got the child from the hunter. The child was again transformed by Vishnu into a tarppai grass. The grass was given by Vishnu to a deer playing in front of the hut of Mariyamman. From the deer, Kattavarayan was born. On hearing the child crying, Mariyamman came out of the house and took him to her hut. This hi-story of Kattavarayan varies at some points, although it mostly goes along with the events narrated in Kattavarayan Katai (chapbook) and Ammanai (palm-leaf manuscript). See Meyer (1989, esp. 70-74). Further, in the Katai and Ammanai, we find the goddess Kamakshi instead of Mariyamman. I do not engage in a detailed analysis of the story of Kattavaryan, and, rather, my interest lies in the discourses about the impalement stake and its connection with ammai. One can also consult Shulman who observes Kattavarayan Katai as an “anti-Purana securely located in the social and cultural world of the lower castes” (1989, 35-68). However, I find the dynamics of the heteronormative power operating in the discourses of Kattavarayan, as we shall see in this chapter. 21 Siva gave him a sword. Mariyamman took the child to her brother Vishnu and Brahma. Vishnu gave him a boon that he could take eleven incarnations, that is, he can change his form eleven times. Brahma gave him a horse and he gave him the power to become invisible if he wanted to be so.

306 With Ariyamalai, a seed of Vengai (a variety of kino tree) and a trident were born. The Brahmins took the seed and put it inside an anthill. From the seed an “impalement tree” (stake) or kazhumaram was born and it soon started to grow. The Brahmins also planted the trident near the anthill. ….

Ariyamalai was brought up with care in a conservative manner. One thousand men guarded the fortress. They were protecting her from Mariyamman’s son. She attained puberty. Once Kattavarayan went hunting and saw this fortress. He got inside the fortress and saw a hair of Ariyamalai in water. That one hair was sixty four feet in length. On seeing the hair, he fell in love with her. Kattavarayan then did several tricks to meet Ariyamalai and finally managed to see her. He went to his mother Mariyamman and asked her to arrange for his wedding with that beautiful girl. Mariyamman told him: “In this world there are seven types of women whose caste names end with “ti” (meaning fire). Men from these castes alone can marry these girls. Therefore, you can marry any other girl, but not these. You cannot marry Vannatti (washer woman), Kuratti (“nomadic” tribal woman), Kusatti (Potter woman), Pappatti (Brahmin woman) and other such women. Ariyamalai is pappatti. So better forget her.” Kattavarayan refused her arguments: “Why should one look at caste for marrying? All are women. There is nothing wrong if I marry her. Further, she belongs to a higher caste.” Mariyamman dissuaded him saying so many things, bringing in her bad star of birth etc. He would not pay heed to her words. She asked him to do several nearly impossible things to divert his mind, but he managed to do all these. Mariyamman asked him to go and get permission from Kali to marry Ariyamalai. Kattavarayan destroyed the fortress of Kali, who got angry and swallowed Kattavarayan. She could not digest him and eventually found out that he was her sister’s son. Kattavarayan said he would not come out of her stomach until she permitted him to marry Ariyamalai. And she eventually agreed. Then Kattavarayan and Kali went to the place where the impalement stake grew. Kali arranged for a carpenter to cut the impalement stake, because if Kattavarayan climbed the impalement stake that had life he would die. Kali wanted to protect her son and therefore, planned to take away the life of the impalement stake.

However, the task of depriving the stake of its life was not easy. With the first fell of the axe, a drop of blood fell on the earth and from that blood one thousand impalement stakes appeared. Kali then arranged to cut off all the stakes and licked the blood from them with one sweep of her tongue, even before it fell upon the earth. Then finally, one stake was selected among the cut stakes. Kali built a staircase of diamond, pearl and red stones for this (specific) cut-stake for Kattavarayan to climb upon it later.

307 Kattavarayan started doing things that collapsed the orthodoxy of Brahmins (acaram kulaittal). Once he interchanged the women in the households of Brahmins with the women in the households of Paraiyar. To their dismay, these women woke up and found this change of place. At another time, he gave the powder of dry fish as sniffing powder (mukkuppoti) to the Brahmin men. Some other time, he changed a hide of cow as the sacred thread and gave it to the Brahmins to wear. People started blaming Mariyamman for all his deeds: “If she is a genuine chaste woman (pattini), let her place him on the impalement stake.” They cursed her in this way. …

Finally, despite his mother Mariyamman’s warnings, Kattavarayan married Ariyamalai, when she was sleeping. As he came back with her sitting behind him on his horse, Mariyamman ordered him to climb the impalement stake. Only then he knew the fate that was in store for him. He cried at his mother’s feet. But who could change fate? As a punishment for marrying Ariyamalai, Kattavarayan climbed the impalement stake which was born with Ariyamalai. As he put himself on the stake, his friend Nagamuttu Chetti climbed the stake and placed himself in place of Kattavarayan. Mariyamman then gave Ariyamalai back her virginity and sent her to her abode in the sky.….

Kattavarayan’s Impalement in Mariyamman Festival

From Chennai to the south, from Puducherry onwards, the “ritual” enactment of the impalement stake commemorating Kattavarayan takes place at Mariyamman festivals.

It is known by names such as “kazhumaram” (“Impalement stake), “kazhumarakkatci”

(“The scene of impalement stake”), and “cetil” or “cetal” (here the term also refers to impalement). Biardeau has observed: “‘The Tamil term ‘kalumaram’ [kazhumaram] designates the impalement stake, and also the post that is set in the ground to provide the vertical axis for hook-swinging” (120-21). In other words, a vertical post with a transverse pole is the basic structure of the impalement instrument. In most of the

Mariyamman temples, on the day of Kattavarayan’s “ritual” impalement, piercing takes place by needles, or rods, or hooks, in varying numbers, into the flesh of devotees. In addition, other types of debt vows are performed as in other Mariyamman temples. These

308 include carrying a fire pot, carrying a flour-lamp upon one’s stomach or other parts of one’s body while lying on one’s back, circumambulating the shrine by rolling along the floor, walking with slippers made of nails, fire-walking, lying on a mock funeral bier, carrying a pot of milk, applying mud over one’s body, and begging alms at the premises of the temple. The list is not exhaustive and I have given it to provide an idea of the nature of the vows performed. Many of these vows appear to demand considerable physical exertion, and some others lesser exertion, on the part of the devotee.

Depending upon the sites of the temples, certain vows are more common and popular than the rest. In Mariyamman temples in the areas of Salem and Madurai, for instance, carrying milk-pots is not observed very much as compared to piercing alaku

(needles). At festivals in Mariyamman temples in and around Chennai, piercing alaku is not common, whereas carrying milk-pots is a popular vow. Further, festivals in some

Mariyamman temples feature debt vows that are said to be specially observed in that temple. For instance, in the Mariyamman temple at Valangaiman, a vow called

“pataikavati” is performed by the devotees, who have met with and escaped death. I will discuss this soon. In Kamudi near Ramanathapuram, a number of devotees go to a tank nearby, take mud and apply it all over their bodies on a particular day during the

Mariyamman festival. It is believed that the mud would cure any skin disease (like eczema) or eruptions (like pimples) or scars (especially those caused by ammai). In

Mariyamman temples in and around Pudukkottai, during the festivals, one can find devotees, especially women, wearing yellow saris and “ritually” begging to people at the premises of the temple. In Mariyamman temples located in Narttamalai and Konnaiyur

(near Pudukkottai), I saw a few women who were undertaking this debt vow, although

309 this type of vow is not common in other areas such as Chennai or Salem. The vows are varied and the temples are numerous. A comprehensive analysis of the vows in terms of their relevance and their popularity in particular temples will be worthwhile in itself, although this work’s focus is more on the continuity in the discourses of the debt vows and ammai.

Let us look at the impalement ceremony of Kattavarayan closely. In Sri

Karumuttu Mariyamman temple at Karuvadikkuppam in Puducherry, the Mariyamman festival is called “The festival of impaling Kattan.” The festival, conducted during the last week in the Tamil month of Vaikasi begins with “collecting the water” or sakti karakam. On that day, which is usually a Monday, the boundaries of the regime of the goddess are tied, the flag is hoisted, and the protective wristlet is also donned. On Friday, gruel is poured. On Sunday, the goddess mounts her lion mount and goes in a street procession. The next Monday, performances such as “Virgin goddesses plucking the flower” (this event comes in Kattavarayan’s story) take place. On Tuesday, the major event, “impalement of Kattavarayan”, occurs. A palmyra tree is cut and planted in front of the temple. The priest of the temple plays Kattavarayan and climbs the tree. Alongside, as we could expect, the cetal ceremony is also performed by devotees. That night the goddess mounts her chariot and comes around. We can recall my earlier observation associating the running of the chariot and the administration of justice. It is suggested that after the impalement of Kattavarayan, the chariot of the goddess goes around announcing the victory of justice. The festival comes to a close the next day with the sprinkling of yellow water.

310 If we go a little further south to Puducherry, we will find another key festival event called “puccorital” or (“Showering of Flowers”) in Mariyamman temples along with sakti karakam and the ceremony of impalement post. As Velmurugan pointed out, the temples of Uyirmari maps the cultural topography of the Tamil region, if one travels from Puducherry to the south. I should mention here that Uyirmari is a generic name that surfaces in hi-story eight, and usually she appears in different names such as Maha

Mariyamman, Muttu Mariyamman, and so on. At the same time, Renuka or Utalmari is not completely out of the picture, although she is secondary to Uyirmari, and whenever I asked for Mariyamman’s hi-story in Valangaiman, Samayapuram, and Tiruvappur (in

Pudukkottai), no one mentioned Renuka. Renuka’s icon (in the form of her head) is seen in some temples in front of the primary icon, which is a full anthropomorphic feminine form of Uyirmari or Muttumari. Or sometimes, as I found in Chidambaram, Renuka is worshipped in the name of Ellaiyamman at a separate temple.

If we go west from around Puducherry, in places like Villupuram and southwest, for instance, to Perambalur, the “showering of flowers” is observed very rarely. In those temple sites, Renuka is given equal importance as Uyirmari.22 Is it because Renuka is a widow whereas Uyirmari is a virgin? That could be a reason since widows do not usually wear flowers in Tamilnadu. If we travel further west from Villupuram to Salem, Erode,

22 Further, in and around Perambalur, Mariyamman’s hi-story is also narrated during the festival. Let us consider the festival sequence at a village called Arumbavur near Perambalur for example. In the year 2006, on the nineteenth of the Tamil Cittirai month, a special puja for Mariyamman took place. On the first day, Velmurugan, in his story, started delineating different incarnations of Mariyamman beginning with Atisakti or primordial Sakti. On the second day, in the evening again, devotees gathered at the temple and Velmurugan narrated Anusuya’s hi-story. Except a special arti that was waved to the goddess, no other significant festival event took place. The next day was the day of Renuka-Utalmari. Renuka’s hi-story was narrated. After her hi-story was told, a three-pronged wooden post was planted in front of the shrine; on that post, a pot with water was placed as sakti karakam. In the next few days, Uyirmari’s story along with Kattavarayan’s story was narrated. The festival came to a close on the twenty-sixth of Chittirai. On that night, Velmurugan assumed the role of Kattavarayan and climbed the impalement post in a trance. On that night and the next day, the debt vows took place. I saw flour-lamps, piercing of alaku and fire-pots in larger numbers in those days.

311 and Coimbatore, Mariyamman’s hi-story is not one that involves Kattavarayan, but it changes and the festival ceremonies also change. Let me discuss that later.

Right now let me speak briefly about events in temples that have “the showering of flowers” ceremony as the inaugurating event of the Mariyamman festival. In

Mahamariyamman temple at Valangaiman near Kumbakonam, which is south of

Puducherry and Chidambaram, the festival begins with the “showering of flowers.”

Groups of devotees throng with flowers of various types: jasmine, mullai (a flower like jasmine), rose and kanakambaram (red and orange colored small flowers). They are all spread out in the sanctum. The icon of the goddess is showered with flowers. At the

Valangaiman temple, this event takes place in the evening on the last Friday of the Tamil month of Panguni (March-April). The goddess goes in a procession that night. On

Sunday, the donning of protective wristlets takes place. After two weeks, on a Sunday, the ceremony of cetil—here the cetil is in the form of a long post, measuring forty-five feet with a hook-swinging pole--takes place at around 6 p.m. in the evening. On the day of the cetil, this wooden post is planted. At the top, a horizontal pole that contains a small rectangular wooden frame at one end is fixed. The horizontal pole is first brought down, like we do on a seesaw (or teeter totter). A goat is placed on the frame and is then taken up. The horizontal pole is then rotated a full round of 360 degrees. This rotation takes place clockwise and anti-clockwise two times. Then the goat is brought down. (A human figure—it looks as if it were a real human—wearing a sacred thread (punul) is then placed on the frame. Similar to the goat, it is also taken up. The pole is first rotated clockwise and then anti-clockwise (see figure 6). The human figure was identified as

Kattavarayan by a few onlookers in the performance in the year 2006. It was identified as

312 Nagamuttu Chetti by some others. The festival icon of the goddess comes out and watches the impalement. Perhaps the queen goddess literally “sees to it” that her justice is implemented. On the same day, late in the night, a play on Kattavarayan’s impalement is performed near the temple.

The legend of Mahamariyamman at Valangaiman has drawn elements from the hi-story of Uyirmari and reworked them by incorporating ammai-affliction in a direct manner. According to the legend, a couple left their girl-child, a baby, at the Ayyanar temple of Pungancheri, around two hundred years back. The abandoned baby was lying at the temple. Another couple from Valangaiman Varadarajampettai Street found the baby and they took her home, and adopted her as their own daughter. They showered her with love and care. At one time, the child was afflicted with smallpox and died. The couple buried the child in their backyard and erected a structure of bamboo sticks and coconut fronds. Later, people came to know that it was Mahamariyamman or Sitala Devi who came in the form of the child and, therefore, established a big temple in her honor.

Uyirmari and Mahamariyamman are both abandoned by their parents and brought up by foster parents. While Uyirmari leaves her parents to perform tapas,

Mahamariyamman gets afflicted with smallpox and passes away. An explicit analogy between tapas and smallpox is mapped out in the narrative. Then there is no wonder that

Kattavarayan’s impalement stake is observed with much fanfare at the Mahamariyamman temple. On the day of the Kattavarayan’s impalement or cetil, which is witnessed by thousands of people, a popular ceremonial vow of “pataikkavati” (bier with an arch-like structure over it, see figure 7) takes place. This vow is undertaken by a person, who has been afflicted with ammai or any other disease, and has been subsequently saved. On the

313 day of the vow, the person has to follow certain restrictions, such as s/he should restrain from consuming non-vegetarian food or engaging in sexual activities. A bier in the form of a stretcher-like structure, which is normally used to carry the dead persons to the funeral ground, is built with bamboo poles, fresh coconut fronds, and hay. The person lies down on it and funeral rites are performed. The hands and the legs are tied with threads, funeral chants are recited, a lamp is placed beside, and the body is tied to the bier. A fire-pot is carried by a male relative of the person, such as father or husband, who comes in front of the bier, as it is done in a funeral procession. The bier is then carried in a procession to the temple. After it goes around the temple one time or three times, it is placed in front of the shrine. The priest comes out and sprinkles water on him, and after this he is lifted up from the bier. I was told that when a person lies on the bier he would be really dead, and would get her life back only after turmeric water is sprinkled upon her by the priest. In the 2006 festival, I saw the biers being built and death ceremonies performed on the dry bed of the Kudamurutti River, adjacent to the Mariyamman temple.

The biers with the debt vow performers lying upon them were then carried to the temple.23

At the Mariyamman festival in Valangaiman, we will find a huge number of people undertaking different versions of the cetal vow taking place. Some of those would have six or any other number of needles (actually considering their volume I would call them rods) pierced into their flesh. Some would have a decorative arch-like structure

(kavati) holding together an intricate set of iron needles and small hooks, in varying

23 In 2006, I met with a few who undertook this debt vow. Sundaramurthi took the vow since he had chickenpox and got healed that year. Nisha had severe cramps one day and her mother prayed to the goddess to save her daughter and took the debt vow. She came to the temple festival that year to carry out the vow. Another woman named Kumari came to perform the vow to thank the goddess for curing her stomach ache.

314 numbers of six, eight, twelve or twenty-four, or sometimes even 108, and decorated with colored paper clippings, flowers, and balls. One can find a small wooden pedestal containing the figures of deities such as Mariyamman and Murugan attached to this structure. Some alakukkavati structures have names like “Varuvan Vadivelan” (meaning

“Vadivelan [another name for Murugan] will come”). This structure has a big rod, measuring twenty five feet, pierced into the cheeks of devotees. Another alakukkavati is known as “Samayapurattal” (meaning “Mariyamman of Samayapuram”). Interestingly these names are titles of popular Tamil films too. The structure of “Samayapurattal” has a pedestal containing Mariyamman’s picture upon it. One can also see devotees drawing a small chariot-like structure that is tied to the hooks pierced into their flesh. Some carry fire-pots in their hands with needles and hooks pierced into their chest. Another version of alakukkavati could be seen too. Called “paravaikkavati” or “aeroplane kavati,”a hook is attached to a transverse pole which is tied to a tractor. The hook is then pierced into the flesh of the backside of the person. With his two arms and legs suspended in the air, like a “paravai” or bird or like an aeroplane, the tractor will slowly take him along the roads that go to the Mariyamman temple.24

Seeds: Impalement “Tree,” Raktabija and Ammai

The version of the hi-story of Uyirmari and Kattavarayan that I cited is popular in

Ulundurpet, Villupuram and Permbalur districts. The narrator Velmurugan is a renowned performer whose profession is telling stories at Mariyamman and Draupadiyamman temples. I went to meet him first originally piqued by a curious detail given by Biardeau

24 Biardeau also mentions a practice of hooks piercing the flesh with the body of the person suspended in the air in temples such as the one in Samayapuram (Biardeau 126; also see Younger 1980, 249-50).

315 in her book (105). It is about a karakam performance at Draupadiyamman temple in

Puducherry (or Pondicherry) in 1974. When Draupadi’s karakam is brought, her guardian deity Potta Raja’s statue is brought along with the karakam, Potta Raja’s body is wound with a whip from top to bottom. Draupadi’s karakam is placed in front of Potta Raja. All these ceremonial events take place before the fire-walk. The devotees who are going to walk on fire do their ablutions in the tank during this time. The priest “takes up the whip carried by Potta Raja, and after whirling it several times in the air, slashes the wrists of the two designated ‘victims’ on time each” (Biardeau 106). Biardeau calls this act “the real sacrifice.” What is interesting to me in her account of all these events is that the whip-lashing takes place in front of a shrine devoted to “Nagakanni” (“the snake goddess”), which is guarded by a statue of Kattavarayan. Biardeau, in fact, remarks: “It is to this shrine, which apparently plays no role, that the procession has come for the ceremony that now takes place in front of it” (105).

The shrine indeed plays a major role, if we explore the events of the hi-story cited above. Our exploration will also lead us to locate the connections between ammai and the impalement stake or tree. Kattavarayan, who is an adopted son of Mariyamman, ascends the impalement tree for Ariyamalai. The impalement tree was born with her.

How was it born? It was born from a seed of Vengai or kino tree. This seed was taken and put inside the anthill and from the anthill it grew. Can we then call it arbitrary, when the whip-lashing that is similar to the impalement stake in imparting pain and torture, takes place right in front of the shrine of the snake goddess and Kattavarayan statue? The transformability of whip-lashing and the impalement tree does not stop merely with the guardian deities—between Potta Raja and Kattavarayan. Bearing in mind the

316 visualization of an ammai-afflicted body as an anthill, one can easily perceive how the thorny suffering of the body has overtones with the body that is pierced with an impalement stake that grows out of the anthill. Again the connection between the seed of ammai and the seed of Vengai is striking. Furthermore, the image of the impalement tree can give us one way to connect the “local” practices of ammai with the classical materials such as the Devi-mahatmya that Biardeau draws upon to explicate the goddess’s worship.

Consider the image of an impalement stake growing out of a seed that was put inside the anthill and that grows through it. The impalement stake is conceived as a

“maram” or a tree with life. From its one drop of blood several such punishing trees erupt. Those who are familiar with the text of the Devi-mahatmya cannot miss the connection between this phenomenon and Raktabija, an Asura (demon) who gave Durga a hard time when she fought her battle with the demon brothers Sumbha and Nisumbha, in the Devi-mahatmya text. From a drop of his blood that fell on earth, many Raktabijas came up. These many Raktabijas, when they shed blood, multiplied into many more.

Durga then summoned Kali to swallow all the blood before it touched the earth and finally managed to kill him.

“Raktabija” means the “seed of blood” in Sanskrit. The multiplication of one

Raktabija into many is mapped on to the multiple impalement trees that come up from a single impalement tree. It is noteworthy that Kali, as in the Devi-mahatmya, takes the role of cleaning up the blood and killing the sprouting “live” impalement trees. Biardeau seems to suggest that the mythico-religious complex of the Devi-mahatmya, where the goddess Durga fights with the buffalo demon and other demons, provides a terrain upon which the Vedic sacrificial complex could have been reworked into popular goddess

317 worship (92-95).25 In this reworking, Biardeau also traces the transformation of the Vedic sacrificial post (yupa) into forms of the guardian deity Potta Raja, buffalo sacrifice, and instruments of “torture,” including the debt vow of the impalement stake at Mariyamman temples in Tamilnadu.

An analysis of the story of Kattavarayan that we have read now provides a different trajectory of how the post of “torture” can be configured in the image of

Raktabija. I am hesitant to speculate about which came first—the Devi-mahatmya or the popular goddess worship practices such as the impalement posts, because I am unsure one can consider “classical” textual materials prior to “popular” practices of

Mariyamman worship, simply because the latter cannot be dated. At the same time, I also do not want to suggest that the “popular” practices were all that one can talk about in locating the goddess worship. One way which I suggest is to discern a basic episteme in the popular practices of the goddess worship and the classical texts.26

One episteme that we find in the Devi-mahatmya as well as the popular practices is the trope of “One seed multiplying into many.” This episteme, I think, could be discerned not only in the classical text and practices at Mariyamman festivals, but also in the ammai-related practices. In the narrative space of the Sumbha-Nisumbha episode in the Devi-mahatmya, many Raktabijas emerge from a seed of blood. In the story of

Kattavarayan, many impalement trees spring up from a seed of a Vengai tree.

25 Biardeau, however, does not speak of a historical or chronological passage enabled through the text or locates the Devi-mahatmya as the foundational text for the goddess worship (see Biardeau, especially 266- 69). 26 Foucault defines “episteme” as “something like a world-view, a slice of history common to all branches of knowledge, which imposes on each one the same norms and postulates, a general stage of reason …” (1972, 191). Here, I use episteme in the restricted sense of “world-view” that is discursively formulated in goddess-related practices.

318 Analogously, a multitude of pearls constitutes a body during ammai-affliction and the number of the ammai-afflicted bodies grows in multitudes during an epidemic. 27

What do these multitudes signify? In the Devi-mahatmya, obviously all the emergent figures are the Asura Raktabija. These figures are erased from the scene by

Kali, as instructed by Durga. But the discursive practices of the goddess and ammai signify more complex things. The impalement trees that sprung from one drop of blood were all cut by Kali. 28 These are rendered lifeless, and among them she chooses one

“tree” for her son. Kali’s action of choosing seems to be embedded in two goals: on the one hand, the errant Kattavarayan should be and will be punished. On the other, his life needs to be protected. Her goal is to protect her son from death at the “live” impalement tree, says the narrative. The chosen half-cut tree, which is deprived of its life, but still can inflict pain, could serve these goals.

The chosen half-cut tree, unlike Raktabija, thus remains in the scene and waits for Kattavarayan to climb upon it in the future. What about the other half-cut impalement trees that Kali did not select? Kattavarayan’s narrative is silent about him, although we can trace a response to this question in the discursive practices of the goddess. Consider the performance of all sorts of pain-inflicting debt vows alongside the ceremonial impalement of Kattavarayan in Mariyamman festivals. Can one then suggest that the bodies marked by the debt vows of cetal and other types of pain-inflicting vows materialize these multitudes of impalement stakes in practice? Can one conceive those

27 The association of ammai with seed has been explored in Chapter Four. 28 In Kattavarayan Katai, translated by Meyer, it is Kattavarayan who cuts the tree with the help of a thousand demons, as instructed by Kali. Blood flows when he cuts it. Kattavarayan then places ashes on it (See Hiltebeitel 1991, 100). We do not find a thousand demons that helped Kattavarayan in our hi-story. Instead we find multitudes of trees that spring up from a drop of blood shed by the tree.

319 who undertake the debt vows on par with Kattavarayan who climbs the stake? How are ammai-afflicted bodies configured in this conception?

The multitudes of bodies that are marked with debt vows and ammai draw the part of the scene of impalement trees. The Mariyamman Lullaby (n.d.) can provide us a clue about such materialization of multitudes in discursive practices, when it brings in

Kattavarayan correlating him with the human person undertaking the debt vows as well the one who is afflicted with ammai. Two clusters of qualities are deployed in this correlation. On the one hand, identification of Kattavarayan with the human person undertaking a pain-inflicting debt vow or suffering with ammai is made to elicit the attention and compassion of the goddess. The term “balan” or child is often used in the

Lullaby many times to refer to Kattavarayan as well as these persons. Mariyamman is asked to look at these “children” of hers with compassion and protect them. At the same time, wickedness and insolence, the qualities that characterize Kattavarayan are brought to describe these humans too. Let me cite the related lines from Lullaby here:

Your form is of fire, We cannot bear

The one who gave birth to Kattan (Kattavarayan), The beautiful Mari

For the queen of women (Ariyamalai), you placed your son upon the

impalement stake

The son who was disobedient, You placed the god on the impalement

stake

You called him “wicked” (tustan). You tamed his insolence placing him

on the impalement stake

You chaste woman, Mother, You produced the pearls in this world. (19)

320 In a previous page of the Lullaby, a similar discourse of “insolence” and the taming force of the goddess appear in the context of debt vows:

The cetil (here it means the vertical stake)29 is as voluminous as a thigh,

the hook is as voluminious as a hand

Marimuttu, you tame the humans who are insolent. (16)

This connection also appears in the next pages:

Mother Uma, Marimuttu,

Make the heavy pearl descend, Save this boy

Save, Mother, You have begotten, so that the head and legs do not ache

You kept the son who did not obey your words on the hook-swinging

impalement stake

(19-20)

Risking repetition let me recall here that the practice of ceremonial impalement and similar debt vows refers to ammai-afflicted bodies as well. In my discussion on Ati festival at Panrutti Sri Padaiveettamman temple, I have already pointed out the visualization of bodies marked with cetal (as pin-piercing and hook-swinging) as forms of ammai-afflicted bodies. The above lines from the Lullaby, inasmuch as they are sung to an afflicted person to tap the compassion of the goddess, pertains to and delineates the condition of thorny suffering caused by pearls of ammai. Punishment of the wicked and insolent, as well as compassion toward the child, are mobilized through the image of the

“dead” impalement tree. The “dead” tree can torment, but it will not take one’s life. This is the hope that these lines impart to an ammai-afflicted person.

29 Some Mariyamman temples contain a permanent structure of the impalement stake (kazhumaram) which also has a hook-swinging structure. Thus, there will be a tenon and a transverse pole “that swings up and down.” Biardeau points out that it is a variant form of hook-swinging post.

321 In a previous chapter I analyzed how the materiality and meaning of an ammai- afflicted body as Mariyamman could have led to instantiation of her as a deity at an eminent plane. The association between Kattavarayan’s impalement and multitudes of bodies that undertake debt vows and that are afflicted with ammai gives an idea about the subject-sovereign relationship paradigm, where the human element is located as the subject and the goddess as the sovereign. However, in the theorization of the “one seed multiplying into many” as a basic episteme in popular worship practices and in the Devi- mahatmya, there is one crucial thing missing. How does this theorization apply to the primary identification of the ammai-afflicted body as the goddess?

In Dindigul from a theater actor named Nallamuttu, I heard a brief nugget about

Samayapuram Mariyamman. According to him, Mariyamman was a virgin girl. She got her first menstruation in Samayapuram. This event happened under a tree, where she was standing at that time. As her first drop of menstrual blood was flowing, red flowers appeared in the tree, which fell and covered her. According to him, only due to this occurrence, in Mariyamman temples the festival event of “showering of flowers” takes place. An elderly singer called Kuppan near Dindigul informed me that the Samayapuram

Mariyamman is especially fond of blood. He said that many devotees undertake this debt vow of cetal and thereby give her their blood, because it is at Samayapuram that she attained puberty. In Mariyamman Lullaby too one bumps into the line: “She

(Mariyamman) attained puberty in Samayapuram” (samaintal aval Samayapuram). But above all, I came across a “strange event” mentioned in a Mariyamman festival notice in a place called “ABC” near Mayavaram and Valangaiman. The event is called “utiravay tudappu utsavam,” meaning “the festival of wiping the mouth of blood.” This event takes

322 place twenty days after the “pushpabishekam” (puccorital) or “bathing of flowers” that takes place in the middle of the Panguni month. Interestingly, there is no Kattavarayan’s impalement there, and the ceremony of yellow water takes place the day after the

“wiping,” and the festival comes to a close the next day.

I was curious to find about this “wiping the mouth of blood.” I could sense that it relates to the goddess, but people in “ABC” were first not willing to disclose the details.

I understood it to be a secretive practice. But one of the family members of a priest at the temple told me directly that the festival relates to the menstrual blood of the goddess. I was also told that people who know about it and who are involved in the practice do not talk about it openly. And I cannot spell out anything beyond the above details in this work, since I think it is not appropriate. But the conception of the goddess’s menstrual blood drop as seed and its multiplication into flowers is obviously rendered in the discourses. The blood drops spilling from the cetal-undertaking body are equated with the menstrual blood of the goddess. The bodies that materialize simultaneously as

Mariyamman and as her subjects/children embody the episteme of “one seed multiplying into many.”” As I have pointed out, one can discern this episteme in the Devi-mahatmya as well. Since the “seed” is a repository of “heat”—considering the association of blood and ammai with heat—it might be possible to trace this episteme as such or in its variant form in the Vedic sacrifice as well. But since this is beyond the scope of this work, I stop here and move on to the field of discursive practices as relations of forces.

Justice, Caste Order and Heteronormative Power

We have just seen that the pearls of ammai, when they become unbearable and are painful, are framed in terms of punishment that the goddess gives. As pearls of ammai are

323 considered as punishment for one’s wickedness or insolence, the goddess is regarded as a sovereign who upholds and administers justice. Let us look at how the justice gets framed in the narrative and what role chastity plays in this framing. In the narrative,

Mariyamman is born from a Paraiyar woman and a Brahmin man, who are divine figures.

Mariyamman herself is marked as divine from the birth: she is born with four hands.

When the intermingling of castes marks the conditions of the birth of the one who is always already a divine figure, it has a discursive import in regulating the discourses of caste and intermixing of castes among humans. It is possible that due to the non-human nature of the offspring, the inter-caste sexual union among humans is constituted as something non-human and beyond human, entailing prohibition and punishment.

Mariyamman discourages her son from pursuing a woman of another caste. On the one hand, Ariyamalai is a Brahmin girl, a girl from “upper” caste. At the same time, when

Mariyamman advises her son against marrying her, she includes seven types of girls with their caste suffixes as “ti” or “fire,” whom her son should not think of marrying. While the narrative brings in the trope of “violation” of an “upper” caste woman by a man of

“lower” caste, this trope is deployed to articulate against the mixture of castes in general.

One can also notice the interpretation of the caste suffixes in terms of the “fire” that these women carry. It is as if upon approaching these women in intimate marital relationship, the “fire” would burn Kattavarayan. In other words, the so-called fire of chastity that is said to be “localized” in a feminine body operates as a potential punitive mechanism against the insolent disruptors of caste order.

Kattavarayan argues against Mariyamman, disobeys her words, and marries

Ariyamalai. It is this “insolence” of Kattavarayan which is brought out in the Lullaby,

324 and which is compared with the “insolence” of an afflicted person, perceived as an object of Mariyamman’s “just” punishment. Ariyamalai’s “fire of virginity” is configured as the device of impalement stake, which has been born with Ariyamalai, and which is set to pierce the flesh of Kattavarayan. One can find a corresponding image in the Lullaby. It pronounces the goddess as the “form of fire.” The “fire” of Ariyamalai, which has found its expression as the impalement stake, corresponds with the “fire” of the goddess manifesting as ammai. At the same time, the impalement stake that grows out of the anthill and that pierces Kattavarayan, is brought in as a reference to the afflicted body pricked by thorns-like pearls.

Kattavarayan’s torment due to the “fire” of the virgin Ariyamalai, displaced into or reworked as the impalement stake, does not happen as such. His torment is authorized and pronounced by Mariyamman, who herself is the form of fire. When she did tapas, even Siva, the boon-giver could not stand near her. As I have discussed in the last chapter, the tapas, which functions as a frugal sexual economy, and which brings in the boon of pearls of ammai, surfaces in this hi-story too. Again, as we saw in Renuka’s hi- stories, the pearls are received by the goddess and thrown back upon the male god. What appears to be new is the bringing in of the goddess as an arbitrator in the collapse of caste order. Kattavarayan “collapses the orthodoxy” of the Brahmins.30 He challenges their hegemony in every way. As Brahmins face ceaseless confrontation, they invoke the

30 According to Meyer, the anti-brahmin overtone of Kattavarayan’s story is made in later additions (1989, 77). Meyer also discusses the “changing face” of Kattavarayan in the textual versions of Kattavarayan’s story, especially Kattavarayan Katai and Kattavarayan Ammanai. She points out the differences between the portrayal of Kattavarayan’s character in the Katai and in Ammanai. While in the former, Kattavarayan is depicted as an insolent “prankster” who “turns the social conventions upside-down,” in the latter text he is more of an “innocent victim who is sacrificed at the stake to become a god on earth” (1989, 93). In the textual versions we find Kamakshi, and not Mariyamman. Instead, the hi-story that I discussed is narrated as Mariyamman’s story and is sung as such in Mariyamman festivals in the Perambalur, Ulundurpet, Attur, and Mayavaram areas.

325 arbitration of Mariyamman. Even in Renuka’s hi-stories that I discussed in the previous chapter, the working of regulatory discourse of caste order is discernible. For example, consider hi-story seven: when Renuka burns her interchanged “low-caste” torso, which transforms into an ammai-afflicted body and then into an anthill, dynamics of the regulatory discourse of caste order that obliterates and punishes the inter-mixture of castes is visible. Indeed, in this hi-story of Kattavarayan, the regulatory caste order appears more emphatic, and it takes the form of punishment and justice imposed by a sovereign.

There are two things that I would like to elicit attention to. Look at the remarks of people about Mariyamman: in their criticizing Kattavarayan’s behavior, they call

Mariyamman’s “chastity” into question. “If she is chaste, let her place her son on the stake,” they contest. For Mariyamman to be constituted as a “chaste woman,” the material effect of the regulatory power of caste should take place as the impalement of

Kattavarayan. The impalement of Kattavarayan is actually one of many such acts that the narrative portrays in rendering the goddess as an embodiment of chastity. As a girl child,

Mariyamman “daily” makes a sand lingam in the midst of ferocious waters, like Renuka bringing a fresh pot of water to her husband’s puja everyday; as a young woman, she performs arduous tapas, placing her toe upon a needle on a tall post. (The latter act strikes an obvious correspondence with the impalement of Kattavarayan and the cetal vow, which I will discuss later.) Secondly, after the impalement of Kattavarayan, the story closes with Mariyamman’s sending Ariyamalai to heaven with her virginity given back.

It is as if the extinguished lamp of Ariyamalai’s chastity is lit again with the fire of the chaste Mariyamman.

326 The hegemonic Brahmanic power, which authorizes the punishment of

Kattavarayan under the sign of the sovereign goddess, is thus summoned in the narrative to work along with and reinforce the prohibitive heteronormative power. In the trajectory of these power regimes, Kattavarayan’s body is made into a relic of the binding conventions that traverse the regimes of caste order. At the same time, his body is also a living memorial of the prohibitive heteronormative power that is embedded in an agenda to keep a virgin a virgin. Further, the prohibitive heteronormative power is “naturalized” because the impalement stake is not given in the discourses as something “made,” but rather it is depicted as a “tree” that grows naturally.

Section IV

“Have A Husband and Eat Him too”: The Post-husband of Mariyamman

In this section, I shall provide two versions of a Mariyamman’s hi-story in which she “eats” her husband or a potential male partner. The Tamil idiom “eating” indicates killing. She eats her husband, but in one version she still manages to have him in front of her in the form of a “tree post” for fifteen days in a year, which is the span of her festival.

The two versions that I give here are collected from Coimbatore and Dindigul from women. The first hi-story comes from a woman belonging to an “upper caste” Kavundar community and the second is told by a Dalit (Paraiyar) woman. In the hi-story we can encounter the ammai-afflicted body as the body of a Dalit man.

First let me give a brief background of the practices that involve a post-husband.

In Dharmapuri area, which lies west to Chennai, the Renuka-Utalmari story is predominant. The popular event of gruel-pouring along with sakti karakam invitation

327 marks the Mariyamman temple sites. But if we go to Salem, which is southwest of to

Dharmapuri, from Thoppur onwards, as I mentioned earlier, a new element surfaces in the temple festival. The new element is a kambam meaning a post. This is a type of a three-pronged wooden one, and is carved from a tree that has “milk-like” sap, such as pala (milk hedge), kotikkalli and margosa. Rarely, a plantain tree is also used, as in the

Kaveri Mariyamman temple in Johnsonpet in Salem.

In the Mariyamman temples starting from Thoppur to Salem, Coimbatore and

Erode areas, the Mariyamman festival begins with “Pooccattutal” or “decoration of the goddess with flowers,” which is similar to the “flower” festival that is done in

Valangaiman and Samayapuram. At the Mariyamman temple at Kukai in Salem, this event takes place on the evening of the first Tuesday in the Tamil month of Cittirai. Since the Kukai Mariyamman temple hosts Kali too, the icons of both Kali and Mariyamman are decorated with flowers.31 Starting from that day, special flower decorations for the icons take place every day. From Wednesday till the end of the festival, on most of the days, the festival icons (utsava murti) of Mariyamman and Kaliyamman go around the streets. A three-pronged margosa tree is spotted. It is cut, shaved, and polished by a carpenter whose family is traditionally involved with this task of the festival. A figure of a human is drawn on it (see figures 8 and 9). The wooden post is immersed in a common well. On Thursday, this post is washed well. After applying vermillion powder and turmeric paste, the post is adorned with a white cloth. Then it is brought along with some margosa branches and is planted in front of the goddess. This event takes place at around eight in the evening. Then a kankanam (wristlet) is tied to the post and then to the

31 It is not that in all Mariyamman temples in Salem, Kaliyamman accompanies her. For instance, in the Mariyamman temple in Annatanappatti, Salem, in which the annual festival is celebrated in the Tamil month of Ati, we find only Mariyamman and the festival is only celebrated for her.

328 Mariyamman icon. Wristlets are also tied by the pucari (who is from Pandaram community), a Paraiyar man, and the trustees (dharmakarthas) of the temple. A water pot immersed with margosa leaves is also tied to the post. I was told that this pot, which is identified with Mariyamman, should be kept in the groove of the three-pronged post, but since the pot might fall, due to practical reasons, it is tied to the post at its side. A thali

(which is a thread or a necklace that women wear to indicate that they are married) is tied to Mariyamman. Mariyamman is said to wed her husband who is in the form of the wooden post, that night. The husband-post is identified as a Paraiyar man, who is burnt by Mariyamman. Sometimes, he is also identified as someone who has had poxes (see hi- story ten and discussion below).

On Saturday, at about ten in the morning, the flag-hoisting takes place for

Mariyamman. On the following Monday, after eight in the evening, the flag-hoisting takes place for Kaliyamman. A thali is also tied to Kali. I enquired of Kathirvel Chettiyar, who was explaining to me all these details, about Kali’s husband. He said it is the “lion” on which she mounts. An elderly pandaram priest named Shanmugam told me that it is

Siva. Then I asked whether it is performed “secretly” since it is celebrated in the night.

Both Kathirvel Chettiyar and Shanmugam informed me that it is not so and everyone can see it and local cable television channels also relay it. But the festival notice does not mention the wedding of Kali. They explained that Kali is a “sumangali forever” or

“nityasumangali” (that is, one who has marital auspiciousness all the time) and they do not think her marriage should be specially announced. On the contrary, they remarked that Mari becomes a widow, and that is why her wedding and her becoming a widow are shown distinctly in festival ceremonies.

329 On the next Tuesday, that is on the fifteenth day of the festival, in the early morning, a pot with its mouth wide open (catti) is filled with dry twigs and charcoal.

These are then lit. The pucari takes this pot in his hands and goes around the shrine three times in a trance. With him, a Paraiyar man playing the parai drum also goes. After the third round is completed, the pucari keeps the hot pot on the post for five to ten minutes.

Keeping the hot pot on the post is called jakaram or sakaram, which is interpreted by

Kathirvel and his brothers as the “killing” of the husband.32 (See figure 10). The hot pot is then taken and kept aside. All the margosa leaves from the post are removed and ideally no margosa leaves should be kept on the post hereafter. Water from the pot that has been attached to the post is first poured on the post. Women start pouring water on the post, as if the dead body is washed.33

One can sense the association of the husband-post with the ammai-afflicted body from the beginning. First of all, he is carved out of a tree with milk (alluding to milky liquid matter that poxes have). A water pot immersed with margosa leaves tied to him brings the karakam kept near the ammai-afflicted person to our mind. I was told by an elderly trustee at a Mariyamman temple in Annatanappatti, which is adjacent to Kukai, that in his youth he has never seen margosa leaves kept once the jakaram takes place. He said: “What is the use? He is already dead.” Water poured upon him from the day of jakaram until he is removed could be interpreted as water used to wash a dead body.

32 The Tamil verb “ca” means “dying.” 33 The jakaram or killing takes place through the act of placing the fire-pot on the post just once in Mariyamman festivals at Kukai, Annatanappatti, Johnsonpet and other temples in Salem. In contrast, in Mariyamman temples in Coimbatore, a fire-pot and a water-pot are kept alternately over the post at dusk and dawn alternately (Beck 1981, 89) for eight days. The goddess observes a fast “eating raw food” all these days. On the eighth day, the post is uprooted and taken to the well (Beck 1981, 90).

330 After the jakaram event, that morning around eight, Sakti is invited. The pucari goes to a garden near the temple. A copper pot is filled with water and margosa leaves are immersed in it. The pot is decorated with flowers and is carried by the priest on his head. He is accompanied by a few subsidiary pucaris associated with the temple. A horse comes in front of the sakti karakam procession. Biardeau, in her discussion on sakti karakam in another Mariyamman temple associates the “horse” with asvamedha sacrifice.

Kathirvelu simply said that the horse indicated “horse power” (told in English) and people were traditionally aware of this power even before the “West” started speaking about it in terms of science! Another sakti karakam is invited for Kaliyamman too. A person who is dressed as Kali comes in front of this procession. Both karakams are brought to the temple and are kept inside the sanctum. On the day of sakti karakam, people bring “mulappari” or pots of sprouts too. They bring them from their houses and keep the pots in front of the shrine of Mariyamman.

I have discussed the pot of sprouts of pulses, and conceptions about them as ammai in Chapter Four. The seeds of pulses that sprout in the pot are considered pearls of ammai that sprout on a body-scape. One can also remember my earlier discussion about how disciplinary practices, especially relating to sexual purity or non-indulgence in sex, akin to those during ammai, are followed during the growth of pots of sprouts. I attended a performance of women who played kummi (a dance sequence in which women clap their hands) around the pots of sprouts in Melur (near Madurai) and Nilakkottai (near

Dindigul). The song is sung by the groups of women especially when they carry the pots in groups to the Mariyamman temple. After the pots are kept at the temple, again they are sung and the dance is continued. Many Mariyamman temples in the areas of Dindigul and

331 Madurai engage special mulappari singers who are women. Kathirvelu told me that women sing songs after they bring mulappari, but I could not gather the songs at the

Salem temple. I have given a mulappari song sung by a singer in Melur in Appendix.

One can see how the pearls of ammai are connected with different debt vows, right from hook-swinging to flour-lamp to circumambulation to ritual-begging to fire-pot at

Mariyamman shrines. Naming each part of the body, Mariyamman is requested to

“descend” from that part. Corresponding to her “descent” from each part of the body, a debt vow concerning that part is promised by the singer.34 The mulappari pots which are kept assembled at the side of the shrine will be there until they are “dissolved” along with the disarrangement of sakti karakam on the day of removing the post.

On the day of sakti karakam and on the next day various pain-inflicting debt vows like cetal (here the piercing of needles as well as rods is called alaku) also take place

(figure 11). On Wednesday, the next day of sakti karakam, firewalking takes place. The fire-walk in the temple is associated more with Kali than with Mariyamman. A special sakti karakam is prepared for Kali on this occasion and is carried first through the fire.

Then devotees walk on the fire. A chariot that contains the icons of the goddesses runs on

Thursday night. On Friday, a special street procession of the goddesses called

Sattaparanam takes place, and on Sunday, yellow water is poured by devotees upon one- another in front of the temple.

The husband-post is removed from the shrine on Monday (which is actually the

21st day of the festival) after the kumbam offering (a huge amount of pongal kept on a banana leaf) is served to Kali. A small amount of pongal on a banana leaf is kept along

34 As the singer was singing the song at Melur Muttumariyamman temple, in many women, who were dancing going around the pots, Mariyamman “arrived,” and these women started dancing.

332 with betel leaves, areca nuts, and bananas. A coconut is also kept near the post.

Kathirvelu specifically pointed out that it is an offering that Hindus normally give everyday to crows (which are believed as the dead ancestors or pithrus [in Sans. pitr]).

The offering given to the post is then left beyond the boundary (which is marked by a tamarind tree near a cinema theatre). The Sakti of Kali in the form of pongal is also carried to the boundary and is left there.

After cutting a pumpkin, which is actually a substitute for a goat, as I was told, the post is removed by Kathirvelu and a few others of his family. The cut pumpkin is placed in the pit in which the post was planted, and the pit is covered with a slab. The removal of the post takes place at around two in the night, which is Tuesday, early morning that falls on 22nd day of the festival. In Kukai, like in other Mariyamman temples in Salem, the removal of the post takes place without much fanfare. Women are not allowed to see it and exclusively men participate in this event. As soon as the post is removed, it is taken to the public well from where it was originally taken and brought to the temple. The pucari ties his wristlet on the post and, after circulating a camphor arti, the post is dropped in the well.

After the post is removed, the auspicious thali is removed from Mariyamman implying she is a widow now. In many Mariyamman temples in Erode and Coimbatore, a white sari covers Mariyamman’s icon at this time indicating her status of widowhood. In

Mariyamman temples, such as the one in Karuvalur in Coimbatore, a small group of widows go to the sanctum of the goddess that night and lament with her. The next day after removal of the post, no significant activities take place at the temple. On the following day, Mariyamman is back in her original form wearing normal clothes and, as

333 auspicious Sakti, as she normally presents herself at the temple. In Kukai, Kaliyamman’s auspicious thali is also removed at this time. But the pucari told me specifically that

Kaliyamman, unlike Mariyamman, does not become a widow. Since with the removal of the post, the festival comes to a close, the removal of the auspicious thali of Kali signifies only that.

In some Mariyamman temples in Salem, such as the Kaveri Mariyamman temple located at Johnsonpet, a goat is sacrificed when the plantain tree (this serves as the post here) is removed. The pucari gets into a trance as he takes the head portion of the goat and bites it, drinking the dripping blood. In his trance he runs to a well nearby. I was told that if adequate protection is not made near the well, in his trance he would fall into the well. And this is the well in which the plantain tree is immersed later on. In the

Johnsonpet temple, Mariyamman is adorned with a white sari after the post is removed.35

About the animal sacrifice during the removal of the husband-post, I came across a somewhat rare practice at Kannapuram near Coimbatore. Brenda E.F. Beck (1981) has already done a rich ethnographic study of the Mariyamman temple at Kannapuram. One crucial thing that I could not find in her study, but which I was told about at the temple by a priest, is a buffalo sacrifice. Beck speaks of goat sacrifices that take place thrice during the Mariyamman festival at Kannapuram: The first occurs when the post is brought from a well and is planted, and just after the wedding of the goddess with the post takes place; the second at the time of “breaking of the fast” of the goddess on the eighth day (see footnote 32); and, third, sacrifice at the time of the uprooting of the post on the eighth night (Beck 1981, 112). But from what I have gathered in Kannapuram (in 1996) from a

35 I have heard of a similar practice of covering Mariyamman with a white cloth or sari, after the husband- post is removed, in Karuvalur also.

334 pucari at the temple, at the time of uprooting the post, a buffalo is customarily sacrificed, although this was stopped for a while due to governmental intervention. But the practice was soon resumed with the recommendation of an Executive officer of the temple who believed that “Without a buffalo sacrifice, the worship of Durga is not complete.” 36

Therefore, the buffalo sacrifice was again resumed. When the pucari mentioned this to me, he brought in the story of Durga’s killing Mahisa (which the Devi-mahatmya describes). The pucari added that Mariyamman is one form of Sakti, who manifests in various forms (rupam).

The sacrifice of a buffalo at the time of the removal of the husband-post is striking. This event, I think, forges an equivalence between the husband-post that has suffered boils (or poxes) with the buffalo demon or Mahisa. One can find the transformability of the Paraiyar body with ammai/boils with Mahisa, the buffalo demon, as Mariyamman is correlated and equated with Durga, who is another form of Sakti. The transformability foregrounded in the discursive practices is something akin to the transformability of pain-inflicting ammai, the impalement stake, and the asura Raktabija that we saw earlier. I propose that with such transformability foregrounded in the discursive practices, Mariyamman worship practices related to ammai could be mapped onto the terrain of discourses that unify the “great goddess,” as delineated in the classical

Devi-mahatmya. More work needs to be done to map the interconnection between the

Devi-mahatmya and discursive practices related to ammai. Right now, my concern is to deconstruct the identity of an ammai-afflicted body as a body of Paraiyar. In moving towards that goal, this section is specifically concerned with the practices in the

Mariyamman festivals at temples in Kukai, Salem and Dindigul.

36 I cannot give the names of the pucari and the officer here as requested by the pucari.

335 Let me first give a brief overview of the presence of the impalement stake and the post-husband, which draw a special cultural topography of Mariyamman festivals. The events involving the post-husband are present in the Mariyamman festivals in Salem,

Erode, Coimbatore and Nilgiris, though one encounters this element in Karur and

Namakkal as well. Sometimes in the Mariyamman festival the widow overtone of

Mariyamman is played with emphasis. For instance, in the Namakkal Salappalayam

Mariyamman temple, in the fire-walk not only men wear white dhotis, but women too wear white saris and walk through the fire, after the festival icon of Mariyamman is taken along the fire by the priest, as one can see in a video uploaded in the YouTube

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Y9Lsnq5zo). If we travel from Namakkal to

Trichy (or from Karur to Trichy), in between these two places one finds both the elements of the impalement stake and the post-husband in Mariyamman temples. For instance, they coincide at the Kolakkara Mariyamman temple in Atinattam, a village near

Kulittalai (See map 3). However, as one goes close to Trichy or Samayapuram and east, the husband-post is downplayed and the impalement stake gains prominence. Similarly, if one travels a little south from Karur to Dindigul, or alternately from Coimbatore in a south-eastern direction toward Dindigul, one finds that the husband-post as well as the impalement stake are considered significant. Climbing impalement stake was performed in Dindigul, drawing from the hi-story of the post-husband, although now it is extinct. (I will discuss the hi-story of Mariyamman prevailing in Dindigul shortly.) From Dindigul, if we move further southeast to Nattam and Kamudi, the impalement post appears prominently, with the post-husband losing his significance in the discursive practices.

Further south, in Madurai both the elements are underplayed or completely disappear,

336 and the hi-story of Mariyamman changes. The above details are given to provide a general outline, and there could be Mariyamman temple festivals that do not come within this outline.

I have chosen to analyze the discourses of the “husband-post” in the discursive practices pertaining to two Mariyamman temples, namely at Kukai in Salem and

Dindigul, to provide an idea about contrasting articulations. At Kukai, while the husband- post is produced as that which embodies the regulatory ideal of the caste order, in

Dindigul, in the discursive practices of the Dalits, it is produced as a material site of identity claims and consolidation. While discussing these discursive practices, one also encounters the persistent staging of hetero-normative power. I will come to that later.

First let me give the hi-story where Mariyamman kills her Paraiyar husband by throwing fire upon him. My consultants told this hi-story in its different versions when I asked about the “death” of Mariyamman’s husband and his presence as the post during

Mariyamman festivals. Here I am giving a version which I gathered in Coimbatore, by a very elderly woman named Unnamalai who said she was one hundred and four years old.37 She belongs to Kongu Vellala Kavundar caste. Similar versions of the hi-story have been collected by me in Salem as well.

37 In a version of a similar story of Mariyamman at Kannapuram (near Coimbatore), recorded by Beck (1981, 91), Esvari was born as a Brahmin girl who fell in love with a Paraiyar man and married him. Later, “contemplating the fact of her marriage to such a man” she “caused his body to be engulfed in fire.” The story goes: He asked her to stop the burning, but she replied that he must never enter her house, even though he be her husband. She cursed him to have his body reduced to ashes by fire. Where those ashes fell she caused margosa (veppa) trees to grow. In this form he was told to always stand outside her home. (Beck 95).

337 Hi-story Ten

Mariyamman Eats her Husband

Mariyamman ate her husband and then went on “meramanai” (which means “sattaparanam,” a celebrated procession in Mariyamman festival). Do you know why they say it? Mari was born in a family of Kavundar caste. Her parents died when she was an infant. A Paraiyar man brought her up. As Mari grew up, he did not want to give her away in marriage to any other person and he, therefore, wanted to marry her. He built a small house and bought various things for her. He tied a thali to her. It was a fake marriage. The girl had not even attained puberty. Mari wanted to cook on the day of the wedding and at that time it was getting dark. She told her husband: “You did a lot for me. But you have not bought that which would fill the house (vitu nirainjatu).” He went out and brought a cart full of hay and to fill the house. Mari told him, “You have brought hay. I shall show you what fills the house.” She lit a lamp and its light filled the entire house. As she was enraged (by her husband’s act?), she dumped the burning lamp with oil upon him. His body was burnt with boils erupting on the body. Crying, “It is burning, it is burning” he went and submerged himself in the well. At that time she said, “You are going. However, for the sake of my thali and for my marital auspiciousness (sumankali) forever, visit me every year during my festival. He comes as the three-pronged post every year for fifteen days during her festival. We throw him into the well at the end of the festival.

The boils that the Paraiyar man suffers were referred to as ammai by a woman devotee named Nirmala in Annatanappatti, Salem. According to her, the goddess’s husband was the first to get ammai. Siva-Jamadagni who gets the first pearls of ammai from the goddess Renuka-Utalmari might be recalled in this connection. As I mentioned earlier, the tree that is made into a post should be a tree with milk-like sap, which alludes to the milk-like liquid matter that the pustules of ammai contain.

But why is a Paraiyar man brought in instead of Siva-Jamadagni? Let us go back to the Thoppur Mariyamman temple to help analyze this narrative. In Thoppur, through a performance called “sending ammai away,” the bad forces that form part of the goddess are sent before the temple festival begins. Does this mean Mariyamman as an object-site

338 of poxes falls out of discursive practices, which now project Mariyamman as an agent who is in-charge of causing and curing affliction? In any case, the “bad forces” that are driven out seem to come back in the form of Mariyamman’s “husband-post.” During the festival in Thoppur, a three-pronged post is brought as Mariyamman’s husband and planted in front of the shrine. Similar to what we saw in Kukai, the post is removed toward the end of the festival. As we go in the direction of Salem from Thoppur,

Renuka-Utalmari’s hi-story increasingly falls out of the discursive realm and the post- husband of Mariyamman gradually emerges on the scene. In fact, Thoppur is the place from which the practice of planting the post-husband begins. In Thoppur, I was told that

“the land of post” (kambanadu) begins only from there and extends down into Salem.

Can one then conceive that the exteriorized and ex-communicated “bad forces” of the goddess have found their expression in the figure of an “outcaste” or a Paraiyar? Could this externalization be a foundational discourse which brings an ammai-afflicted body as a body of Paraiyar? I think the discursive path through which the goddess is established as eminent through such exteriorization of a part of her entails a violence. The body of an

“outcaste”, which is being produced as a societal abject and exterior by the discursive practices of caste order, is identified as/with the “bad forces” that are exteriorized from

Mariyamman’s body. Through the discursive practices of “sending off the ammai” and bringing in the Paraiyar as the post-husband, who will subsequently be dead and expelled,

Mariyamman’s body as the social body and Paraiyar’s body as an abject body are produced through the exclusionary significatory practices of caste order. In some

Mariyamman temples, the location of the post at the temple site actually serves as a boundary to keep the Dalits out. After the Kavundar woman narrated the story, as a

339 follow-up question, I asked her about entry of Dalits or Paraiyars into the Mariyamman temples in Coimbatore area. She told me that in the yesteryears, they would stop behind the post or kambam, but they now come inside the temple “freely.”

As I suggested in my earlier discussion of the Thoppur festival event of “sending the ammai away,” the “good” and “bad” forces could be a device of classifying good ammai and bad ammai at another epistemic level: good ammai means the pearls that descend soon from the afflicted body, whereas bad ammai is that which steals away the life (this classification draws from the conversation with Senthil and Palaniappan at the

Thoppur Mariyamman temple, which I mentioned before). In the Mariyamman temple at

Kukai, it does not appear to be an arbitrary coincidence that on the day of the death of the post-husband, pots of sprouts or mulappari are brought. The songs of mulappari address the goddess to descend from the body part by part (Appendix). In the song, various debt vows are promised to the goddess as a thanks-giving gesture for her descending from the afflicted body. As Mariyamman is “good pearls,” she will not take away life, even if the body is tormented by pain. Has Kali not already taken away the lives of deadly impalement trees? The tormenting good pearls are simply the goddess or the sign of her royal authority under which one is duly punished, as Kattavarayan is punished. But the case of “bad pearls” is different. They bring death. They have to be sent out by violence and by killing. In the Salem Mariyamman temple and adjacent sites, the post-husband is not an equivalent figure of Kattavarayan. In other words, he “is” an impalement tree (post) with “life.” He is projected as asuric, with the burns that mark the contours of the body.

On the day of death of the post-husband, as mulappari pots are brought in, devotees throng in large numbers to the temple to perform debt vows alongside them. In

340 fact, as soon as the jakaram (death) takes place, that is, as soon as the “asuric” body of the post-husband is killed, women begin to circumambulate the shrine by rolling their bodies on their floor (urulutantam). Flour-lamps and piercing of needles into the flesh immediately begin to produce the scene. Occasionally hook-swinging in the form of

“aeroplane kavati” takes place alongside. A few devotees walk on chappals made of thorns for a short distance in front of the temple. The festival field of discursive practices thus produces pain-inflicted bodies-nodes which share their configuration with pots of sprouts that allude to a body marked with “good” pearls of ammai.

Hi-story ten invokes the trope of abandonment. Like Uyirmari, Mariyamman is abandoned by her parents in this narrative too. Mariyamman’s husband is given as someone who is “ignorant.” He does not know the value of light and brings hay, and substitutes gross in the place of the subtle. It seems to be a pretext for killing him. He is a

Paraiyar man. Could this be a reason for his killing? But it was he who brought her up.

The hi-story states her husband was her father before. It was their nuptial night and he might be ready to engage in an incestual sexual relationship with her. Does this

“inappropriate” motive of his cause her to kill him? All these possibilities are embedded in a vectorial motive of keeping Mariyamman “untouched” by the Paraiyar male.

Mariyamman burns her husband, as Sukanikai causes burns in the Asvini Devas. The widowed goddess, unlike Sukanikai, does not “enjoy” her life with husband. Every year, in Mariyamman’s festival, her husband is burnt by her by the fire pot in the event of jakaram. Her festival perpetually produces the goddess as a “chaste widow,” unsoiled by the touch of the male, and her “outcaste” husband as a wooden post, which is eliminated by her “fire” of chastity.

341 Body-post as a Site of Contestation and Identity

I will end this chapter by analyzing a set of discursive practices related to the

“husband-post” in Dindigul, where an elderly Dalit woman Mukkayi rendered a new hi- story of the husband-post. An analysis of this hi-story and associated discursive practices would show how the body of the husband-post, which is mobilized for consolidation of identity and for asserting the privileges of the Dalits in Dindigul in contemporary times, still is working in the service of a regulatory heteronormative regime.

In Dindigul, the Kottai Mariyamman temple is famous for its month-long festival.

In the festival notice, along with the events concerning the post, another event titled

“Laying the field of death and climbing the impalement” (patukalam pottu kazhumaram nattu kazhuvetram ceytal). When I inquired about this with the temple authorities, including trustees, they were not willing to speak about this particular event.

Nevertheless, when I met with the Dalit men and women in Dindigul, I was told that the event of patukalam, that is, the “field of death,” is still performed by them although the performance of climbing the impalement stake was stopped long back. Furthermore, it is the Dalits who spot the three-pronged “milky” tree (here it is kotikalli tree), chisel it into the post, bring it to the temple, and plant it in front of the goddess. After they bring the post to the temple, a plate containing the auspicious thali is given to them. The person who brings the post touches the thali and gives it to the pucari. The pucari then ties the thali to the goddess. The Dalits say that it is actually they who tie the thali through pucari and take Mariyamman as their wife. What is the story of the field of death and impalement? How is it related to the post-husband that the Dalits bring to the temple?

342 The following hi-story told by Mukkayi provides us the connections. Please pay attention to the usage of pronouns and the verb tenses.

Hi-story Eleven

“Fifteen Days He is for Me, Rest of the Year He is for You”

Mariyamman was born as the only child in a Sourashtira caste household who were involved in the profession of weaving silk. Our boy (enga paiyan) was working in the household. Our man (enga alu) looked after their cattle-shed and did errands for them. This Paraiyan had four kids. The Sourashtira girl attained puberty. She opened the window and looked at him, and he was sweeping the floor. He did not know that she was watching him. The girl’s mother got angry and scolded her “You are looking at that Paraiyan. Wife of the Paraiyan! Go with him.” That girl thought, “What if I went with him?” One day, when the man was leaving the house, the girl followed him. He advised her not to come with him, but the girl did not pay heed to his advice. Our boy warned her: “If the people at your household know this they will put me up on a stake. So don’t come.” She insisted: “I will not allow them to put you on the stake. I will but come with you.” He took her along.

On their way, they saw an open space. The man said, “Stay here. I will get some food and come back.” He made a shamiana of margosa leaves for her and left the place. When he went to his house, he saw his wife and four children were eating beef. Thinking that the girl would be hungry, he stole a goat from a flock of a shepherd. As he brought the goat, he was caught. For his theft, it was decreed by the townspeople (urkkaranga) that he should climb the impalement stake. When the punishment was carried out, Sadacci,38 the wife of the Paraiyan, learnt all of this. She came to the girl enraged and blamed her: “Ati Sinner (atippavi), Because of you my husband is climbing the stake. You take us too.” The woman then strangulated the necks of her children and killed them. She also killed herself. Then Mariyamman made the Paraiyan descend the stake. She revived Sadacci and all the children. Mariyamman then told Sadacci: “I will have your husband for fifteen days, all other days he will be with you.” That is why she has the Paraiyan as the post at her temple. Mariyamman asked Sadacci to arrange for a patukalam and the impalement with the children. Mariyamman also taught them how to arrange the patukalam. She asked Sadacci to make two of her children climb the stake and two lie on the floor in front of her shrine.

38 In another version told by a woman Mariyamma, the wife is called “Pulukacci.” I have also heard people calling “Peycci” in Dindigul.

343 We do not climb the impalement post now. Some decades back it was done at the temple. I saw it when I was young. But we do patukalam. Only from here (Mukkayi pointed out a small temple in their neighborhood), every year Sadacci would go to the Mariyamman temple. The person (it is always a man) who is cast as Sadacci would have the dots of black collyrium and lime on their body (figure 12). She would go carrying a winnow and people put money in that. If Sadacci asks money, you should not refuse. Four of our children also would also accompany her to the temple. The procession would go with the beats of parai drums. As soon as we enter the shrine of amman, the pucari would allot a place for us in front of the shrine. The four children would lie down on the floor. A white cloth would be spread near them. People would put the “funeral money” in that. Women would sing songs of lament. On our children, flour-lamps would be placed. They would have bananas in their mouths. They will be taken as dead. Then the pucari would come and sprinkle the yellow water on the children. The children should be lifted from the floor at once. Only then, the children would be alive. Or else, some danger may occur. This is called patukalam and every year we do it. ….

When we used to climb the impalement stake--only our men climbed it--in front of the temple, an impalement stake would be planted. A goat would be tied to it at the bottom. One of our men would climb the stake and after the children in the patukalam were lifted, this man would come down. After the pucari sprinkled water on him, the goat would be sacrificed and given to him.

One can compare this hi-story with the one narrated by the Kavundar woman.39

While the Kavundar woman’s hi-story presents the Dalit man as someone who has no sense of right or wrong –for he married even his own foster daughter—this narrative of the Dalit woman contests the casteist ideology by rendering the townspeople (or “upper” caste people) as cruel: they made the Dalit man climb the impalement stake, even though it is the upper caste girl who chose the Dalit man voluntarily. In this hi-story, the Dalit man warns her in advance about the possible punishment in the form of impalement that is in store for him. Yet Mariyamman does not listen to him and rather tells him that she

39 I was also able to gather another version of the “upper” caste (Sourashtira) Mariyamman, going with as “outcaste” Dalit man in Dindigul. In this version, told by an “upper” caste Naicker woman named Krishnamma, the townspeople do not impale the “outcaste” man. But it is Mariyamman who kills him, his wife and his children, but eventually revives them all. The exclusionary caste regime that expels the Dalit from the discursive space is reinforced in this version as well.

344 will not allow them to place him on the impalement stake. In the Dalit narrative, the Dalit man figures as an unfortunate victim of the regulatory caste order.

Consider Mukkayi’s first-person usages and proximate nouns in referring to the husband-post: “our boy” “our fellow,” and “this Paraiyan.” The words “our” and “this” in this narrative not only refer to the Dalits’ identification with the hero of the story who is of their caste, but these words also locate the husband-post as a real someone whom they had known in the past rather than as the one from the time immemorial. When she speaks of “Sadacci’s procession” every year from a temple in their “colony” to the Kottai

Mariyamman temple, her narrative easily switches over from the past to the present tense.

Such grounding of the narrative in the present tense attests to the fact that the goddess’s life was and is very much enmeshed with their lives.

The Paraiyar man is not killed by Mariyamman in the Dalit narrative. He is, rather, protected by her as he was placed on the impalement stake by the people for his theft. The husband-post is alive, but not in the asuric sense of having boils/poxes all over the body. He is alive in a way similar to Kattavarayan, who is tormented but finally protected. In the Dalits’ account, the removal of the post amounts to restoring the Dalit man to his first wife Sadacci. Mariyamman desires him and has entered into an arrangement with his first wife to share him with her for fifteen days, while the Dalit wife keeps him for the rest of the year. The festival is an enactment of this agreement.

When I entered the “colony” where this Dalit woman narrator lives, a huge poster caught my eyes. The poster had been printed by an association of Dalit youngsters, which is organized by a young man named Ilaiyakumar. The poster invited everyone in

Dindigul to participate in the event of “planting the post” in front of the goddess (see

345 figure 13). Such invitation posters are printed every year by the association for a decade now, and Ilaiyakumar had plans to advertise his caste’s role and participation in the

Mariyamman temple festival through mass media, such as television channels and magazines, in the coming years. Ilaiyakumar explained that the Mariyamman festival was an occasion by which the Dalit youngsters in and around Dindigul are or could be mobilized. He was troubled by the lack of unity among some ten thousand Dalit families living in Dindigul and added that the poster would impart them a feeling of unity and

“coordinate” (using English) them. When the Dalit woman narrated this hi-story to me,

Ilaiyakumar and his friends were also present. They told me that only recently, that is, a few years back, they realized the significance of the post in the festival, since it is the post that gets more attention than the goddess and gets worshipped by thousands of devotees who touch it and pour water over it. They were upset over the fact that they were not given “respect” by the temple authorities who, in fact, took away their

“traditional privilege” of hosting the goddess for two days in their “colony” during the festival. They were disappointed that, even though they had been involved in all hard work like cutting and bringing the post to the temple, they were not let inside the temple until ten years back. Only in recent years could they go inside the temple past the post.

They shared with me their future plan to get at least one day of the “traditional privilege” of hosting the deity in their place for at least for one day, and even asked me whether I could lend my writing in support of their claim of their conventional association with the goddess. They informed me about their intention to involve Dalit residents from other areas in and around Dindigul to participate en masse and celebrate the event.

346 Ilaiyakumar told me that by such mobilization of their “community” (camukam) they were trying to get the fair recognition that it deserves.

In the discursive practices of the Dalits, the body of the Paraiyar man turned into the post by the goddess is perceived as an ideal body, since this body has assumed a formidable place inside the temple and is bestowed with respectful recognition through the worship of thousands inside the temple space. It is not surprising that this body is the site at which the identity and “traditional” privilege of the oppressed Dalits get mobilized.

The husband-post that belongs to the inside of the temple in their discursive practices is turned into a political idiom through which the Dalits demand to be incorporated within the caste society. We can recall the Kavundar woman’s remark on the post. According to her, the post is neither ‘in’ nor ‘out,’ but it constitutes a boundary marker, which, in yesteryears, kept the Dalits out.40 One could sense the dissatisfaction in her tone when she expressed that the post does not operate as a boundary marker between “in” and “out” anymore. With the post ceasing to function as a boundary and with the in/out markings

“now” rendered untenable, it is only reasonable that the Dalits ask the goddess to come and stay in their place for a few days.

In the discursive practices of the “upper” castes and Dalits, the regulatory regime of caste distinction and order are both secured and contested. How does the heteronormative power figure in this securing and contestation? To respond to this question, we need to explore how ammai figures in the Dalit discursive practices. After

Mukkayi finished her narrative, we were conversing about the habitual practices of ammai they follow. One of the practices followed during ammai is this: After ammai

40 The Vedic yupa which lies on the boundary of the sacrificial realm, lying half-in and half-out, can be recalled here (see the figure of the Vedic sacrificial altar in Biardeau 36).

347 pearls are healed and when the first bath is administered, a small earthen pot should be taken and it should be dotted with a paste of black collyrium. The pot, then, should be kept upside down outside the house. The pot represents none other than Sadacci, wife of the Paraiyar man, and we have met her in the Dalit narrative already.

P: What will happen if the pot is not kept outside?

M: Amma, it will cause danger. Sadacci comes in the night on the day of

the “first bath,” to check whether you remember only Mariyamman or

remember her too. If you keep the pot, she would be happy that you

remember her. If not, she will be angry.

P: What will happen if we do not keep it…

M: Then she will take the form of a bee and extinguish the lamp which is

inside

P: Which lamp?

M: The life (in the ammai-arrived body). She will take it away.

Krishnamma, a Naicker woman (whom I mentioned in a footnote before) also referred to this practice of keeping the pot outside the house. According to her, in addition to collyrium, lime also should be used to dot the pot and three horizontal lines with sacred ash should be drawn on the pot.

P: Why do we keep this pot?

K: After the pearls of ammai descend and we send off the goddess, this

darkness (Karuppu) will still be there. If this pot is kept, she will not go

inside the house. It is for security, we keep this pot upside down.

348 The dotted pot turned upside down and kept outside the house just after the pearls of ammai descend, is opposite to the karakam or vessel that is filled with water that is kept inside during the time of affliction. While the karakam is visualized as containing the sacred water of Gangai (that is, the liquid of pustules), the dotted pot is unfilled and dry. The former is identified as Mariyamman, and the latter as Sadacci. It is worth- mentioning that Sadacci, who goes to Mariyamman temple along with her children every year, is also adorned with similar dots. One can easily recognize the dots allude to pustules of ammai or pockmarks.

In the discussion on the husband-post, I observed how the pearls of “bad” ammai that entail death are exteriorized from the goddess and get identified with the Paraiyar man, who is rendered as “abject” in the exclusionary, regulatory caste regime. The discursive practices of the Dalits, embedded in the form of their version of husband- post’s hi-story and of affirmative identity articulation, organized around the trope of the husband-post, work to contest this regime. It is something like the Dalits have recognized the “mobilizing power of injury” (Butler 1993, 123) that they have been suffering and deploying it in their struggle against the caste hegemony. At the same time, unfortunately, the exteriorized “bad” ammai reconfigures as the Paraiyar woman, who takes the form of a bee and takes away the life of an ammai-afflicted person, who is recouping. How to understand this discursive violence committed to the Dalit woman, who is constructed as an embodiment of “bad” poxes and who waits for an occasion of offence to take human life away? How is she connected with the darkness?

To understand this through Mariyamman festival practices, one needs to look at the performance of impalement at a nearby Mariyamman temple at Natham, which is

349 about twenty miles east toward Dindigul. The Naicker caste people are priests at the temple and a Dalit man named Arumugam or a male member from his family traditionally climbs the tree (stake)—here, it is called kazhumaram or vazhukkumaram— which is planted in front of the Mariyamman’s shrine every year during the temple festival. Arumugam explained the practice of climbing impalement to me. Whenever

Arumugam referred to the goddess’s husband, he used not the third person “he,” but the first person plural “us.” His account goes like this:

Once Mariyamman was established as the goddess at Natham, she looked at the people to choose her husband. Of men of all castes that gathered around, she chose us, the Paraiyan, the one with the drum. She is fond of our music, you see. After she desired him, the protective thread was tied at our wrists. (My remark: one can see a shift between “him” and “us” here.) Do you think the Naickers would ever touch us and tie the sacred thread upon his wrist? That is why, the post is kept in front of her shrine every year and the Naickers tie the sacred wristlet on it. The Paraiyan (the one who married Mariyamman) was asked to climb up the tree (stake) by the villagers. Every year before climbing the tree we pray to the goddess to protect us. The situation will be something resembling the house where death has taken place (ketaraka vitu). Our wives would stand at the bottom of the stake and beg spreading the corner of the sari that they wear, asking the goddess to save our lives. There will be a funeral bier built for the person who climbs the tree. If he falls, he will be taken in that. But none has fallen like that so far. There will be arul in us throughout the event. After touching it we will come down. The pucari will sprinkle the yellow water upon us. Then we will go to a tank (amman kulam) nearby, have a dip, and come back to receive the “first respects” from the temple.

I asked Arumugam why his wife should wait at the base of the impalement tree.

He explained to me that climbing the long impalement stake, which measures more than a hundred feet, is risky, but “they” (he or his family member) can easily do that because every year they do it. But, the person who climbs the tree needs to touch the “pattiri”

(margosa leaves) that is tied at the top of the stake and this entails danger.

350 Why should it entail danger? It is noteworthy that he used the Tamil term

“pattini” (the chaste woman/goddess) to refer to margosa leaves. Another person, who was with us in conversation, said it is “pattiri.” But things were made clear by

Arumugam, when he said at one point that margosa leaves are the goddess. Touching the chaste goddess, no doubt, would risk one’s life. It can also be discerned that the combination of Ariyamalai and Kattavarayan has been reworked here into Mariyamman and the Dalit man. And, the Dalit woman has overtones with Karuppazhagi (“The black beauty”) whom Kattavarayan has married before seeking Ariyamalai’s hand.41

Hiltebeitel speaks of impalement stake performance conducted along with

“patukalam” (the field of death) at Mariyamman temples in Kallai and Nallur villages in

Kulittalai Taluk (1991, 168). He has also kindly shared his notes from the fieldwork that he did with Lee Weissman in Kallai in 1990 with me. I am giving selections from that now: In Kallai, as the chief Dalit man (he is called pucari there) ascends the stake, his wife waits in a big “egg-shaped” basket, which is about four feet in width. Four other

Dalit men lie at the base of the tree in a patukalam. They are covered with white clothes, as if they are dead. The interesting thing about the Dalit woman in the basket is: she waits there with an oil lamp with wick. The man who has climbed the post stays there for about five or ten minutes. As he climbs down, the woman comes out of the basket and water from the temple is sprinkled on those who have been lying down. Meanwhile a goat is sacrificed and the head is given to the Dalits.

In Natham, I did not hear of such patukalam, but the patukalam takes place in

Dindigul, where climbing the tree is extinct now. In the patukalam at Dindigul temple, as

41 Karuppazhagi is Vishnu’s daughter. Meyer points out, she is “Kattavarayan’s cross-cousin and therefore his legitimate bride” (Meyer 1989, 81-82).

351 I mentioned earlier, four Dalit children who go with Sadacci lie down in front of the goddess’s sanctum within the temple. On each a flour-lamp is placed. Bananas, after their skins are peeled, are placed in everyone’s mouth. They lie there for about ten minutes.

The women sing songs of lament and cry. After turmeric water is sprinkled, they are lifted from the floor.

Let us follow the clue of the Dalit wife’s waiting at the bottom of the post. In

Kallai, we find her waiting in the basket with one oil lamp with a wick. First of all, her waiting at the base of the post equates her with Karuppu (the “dark”) of the kambam (the three-pronged post of the milky-tree) that we find in Kongunadu (areas including Salem,

Coimbatore and Erode) among other places in Tamilnadu. This Karuppu of the post, who is in the form of a “permanent stone” is at the service of the post and protects the post, is discussed by Hiltebeitel (1991, 96; 102).

At one level, the husband-post, who is an embodiment of death-causing boils/poxes and who eventually dies, is reworked into an errant son who is punished, but protected, and a dead impalement tree. As we have seen in Kattavarayan’s hi-story, the looming death of the errant son is transmitted to the device of punishment, namely the impalement tree itself, by Kali. Kali kills the asuric impalement tree. The Dalit man climbing the tree, who is protected by the goddess, is an allotrope of Kattavarayan. In the context of ammai, this reworking means the goddess’s punishment through “good” pearls, and at the same time her protection from “bad” pearls that possibly cause death. In this reworking of the husband-post into the errant son and the dead tree, one can see the post element is obviously split into two.

352 At another level, as the husband-post is split into the erring son and the death- causing impalement tree, the dark guardian Karuppu who sits near the post, is also allocated between these two split elements of the post. On the one hand, the guardian

Karuppu guards the life of the son who ascends the tree. On the other hand, Karuppu operates as a guardian of the death-causing impalement tree or the asuric death itself.

The Dalit woman is precisely located at this figuration of the splitting of Karuppu.

Holding a lit oil lamp, she protects the Dalit man who ascends the tree. At the same time, as a guardian of death or the device of death, she serves the asuric death. She performs this role exactly by reversing what she does during the Dalit man’s ascending the impalement stake. As a guardian of death, she extinguishes the lamp. She takes away the light of life of those who are recouping from ammai.

One can now see how the Dalit woman is placed at the site of this fractured, split figuration of Karuppu. In reading the hi-story, one finds clues about the operation of heteronormative power. As I analyzed before, Mariyamman remains as a chaste virgin in the narratives. In rendering the margosa leaves as the chaste goddess, Arumugam told me how sincere he needed to be in his observations concerning sexual abstinence in the festival days before the impalement. He informed me that the life of a man who is married and knows a woman is at more risk than an unmarried youngster. The former needs to restrict even the verbal transactions with his wife to a minimum. The “pattini” or “pattiri” otherwise would kill him, he said. One cannot help remembering a description of margosa leaves in the Lullaby: the song equates them with the sword of the goddess (“You made the margosa leaves shout like a sword in this earth”)

353 Mariyamman desires to go with the Paraiyar man. In a Mariyamman temple at

Namakkal, I was told by an elderly priest that she goes behind them enchanted by the music of their drum (parai). This view was reiterated by Arumugam. Mariyamman’s

“desire” is thus always sublimated in the discourse as her “desire” for music. The narrative suggests something else too in a subtle manner. The mother of Mariyamman chides her: “Wife of the paraian.” On hearing this, Mariyamman immediately decides to go with the person. Is it because of this interpellation, which violated her reputation of chastity, that she made the man climb the impalement stake? In any case, both vectors of power traversing through the relations of sexuality and the relations of caste collude with each other in condemning the man to the impalement stake. But then we are still unable to understand why Sadacci is turned into “darkness.” Sadacci curses Mariyamman, calling her a “sinner,” because her husband is on the impalement stake and is dying for

Mariyamman’s sake. Sadacci’s indignation and rage indicate that she wants her husband as well as marital life back. In another version of the same story told by a female devotee called Ambika, whom I met at the Kottai Mariyamman temple, the wife of the Paraiyar man curses the goddess by throwing sand on her. Immediately, Mariyamman gets angry and burns the woman and her children, who are later revived by the goddess. When I asked about the significance of the dotted pot in the habitual practices of ammai, Ambika said it is to keep the “pey” (ghost) at a distance.

The accounts of interaction between Mariyamman and Sadacci suggest that

Sadacci’s longing for marital and sexual life provoked her to blame Mariyamman.

Perhaps because of this longing, considered “inappropriate” for a woman in a heteronormative regime, she is produced as darkness, as “pey” and as a figural

354 embodiment of “bad” ammai that causes death. Every year the “chaste” goddess who grants the boon and the pox or pockmark embodied feminine who begs for her husband materialize in discursive practices at Kottai Mariyamman temple. The husband-post waits through the festival to return to his wife safely.

355

Map 2

From Thoppur the “land of Kambam / post” begins

356

MAP 3

357 Chapter Seven

When Body Matters as Goddess: “Styles of the Flesh”

Section I

Sakti Karakam Performance

In Chapter Three, I explored how a body matters as Mariyamman during ammai.

The next chapter discussed how the “presence” of the goddess is actualized as a conditioning norm during ammai. In that connection, I brought in the iconic imaginaries that the ammai-afflicted body shares with the anthill and the cultivated field. We saw these iconic imaginaries ground the conception of the goddess both as eminent and immanent actualizations. The two chapters, five and six, that followed dealt with the discursive practices of Mariyamman especially in the temple context, which, nevertheless, always roped in the subject of ammai. The production of Mariyamman, the goddess-subject, as a site as well as an agent of ammai-affliction was brought out in the fifth chapter. That chapter focused on the discursive practices, especially on the narratives of the goddess, a deconstruction of the notion of chastity as a heteronormative power that simultaneously produces and regulates the goddess-subject. The sixth chapter, while drawing upon a few more narratives and festival performances at selective temples, continued with the deconstruction. An analysis of these discursive practices helped to unearth a distinct continuity between these practices and the discursive practices followed at home during ammai-affliction.

In the previous chapter, I proposed that the discursive practices constitute a field of power or “force relations” through which bodies-nodes traverse along. The previous chapter engages with the bodies-nodes that allude to or enact ammai-afflicted bodily

358 states. This chapter concerns the corporeal “presence” of the goddess in the form of

“arul” or “presence” in Mariyamman festival. I shall take the sakti karakam performance during the Ati festival to begin my analysis of arul.

During the Ati festival, the goddess generally “arrives” corporeally on certain important occasions, especially (1) just before and during the sakti karakam procession,

(2) during the observance of debt vows, and (3) during gruel-serving. The goddess arrives in the main participants of a performance as well as in onlookers. “arul vantirukku” (“presence” has arrived) or “amma vantirukku” (mother has arrived) or

“cami vantirukku” (the deity has come) are the ways in which the phenomenon of arrival of the goddess is referred to. These expressions indicate the “presence” of the goddess in a human body on these occasions. Before discussing the working of the schema of arul or presence, I shall give a detailed account of the sakti karakam at two temples to ground our discussion.

Navagraha Nayaki Annai Karumariyamman Temple, Mugapper

J.J. Nagar (East), Mugapper is a fairly recent middle-class and lower-middle class neighborhood, mostly featuring Tamilnadu housing board apartments. This Chennai suburb hosts a two decade-old temple of Navagraha Nayaki Annai Karumariyamman

(“Mother Karumariyamman, the ruler of the nine planets”), built in one of the housing board plots. The temple is popularly known as the “temple that danced” (atiya kovil).

Even before this temple was properly established for Karumariyamman, her stone icon in the form of a snake, residing in the shade of a margosa tree in the midst of termite hills, was worshipped by people in the neighborhood. In 1994, seven years after the consecrating ceremony (kumbabisekam) of the temple, people witnessed a strange event.

359 One day, the temple started tilting every ten minutes, alternately reclining half-a-foot on one side and then on the other side. This phenomenon continued for a week. Several government officials including those involved with research on the nature of soil and those from the Hindu Religious Endowment Board arrived to decipher this. But none had a clue as to what was happening. By the time the “dance” of the temple was over, the temple had grown in popularity drawing many worshippers. An annual festival also became a key feature of the temple thereafter.

According to Iyenar, a thirty-five year old male devotee, Navagraha Nayaki

Annai Karumariyamman would display a variety of “moods,” which could be discerned by on-lookers. One moment she would to be peaceful, another moment she would look angry, yet another moment she would be sorrowful, sometimes she would laugh like a child, sometimes she would sport the coy smile of a virgin girl, and at other times she would have the composed look of an experienced mother.

I was talking to Iyenar on the third day of the three-day gruel-serving (kul varttal) festival of Mugapper Karumariyamman temple. We were both standing in the circumambulatory passage of another Mariyamman temple in a nearby suburb called

Collector Nagar. It was an unduly hot and sultry Friday morning in the month of the third week of August (fifth week of Ati) in 2006 and the sun was shining with disturbing brilliance. When Iyenar said Karumariyamman looked happy, because she was content with the festival arrangements, a few devotees standing around us readily acknowledged it. Iyenar would have explained more about how worshippers discern the emotive moods of Karumariyamman, had he not been interrupted by someone urging him to get ready to take the sakti karakam.

360 Iyenar was sought after because he was going to carry the sakti karakam, which was being decorated in the open yard of the temple (near the well?). He had ‘suitably’ dressed for the purpose. He had wrapped a maroon sari around him and had adorned himself with interlocking garlands of yellow camanti flowers. Sandal paste was smeared all over his body. A vermillion mark adorned his forehead, a studded gold necklace was around his neck, red glass bangles on his arms and silver anklets around his feet. He had a wrist-thread (kappu), which was tied two days back. The wrist-thread is customarily worn by the trustees of the temple, by the man who takes the sakti karakam and by those who have undertaken to carry out their debt-vows, such as carrying a milk-pot or fire-pot, for the goddess. The temple was bristling with a crowd of worshippers, who were in red or yellow clothes. Soon a procession of devotees carrying milk pots would be led by

Iyenar with the sakti karakam on his head and the procession would be heading toward

Karumariyamman temple at Mugapper.

Gnanaraj, the lead utukkai singer, who was supervising the decoration of sakti karakam, explained why the sakti karakam is decorated at a nearby temple: “Sakti karakam should ideally be arranged near a water source like a tank or river. In Chennai, it is difficult to even get a bucket of water, leave alone a water source.” In the absence of water sources, this nearby temple at Collector Nagar had been chosen as a venue for decorating the karakam and from this temple the sakti karakam procession would proceed to Mugapper temple.

The pot was made of brass. After being nicely washed, turmeric paste had been applied on its surface. Gnanaraj applied marks of vermillion on its surface and tied a turmeric-soaked thread in a crisscross pattern around the pot. He filled one-half of the pot

361 with water. Vermillion powder, a special powder (kalasatiraviyam), a lemon, betel leaves, areca nuts and a one rupee coin, called ‘vitality’ or ‘life’ (uyirppu), were placed in the pot. Is Mariyamman not bestowing life or vitality upon the sick person, who is strewn with the pearls or pustules of poxes and measles? Yet I was wondering why this

“vitality” or “life” was visualized in the form of money, in the form of a one rupee coin.

Gnanaraj clarified my doubt, telling me that money’s role in this world is really big and important. Later, when I asked Perumal Pucari at Panrutti Padaiveettamman temple about this coin, he also told me that the vital life thread is money: “If there is no money, there is nothing for human beings. Mariyamman lives in the world of humans.”

A small camphor piece was lit and was kept on a betel leaf. The leaf was placed gently on the water. A number of bunches of margosa leaves were immersed in the water and tied to form a cone-like structure. Garlands of jasmine and red kanakambaram flowers were arranged around the pot. A string of marikkoluntu leaves was placed around these flowers, adding some green. Upon the structure of margosa leaves, a metal face of the goddess was placed along with a hood of the five-headed serpent haloing her head from the back. Long artificially plaited hair was arranged to hang at the back of the face.

A yellow thread that signifies marital auspiciousness was tied around the figure of the goddess. A garland of lemons was put around the pot. (In 2008, when I went to the temple again, an anthropomorphic brass icon of the goddess was placed on an earthen pot and was carried as karakam. (See figure 14.)

Water in a pot with the key ingredients of turmeric, vermillion, a lemon, a one rupee coin and margosa leaves immersed in it form the basic repertoire of the sakti karakam. The karakam decorated at the Collector Nagar temple premises was an

362 elaborately decorated big structure. In some temples the sakti karakam could be simpler; instead of a metal face, just two limes could be placed to represent the eyes of the goddess or a coconut kept on the pot could represent her; the decorated long hair of the goddess might be absent; instead of a number of garlands, just one single string of jasmine flowers might adorn the karakam; a fresh earthen pot could take the place of the brass pot.

A smaller karakam called govinda karakam —a smaller brass pot—was brought and placed near the sakti karakam. The govinda karakam was filled with water and sticks of margosa leaves were immersed in the water. The three vertical lines (namam) of the

Vaishnavites were drawn on its surface. A plantain leaf was laid out in front of the karakams. Offerings of coconut, puffed rice, powdered jaggery, oranges, apple and bananas were placed upon it. A camphor lamp was waved in circles in front of the karakams. Sacred ash was thrown upon the karakams and was distributed among the worshippers. The two karakams were now ready to be taken out on a procession.

Gnanaraj started singing with his utukkai drum. He was accompanied by his assistants, one with a pampai drum and the other with a cilampu anklet. Gnanaraj sang viruttams (songs in Tamil viruttam meter) on Vinayaka (Ganesa), the lord of beginnings, on the gods Murugan and Perumal. His next song was on Karumariyamman:

The beautiful one, Saraswathi, the freshest leaf of our clan,

The heroine whom we believe,

She gives wealth and everything in life,

The woman who is good,

The one who is one with the music of pampai,

363 Parasakti who lives in Mugapper,

The perfect one,

You come, my mother.

…

My caranam (obeisance) to you, my caranam

Sankari, my mother, Come mother

More caranam to you, more caranam

Now caranam to you, caranam mother

I give a crore caranam to you, caranam, mother

This boy worships you, my mother.

I have listened to Gnanaraj’s viruttam songs at a few other Mariyamman festivals.

The songs sometimes feature a few additional descriptions of the goddess. The name of the place, in this instance Mugapper, would be replaced by the name of the place where he would be singing.

As Gnanaraj was singing viruttam songs and beating the utukkai drum, a few middle-aged women came dancing in front. One of them was carrying a branch of margosa leaves in her hands. The other three were empty- handed. The women raised their arms above their heads interlocking their fingers. One woman was making hissing noises. Her two palms were kept adjacently over her head and her torso moved in circles.

Two women standing near me remarked: “It is Nakattamma (the snake goddess).”

Gnanaraj asked her: “Who has come, amma?” When she did not respond, Gnanaraj repeated the question. She announced: “I am Nakattamma.” Gnanaraj began singing a short verse praising Nakattamma. The priest applied sacred ash upon her. Another

364 woman jumped, clasped her hands above her head, and danced fast. Gnanaraj repeated his question with this woman. She introduced herself as Ankalamma (goddess

Ankalaparamecuvari) and asked Gnanaraj to sing “anantam” for her. A song in viruttam meter that praises a particular goddess, describing her qualities, sending her off

(malaiyerutal) is called anantam. Gnanaraj sang a eulogy for Ankalaparamecuvari. A priest came forward and applied sacred ash on the woman’s forehead.

Gnanaraj hastened the rhythm of the utukkai beat and was singing louder. Soon a few more women also started dancing with margosa leaves in their hands and approached the priests. A commotion ensued and an elderly woman in the crowd loudly chided these dancing goddesses: “Come slowly. All should come slowly. Otherwise, how can we hold you?” Two other women joined her and addressed the goddesses: “One can manage only when you come one by one.” If so many goddesses start approaching the priests, it would be difficult for the priests as well as Gnanaraj to engage them. The goddesses appeared to have listened to these instructions and they had obviously slowed down.

A group of women with milk-pots began to assemble on the left side of the karakams. Their pots, which were made of brass and stainless steel, were covered with white cloths. The necks of the pot were adorned with garlands of flowers and margosa leaves. An announcement was made by one of the festival organizers (a trustee of the temple), asking these women to come forward. Immediately, a woman with a milk pot on her head started dancing. Another woman was pushing herself through the crowd and as she came out she started dancing gracefully in rhythmic circular movements. This second woman also made some hissing noises, but not as frequently as the woman who earlier danced as Nagattamma. This woman’s steps were slow and her body was swaying

365 gently. When Gnanaraj asked her which mother had come, she said, “Karumari.”

Gnanaraj sang a longer hymn to Karumari. Since it was Mariyamman festival, the goddess Karumari was perhaps sought for. Here are some excerpts from Gnanaraj’s song:

The black-Mari (Karumari), the Mari who has changed her

form (Urumari)

Mari who has changed her form (Urumari)

The beautiful one, Makamayi, Mangamma

Makamayi who held margosa leaves in her hand

The black-Mari, the chaste one

The chaste one comes running

The chaste one, Mother, Mangamma

After the eulogy for Karumari was sung, sacred ash was applied upon this woman’s forehead. Two women standing near her took her away from the crowd.

Another woman came forward and kneeled down in front of the karakams. “Om sakti, parasakti” was chanted again a few times. A priest applied sacred ash on her cheeks and a metal rod of a quarter inch thickness and three feet in length was pierced through her cheeks. The chant “Om Sakti, Parasakti” was again heard. Then, two pots filled with simmering charcoals were set upon the hands of two women in front of the karakams.

The women had undertaken a debt vow to carry the pot of fire (ticcatti). They were ready to participate in the procession toward Mugapper temple.

It was time for the procession of karakams to start. The drumbeat intensified. The chant “Om Sakti, Parasakti” filled the air. Iyenar’s body started shaking. Three male devotees lifted the sakti karakam and kept it upon Iyenar’s head. On the head of one of

366 these the govinda karakam was kept. The sakti karakam proceeded to the front of the shrine and stopped there for a moment. Every year, in its procession, it is accompanied by a man, through whose cheeks a big iron rod or alaku of ten feet length and a centimeter in thickness was pierced amidst the loud and repeated chanting of “Om Sakti” by the onlookers. Unlike the other devotees who undertake debt vows for various personal reasons, the rod-piercing, undergone by this man in this instance, is ceremonial.

When this piercing ceremony took place in front of the goddess’s shrine at

Collector Nagar, a white cloth was hung between the man and the shrine. Sri

Karumariyamman of Collector Nagar, unlike many other Mariyammans, is a vegetarian goddess, observed Durairaj. He is a trustee or dharmakartha of the Collector Nagar temple. He explained to me that since rod-piercing amounts to shedding of blood, the white cloth was hung hiding this act from Mariyamman’s sight: “Who asked for sacrifice? Mariyamman did not. When we celebrate the festival for this temple, we do not have rod-piercing and all these. Yet the Mugapper Karumariyamman is a non- vegetarian. That is why they do all these.”1 I came to learn from Durairaj later that he was in a key post with the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh in 1990’s and was about to be nominated for election on behalf of Bharatiya Janata Party for the Indian parliament in the early 1990’s. The vegetarianism and the connection with the Hindu right wing party is striking. From my field activities, I know that “vegetarian” Mariyamman temples, in the sense where the piercing of needles or rods does not take place, are really rare.

The procession was led by Gnanaraj and his assistants playing their musical instruments. This group was followed by the man, who had just had this big rod pierced

1 It is to be noted that this rod-piercing did not take place in front of Karumariyamman in Mugapper either. Yet it is considered as an act performed for the Karumariyamman in Mugapper .

367 into his cheeks. The priests with plates of sacred ash and lit camphor followed them.

Behind them, three women with margosa leaves in their hands proceeded dancing their way. The two women carrying firepots went behind them. Behind these, Iyenar with the sakti karakam and another man with the govinda karakam were following. Women with pots of milk were last in the procession. Some of them had had their tongues pierced with small needles. When the procession entered the main road from the lane on which the Collector Nagar temple is situated, three men with big parai drums joined it, which made me ask, “Are they not allowed inside the temple?” Someone remarked: “No, every year they join here.” Since one of the main dharmakarthas of the Collector Nagar temple was from a dalit community and since he had been present with us all along at the temple premises, caste discrimination was not a sufficient reason for the parai drummers to stay away. Perhaps, caste demarcation gets accentuated for the poor as in the case of these drummers.

It was 11 am and the procession, traveling via main streets, reached Mugapper temple at 1 pm. Iyenar was stopped at some points en route by neighbors: his feet were washed with water by them. At those points, priests lit camphor, waved the camphor lamp in circles in front of him, and distributed sacred ash to devotees. As the procession was reaching the temple entrance, Gnanaraj and his assistants started singing and beating their drums again. When Iyenar was crossing the outer entrance of Mugapper temple, his body trembled and he began to dance. The songs and drumbeats intensified. Iyenar’s eyes appeared as if he were in a trance, and his feet were entwined. A few men pushed him forward toward the shrine. “Arul has come,” a woman who was walking with me to

368 the temple told me. People shouted “Om Sakti.” Men around Iyenar seemed to have a hard time controlling his shaking body.

In Mugapper temple, at the open yard just after the entrance, two big plastic vessels were kept. In one of them, gruel, brought by devotees, and in another, sambar rice (rice mixed with a gravy made of tamarind and pulses) was kept to be served to the devotees. At Mugapper temple, construction activities were going on. Therefore, the icon of Mariyamman had been removed from the main, inner shrine and was kept in a small makeshift shed called Balalayam, constructed to the left of the main shrine. Iyenar moved forward, stood for a couple of minutes in front of the temporary shed, in which the icon/idol of the deity had been kept. Then he reached the hall in front of the inner shrine of the goddess. The sakti karakam was taken from Iyenar’s head and kept at the right of the entrance of the inner shrine. The govinda karakam was kept beside it.

Gnanaraj beat his utukkai and began to sing a song “describing” Mariyamman.

His assistants played their instruments:

(With) the crown adorned with the snake of gems and in an

embellished form

(With) a lustrous ornament on the forehead, (worshipped with)

incense and light

(With) the waters of abhishekam, (with) your golden compassion,

(With) the karakam and the chariot of flowers, (with) an intense

celebration

(With) these guardians of yours (who) are praising you

You have come here to see, the speaking Mari that you are,

369 You have given birth to Kattavarayan and Parasuraman

In your Padaiveedu, Mari,

Sister of Nandananda Gopalan, You are,

Take away the sorrows of our hearts, Mother.

Iyenar’s body started shaking vigorously. Meanwhile, two widows pushed through the crowd and came forward dancing. People began shouting “Om Sakti.” As

Gnanaraj sang,

You came for a coconut shell of gruel

You came singing the kuram (a genre of songs sung by hill “tribes”)

You came for the gruel in which flies have drowned

For the gruel in which flies have drowned

You came here searching for a place for you

Iyenar stretched his two arms and kept his opened palms together. A vessel of gruel was kept in front of the shrine. A plate containing a mixture of rice flour and jaggery, with a few margosa leaves strewn on them, was also kept there. A camphor lamp was held in front of the sakti karakam and these items. The gruel was taken with a large spoon and served to Iyenar. The women were asked which mother had arrived in them.

They both simultaneously said Karumari and continued to dance slowly. Gnanaraj asked them, “Are you pleased (santhoshamaa?) now? Are you satisfied (tiruptiya?)" They nodded their heads and said, “um” (yes). “Will you keep the townspeople happy?” One of the women declared, “I will keep them well.” Gruel was served to these two women who took it in their palms.

370 The gruel and sambar rice was then distributed among the gathered devotees. The afternoon festival event was over. In the evening, after resting for a while, when I came back, Gnanaraj was reciting the hi-story of Karumariyamman and explaining the significance of the gruel-pouring ceremony. Crackers were burst outside the temple. The processional icon of Karumariyamman was being taken out to go around the streets in the neighborhood. A huge amount of cooked rice and rice dumplings (kolukkattai) were laid out on a plantain leaf. This offering called “kumbam” would be made to the goddess at around midnight. After the offering, close to midnight, the sakti karakam would be disarranged near a well, and the devotees would untie their wrist-threads. With these events, the festival would be over.

Sri Periyapalayattaman temple, Muthialpet, Puducherry (Pondicherry)

To give a better idea of the sakti karakam festival and how it might vary from place to place, I will describe the Ati festival at Sri Periyapalayatamman temple,

Muthialpet, Puducherry State. On the first Friday of Ati month, in the evening at around

6 pm, women devotees wear wraps made of margosa leaves and carry pots with milk upon their heads and visit Periyapalayattamman. After this procession reaches the temple, Periyapalayattamman is given a sacred bathe or abhishekam of milk. On Saturday the processional icon of the goddess is taken along the streets adjoining the temple.

I went to Muthialpet temple on the third day of the festival in the Ati month of

2007. At around nine in the morning, in a small open hall in the backyard of the temple, the sakti karakam and govinda karakam were decorated. I did not see any water source, but I was told that long back in this place there was a well, and therefore, they were decorating the karakams there. Here, the pot was made of stainless steel. It was covered

371 with turmeric paste and vermillion dots. Things like a lime and a one-rupee coin was placed inside it. It was filled with water and margosa sticks were immersed in the water.

A silver head of the goddess was placed above this pot. The goddess as well as the pot was adorned with four layers of garlands. A brass pot was being decorated as the govinda karakam.

The puja for karakams was simple here and it took only an hour. A plantain leaf was laid in front of the karakams. Offerings of puffed rice, coconuts and bananas were placed on it. After a camphor lamp was waved in front of it, Gnanaraj threw a pinch of sacred ash upon his utukkai drum and started singing. Here, he sang a viruttam on

Vinayaka, and another on Murugan. Then short virutams on Periyapalayattamman followed:

Muttumari, remover of anxieties of poor people,

Golden Muttumari, protector of us, your children,

You created this world with a boon from Siva

You showed a way to Gururamar (Rama)

With garlands tied to your feet along with anklets,

You have come to show new things

To this world, my Mari of Periyapalayam, Uma

Mother Sankari

Who has come this time

Into the auspicious court of Ati Sakti?

Who has come this time/now

Into the auspicious court of Esvari?

372 In the smoke of incense

Are afloat all Devas

In the light of camphor

Are mingled all Devas

To all of them, my obeisance

A small obeisance to Periyapalayattamma!

As soon as he uttered “Periyapalayattamma,” a woman, whose name I heard later as Vasantha, wearing a yellow sari marked with red colored patterns, started dancing.

The drumbeats intensified. The woman’s steps were rhythmic. She was swinging her hands slowly, and then she lifted them up, clasping them over her head. Her dance continued for a while with Gnanaraj’s singing:

My obeisance, good obeisance to mother

Sankari, we fell at your feet

Our good obeisance to you

Our crore prostrations to you

We came round and round you

The beautiful one, we fell at your feet

We came round and round you

We fell at your feet with bhakti

Be supportive, with your eyes look

At the people who fell at your feet.

When she slowed down a little, her conversation with Gnanaraj began:

J: Who has come, amma?

373 W: Periyapalayattamma

J: Amma, are you happy with everything here?

W: Yes, I am happy.

J: Will you take care of everyone and this town?

W: Yes, I will take care.

After this short dialogue, the priest walked toward her with his plate of sacred ash and lit camphor in front of her. He applied sacred ash upon her forehead. She became quiet.

Like in many Mariyamman temples, in Muthialpet temple too only unmarried men can carry these karakams. Also, those who take the karakam should not be the eldest sons of their families and they should be preferably the youngest. 2 With the drumbeat intensifying in the background, the karakams were lifted by two young men,

Ilancheliyan and Bala. Another young man came forward and lifted the trident planted in front of the temple. The three men came out of the temple and started walking along the streets before returning to the temple. As soon as they entered the street, they were given a pata pujai, which means their feet were reverently washed by the residents.

When the karakams entered the temple, the person carrying the sakti karakam swayed a little. His steps trembled, but he did not dance. After the karakams were brought to the temple, a flour-lamp, kept on a plate, was brought. An iron needle (cetal) was kept near it. The needle was then pierced into the cloth that the goddess’s icon wore.

Soon after this, devotees began to undertake the debt vow of cetal.

In the afternoon, gruel brought by the devotees was mixed with the gruel prepared at the temple and then it was distributed among them. The gruel was given to three

2 These conventions can be traced to Renuka’s hi-stories.

374 widows first, and then given to those who carried the karakams. Later, it was distributed among the devotees.3

Why widows first? Annamalai, one of the trustees who administer the temple, explained: “Because they are uninterested in worldly affairs (he means family). They have become equal to Mariyamman. So they should get the gruel first.” The festival then ended with sprinkling of turmeric water over the devotees on the seventh day, which fell on a Thursday.

Section II

Drum and Dancer

Arul as a Feature of Festival

Having delineated the events that took place in two separate instances of the sakti karakam, I will try to discuss a few key themes that make up the discourses of “arul.”

Although I will draw from my conversations with Gnanaraj, who was the utukkai performer in the above contexts of the sakti karakam and played a key role in mobilizing the “arrival” of arul, I shall also cite my conversations with other utukkai singers, facilitators of debt vows, and temple pucaris to facilitate our analysis.

First, let us look at arul as a mandatory and ‘optional’ feature of a festival performance. During key temple events such as the sakti karakam and gruel-serving, the arrival of the goddess is considered mandatory. Why is the goddess’s arrival required?

Gnanaraj underscored the significance of “arul:”

3 During the festival in 2007, I could meet with Kuppamma, Valliyamma and Pungavanam, the three women who were served gruel first.

375 Definitely the cami (deity) should arrive in the person who carries the

karakam. In places like Mukaiyur (near Tindivanam) and Mugapper, if the

deity does not come, the festival will not move any further. The karakam

will not be carried. Similarly, we will sing until the goddess arrives during

the sakti karakam. And for serving gruel, the goddess should come.

Unless the goddess comes, the gruel will not be distributed.

Gnanaraj tells us that the arrival of the goddess in such occasions “assures” people that the festival has been conducted properly and the goddess is satisfied. When the goddess herself confirms that everything is alright, then it makes people happy and relieves them of anxieties about the general welfare of the village or neighborhood.

Concerning personal debt-vows, a few utukkai singers, like Gnanaraj, consider that it is not mandatory for the goddess to arrive in a person before she/he starts carrying out the debt vow. According to him, a proper viratam (a set of restrictions that a person is required to follow)4 is enough and the vow can be carried out successfully. But there are many others, especially the “administrators” of debt vows—those who bring the set of needles or rods as well as conduct the debt vows—who believe that without the arrival of arul, a person should not undertake any debt vow. For instance, Masilamani, a seventy- four year old man who was administering the debt vow of alaku in a Mariyamman temple at Valangaiman (near Mayavaram), observed that in his lifetime, he had never administered the debt vow to anyone without the arrival of the goddess. In the festival of

2006, he and his assistant were piercing varieties of alaku into at least two hundred persons on the day of Kattavayaran’s impalement at Valangaiman. In all these persons, only as the body was materializing as the goddess, he pierced the alaku. This view, that

4 I will discuss viratam later in the chapter.

376 the debt-vow should be administered only on the arrival of the goddess, was supported by

Jiva at Samayapuram:

They might have even given me an advance payment. But I will send it

back if they do not get arul. See, after this piercing, they do not go to a

doctor. The piercing should instantaneously heal with the application of

sacred ash. If they do not get arul, the spot of piercing would become sore.

Then complications would arise. They will then complain about us.

In this context, I would like to share an anecdote told by a dear friend, who is a city-based man, now working as a top-level bureaucrat. What follows are his reminiscences about the debt vow that he undertook for Mariyamman. His clan-deity is

Mariyamman from a village near Madurai. As a child, he once had chickenpox and his grand-mother prayed to the goddess to take his ‘pearls’ away and took a vow that he would carry the fire-pot for the goddess. After several years, as a college student, he went to this village to carry out this vow during the festival. His uncle, grand-mother and a few other relatives went with him to that particular Mariyamman temple. A fire-pot with charcoal pieces was brought. There were two drummers. (He could not recall which type of drums they played). His grand-mother placed a bunch of margosa leaves in his hands and the fire-pot was placed on that. It was burning his hands. In addition, his uncle was pouring some oil into the fire so that the debt vow of his nephew would be carried out properly! But what he found more annoying was that his uncle and other relatives were persistently asking him to “dance” in “arul.” His uncle chided him: “You should dance with cami. What is this? You are just normal. ” None around him seemed to be satisfied because the goddess did not arrive in him. My short-tempered friend, who was irritated

377 by all these comments, finally held the flame of the pot near the face of his uncle, who was all along complaining, and this act made him keep quiet! The anecdote indicates that the “arrival” of the goddess is expected or even considered as ideal during the performance of a debt vow, even though it does not happen all the time.

In addition to these three occasions, there are instances in which the goddess arrives in on-lookers, who do not undertake any debt vow and who do not “directly,” if one can say so, participate in the festival ceremonies. In the accounts of the sakti karakam performance at the two temples that I discussed, one can see that as the utukkai singers were singing with their drums in front of the decorated karakam, women from among the on-lookers came forward and danced. Such women would be described as those “on” (“mela”) whom goddess resides all the time, but manifests visibly on listening to utukkai songs.

Operations as Techniques

We explored the habitual practices followed during ammai-affliction in the third chapter. Similar to what we have discussed there, in the festival context of arul too, certain habitual practices are followed during the festival. These practices feature as festival events, such as “binding the boundaries,” “sakti karakam,” “gruel-serving” etc.

Every event is constituted by individual operations that are performative and citational, tracing and reiterating the same structure. While the operations function as techniques, the citational and reiterative character of the operations provides a certain performative force. In a sakti karakam event, the performative force of the operations involved provides an overall strategy for a body to matter as the goddess. 5

5 The way in which I deploy the terms “strategies” and “techniques” is discussed in Chapter Three.

378 For instance, let us consider the operations or techniques in the sakti karakam performance. A pot is taken to a place, which is a substitute for a water source; it is decorated into the karakam; a person, say A, who has chosen to take the karakam dresses up grandly; utukkai performers sing in praise of the goddess “describing” her; women from the crowd come forward and dance; questions are posed to them and responses are given; as the singing continues, the body of A shows signs of “arul”—such as, the body becomes still, goes into a trance, or trembles or sways or dances; the sakti karakam is put on the head of A, who leaves in a trance to the Mariyamman temple in a formal procession; as A enters the temple, the songs are sung aloud and drum beats are intensified, with arul in A building up. (In temples, where gruel-serving takes place immediately after the sakti karakam performance, after the sakti karakam is kept in the temple, again the utukkai songs fill the air; some women get arul; questions are asked and responses are given; the first serving of gruel is to A, followed mostly by widows.)

The sakti karakam performance in Mariyamman temples in north and northwest

Tamilnadu reiterates the above sequence. There can be differences in how the individual operations are conducted depending on pragmatic reasons, conventions followed in the temple, and other factors. For instance, the pot may be earthen or made of metal.

Although the sakti karakam should be ideally decorated near a water source, when the water source is not nearby, the decoration can take place in a nearby temple. Similarly, the karakam can be decorated simply or decorated elaborately with style. The man who carries the sakti karakam may either wear just a yellow cloth and a garland, or he can wear feminine attire (as Iyenar in Mugapper temple does). In fact, in the Mugapper festival in 2006, all devotees, men and women, who carried out the debt vows, wore

379 yellow clothes. The temple management wanted to conduct the festival in a “uniform”

(sic) manner and therefore they ordered yellow sarees and dhotis for all the participating devotees. One of those in the management even told me: “Of course, the money was given by them (devotees). But we ordered the clothes well in advance so that the women had time to stitch their matching yellow blouses and could wear them on the festival day.” In some temples, especially when the festival extends beyond three days, after it is

“invited” to the temple, the sakti karakam goes on a procession in the neighborhood for a few days.

Further, the operations of the sakti karakam are not an isolated set. They are part of a much bigger sequence of festival events, such as “binding the boundaries,” “tying the protective wristlet,” “offering kumbam” etc. In some temples, like the one in Panrutti, there are certain special events like “flag-hoisting” or “sprinkling yellow water.” These events with their constituent operations take their place in the overall larger structure. As one could sense, the events and their constituent operations are inter-related. For example, without “binding the boundaries” no other festival event can take place. Similarly, the sakti karakam cannot be carried by someone who has not tied the protective wristlet.

Even utukkai singers need to tie protective wristlets for them to perform in a temple festival. And during gruel-serving, the person carrying the sakti karakam is the first or one of the first recipients of the gruel.

As we discussed in connection with ammai-related practices, here too, one can broadly discern both identificatory and exclusionary operations. I would say the former type of operations facilitate the materialization of an object or a human being as the goddess; and the latter type of operations provide necessary conditions for mobilizing

380 such materialization. Speaking specifically, in the context of the sakti karakam, identificatory operations materialize the karakam and the person who carries the karakam as the goddess. There are certain exclusionary operations that need to be undertaken for such materialization to take place.

Exclusionary Operations: Cuttam

How are these exclusionary operations framed in practices? What do they demand from the participants? Let me explore two key operations here, “binding the boundaries,” and “tying the protective wristlet.” Prima facie, I would say that the tropes of security and cuttam (as I mentioned earlier this term spans both purity and cleanliness) run through these operations. The first operation marks the territory of a village (or neighborhood) as separate from that of others. Once the boundaries are bound, those who live inside the territory cannot stay away from the territory in the night. Should they go out during the day to any other place, they should return to the territory by night. If any visitor from outside happens to stay in the village on that day,6 he should not go back or at least he should be present again on the day when the binding is severed. (It is as if the goddess takes a roll-call of who is present throughout the festival period!). The rationale behind this ceremony is always stated as: it is a must for “security” (pattiram, patukappu). In

Thoppur village (near Dharmapuri), the Mariyamman temple pucari made it clear: “So many people visit the temple during the festival. They should be protected from diseases and evil forces. There should be no pali (death) during that period in the place.” When I was conversing with a devotee in another place, Salem, she opined that it is to keep the people “alert.” One cannot miss relating this to the hanging of margosa leaves at the doorstep during ammai-affliction. As the marking of the entrance materializes the house

6 This rule is not followed for any other day.

381 as a temple, here the marking of the boundaries appears to materialize the territory as an extension of the goddess’s temple.

The tying of kappu or the protective wristlet usually takes place at the temple on the day of “binding.” The Tamil term “kappu” means “protection.” I mentioned that the key actors (temple trustees, the person carrying the karakam, the debt vow performers, utukkai singers) of the festival tie this wristlet. Why should they seek protection? “Till the festival is over, the person who is participating in the festival should be safe. Nothing bad should happen to him or at his house,” explained Gnanaraj. With the tying of the wristlet, certain restrictions—they are also called viratam--are imposed upon a person: the person should have a bath twice a day; he should not drink alcohol; if he is a smoker of cigarettes, he should quit it during that period; the person should avoid eating non- vegetarian food, and preferably eat once in a day; the person should visit the temple every day till he unties the wristlet, etc. In some Mariyamman temples such as the one in

Samayapuram where the festival extends to more than forty days, throughout the period ideally the viratam is observed. Further, in some Mariyamman temples, such as those in

Samayapuram, throughout the festival the goddess also observes severe dietary restrictions. The goddess is said to be following “paccaippattini viratam” which means

“complete abstention from cooked food.” In those days, no cooked food is served to the goddess. She lives on raw food like tender coconuts, cane-sugar juice, butter milk, raw rice floor mixed with jaggery and fruits. Mariyamman in Kannapuram near Coimbatore, also lives on raw food during her festival as Beck informs us (1981, 87). Similar restrictions are observed by the goddess at varying levels in other places: for instance, in

Valangaiman as well as in Kukai and Johnsonpet temples in Salem, Mariyamman eats

382 only ponkal throughout the festival. For the most part, the pucaris at the temple also observe the food restrictions that the goddess observes, as I learnt at Mariyamman temples in Salem and Valangaiman.7

As readers might expect, the most vital interdiction of the viratam relates to sex.

“Paypatukkai cuttam” (purity of mattress, which means abstaining from sexual activity) is the first that figures in the list.8 In my conversations, almost everyone prioritized it and spoke about it first.9 Velmurugan emphasized its importance: “Generally, one should abstain from ‘this’ (sex) for any temple-related practice. One should follow this especially for Mariyamman. If one fails in this, she will be enraged.” Perumal Pucari at

Panrutti temple observed in connection with the cetal vow: “The vow of brahmacharya

(sexual abstinence) is ‘main’ [sic]. Non-vegetarian food should be eaten. One should not lie on the mattress [he again hints at sexual abstinence]. Purity of heart (manaccuttam) is very important.” I asked him, “You are talking about ways of conduct during the period.

How does heart-mind come in this?” He shot back, “Why amma, where is the heart? It is inside the body.”

What will happen if one does not follow this rule of the viratam? The goddess

“will not” arrive when she is “called.” Jeeva, one of those men who administered debt vows in Samayapuram threatened: “If you are the one who is going to carry the karakam, you cannot walk carrying it to the temple. If you undertake a debt vow, say carrying the firepot, and you carry it without arul, then your palms would burn and boils would come.

7 Beck says that the observance of food restrictions strengthens the “resistance” of priests to “sexual temptation” (1981, 111), although she mentions this in the context of her discussion on their “sexual attraction to the goddess” that is considered to bring danger (110-11). In my conversations with the priests, I could not pick up such a thread of sexual attraction of them to the goddess or the accompanying danger. 8 A Tamil word “cuttapattam” which is alternately used for “cuttam” appears to combine both “cuttam” and “pattam,” meaning morality. 9 In Mariyamman temples at Kukai and Johnsonpet in Salem, the pucaris stay at the Mariyamman temple and do not even go to their houses during the festival.

383 If you walk on fire without her arul, then you might even fall into the fire. You may die.”

If Jeeva brought in “boils and burns,” a seventy-four year old man called Masilamani, in

Valangaiman, who has sixty years of experience in fixing alakukkavati on participants, brought in the subject of ammai. He was explaining to me about how disciplined

(ozhukkam) one should be in the period between his tying the wristlet and his undertaking the vow of alaku. Again his emphasis pertained to the purity of mattress:

“What would happen if he involves in ‘something’ (sex) like that?” I

asked.

He said:

“What would happen if one does not remain pure? Normally, after the

alakukkavati is removed from the body, the holes caused by our piercing

the hooks and needles would heal at once. But for a person who has

violated the ‘discipline,’ the holes would puff up, get ‘septic’ (sic), swell

like pustules of smallpox and pus would accumulate in them. The person

might even die.”

“Is there not anyway in which his mistake could be set right?”

“He should pray to the mother. He should go to the mother sincerely and

lie down upon the floor in front of her. If she forgives him, he might get

healed. In Kilmantur, this happened to a person. His cheeks were swollen

after the rod was taken out. Amma came and sat on his throat (this

condition might be one of “mumps,” which is conceived of as a variety of

ammai in Tamilnadu). He complained about me saying that I did not

pierce the rod properly. Then I told him that the problem is his and asked

384 him to pray to the mother. He was alright after he went to the temple and

apologized to Mariyamman.”

In our conversation about cuttam, Gnanaraj insisted that cuttam means not only

“external purity” of body by not involving oneself in sex, but also “internal purity” of the heart/mind where “no such thought (on sex) should occur.” Gnanaraj opined that the bodily restrictions in the form of viratam help to achieve such “inner” purity. Later,

Maturai Muttu’s remark again connected the interiority and the body in the discourses of cuttam: “Why should one observe the viratam? It is to control (kattuppatu) the body. By controlling your body, your mind gains focus in devotion.”

A few questions came up in my mind: what about those who get the arul without any plan of disciplinary viratam? For instance, how can one understand the dancing of women who do not don the protective wristlet at the time of sakti karakam? In one of my conversations with Gnanaraj which I will be citing later, Gnanaraj would give bhakti or devotion as a main reason for this: “They have devotion in their heart. The goddess is already with them.” Does this mean devotion can function as a substitute to the restrictive viratam? If one is devoted, does she arrive automatically? One can recall here that in a song on Mariyamman that we discussed in the Chapter Four, ammai is described as an act of recognition of devotion by the goddess. And, in the case of ammai, obviously, no one follows any viratam for the goddess to come. The goddess arrives ‘on her own.’ Yet, after her arrival, notwithstanding the connection between the goddess’s arrival and devotion toward her, practices are meticulously followed to produce the body with cuttam, as I discussed before.

385 Surprisingly, in his response on cuttam, Gnanaraj drew upon the dancing of widows during the gruel-serving too:

The women, who all of a sudden come and dance, do not tie wristlets. As I

mentioned to you earlier, the goddess is on them already. They have

devotion. But it does not mean that they are not pure or they need not be

pure. When they visit the temple they would come in a pure state. In some

cases, they are naturally (iyarkaiya) pure….like the widows in whom the

goddess arrived today.

Gnanaraj’s observations unequivocally emphasize the importance of cuttam: devotion could be a substitute for the restrictive practices of a viratam, but it does not preempt cuttam. The women who dance without observing a restrictive viratam are considered to be pure. More significantly, the idea of purity concerning widows is worth noting. Their separation from their spouses, which is taken as their abstinence from sex, guarantees their “purity.” Their “purity” is deemed natural because they need not initiate any step to reinforce the norm of purity upon themselves. By virtue of the absence of their spouses, they are perceived as always pure.10 Thus even though cuttam includes other restrictions involving personal hygiene and dietary regulations as I mentioned before, such a naturalized notion of purity concerning the bodies of widows is quite striking and this notion reiterates the operation of heteronormative power that we discussed before.

10 One can recall that in the Muthialpet temple, a conversationalist compared widows with Mariyamman because of their lack of interest in the worldly or family life. The reiterated association between Mariyamman and widows is striking. Not only does Mariyamman appear as a widow in hi-stories, but one can also recall the importance given to widows during her festivals. For instance, one can consider her role during gruel-serving and the sprouts ceremony. During affliction too, ideally she is sought after to spot ammai, to take care of the afflicted, and to pour water on the afflicted body after the pearls get healed.

386 In the previous chapters, I analyzed the heteronormative power that regulates, prohibits and produces the feminine subject. Drawing from the narratives of Renuka-

Mariyamman and Uyirmari, I also discussed the discursive emphasis on a frugal sexual economy and its capacity to accumulate the “power of chastity” in the body. This power that is said to build up in the body due to the accumulation of sexual resources is cited by the discourses as a source of miraculous phenomena, such as manifestations and transformations. I suggested, drawing from Foucault that an alternate discourse of productive power would help us grasp how the goddess is constituted as a feminine subject.

It is not difficult to discern the reappearance of prohibitive heteronormative power appearing in the form of “cuttam.” For a body to matter as the goddess, its sexual economy should calibrate with the sexual economy of the goddess. Its accumulated sexual power/resource should match with that of the goddess. “Cuttam,” with its accentuated emphasis on sexual restriction, thus facilitates the identification of a body with that of the goddess. In the festival, initiated by the donning of the kappu wristlet, the prohibitory sexual economy works toward the effective mobilization of the body as the goddess during arul. In the instance of ammai, inaugurated by the hanging of the margosa branch at the doorstep, the prohibitive sexual economy is inscribed as a necessary condition for the materialization of the afflicted-body as the goddess

Mariyamman.

Identificatory Operations

The identificatory operation of a body as the goddess takes place in the festival primarily through utukkai songs. An Ati festival does not take place without singers with

387 musical instruments such as utukkai (damaru in Sanskrit), a type of small hourglass shaped percussion instrument, cilampu (a jingling anklet) and pampai (a double-barrel- shaped drum hung from the shoulders). The musicians who play these instruments are generally referred as “utukkai singers/musicians.” The utukkai set of instruments, along with a bigger drum, parai, are considered to be the favorite instruments of the goddess

Mariyamman. While narratives of the goddess describe her interest in the music of parai and her affection for those who play the parai, they also speak of her passion for the utukkai.11 It is believed that Mariyamman not only likes to listen to the utukkai, but also plays it. Utukkai songs, or songs interspersed with utukkai drum beats, form an inalienable part of Mariyamman festivals.

Generally, all these music instruments, utukkai, pampai, cilampu and parai, play a significant role in materializing the body as the goddess. How does this happen? “It happens all the time. Whenever I listen to the utukkai, something swells within me.

Others say I start dancing,” said Chitra, a middle-aged woman who was one of those who danced at Mugapper Karumariyamman temple at the time of the sakti karakam. As we shall discuss in the following paragraphs, sometimes “arul” arrives even without the utukkai. Just singing a song on the goddess or evening devotees shouting “Om Sakti” materializes the body as the goddess. I locate the arrival of the goddess on hearing to percussion instruments or other such sounds, within the ambit of reiterative, performative practices. In a festival, materialization of the body as the goddess is an effect produced by

11 In Natham near Madurai, a man playing the parai during the Mariyamman festival told me that the goddess married a Paraiyar man because she was drawn to his drum beats. The story of Mariyamman marrying a Paraiyar is common in Salem, Coimbatore, Erode and Dindigul. I discussed these accounts in the last chapter.

388 reiterative, performative practices, and playing the utukkai is assigned an instrumental role in such materialization.

The utukkai musicians are quite a common sight in Mariyamman festivals in

Northern (Chingelpet, Chennai), North-Western (Dharmapuri), Central (Cuddalore,

Trichy) and Western (Salem, Coimbatore) areas. In Mariyamman temples located in

South Tamilnadu, such as Tirunelveli, Nagerkoil, Tuticorin and Kanyakumari areas, instruments such as the villu (bow), urumi (a small drum) and kaniyan melam (a type of drum played by “kaniyans,” a caste group in South Tamilnadu) are usually employed for making the goddess arrive in the body. Since origin stories of the utukkai drum explicitly connect it with the goddess Mariyamman, and since, unlike other instruments, the utukkai is part of Mariyamman’s iconography in many temples, I would like to explore the instances of “arrival” of the goddess, enabled through utukkai songs.12

The origin hi-stories of these instruments conceive of them in corporeal terms.

The first hi-story which I am giving here is told by Sasikumar. Sasikumar comes from a family from Palakkodu, near Dharmapuri. His family has been playing the pampai, a drum that is hung from the shoulders and played, for the past four hundred years.

Sasikumar’s grandfather had been a well-known pampai musician in and around

Dharmapuri. Carrying with him the reputation of his grandfather and excelling in his profession, Sasikumar has more than fifteen students, who are employed to play the pampai for occasions including the goddess’s festivals. His hi-story of the utukkai draws from the self- immolation of Sati or Dakshayani in Daksha’s sacrifice:

12 To mention temple iconography, Mariyamman has an utukkai in one of her hands in Valangaiman (near Mayavaram), Samayapuram (near Trichy), Punnainallur (near Tanjore), and Sulakkal (near Coimbatore).

389 Parvati, born as Sati (or Dakshayani) to Daksha, married Siva against the

wishes of her father. Later, when her father performed a sacrifice, I think

the Asvamedha, while all other gods and celestials (Devas) were invited

for the sacrifice, Siva was deliberated ignored by Daksha, who refused to

invite Siva and to offer him the oblation (avir bagham). Sati wanted to

visit her father to express her anguish since her husband was not invited.

There she was humiliated by her father, and unable to bear the insult

heaped upon her and her husband by Daksha, she fell into the sacrificial

fire. When Siva heard this, he was filled with rage and in his fury he

created Virabadhra, who destroyed the sacrifice of Daksha, and defeated

all the gods who were present there. Drowned in grief, Siva carried the

charred body of Sati on his head and danced around with her body. In his

dance, the corpse of Sati disintegrated and fell down on the earth. From

the fallen down charred feet was born the musical instrument cilampu,

from the fallen down hip was born the utukkai, from her back was born the

parai, from her throat pit was born the pampai, from her windpipe was

born the tarai (a “long brass trumpet”), and from her bones were born all

the string instruments.

In considering the association of the utukkai with Mariyamman, we should note that Mariyamman belongs to the lineage of Sati, as expressed by Gnanaraj: Sakti, the consort goddess of Siva, obtained a boon from Siva, which guaranteed her marriage with

Siva in whichever incarnation she takes. At first she was born as Sati or Dakshayani; her second birth was that of Parvati to Himavan, her third incarnation was that of Minakshi,

390 fourthly, she was born as Ambikai in the fisherman community, and her fifth incarnation was that of Renuka Parameswari or Mariyamman.

If in Sasikumar’s hi-story, the utukkai is created from the charred body of the goddess Sati, there is another hi-story that speaks of the utukkai as being formed from the body of a rishi/saint named Bringi. This hi-story, which was told by the utukkai singer

Velmurugan, forms part of the story of Uyirmari and Kattavarayan.13

Bringi, an ardent devotee of Siva, was used to worship only Siva and not the goddess Sakti. Sakti expressed her annoyance over his attitude and behavior. Siva and Sakti decided to take the form of Arthanariswara, a form of half man and half woman. Bringi came to worship Siva. On seeing this form and still unwilling to worship the goddess, he took the form of a beetle, carved a hole in the middle of the Arthanariswara form, and started circumambulating just Siva leaving out Sakti. The goddess got angry with this and admonished Bringi, who paid little attention to her words. Sakti, the absolute form of energy, took away all energy from Bringi leaving him as a body bereft of any energy. Still Bringi would not yield. Siva then intervened, asking the goddess to give back the energy to his devotee. The goddess listened to Siva’s words, but then she foretold: “Bringi will be born seven times in this world and he will remain unmarried in all these births. In his seventh birth, he will seek me for marriage. Then, on the day of the wedding, I, Arthanariswari, will kill him and wear his body as my utukkai drum.”

Bringi took six births in this world. When he was in his seventh birth, Sakti was born as Mari. Then, as Uyirmari, she had received a boon of ammai pearls from Siva. She started throwing these pearls at her will upon people. As a girl she dominated everyone. Her behavior was unfair. Unable to bear with her deeds, people living with her planned for her wedding. Like a nose-rope binds a bull, a wedding binds a girl. They thought marriage would control her. However, no man came forth to marry her. Then they brought this Bringi rishi from Naimicaranyam from the north to marry her. The rishi was 360 years old by then, which means 4000 years in our human life. The wedding day was fixed. On the wedding day, Siva bestowed the girl with the maternal uncle’s gift, bangles and a garland. Brahma was reciting the chants for the wedding. As soon as Bringi came upon the stage that was erected for the wedding, the goddess was enraged. With her hands, she tore his body, killed him,

13 After Uyirmari killed Bringi, people at Samayapuram started blaming her that she put pearls of ammai on everyone at her will, because she was “husbandless” and “childless,” and was unable to know the agony of others. Upset by these charges, she performed a tapas and got Kattavarayan as her son

391 and held his dead body as an utukkai. Bringi’s skin and flesh served as the skin of the utukkai, his neck bone became the instrument’s sphere-shaped bells, his nerves became the rope tied to the drum, the skin of his back was turned into a broad strip (kacchappattai) attached to the instrument, and his small and big intestines were turned into its cone-shaped adornments (kunjam), As soon as she killed Bringi, she removed her bangles and tied them to the drum. After doing this, Mari took her abode in Samayapuram and got settled there.

In Sasikumar’s narration, the dance of Siva with his wife’s charred corpse leads to the creation of musical instruments. Of all the instruments, the utukkai is formed when the hip of the goddess strikes the earth. The hourglass shaped drum stemming forth from the shapely hip of a woman is a striking imagination in this hi-story. Although the hip forms part of the charred body, it encloses feminine reproductive bodily matter in it.

When I asked Sasikumar later to explain the meaning of a sentence--“Your utukkai was born from the earth that contained the [seeds of] rudraksham”---from Mariyamman

Lullaby, he explained that the rudraksham seeds were born from the drops of blood that fell with the hip of the goddess. These drops allude to the menstrual blood of the goddess, and the hip-shaped utukkai is said to be born from the earth/soil on which these rudraksha-seeds-turned-blood-drops fell.

One might associate this narrative imagination with the earlier connection that I made between the first drops of the menstrual blood of Mariyamman, at Samayapuram, which eventually led to the devotees performing the debt vow of alaku, shedding blood at

Mariyamman temples. What is foregrounded in the account of the debt vow is the identification of the devotee with the goddess. As the goddess spills blood, the devotees spill it too. Again, as we saw in the last chapter, drops of the spilled blood of the goddess refigure as heaps of flowers during the “strewing of flowers” ceremony and as bodies of

392 devotees who undertake debt vows. In the hi-story of Sasikumar, drops of menstrual blood of the goddess turned into rudraksha seeds that are found on the earth/in the soil and the hip that fell along with these drops is turned into the utukkai.

The prime instrument that is deployed to make a body materialize as the goddess, according to the first hi-story, is formed from the charred body of the goddess. The goddess Sati is considered as a forerunner in embodying the norm of chastity, since she entered fire, unable to bear the disrespect of her father toward her husband. We can recall how Renuka is said to become a “Sati” when she enters the fire after Jamadagni’s death.

In Bringi’s story, the goddess Uyirmari kills him on the wedding dais, since he dares to marry her. Her tying the bangles to the utukkai, on the one hand, indicates her subtle acceptance of widowhood, because only widows remove their bangles which are construed as a sign of “marital auspiciousness.”14 On the other hand, her tying bangles onto the utukkai also amounts to feminizing the body of Bringi. The feminized body can now be held by her as an utukkai, without entailing any scandal.

Needless to say, the prohibitive sexual economy operates at extremes in these two hi-stories. In the first one, the utukkai is produced through it from the chaste body of the goddess. In the second story, it is produced from the body of Bringi, who could have potentially violated the prohibitive sexual economy. Both narratives produce the body of the utukkai as attesting to the heteronormative power in the form of chastity. There is no wonder then that sound produced mainly through this instrument-body is involved in the materialization of the body as the goddess. During the festival, analogous to other bodies,

14 When Velmurugan was narrating this hi-story, he observed that once a man or woman climbs the wedding dais they should be considered as married.

393 a protective wristlet is tied to the instrument-body of the utukkai too. The utukkai singers observe a viratam on the days they sing in the festival.

Let us see how utukkai singers consider their role in the goddess’s festivals, and how they first came to play this instrument. Gnanaraj and Sasikumar observe that the goddess herself gave them the utukkai in order to spread her praise and thereby protect the world. Although the utukkai singers come from varied castes, they consider themselves as the sons of the goddess. Gnanaraj cites a hi-story of how the goddess handed over the utukkai to the class of utukkai priests or utukkai pucari varkkam:

There lived a man called Ammaiyappa Karalan [or Karalan], who was adept in magic. He had no hands or legs. The children would bring him inside a basket, keep the basket in the center and play ball around him. Kattavarayan was one among these kids. Mariyamman was always restraining him from roaming around when he was a kid, and so he got annoyed and once brought this basket over to the mother, saying: “Amma [mother], he will be with you always and he won’t go anywhere.” Mariyamman created legs and hands for Karalan with sacred ash and with the five-letters [the five letters are Na-ma-si-va-ya, meaning “Hail Siva”]. He was always with the goddess, and later when Kattavarayan climbed the stake, Mariyamman went to save him. Then, Karalan asked the mother where she was going without him. The mother gave Karalan four things: sacred ash, margosa leaves, the rod of gems (manippirampu), and the utukkai. Replying that she was proceeding to see her son, she asked Ammaiyappa Karalan to protect the site of her pole of penance [tavacadi], sing her praise with the utukkai and protect the people thereby. So it is the mother who first took the utukkai and gave it to Karalan. We, the priests (pucari), are all his descendents. The goddess is, therefore, fond of utukkai songs.

The first utukkai musician is described in the hi-story originally as having a body without limbs. He is made into a full body and is assigned the role of first performing with the utukkai. While the narration specifically states that utukkai performances praising the goddess would protect the people, the performer is assigned another role of protecting the world through their songs as well. After Mariyamman (or in some

394 versions, Kamakshi or Muttumariyamman) leaves the place to protect Kattavarayan who has ascended the stake, she never returns to the place of penance.15 As she leaves the place of her penance to fulfill her mission of saving her son, she hands over the charge of protecting her place to her adopted son Ammaiyappa Karalan. Since the class of utukkai singers (occasionally they are also referred to as utukkaippucaris) descends from

Ammaiyappa Karalan, one can say that Ammaiyappa Karalan is the first utukkai singer to serve in the goddess’s abode.

Although the goddess gives four things to Karalan, the hi-story specifically emphasizes the role of utukkai singing in serving the goddess and in protecting the people through such singing. In this dual role, the utukkai priest (pucari), on the one hand, represents the goddess in protecting people and on the other hand, represents the people in partaking in the service of the goddess as a privileged devotee. Both these representations get articulated only through his utukkai singing at the festival.

In the background of the above hi-story, how do utukkai priests relate to the goddess and the people through his singing? An excerpt of my conversation with

Gnanaraj brings out the significant role of utukkai singing in materializing a body as the goddess during the temple festival.

P: What is the purpose of singing utukkai songs in the temple?

G: We sing utukkai songs in the festival because Mariyamman likes them. She is pleased to hear them. Further, when we celebrate a festival, we want to know whether it is correctly performed or not. Those who conduct the festival would like to know this. We sing her songs. If a dancer in whom the goddess has arrived says she is happy, then they [festival organizers or the village] would be satisfied, for they would

15 In fact, the goddess’s descent into the world to do penance is to mainly to save her son Kattavarayan from his father Siva’s curse, which decreed that Kattavarayan climb on the stake for the sin he originally committed by desiring a divine maiden.

395 think: “See, the deity has come and said this.” The dancer (maruladi) is considered as the deity herself.

P: Does that mean that you sing so that the goddess arrives?

G: Yes, for sure. The pucari should invite the goddess in such a way that she arrives. When I go and sing in the eastern areas in the temples worshipped by the fishermen community, sometimes I feel like crying. Because she does not arrive easily in those places. I need to sing for three to four hours. Only then the goddess would arrive. …

P: What will you do once someone from the crowd comes and dances?

G: After the deity dances for some time we would ask, “Who has come?” She would reply telling us whether she is Mariyamma or Kaliyamma or Ankalamma. Then we would ask, “We are glad that you have come. We have performed this puja. Are you happy?” The deity would express her satisfaction. Sometimes she might say, “No, I find this lacking.” Then we would ask what it is and then we would convince her saying, “If things go well this year, we will ask them [the festival organizers] to do all these next year.” We would then ask the deity for a vakku (word of promise) that it would rain the next year and that she would protectively help the people by being always beside (pakkattunai) them. Then the goddess would ask us to sing anandam [a repertoire of songs praising a particular goddess]. After hearing that she will “climb the hill.” (“malaiyeruva," which means she will go away)

Let me look at the act of asking the goddess to introduce herself. In the case of ammai, I have discussed the act of interpellation and the choice of a widow to perform that in Chapter Three. Briefly recalling what happens during arul, one constant question that the dancer is repeatedly asked is: “Amma, who has come?” The response would be:

“I am Karumariyamma” or simply “Karumariyamma.” The dancer may say the name of any goddess. But the response would invariably introduce the goddess by announcing her name. The structure of the response is such that it would function as a “place-holder” for an “I.”

396 In discussing a subject as a linguistic category, Butler contends that a subject cannot be conflated with an individual or a person: “The genealogy of the subject as a critical category… suggests that the subject, rather than be identified strictly with the individual, ought to be designated as a linguistic category, a place-holder, a structure in formation” (1997, 10). She further adds: “The subject is the linguistic occasion for the individual to achieve and reproduce intelligibility, the linguistic condition of its existence and agency” (1997, 11). These observations are helpful in theorizing the instances of the

“presence.” But Amy Hollywood (2002), in her article “Performativity, Citationality,

Ritualization,” rightly critiques Butler's prioritization of linguistic practices over bodily practices other than the speech act in the subject-formation. According to Hollywood, although Butler uses Bourdieu’s idea of habitus “to show that bodily practices shape the subject,” Butler subsumes the “particularity of bodily practices and ritual” into that of the

“speech act” (101).16

In the contexts of ammai as well as the goddess’s arrival as arul in festivals, the

“speech act” in the forms of interpellation (during ammai) or introduction by the dancer

(during arul in festivals) play a significant role in the subject-formation. Yet, the “speech act” that provides a “linguistic occasion” is part of a broader scheme or strategy of habitual, performative practices. We should remember that the interpellation during ammai (“Mother has arrived”) or the introduction during arul (“I am Karumariyamma”) are founding operations, but not the only operations deployed by habitual, performative practices.

16 In Chapter Three, I discussed how the “presence” of the goddess operating as the “schema” (or, “principle of intelligibility”) is akin to Bourdieu’s “habitus,” which is constituted through habitual, performative practices.

397 Further, as we have seen in the sakti karakam performances of the two temples, it is not the case that all the time questions are posed to goddess/es and answered by them.

The one question respectfully posed to deities always is: “Who has come?”17 And after hearing the name of the goddess, an anandam song would be sung. The priest would put sacred ash on the deity-dancer and then the deity would go away.

But as I have seen in Mukaiyur, Mugapper, and Panrutti temples, during gruel- serving, invariably questions are posed to the goddess about whether she would keep the people of the town or village happy. In such key occasions of the festival, getting the

“vakku” or the “word of promise” from the goddess is important. A body that matters as the goddess in these contexts through utukkai songs assures the devotees of well-being. In materializing a body as the goddess and getting assuring words of protection from it the utukkai singer performs his protective role as a representative of the goddess. In articulating the concerns of the people through his questions to the goddess and in requesting the goddess to protect the people, he performs his role of the privileged devotee.

But what if the goddess does not “arrive” when she is called? The utukkai singers, whom I met, have never encountered such a scenario.

P: You said on the other day that the purpose of your song is to make the

goddess arrive. When you go to a Mariyamman temple and sing with the

utukkai at the temple is it mandatory that the deity should come? If she

does not come, will it be interpreted that you did not sing properly or did

not sing enough……..

17 One can compare and contrast this question with the question asked to a pey (ghost/spirit). The question in the latter case is: “Who are you?” See Nabokov (2000, 7)

398 Gnanaraj: Yes, then people would comment. “He is not right.” But it

generally (potuva) does not happen. We are given that skill by the

goddess. As soon as we start beating the drum, listening to our songs, the

goddess will come. My songs have never failed.

Utukkai performances are also used in the administration of debt vows.

Sometimes, as Sasikumar says, instead of the utukkai other instruments such as pampai drums can be used. In Valangaiman and Samayapuram, mostly the administrators of debt vows and their assistants sing on Mariyamman in a loud voice. The songs materialize a body as Mariyamman. An excerpt of one such song goes like this:

The goddess attained puberty in Samayapuam

At the boundary of Samayapuram

Open your eyes and see us.

Woman, the Esvari of this universe

If we say Mari, it will rain.

It will rain as pearls.

The cut hen will shout

Mother Makamayi

Is your heart a stone?

It has not melted even to a sesame grain’s size. …

(Sung by Arumugam, younger brother of Jiva, the alaku administrator)

The tone of the song will be familiar to those who have listened to/read

Mariyamman Lullaby. The song pleads with the goddess and seeks her compassion, a glance of her merciful eye. But whereas in the Lullaby she is requested to descend from

399 the body as well as heal the body, here, in the context of the debt-vow, she is asked to

“arrive.” As the Ati festival context frames the goddess as a harbinger of protection and well-being as well as rain (see Gnanaraj’s interview cited before), in the context of administration of the debt vow too, the goddess is addressed as a governing force of rain or rain itself that pours as pearls (of ammai). References to the goddess as rain resignify the idiom of ammai into another valence of multitude, namely that of pearls of rain, and extend the signifying benevolence of this multitude to much broader levels such as that of general well-being and protection.

When we discuss arrival, a pertinent question to ask would be: where does the goddess arrive from? Let me move on to this “where” to explore the ideas of

“possession” and “subjectivity” in the contexts of arrival of the goddess.

Section III

Goddess as “Style of the Flesh”

In and out

I have been using the term “arrival” or “presence” instead of the term

“possession,” because usually the idiom of “possession,” employed in anthropological studies of religion, often underscores the conception of an outside or external force coming and occupying the body.18

A comprehensive literature review of these studies, even if one chooses to engage with South Asian possession, appears to be nearly impossible due to the vast body of

18 Shulman also recognizes the term “possession” as “problematic” (2002, 145).

400 work available.19 If one considers studies relating to Tamilnadu alone, a range of rich works approaching the subject of “possession” through different approaches, such as psychosocial, sociological or socio-functional, and feminist, is available.20 One can find two common trends in these works. They regard “possession” as arrival of a being from outside, and occupying, the body. Although the Tamil term “iranku,” 21 meaning

“descend,” indicates an external force descending into a body, I found that a more complex picture of the goddess’s “arrival” emerged through conversations, as we shall see. The conversations that I had do not support the view that the “goddess force” always comes from outside the body. Secondly, even though the available studies have contributed to enriching the understanding of the phenomenon of possession and its role and function, they consider the body as a natural template or a “mute facticity” that can be subjected to the cultural dynamics of “possession.” As Scott points out about the

19 Nevertheless, Frederick M. Smith provides a fantastic review of ethnographic literature that engages with possession “(1) as a negatively inspired religious phenomenon, (2) as a psychological event, (3) as a social or sociopolitical event that trades in power relations, (4) as a type of shamanism, and (5) as a ‘real’ incursion of spirits or deities to be taken at face value…” (78). For a detailed discussion on the above, see Smith, especially Part II. 2, “New and Inherited Paradigms” (2006, 33-94). 20 For instance, Karin Kapadia has analyzed the political dimension of “institutionalized possession” and exclusion of women from the realm of possession (1996). Hancock has engaged with possession of Tamil smarta women by the goddess Karumariyamman as a specific form of relationship that offered certain “modes of self-expression” and “small spaces of autonomy” within the “domesticity” of the women (1995, 60-91). Hiltebeitel has analyzed instances of possession. Some of his analyses relate to possession of actions in the Mahabharata ritual theatre associated with the Draupadi cult (1988, for instance 50, 271-76, and 346: 1991, 344) and possession in the form of rain-storm leading to founding of the Draupadi temple in Gingee (1988, 67). Frasca (1990) has analyzed the “ritual theatre of possession” that is a key cornerstone of the Draupadi cult. At the Samayapuram Mariyamman festival, assuming the “character of the goddess” by the possessed “actors” has been analyzed by Paul Younger (1980). He points out a release of the individual “self” through the “ecstatic dance” of possession (See especially 509-510). Nabokov has discussed possession by deities as rather violent, “forceful penetrations” into the human bodies (2000, 28). She lists smallpox as such a case of a “symbol” of such “forceful penetration” (ibid). Drawing on the Tamil term “iranku” (descend), Foulston describes how “the goddess takes over the mortal body,” and how this “taking over” makes the “profane” world become “sacred” to “a certain extent” (145). Meyer (1986, 257- 60) in the context of Ankalaparamecuvari’s worship has explored the nuances of possession and its distinction from impersonation. Meyer also reflects upon Glenn E. Yocum’s observations concerning possession in the contexts of “personification” of a deity through possession and how possession is employed by the Tamil bhakti poets (Meyer 1986, 259). While in the former, possession is used “as a means for divination, curing or mediumship,” in the latter it is used for “communion” with god (Meyer 1986, 259; Yocum 1982, 193). 21 Foulston refers to this term, interpreting it as “possession instigated by a deity” (145).

401 anthropological scholarship of the Sinhala “yaktovil,” the accounts on possession

“assume the nature/culture paradigm in which view the body is taken as a ’real’ and unchanging material substrate, a repertoire of latent biophysical capacities, grounding or substantializing varied cultural representations” (1994, 52).

In studies that treat body as an “unchanging material substrate,” an ontological existence is accorded to the body. This ontological existence renders the body as a carrier of expressions of a psyche or self that is “possessed” by a deity or a demon. Functioning as a material enclosure of a psyche or self, the body is placed at the service of the psyche or self which is “troubled” by a deity or demon. Of course, there are theoretical frameworks of personhood that emphasize bodily matters and transactions, like the

“transactional model” advanced by McKim Marriott and Ronald Inden (1977). Although the model has been criticized by Nabokov, who places greater emphasis on psychic dynamics, 22 this model has found its circulation in scholarship. 23 The “transactional model” argues that a person in India is “dividual” (“divisible”) by virtue of his/her being made up of “bodily substance codes” (Marriott 1976, 111). What are the codes and the substance? As I understand from Marriott and Inden, the “code” and “substance” refer respectively to “embodied norm” (or “norms of being”) and “natural” bodily substances

(including “that which passes between bodies”) (1977, 234-35). While the “embodied

22 Nabokov, in her work on “spirit possession” in Tamilnadu, finds the “transactional model” problematic primarily because of its physiological underpinnings, namely its “repetitive references” to “’bodily processes,’ ‘inborn codes of conduct,’ ‘genera,’ etc” and its comparative disregard for psychological dynamics (14). However, I think the “transactional model” has more than physiological substance-codes in its purview. In fact, Marriott, in a remark about Hindu transactions involving “relatively ‘gross’ (sthula)” and “relatively ‘subtle’ (suksma)” substance-codes, brings in “knowledge” as a subtle substance code (1976, 110). Also Nabokov opposes the “’dividual’ model of the person,” because it again takes the Western model of bounded self as paradigmatic (15). 23 See Smith (2006), for instance. Smith also observes that one can find the transfer of substance-codes or essences in Obeyesekere’s work on the Pattini cult (1984). The akarsana (or “magnetism) of the goddess, discussed by Obeyesekere, is labeled as “a physiological substance that is transacted through ritual action” (Smith 75).

402 norm” indicates inherent and accrued values and qualities, the bodily substances that are exchanged include “powers,” “essences” and “generative substances” (1977, 234). The transaction of the substance-codes among persons renders them as permeable “dividuals.”

As one can see, in this model too, bodily substances are construed as materials that are inscribed with and that carry forward the embodied cultural norms.

Deploying the transactional model in his study on “possession” and citing a range of sources from classical literature of Vedic texts and Upanishads and the latter puranas,

Smith observes that a transfer of “essences, akin to Marriott’s coded substances,” takes place in “a conscious or otherwise felt experience of possession” (2006, 211). Smith’s analysis concludes that “possession was a cause and a result of the generally accepted

South Asian notion of permeable embodiment” (xxvii). In his explanation of the “transfer of essences,” the “bounded corporeality” is taken-for-granted:

These essences, akin to Marriott’s coded substances, are transferred in

much the same way an integrated personality with a complex identity

passes into another during a conscious or otherwise felt experience of

possession: as unseen though hardly undetected or unexplained forces,

substances, or entities moving from one bounded corporeality to another,

from one individual to another, or from a deity or other ethereal being into

a human vessel. (2006, 211-12)

As the above cited paragraph shows, in this constitution of permeable embodiment, the body serves as a medium for the transfer of “essences,” rather than playing an active role or having any primary significance in the process.

403 My materials show that it is not a “transfer” of essences that causes the

“permeable embodiment.” Rather, a body gets identified as the goddess “as such” during the instances of ammai and arul. As Butler (Gender, 177) theorizes about “gender,” bodies materializing as and signifying Mariyamman in the instances of ammai and arul are some of the “styles of flesh” in particular cultural contexts. In other words, the instances of affliction and festival contexts that are marked by a “corporeal presence” of the goddess are specific “modes of being” which defy the dichotomous rendering of the body as a pre-given matter and the goddess as a cultural norm.

Before considering the “styles of flesh” that are made available during the corporeal presence of the goddess, first let me explore the notion of an external agent or force “arriving” during “possession.” A woman, who was a widow and who danced in the

Mugapper temple before she received one of the first servings of gruel, explained to me:

“It (arul) suddenly popped out (“kubukkunu”). At that time, throughout the body, hairs stood up (goose bumps).” From her expression, one can get a sense of a force coming from inside the body rather than from outside it. Gnanaraj, who was present with me at that time, emphasized that the goddess did not “descend” into the woman during the

“ritual” performance all of a sudden from outside, but rather the goddess arrived upon her

(the woman’s) body, in which she had already taken abode. Let me cite my conversation with Gnanaraj in detail to shed more light on this topic. Gnanaraj used the term “marul”

(alternately used with “arul” in a positive sense, although marul literally means

404 “bewilderment” or “illusion”) 24 and “cami” (deity), as he described the different modalities of arrival of arul.

P: Today during sakti karakam, as you were singing, I also saw some women rushing through the crowd and dancing. They did not carry milk- pots or anything. They just came out from the crowd and started dancing….

G: Those woman have marul upon (mela) them from before. “Ankalamma is in her, Nakattamma is in her….” That is how it is said. When we sing, the particular deity would arrive.

P: How could have that deity have arrived into them before?

G: We would not know how it started or how it came. The family from which they come would follow the way of bhakti (bhakti markkam). Due to their bhakti, the deity would always be “with” them (avanga kitta inta cami irukkum). Or, the deity could have been in someone else in their family and then would have come on this person. Sometimes, those who have goddesses in them would have gotten the “needle of the tongue” (nakkalaku). A promise would be obtained from the concerned deity that it should come only when it is asked to come, and not all the time randomly as it pleases. That is why, during the festival, when we sing the songs with the utukkai drum, it arrives.

P: Needle?

G: Yes, we, utukkai singers, would pierce a small alaku needle into their tongues. The family would come and ask us to pierce their tongues so that the deity does not come at inappropriate places and times. We extract the promise then: “You should come only when you are called. You should not create any problem for the family.” The deity will make a promise (sattiya vakku) to us. If a deity makes a promise, it will keep it.

P: Generally you are going to the same place, the same temple…Would you know in which person arul will come…and which cami will arrive in her?

G: Definitely. We know that. Ankalamma(n) is on this woman….Karumariyamma(n) is on that woman….Sometimes, women themselves would come and say: “I have ‘this’ goddess on me. Call her.”

24 Hiltebeitel notes “marulu” as “negative possession,” although Gnanaraj does not use such words to describe it (1991, 344). Further, the term “avecam,” cited by Hiltebeitel as connoting “positive possession,” was not heard in the context of festival “possession” in Mariyamman temples (1991, 344).

405 P: When you chase away a spirit that has caught a woman, for instance, then also you place (or install) a deity in that woman, is it not?25

G: Yes. After chasing the spirit away, we sing and place (vaippom) the cami or clan-deity (kula teivam) on that person. That is to assure that the spirit does not come back and trouble them. After we place the cami, we ask it: “Protect this girl. No spirit should come to her.” After getting this assurance of protection from the cami, sometimes we will pierce the needle into the tongue. Alternately, we will tie a thread on the wrist of the girl, instead of piercing the needle. It is for making sure that the deity comes only when we call it.

Gnanaraj’s observations problematize the idea of a force in the form of the goddess ‘exclusively’ arriving from an external source in a person at a particular instance of arul. Upon “calling,” the goddess arrives from her abode that she already has in the person concerned, due to the person’s devotion or the proximity of the person with another, who already has the goddess on her. Alternately, the goddess could have been placed in the person advertently by an utukkai singer. Descriptions of these earlier occasions indicate in some sense that the goddess has taken “possession” of the body from an external source in these occasions. Even then, at a particular instance of the goddess’s “arrival,” she is said to emerge out of her abode which is the locus of a human person.

Gnanaraj says that as a regular utukkai singer, in the places/temples where he routinely visits, he even knows which deity “resides” (tangum) on whom. In fact, not only a professional utukkai singer like Gnanaraj claims this. I have listened to similar comments from devotees who regularly attend a temple festival every year:

“Karumariyamman is on that woman. Whenever she hears the utukkai, amma arrives on her,” or “Ankalamman is on that woman. Wait and see. She will start dancing.” One

25 Nabokov describes the process of installation of deity in the place of the pey (spirit) (2000, 95-96).

406 should also note that Gnanaraj uses the preposition “mele,” literally meaning “on” or

“upon” in most of the conversations. Once he also uses “kitta” meaning “with.”

Although these prepositions do not strictly refer to “interiority” within the body, they still constitute arul as an immanent force constituting the body during arul.

However, debt vows and the karakam present a different view. Some devotees who undertake debt vows for the first time get arul. These persons are not described as having the goddess on them or with them. Let us look at Gnanaraj’s remarks to explicate the “arrival” in these occasions:

Those who undertake debt vows and those who carry sakti karakam

should observe a strict viratam (meaning observing certain vow practices).

Cami will not arrive in them automatically. From the day of donning the

protective wristlet at the beginning of the festival, they should and will

follow a viratam (certain disciplinary practices, like abstinence from sex

and alcoholic drinks, not staying outside the village in the night etc.)26

Does the “arrival” here mean that the goddess is not immanently present and comes from outside in these instances? Gnanaraj opined it could be either way:

Perhaps she comes from the karakam that we have decorated. Or from the

bhakti that the person (the one who carries the karakam) has in his

manacu (heart-mind or interiority). How does that matter? We see her

arriving in the body. We sing utukkai songs for that.

With such complex layers of accounts of “arul,” I was looking for a discursive framework that can accommodate these two views, arrival from outside and arrival from inside. I found one such framework from the fortuneteller Maturai Muttu, into whom

26 I will revisit the idea of viratam soon.

407 Karumariyamman regularly descends every week on particular days. At least fifty to hundred devotees come and meet him on these days to get “vakku” (good words) from the goddess.

Perundevi: Muttu Sir, how will you describe amma’s descending into you?

Muttu: Descending? There is nothing like descending. She is in the

manacu (interiority/heartmind) always (With his right hand, he points to

his left chest). As she arrives in a discernible manner (terikira matiri), the

body trembles. Later I feel some weakness too.

P: Yes, yesterday after amma came into you, you could not even stand.

You looked tired.

M: How can a flimsy wooden house withstand an elephant? It will shake.

P: By wooden house do you mean manacu or body?

M: I am talking about the shaking body. Not manacu. Manacu is where

the goddess resides. She is sakti that pervades the entire world.27 She is

Brahma kanni.

Muttu employs the distinct metaphor of “house” to describe “arul,” which might help us in theorizing about the arrival, notwithstanding Muttu’s locating the “source” of arul as manacu. The metaphor of the fragile house or hut articulates the body as a structure through which the goddess manifests. 28 The house metaphor allows for the imagination of a deity who can come in as well as come out, as one does in a house. This possibility, as conveyed through the house metaphor, allows for a deity established in an

27 Although as a “pervader” Sakti could be identified as Brahman, manacu cannot be identified as atman. Perceived as a locus of memory and thought and a faculty of reason and emotion, manacu is not a “preobjective self that is free of cultural constructions of the world” that the term atman implies. On selfhood and atman, see Smith (2006, 20). 28 It also connects with the image of the pot used to describe a body in the songs of Tamil sittars.

408 eminent plane to “come down” or “descend” into a body; at the same time, she can equally be located in the manacu or interiority. The image of the house or hut is analogous to the images of the anthill and cultivable field that we explored in connection with ammai.29 And as we have already analyzed, the discourses on ammai also constitute the goddess as one who arrives from both inside and outside, manifesting as an ammai- afflicted body.

Muttu also used another figure, the figure of a sculpture, to describe the state of

“presence.”

M: Like a piece of sculpture from a stone. That is what happens. A piece

of sculpture. You see it. It is different from all other rough stones.

P: Still they are stones …..

M: Yes, there are stones. Perhaps one can use them for washing clothes.

Are they and a sculpture equal? When you see it, you can distinguish it.

As I discussed in the third chapter, Butler deploys Aristotle’s idea of “schema” in theorizing how “intelligibility” of a body and its “materiality” have not been separated from each other from the beginning in Western philosophical traditions. Drawing upon the verses of Tolkappiyam, I pointed out a similar notion of “materiality” in early Tamil texts, as underscored by the Tamil epistemological concept of “porul” meaning both the

“object” and “signification.” The sculpture image reinforces that the “schema” cannot be separated from the form, or in other words, the “presence” of the goddess cannot be theorized separately from the body that matters as the goddess.

The image of the house deployed by Muttu informs much more than the notion of permeability or being holey. “When you see it (the body) you distinguish it,” Muttu

29 See Chapter Four.

409 observes. Gnanaraj expressed a similar idea before: “We see the goddess arrive upon the body.” Thus audiences discern and conclude that the body is the goddess. Whether it is

“trembling” or manifesting as pustules of ammai, the presence of the goddess is discerned through the body that materializes as and signifies the goddess. As “ammai” and “arul,” the “styles of the flesh” that present themselves to the audiences lead to their identification as corporeal presence of the goddess. With the interpellation of the pustules as “ammai” by the widowed women and with the utukkai singer making the goddess-dancer tell her name during a session of arul, the boundary of the body is founded. At the same time, the “inculcation” of the cultural norm, namely the “presence” of the goddess, is also reiterated through such acts of interpellation and name-telling, which form part of the habitual practices.30

In a post-structural reading of Mary Douglas’s inquiry into the “boundaries of the body” which are subjected to and determined by the cultural notions of “purity” and

“pollution,” Butler (Gender, 166-68) observes that the analysis of Douglas could be deployed for interrogating the assumptions about pre-given materiality of the body. The pre-given, assumed “materiality” of the body is suspect, especially because the “bodily margins” have always been thought of as “precarious” and entailing danger in many cultures (Gender, 167-68). She brings out the significance of a question that Douglas asks in her book: “Why should bodily margins be thought to be specifically invested with power and danger?” (Gender, 168). The “trembling house” metaphor used by Muttu

30 See Butler (1993, 8). She discusses the founding interpellation of a child as a girl or boy as soon as it is born. She observes that this founding interpellation amounts to an “inculcation of a norm,” while at the same the interpellation is reiterated throughout the person’s lifetime perpetually materializing the “sexed body.”

410 brings into discourse such a kind of danger and power that the boundary, that is the body, is not all that stable and it can be challenged at any time.

According to Butler, “inner” and “outer” makes sense only with respect to a

“mediating boundary that strives for stability,” and such “stability” is always determined by cultural norms and orders (Gender, 170). In the context of our discussion of the goddess’s “presence,” the unstable or “variable” boundary is mediated through the performative, habitual practices that re/signify the boundary-body as the goddess. This re/signification is facilitated by identificatory and exclusionary operations that belong to a cultural order of heteronormativity and the operations comprise the performative habitual practices. Two related issues merit our attention here. The first relates to the efficacy of the performative practices. And the second asks, how is interiority framed during this re/signification of the body boundary?

Do the performative practices always successfully constitute their “effects?”

That is, do these practices always materialize and successfully signify the body as

Mariyamman? Definitely not. Let us look at how the “failure” of the body to materialize and signify as the goddess is articulated in discourses. In an anecdote about my friend’s debt vow, we noted how he did not dance notwithstanding the music played by the drummers. Further, I have witnessed at least a couple of instances where the dancer, when she is asked to introduce herself, would pick up cues from the singers and would laughingly repeat the name of the goddess. Such incidents would make people complain with dissatisfaction that it is not the real goddess. In one such incident that happened at a festival of the goddess called Mayilaramman, the utukkai singers were taken to task for

411 providing cues, and they were blamed by the organizers for just having fun rather than

“seriously” calling the goddesses.

The debt vow administrators are of the view that when a person does not follow proper disciplinary restrictions that would maintain his body through cuttam, the goddess would not arrive. Thus, when the materialization of the body as the goddess fails, the lack of cuttam in the person is cited as a reason for the failure. In other words, when a body fails to matter as a goddess, the failure is located singularly in an individual rather than taken as a failure of the practices. Such explanations forge a naturalized connection between the performative, habitual practices and the “presence” of the goddess, which is instilled and generated as a cultural norm in the contexts of arul.

In the case of ammai-affliction, the performative habitual practices produce the body as the goddess, again, installing the norm of the “presence” of the goddess and materializing it as the body. When the pustules swell abnormally or entail danger, such a condition is articulated in two ways: on the one hand, the goddess is said to be enraged due to the non-observance of habitual practices. The notion of cuttam comes to the foreground here. On the other hand, interestingly, death brought about by the aggravation of affliction of poxes is reworked into an occasion for the person to be produced and identified as the goddess on an eminent plane. Here one can recall the Valangaiman temple legend of Mahamariyamman. 31 In the former instance, failure to adhere to

“proper” habitual, performative practices is construed as the reason for the enraged and abnormal presence of the goddess. In the latter case, death only shifts the bodily materialization from the realm of life to that of legend. This entails a shift from the

31 For that matter, such legends are not exclusive to Valangaiman. I heard a similar narrative of the goddess in the Mariyamman temple at Muttuppatinam, Karaikkudi.

412 habitual, performative practices followed at home to practices followed at the temple.

Thus, the efficacy of the habitual, performative practices in making the goddess “arrive” in a proper, benevolent manner is never challenged in the discursive practices.

As Butler observes concerning gender, identification as the goddess or materialization of the body as the goddess is never a fool-proof and complete process.

Like the heterosexual gender, the goddess is an “ideal that no one can embody” (Gender,

176). The construction of the body as the goddess is a groundless construction, similar to gender as a ground of identity-construction:

If the ground of gender identity is the stylized repetition of acts through

time and not a seemingly seamless identity, the spatial metaphor of a

“ground” will be displaced and revealed as a stylized configuration,

indeed, a gendered corporealization of time. The abiding gendered self

will then be shown to be structured by repeated acts that seek to

approximate the ideal of a substantial ground of identity, but which, in

their occasional discontinuity, reveal the temporal and contingent

groundlessness of a “ground.” (Gender, 179)

In locating the failure in an individual’s adherence to the “appropriate,” habitual performative practices, the groundless ground of the normative ideality of the goddess is established in the discursive practices. In the logic, “Had the practices been done properly, the goddess would have arrived,” the connection between the practices and the goddess- ideal is rendered natural; at the same time, the failures and ruptures indicate that this connection is only arbitrarily made; the goddess is only a normative ideal that is sustained and advocated in the culture.

413 How does the interiority or subjectivity get framed in the re/signification of the

“variable” bodily contours as Mariyamman? In this work, I have been translating

“manacu” as interiority, because in the Tamil cultural realm, manacu, meaning both heart and mind, is equated with “the reasoning faculty” (such as “mind or will”) or “thought”

(including “purpose,” “intention,” and “sentiment”) or “memory.” 32 In addition, alternately used with “akam,” meaning inner or interior, manacu is considered as an inner space or “topos” that is inhabitable too. How is interiority constituted in discourses of

“presence” of the goddess during ammai and arul?

In the discourses of exclusionary disciplinary restrictions of “cuttam,” we saw that interiority often figures along with the body. The disciplinary restrictions through which a body is prepared to be “pure” focus on the interiority too. In other words, the habitual performative practices work toward producing the body as well as the interiority in the materialization of the body as the goddess. A matter of interest could be: how do those who were or have been marked with the goddess’s presence articulate these instances?

I was conversing with a few women, who danced with “arul” in Mugapper. I asked them how they felt in their heart during “arul,” and got responses like these: “I do not remember what happened.” “I do not know about that,” or “That time we will be un- self-conscious (cuya ninaivu arru).” Gnanaraj also expressed his views in line with the third response: “You have seen the women dancing. But if you ask them afterwards about

32See Tamil Lexicon (3134). Meanings for “manacu” or “manam” include a range of faculties and traits such as “1. Mind; will; the reasoning faculty, 2. Purpose, intention, sentiment; 3. Memory.” In Tamil literature, both classical and modern, we find references to intimate persons coming into and staying in the heart.

414 that they would say, ‘Did I? Did I dance? They would not have any remembrance

(jnapakam) of that.”

A conversation with Muttu helped me grasp what these responses mean. I had a chance to ask him how he would feel in his heart when the goddess “arrives” in him:

M: There is no “I” then. How can I say anything about the feeling?

He even ridiculed me:

M: It is like….. I am saying I did not go to a wedding. Hearing that you

ask me: “how many idlis did you eat at the wedding?”

P: I got it….but after “arul” leaves you…..

M: “I/t” will come then (appa nan varum [varum is a verb with suffix used

for the third person “it”])

Marcel Mauss, contrasting individual selfhood with relational personhood, speaks of person/personhood in the “sense of situated ‘I’ (moi):”33 “…there has never existed a human being who has not been aware, not only of his body, but also at the same time of his individuality, both spiritual and physical” (Mauss cited in Smith 2006, 18).

Nevertheless, in some accounts of arul (like that of Muttu), the situated human “I” gets expelled; in a few others, the situated human “I” does not seem to function (like when the women say “I do not remember what happened”); in some other accounts, the situated human “I” is simply not articulated (“I do not know about that”). During the instances of arul, the “situated human I” thus either gets expelled or suspended. In that case, considering that the interiority is a locus of the “situated human I,” what constitutes the interiority in those instances?

33 See Smith’s discussion on “The Person and the Self” (2006, 18). Mapping the self/person “oppositions” along the “conceptual categories” of “purusa/purusottama” and “atman/brahman,” Smith locates “possession” within the realm of “domain of personhood” (18-22).

415 Indeed, the problem of “interiority” appears to be a concern of the ethnographer.

“How does that matter?” asks Gnanaraj. “Don’t we see her arrive upon the body when we, utukkai singers, call her through their rich songs?” One can recall Muttu’s remark that I cited about arul: “When you see it (the body), you distinguish it.” What about ammai?

How is the interiority of the ammai-afflicted person conceived? Let me illustrate this by citing S. S is a friend of mine who hails from Aruppukkottai, near Virudunagar in southern Tamilnadu. His family deity is Mariyamman. His younger brother M was an ardent devotee of the goddess and met his death all of a sudden when I was doing my fieldwork.34 Forty years back, M had smallpox when he was eighteen years old and reached the threshold of death before he was saved, as S’s family calls it, by a miracle of the goddess Mariyamman. After M was cured of the smallpox, the entire family changed from atheists into believers. I was asking him whether his brother said anything about whether he felt the goddess in his heart. S gave an insightful response:

During ammai… Leave smallpox. Generally, during any ammai we say

34 My meeting with M was strange and sad. During the period of M’s smallpox, that is four decades back, their family was not well-off. Due to problems on several fronts they were not happy too. As M was recovering, he started getting Mariyamman in his dreams, which gave him immense pleasure. It seems once the goddess came in his dream and asked him: “Who do you want? Me or your family? If you say it is your family, then I will not come hereafter. Remember. But your family will be happy thereafter.” He chose his family and his family became prosperous and had good tides of time after that. Mariyamman, however, did not come, as she said. When I met M, he was working as an officer in a bank. His professional as well as personal life were happy and peaceful. But it was only a facade. M had been feeling all along that he made a wrong choice in choosing his family over Mariyamman. He told me he had been longing desperately to see her face, which appeared to him decades back and left him. He said he had been increasingly feeling anxious and restless and was asking me whether I could help him in any way to get her back. It was a strange request for me. When we were conversing at the Aruppukkottai Mariyamman temple, something happened at the temple which made him think that I alone could help him solve his problem. I was not sure what I could do to make the goddess come in his dream. I could have prayed to her. Unfortunately, I could never cultivate consistent belief in the goddess, although several events that took place during the fieldwork were and have been pushing me toward its cultivation. Anyway, I lost my friend M within a month of the conversation about his dreams. Sadly, I was the only person with whom he shared these dreams.

416 the goddess has come. We say this not about that person who has got

ammai. Why do we say “the goddess has come?” It is for others, I mean,

for us to take it as the goddess.

S’s remark strikes a correspondence with Gnanaraj’s observations on the

“authenticity” of the goddess’s arrival. In a Mariyamman temple in Mukaiyur (near

Chinglepet), after the gruel-serving ceremony and after “the goddess” assured the people of their town’s welfare and rains and was sent off, I asked him: how authentic are these words? How can one be so sure that it is the “goddess” who speaks and not the human person? At first, Gnanaraj retorted that an utukkai singer would know for sure who speaks. But then he added: “See, We (utukkai singers) should know our role. We should know that a deity can come even in a prostitute. However, as she dances, we should not argue with the deity, nor should we question it. We should take her as the deity, sing her praise and send her off.”

How is it that “others” consider an ammai-arrived or arul-arrived person as the goddess Mariyamman? How does the interiority get framed in this consideration? As

Butler theorizes about gender, the habitual, performative practices related to ammai- affliction and temple festivals produce the body as a “signifying surface” in these contexts.35 That is, the “trembling/shaking” during “arul,” as well as the pustules during

35 Consider Butler’s discussion on Foucault concerning the body as the “surface signification:” The figure of the interior soul understood as ‘within’ the body is signified through its inscription on the body, even though its primary mode of signification is through its very absence, its potent invisibility. The effect of a structuring inner space is produced through the signification of a body as a vital and sacred enclosure. The soul is precisely what the body lacks; hence, the body presents itself as a signifying lack. That lack which is the body signifies the soul as that which cannot show. In this sense, then, the soul is a surface signification that contests and displaces the inner/outer distinction itself, a figure of interior psychic space inscribed on the body as a social signification that perpetually renounces itself as such. (Gender, 172) I have understood the goddess in the way the soul is articulated by Butler and Foucault.

417 ammai, which make up the bodily contours are produced as the signifying surface. Here,

Butler’s theorization of a gendered body as a “style of the flesh” would be helpful in understanding the framing of interiority. As Butler discusses gender and sexuality, she locates the interiority within the discourse of “styles of the flesh:”

If the body is not a “being,” but a variable boundary, a surface whose

permeability is politically regulated, a signifying practice within a cultural

field of gender hierarchy and compulsory heterosexuality, then what

language is left for understanding this corporeal enactment, gender, that

constitutes its “interior” signification on its surface? Sartre would perhaps

have called this act “a style of being,” Foucault, “a stylistics of existence.”

And in my earlier reading of Beauvoir, I suggest that gendered bodies are

so many “styles of the flesh.” … Consider gender, for instance, as a

corporeal style, an “act,” as it were, which is both intentional and

performative, where “performative” suggests a dramatic and contingent

construction of meaning. (Gender, 177)

In the context of our discussion, the habitual performative practices, through effectively organizing the bodily contours as a “signifying surface,” constitute the goddess as a “style of the flesh” or a corporeal mode of being. When bodily contours are constituted as the divine “styles of the flesh” or corporeal modes invested with the

“presence” of the goddess, then the notion of divine (Mariyamman’s) intentionality can find its way through discourses. The goddess can be traced to a locus of interiority

(whether she comes from outside and occupies this locus or she is already available at the locus), and can be perceived to express herself corporeally.

418 At the same time, since the “style” implies a certain performativity, its signification is always “dramatic and contingent.” Consider S’s expression closely, “It is for others…for us to take it (body) as the goddess.” Such a statement precisely relegates the responsibility as well as authority of interpreting the “surface signification” to the audiences. Whether it is the family members or healers at an ammai-afflicted household or onlookers, or fellow-devotees or utukkai singers during a temple festival, it is they who interpret and take the body as the goddess. The signifying surface that the body is, in its being interpreted as the goddess, generates and institutes the cosmic person/goddess. The cosmic personhood of the goddess is thus produced by the bodily contours, materializing with pustules or gestures of trembling, shaking etc. and simultaneously signifying the goddess. Furthermore, the production of the cosmic personhood takes place in public.

Butler discusses the strategic significance of the “public character” of gender performance in maintaining “gender within its binary frame” (Gender, 179). Interestingly, the “public character” of the corporeal presence of the goddess occasions a different order of strategy through which the heteronormative regime, embedded as chastity and purity in the discursive practices, is rehearsed and reinforced under the sign of the goddess.

419 Chapter Eight

“I Gave Crocin Only after Calling them Margosa Leaves:” Biomedicine in the Performative Theatre of Healing

In Tamilnadu poxes and measles are not always healed by healers. Generally, the affliction is left to itself for healing without seeking medical doctors or healers. When pustules do not heal in the normal course of time and an imminent cure is not in sight, it is customary to invite healers, who specialize in making the pearls of poxes descend from the body or roll down onto the earth. Especially in areas of Pudukkottai, Mayavaram,

Thanjavur, and Sivagangai, we come across healers who are called “ammappillai.” An ammappillai meaning “child of the mother or goddess” is the one who facilitates the pearls or pustules of ammai to descend. These healers visit the ammai-afflicted house either daily, or on alternate days until ammai descends, depending upon the severity of the affliction. Although these healers could be males or females, I met more women healers compared to male healers.

In my fieldwork in Pudukkottai, Tanjore, and Sivagangai districts I met with several healers of ammai. In this chapter, I am going to render my experience of a healing session and my conversations with a popular healer called Muttukkannu, who lives in

Pudukkottai. (See figure 15). I will cite my conversations with her, excerpts from the

Lullaby song that she sang to the afflicted, and eventually focus on strategies deployed by her in a chicken-pox healing performance. The healing session that we shall explore is one that presents the body materializing and signifying as Mariyamman, with her incorporated “presence” as poxes and as arul.

420 I met the sixty year old female healer Muttukkannu first in 2004. It was July, and some of the suburban villages like Vagaippati were witnessing attacks of chickenpox.

Some of my relatives mentioned her popularity to me in the area as a healer of ammai. As

I located her house in the outskirts of Pudukkottai, she was getting ready to visit her clients or ammai-afflicted people in Vagaippatti. Muttukkannu kindly consented to take me along with her to two sessions of healing chickenpox. Both of these healing sessions took place in a village called Vagaippatti, about twelve miles from Pudukkottai. My first conversation with Muttukkannu unfolded in an auto rickshaw while we traveled to visit the first family afflicted with chickenpox. “Muthukkannu”’s name means “the pearl- eyed,” a name which would also suit Mariyamman since the pustules of ammai are visualized as her eyes and pearls. As I have mentioned, one of the epithets of

Mariyamman means “the thousand-eyed,” which indicates her presence in the form of multitudes of pustules.

Muttukkannu told me that she was living alone. Her relatives were living in the neighborhood separately. She told me that she chose to live single because she believed that the life-style of marriage would not suit her. “I am alone, Mariyamman is alone,” she remarked during our conversation. The healer told me she was a rupam or form of

Mariyamman herself. When we first met, she showed three long white patches on her back to me. Muthukkannu said these patches were characteristic of a snake’s hood and she herself is a form of snake too. In one of my subsequent meetings with her in the same year, she was raising four cobras in her house. She wanted me to see them, but I could not gather the nerves to do so. Laughingly she told me that “we” (she and I) are the amsam (part) of Mariyamman, and we should not be afraid of snakes. With fondness, she

421 told me that she is a bigger snake, I am a smaller one (kuttippampu). She also told me that a bunch of margosa leaves and a white snake were born with her. This, she said, demonstrated that she also has “some” (konjam) amsam from Krishna (Kannan or

Vishnu) as well.1 Muthukkannu is thus a healer, a cobra, and goddess, all at the same time.

Muttukkannu told me that biomedical (allopathic) doctors always wanted to see her and know from her how the pearls of ammai descend on her visiting the ammai- afflcited persons. She has had conversations with quite a few doctors. Once she had been invited by a doctor called Somasundaram from Pondicherry (Puducherry), who was interested in knowing how she manages to heal the pustules. She told me that the doctor spoke to her for more than three hours. Somasundaram was a famous orthopedic surgeon and a specialist in neurology. She told me about their meeting:

“Whatever he asked about ammai, mother (Mariyamman) replied to his

satisfaction. Then he kept quiet. Even in Pudukkottai, I have been to

doctors’ houses if anyone in their family has ammai.”

“Even doctors?” I expressed my surprise.

“Yes, here I am everything. Doctors cannot lift their finger concerning

ammai.”

“They can give medicines,” I persisted.

1 One can sense that Muttukkannu’s birth story draws from that of Krishna and Mahamaya (or Sakti). Before Krishna was born as an eighth child to Vasudeva and Devaki, Devaki conceived Balarama. Later, with an interchange of fetuses with a cowherdess, Mahamaya was born to Devaki and Balarama to the cowherdess. As soon as Mahamaya was born, Krishna’s uncle Kamsa, a demon dictator, tried to kill Mahamaya, as he did with Devaki’s other earlier children. As soon as Kamsa was about to touch her, she ascended to the sky and forewarned of his death at the hands of Krishna. Muttukkannu employs the motifs of this story, when she identifies as the goddess or Sakti as well as Krishna. At the end of his life-time, Balarama is believed to have left the earth in the form of a white snake.

422 “What can doctors do? If injection is given, she definitely gets enraged.

What can I say further about their treatment? I don’t want to judge if it is

right or wrong. But…”

We both went by an auto-rickshaw to Vagaippatti. When we stopped our auto to have a cup of tea, she refused to drink from the glass provided by the shop. She has a glass made of stainless steel with her, and the tea was poured into it. She told me that she would not drink from others’ cups because they would not be “pure.” We went to a house in the village called Vagaippatti, near Pudukkottai, where she was going to address a family of five, of which three (the father and one son) were afflicted with chickenpox.

As soon as we reached the house, she looked at my chappals (sandals) and said, “I do not remember the last time I wore chappals.” “Why?” I questioned. “Since I always visit the ammai-visited houses, I should not wear chappals.” As I discussed in the third chapter, chappals are considered as a gesture of disrespect to the goddess who has visited the house in the form of ammai. She washed her feet with turmeric water kept at the house and she asked me to follow suit. We entered the house.

The family was waiting for her, and the woman in the family anxiously told her that her son, who was around fourteen years old, did not sleep the previous night.

Muthukannu had visited the family the day before, and it seemed like the boy’s condition had become worse. Muthukkannu asked the mother, “What did you give to amma? Did you give her what she had wanted?” and remarked pointing to the boy, “Amman appears to be enraged.” (angaarama). I should digress here to remark that the manifestation of ammai is different from bhutavidya, which Frederick Smith refers to in his book as the

“vidya (science) of bhutas or existent beings, most of which are invisible or assumed to

423 be inhabiting other beings, most important of which is humans, and are believed to cause various diseases, including certain forms of illness” (2006, 472). Here the one, who is present in/as the body is a deity, and not a bhuta, and the presence of the goddess is considered to be out of her beneficial intention, as I discussed in detail earlier (Chapter

Four).

A neighbor of the household remarked to me that since it is Samayapurattamma

(the mother/Mariyamman of Samayapuram) who has arrived, she would play with everyone and go. Muttukkannu intervened and told me:

“She always does that. See, if she comes upon him and plays, but does not

come upon you, won’t you be sad? She wants to give pearls to everyone.

If the mother of Vayattur comes she would go away soon. But not this

mother. She is the eldest of all and she would not go easily.”

I should mention here that healers as well as some others in Pudukkottai consider each variety of pox as a manifestation of mother Mariyamman from a particular place.

Chickenpox, for instance, is identified as Mariyamman from Samayapuram. Kottumalli ammai is identified with Mariyamman from Konnaiyur. Vilayattammai is affiliated with

Mariyamman from Vayattur, and so on. Sometimes, alliterations also help the imagination about manifestation of a particular goddess as a specific form of pox. For instance, I heard from a few healers that the mother of Konnaiyur causes Kottummalli ammai (“ko” with “ko”), and the mother of Punnainallur causes Puttallammai (“pu” with

“pu”). However, from the accounts, one cannot discern a common scheme of identification. For instance, while the neighborhood woman and Muttukkannu call chickenpox Samayapurattamma, in Mukkannamalaippati, I was also told that the mother

424 of Samayapuram causes smallpox. I gathered from my conversations in the field that oftentimes, not one mother but two or three mothers come upon one simultaneously.

Also, as I discussed in earlier chapters, different types of ammai are compared to different grains and pulses; occasionally they are talked about in terms of varieties of crops of rice as well (such as IR8, IR 20 etc.). Further, in addition to the commonly known varieties of ammai forming its repertoire, even ailments such as acid-reflex or

GERD (“nenjerichal”) or jaundice (“manjakkamalai”) are included in the list of ammai by some healers. Such additional diseases falling under the control of the goddess is a subject that needs separate attention.

Some healers have told me that in an ammai-afflicted person, they could

‘literally’ see the figure of the goddess. An elderly woman healer called Rajamma in

Nattam expressed that she has seen Karumariyamman several times in ammai-afflicted persons. “She is dark. Once I saw her rising in the person ferociously and standing in front of my eyes with rage” (elumbi angarama kan munne ninna). Similarly, although in the healing session which I discuss in this chapter, the ammai-afflicted persons did not get arul, healers, including Muttukkannu, have reported to me that in some occasions the afflicted get arul too. I shall just cite what Deivanai—yet another healer of ammai from

Ilanjavur, a village near Pudukkottai, informed me:

While we? sing and call the mother, in some (with ammai), cami would

come. Not in all does she show her manifestation. As she comes, she

would tell us, “I have been here for seven or eight days. But I am being

harassed. No one takes care of me here.” Then she would say, “The ‘time’

(neram) is not good [for the family]. I have only come to rectify.” She

425 would also tell me, “Ask them to carry the milk-pot for me. Ask them to

carry the fire-pot for me.” Sometimes she would ask the family to cook

fish. Mother likes to eat fish.

When Mariyamman speaks to the healer, family members hear these words as well, and do the needful to appease the goddess. But Mariyamman can speak directly to the family as well. One can recall an incident told by Savithri that I discussed in Chapter

Three, where the goddess (the ammai-afflicted person) shouted that an errant man who had sex with a woman should leave the place at once. Since the man dared enter the house, she also punished the ammai-afflicted person by causing infirmity in his toe.

Coming back to the healing scene at Vagaippatti, when I was told that the mother of Samayapuram wants to play with everyone, I was wondering what would happen if the goddess “plays” too much. I thought in terms of both epidemic and suffering caused in one person and raised my concern to Muttukkannu, who assured me (and the family):

“No, nothing would happen. But it all depends upon the cuttam that we

maintain.”

“What do you mean by cuttam, Amma?”

“We wash the house every day. See, there are margosa leaves. No one

who is impure would dare to enter. They will stop there, considering that

Mother is at home. Today we came by auto-rickshaw. If I had to come by

bus, I would wash my hands and feet many times with turmeric water.

Only then I would enter. The most important thing is that nobody should

touch each other…..There should be no mistake. Do you understand? (she

means sex). Sometimes Mother would tell me ‘don’t go there.’ Then I will

426 not go. Once I was called from a family in Chennai. Those were all from

here (Pudukkottai). But listening to mother’s words I did not go.”

“But why?”

“Cuttam. It was the problem. You will drink and do all the things that you

should not do. Do you understand? (a neighbor woman intervened here

and explained: “Contact with women (pombalai sakavasam). That is what

Amma [Muttukkannu] says.”) Then you call me to appease the goddess.

How can I do that?”

“What happened to the family?”

“Except two children, all of the other children in their (Chennai) family

died. She (the goddess) also got a penalty of three thousand and one

hundred rupees for each of those who survived. She demanded the father

to make a promise that he won’t drink hereafter and won’t go in wrong

(tappana) ways. He promised. Then she descended from the two.”

“How did she ask all these? Did she appear in a dream?”

“No, she spoke through me. Now they are happy.”

“See this boy (in the family which we were visiting at Vagaippatti). I

went to Samayapuram once. They (she points to the mother) went once.

But still there is not much improvement.”

Almost all the healers I met brought in the subject of cuttam. The healer Deivanai observed that ammai is the test (cotanai) of Mariyamman to check whether one can maintain cuttam or not. “If you pass in her test, she will descend automatically. If you fail…..one cannot say what will happen.”

427 During Muttukkannu’s enquiry about the family members, Shanmugam, the father, complained of a stomach ache, and Muttukkannu chided the lady of the house for not giving him proper soft food. Muttukkannu also asked the woman of the family to give whatever they want to eat. She then explicated to me: “Nothing will happen because of these. Only if you have fever, tender coconuts and buttermilk should not be given.

Otherwise, mother knows what she wants.” She then described the practice of offering a fruit platter to the goddess (ammai-arrived person), which I discussed in Chapter three.

Again she brought in the topic of cuttam. She asked the woman: “Is everything kept pure? If it is not kept so, amma will get enraged.” She then advised the boy as

“mother” (goddess), asking him to get enough rest: “Don’t sit in front of the television all the time Amma. They show useless songs all the time. You will get a headache.”

Hearing her remark and visualizing Amma/Mariyamman sitting in front of the television,

I had a hard-time in controlling my laughter. Because after watching so many films on

Mariyamman through television channels, I was driven to visualize Mariyamman as having four hands, invariably with a trident in one of them, wearing a red or a yellow sari, a big vermillion dot on the forehead and an angry look on her face. But it is not so.

Mother can be in any form, as she is now in the form of that boy, timid and weakened, listening to others’ words and obeying them. Did we not see that in the sakti karakam performance at the Mugapper temple, a few on-looking women asked the dancing goddesses to come forward “patiently” and “slowly”?

Asking the woman to bring a margosa branch, Muthukkannu took nine cowry shells (chozhi) from her bag and rolled them onto the floor. The shells are used for divining, and the number of shells that turn upside-down matters. Muttukkannu

428 described that the shells would help her to say why the goddess had arrived in the family.

I should say here that not only Muttukkannu, but at least five other healers who I met in

Pudukkottai and Sivaganga said they would use shells to discern the reason of

Mariyamman’s arrival as ammai, before they start singing her song or Lullaby.

For the family, out of some eleven shells, seven shells turned up. Muthukkannu said: “The goddess has come in the seventh number as the seventh virgin or kanni. She says she has come here because the planetary position for your graham or the house is not good. Some power would have come and beaten you. She is here to take care of you.

Don’t worry, brother, she will descend soon once the force goes away.” She then looked at me and explained:

Ammai won’t come without a reason. She comes only to save us. Only

when Esvaran’s planets are not placed well in our horoscope, and they

show wrath toward us, then based upon our karma punniyam (merit of

karma or deeds) and dharmam (rightful deeds/virtue), the goddess, the

mother who has begotten her would think, ‘oh, these planets are going to

attack my child.” She would come and descend into us so that the planets

run away. The planets approach a house like a stone. But upon seeing the

goddess, who has already arrived there, they would be afraid thinking she

has a thousand eyes and go away. Then everything would be fine.

Actually this explanation was given by various ammappillais whom I met in places such as Mukkannamalaippatti and Thayamangalam. The healers unanimously expressed the view that the goddess “arrives” upon a person in the family in order to thwart some ill event or misfortune that was in store for the family. Furthermore,

429 different meanings are given to different numbers/configurations of shells. If six shells turn up, then it means the family has been affected and enraged by evil deed/s of others.

When the margosa leaves arrived, Muttukkannu asked the ammai-afflicted son and father to be seated on the floor. She sat in front of them and started singing

“Mariyamman stotiram” or “Praise to Mariyamman.” She also called this song “Lullaby to the thousand-eyed.” She addressed the song to the father and son, looking at them. As she sang, she also waved the margosa branch against the father and the son, although she focused more on the son, because his pustules were bigger and more swollen than those of the father’s.

The singing session continued for an hour. Although I cannot present the song in full, I can trace the sequence of the lyrics here. First, salutary invocations were recited to

Ganesha, the lord of beginnings, Saraswathi, the goddess of learning, and Saptakanni or the seven virgins. Then the song focused on Mariyamman. One common epithet of

Mariyamman which repeated throughout the song is “She, the thousand eyed.” Since

Mariyamman is believed to possess a thousand eyes, and the pustules on the afflicted body are equated with her eyes, singing lullaby for the purpose of healing makes sense.

Just a lullaby is sung to put children to sleep, here a lullaby to Mariyamman is sung to make the goddess sleep. Making Mariyamman’s eyes close in sleep also amounts to making ammai pustules heal through their closure.

Some portions of the song that she sang are also found in the chapbook version of Mariyamman Lullaby, which is usually sung by healers during ammai. Yet

Mutthukkannu had customized the song as one can see in her drawing upon

Mariyammans from nearby localities. For instance, her song drew in Mariyamman of

430 Samayapuram, Mariyamman of Konnaiyur, Mariyamman of Kannanur, and Mariyamman of Thanjavur, etc. All these places are proximate to Vagaippatti, the place where the healing was taking place.

The first portions of her song asked Mariyamman to forgive the mistakes or crimes committed by her children, which included the narrator, those at the household, their relatives and other elders. Although this apology is rendered formally in the beginning, asking her to be patient and compassionate appeared like a refrain throughout the song. Then the singer asked the goddess to give good divination to her heart and crown, meaning that the goddess should say good words through her. The song then pleaded with Mariyamman that it is time now for Mariyamman to come over. In the same vein, it also asked her to descend from the body in which she appears as pearls. The song was not sung continuously. In between the singer/healer had a cup of buttermilk. Further when the goddess arrived in/as her, she needed to rest before continuing with her singing.

I give some excerpts:

The yellow-clad one, Makamayi Amma, I call you in my sorrow The one who was born in margosa leaves Are (my words) not heard at the temple? Amma, I call you in my sorrow Are (my words) not heard at the palace? The one who resides in the palace, Mariyamma, come running here. This is time. … Mother’s body smells of talampoo Throughout mother’s body Jasmine flowers bud and smell Esvari, the ultimate porul The one who gives the ultimate porul. … If there is any crime or lack happened here Be patient at your heart Descend from this child quickly.

431 The thousand eyed Adiparapattini (primordial chaste goddess)2 Mari from Thanjavur, You speak in person Come like gold, Amma, You are beautiful We are poor, Amma Whatever mistakes we do Forgive us and descend Will she start and come? Will she keep her flower-like feet Upon this earth and come? I am a woman like you. You are Ganga, who gives water You keep your feet on Esvaran’s head With compassion you hug me … “Don’t blame me (vainjidathe) calling me a virgin I am a mother, am I not?” She would say, Amma. …. The powerful Mari of pearls The woman from Samayapuram Please come Leaving the boundaries of Samayapuram Along the entrance of incense This is the time for you You should come I am a poor child, My mother, Esvari Look at me Take away my sorrows. Give a word with your “presence” (arul). … You have an earthen hour-glass drum and a stick of gems You have a small hour-glass drum and a small stick You, seven sisters, are born with Srirangam Kannan (Vishnu) You have five karakams for you You have a karakam of flower and margosa leaves. … Spreading the sword-like margosa leaves Mother comes taking step by step I pay obeisance to your feet, Amma Your karakam was born at Kannanur Taking karakam the goddess comes walking Mother Esvari, I fall at your feet. … Mother comes fast with margosa leaves She comes with margosa leaves roaming along the streets. As the mother comes, we bathe our body Dip our jewels and clothes in water

2 “Atiparasakti” meaning the “primordial great Sakti” is a common epithet for the goddess. One can see how sakti is replaced by pattini (chaste woman) in Muttukkannu’s rendition. The repeated figuration of chastity and cuttam in the context of ammai is worthwhile to note.

432 And do a special tapas (aruntavam) Mother, show mercy in your heart (manam irangu) Descend (irangu), show mercy, Descend.3 …

The song then invoked the Mariyammans of Kannanur, Thanjavur, and

Konnaiyur, asking the goddesses to come over and pleading with them to arrive.

Muthukkannu’s eyes suddenly rolled fast, her body shook, and she made hissing sounds like a snake. I was told that the goddess had arrived in her. She declared in a loud voice:

“I have come only to do good to you. I have come here only for that.” Then she went into a trance. A glass of buttermilk was given to her by the woman in the family and she drank it.

After resting for ten minutes, Muttukkannu took paracetamol and anti-histamine pills and gave them to the father. She asked them to take each of the pills twice a day till the fever and itching subsided. She advised the father and the son. And then, she resumed her song. Now the song focused on individual body parts. She referred to pearls of pustules at each and every part of the body, identifying them with many goddesses, asking them to come down.

The pearl put on the crown Om Sakti, you descend So that it does not cause aches in the body The pearl put on the head Seetha, you descend. The pearl put on the forehead Nili, you descend. The pearl put on the face Muttumari, you descend The pearl put on the jaws Taiyalnayagi, Mother, you descend The pearl put on the throat Draupadi, you descend The pearl on the chest,

3 In Tamil, “irangu” means “descend”. Irangu also means “show mercy.” Muttukkannu used the term irangu in both these senses.

433 Makamayi, you descend The pearl on the stomach Esvari of Vayattur, you descend …

The song went on like this, and its final part was as follows:

The pearl put on the feet Parvathi you descend The pearl put on the form The pure one, you descend. You make them descend On the earth My mother, you have begotten us Mother, Iswari.

The healing session ended with these lines.

Muttukannu had gotten these pills from a government public health dispensary.

She described to me how she got them. On days when she is not called for healing, she would go and stand in a line in front of the public health dispensary near her place. She would get free medicines, especially paracetamol pills, antibiotics (which she calls

“strong” [sic] pills), and antihistamines. I was curious to know, whether Mariyamman would be offended by Muttukkannu’s administering biomedicine to the afflicted person.

How could she, who is an ardent devotee of the goddess and who herself is a form of the goddess, do this, especially since being treated by a biomedical doctor for ammai is still considered a taboo in Tamil society?

Muttukkannu offered her perspective about her using these pills and the title of this chapter draws from her response:

I am giving these pills to suffering people only after being asked by the

goddess to do so. Mother told me so. As per her words I am giving them to

the ammai-arrived persons. I gave these pills only after calling them

margosa leaves. Why will the mother get angry? She will not.

434 Mariyamman Lullaby says that Mariyamman has margosa leaves in her arms not only to cure ammai, but also to ward off evil deeds (tivinai). As I mentioned earlier, margosa leaves are said to be her sword that she spreads across the world. Further, as

Mariyamman’s epithet “Veppilaikkari” indicates, margosa leaves are also the garments that she wears. By calling the biomedicine margosa leaves, Muthukkannu rendered the biomedicine as part or an aspect of the goddess. By this interpellating act, Muthukkannu shifted the pills from the biomedical realm of internal medicine to the realm of healing ruled by the goddess. In this reframing, biomedicine was rendered as one more stage property in the performative theatre of healing.

Let us explore the administration of crocin pills in the healing from a comparative perspective. In particular, how does the modern allopathic practice constitute a body, and how does the local healing do so? As regards the constitution of the body in modern medical practices, I will cite from the writings Timothy Mitchell and Katharine Young.

Mitchell (2000), in his remarks on Gyan Prakash’s (2000, 189-222) essay “Body politic in Colonial India,” writes about the object qualities and object-effects of the body created in the realm of modernity:

Modern medical practice creates a network of significations in terms of

which the body can be diagnosed, monitored, and administered. Other

forms of biopower produce further representations of the body. … This

proliferation of representations produces numerous different images of the

body but also produces something further: the apparent distinction

between the body and its image. The very multiplication of significations

generated by modern governmental power, each represented as a mere

435 representation of the same physical body, appears to establish the object

quality of the body. This is a modern effect, presenting the body as an

inert, material object, not possessed of any inherent force or significance.

(Mitchell 25)

Mitchell’s arguments about the body made into an object and dissociated from its

“inherent force or significance” through modern medical practice are similar to Katharine

Young’s observations (1997) about the body produced in a medical examination, notwithstanding that Mitchell locates the modern medical practice among “countless” other modern practices which turn the body into an object-effect. According to Young, in a medical examination that precedes the prescription of internal medicine in the biomedical realm, patients’ bodies are perpetually but incompletely transformed into objects: “From being a locus of self, patients’ bodies are transformed into objects of scrutiny, organs in a sack of flesh” (Young 1997, 12). The transformation of a “social person” into a patient is effected by the direction of the doctor’s gaze, positionalities of the doctor and the patient, arrangements of furniture in the clinic and even voice levels employed.4 Although Young seems to subscribe to the idea of a body that is “evidential” and “bounded,” her analysis that the medical examination “dislodges the self from the body so the body can be handled as an object” is useful for a comparative analysis in this chapter (Young 11). Young delineates how during the medical examination the

“objectification is accomplished in part by the physical disarticulation of the body into its parts” (29). For example, she writes her observations in her case study of one such medical examination:

4 See Young’s Chapter “Disembodiment: Internal Medicine,” esp. 10-11.

436 Dr. Silverberg begins his examination of Dr. Malinowski’s body with his

blood pressure, moves to his head, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, throat, round

to his back, then his chest and heart, down to his abdomen, genitals, legs,

up to the arms, fingers, ears again, and finally the prostate and anus.

(Young 29)

Let us compare this description with the “surface signification” of ammai- afflicted bodily contours during the healing session. While in the case of biomedicine, the medical examination attempts to “disarticulate” the body into its parts as Young shows, the healing session of ammai that we saw, addresses each and every part of the body as a specific goddess. I have discussed in the last chapter about how the “signifying surface” of the bodily contours facilitate the understanding of them as a divine “style of the flesh.” In the healer’s addressing or interpellating bodily contours part by part as a divine manifestation of Sakti, the bodily contours, part by part, materialize as well as signify the goddess/Sakti. As a part of habitual practices during ammai, the healing session partakes in constituting the cosmic personhood of the goddess. One can also visualize this constitution of cosmic personhood along the lines of the Nyasa performance in the Tantra, where the Tantric practitioner identifies his body with the deity part by part.5 Secondly, in the performative constitution of the cosmic personhood, the distinction between the immanently manifested deity in the form of ammai in the body and the eminently present goddess in her temple is collapsed. Mariyamman present in places such as Samayapuram and Thanjavur is requested to leave her boundaries and come to the

5 Gavin Flood (2006) describes the “divination of the body in a ritual sequence” through the Pancaratra Tantra (115). Exploring the identification of a devotee with Vishnu-Narayana through imposition of “deities as mantras of his body” (115). Although Flood considers the body as a “text” inscribed with the deity his discussion of the practices of the Tantra, especially of the materials of Jayakhya (113-16), is helpful for my analysis.

437 ammai-afflicted household. Furthermore, in her eminent form, Mariyamman is also associated and identified with all other goddesses including Sita and Draupadi, and this association draws upon the trope of “One Sakti” who is an “all-pervading Sakti” (as told by Muttu) and present in varied forms or Saktis.

Muttukkannu’s body which materializes as the goddess in the middle of a session requires a special mention. As Muttukkannu started trembling and making sounds like a snake, gently swaying her head, everyone in the family and a few neighbors who were assembled there were focused on her. An elderly woman gently beat her own cheeks with her hands. This is a gesture which is done generally in front of a deity or a temple to ask for forgiveness for mistakes or sins. The corporeal signs were at once deciphered by the audiences. “Amma has arrived,” one murmured. Buttermilk was served (offered?), and after a while when the singing continued, every part of the body of the ammai-afflicted person was identified as the goddess/es.

The constituted corporeal mode of being or “style of the goddess” as the afflicted person and as the arul-arrived healer works toward two interrelated objectives: On the one hand, the perceived corporeal presence of the goddess along the contours of

Muttukkannu’s trembling body helps the family reason about the “arrival” of the goddess.

As the goddess-dancer assures the town and people about the rain and well-being during

Sakti karakam performance, words of reassurance and promise are rendered by the healer to the family during a period of crisis of ill health. The “healer-goddess’s” words imbue a positive value to the bodily pain and suffering, because they indicate that ‘had the goddess not arrived, a major misfortune could have befallen the family.’ The “healer- goddess’s” words confirm the revelation that came through the healer’s casting of shells

438 earlier. Another interrelated objective of the healing is to make the pearls of ammai roll down or descend the body. The bodily contours of the afflicted that are constituted as

Sakti are perpetually manipulated toward this goal. Mariyamman/Sakti is praised with several epithets. She is again and again invoked as the mother and the thousand-eyed, and is implored countless times to descend the body. Her authority in and over the human body and her power to grant a cure is acknowledged and respected. These two strategic operations, namely, erasing the distinction between immanent and eminent levels and constituting the bodily contours as a corporeal “style” of the goddess, are reiterated throughout the healing session.

As Young observes, the choreographed setting of the medical examination in modern biomedicine attempts to render a body as an object which is dispossessed of its human self, albeit unsuccessfully; whereas, the healing performance that forms part of the performative, habitual practices, perpetually constitutes the bodily contours marked with affliction as a corporeal style of the goddess, thereby attempting to establish the cosmic personhood as/in the afflicted body.

From Colonial Vaccination to “Local” Healing of Ammai

The first two chapters of this work centered on my discussion on colonial ethnographies on goddess worship and the discursive practices of colonial smallpox vaccination. I argued that the colonial ethnographic discourses as well as the administrative discourses on smallpox vaccination were characterized by a double dynamic, through which the discourses constructed an ambiguous episteme of the goddess, who was at once challenging and vulnerable on the path of the “civilizing mission” of Europe. At the same time, as I showed, in South India, the colonial public

439 vaccination campaign appropriated Mariyamman in a positive manner, recognizing the significance of the goddess-related worship practices in the cultural realm. In contrast to colonial administrative records meant exclusively for officials, the colonial vaccination public propaganda materials did not hesitate to project the goddess even as the source of and the generative force behind the modern Jennerian vaccine. As we saw, in the propaganda discourses, the vaccine was articulated as Mariyamman’s grace-filled gift and her child that a human body was asked to bear. In other words, one can discern a tendency in such discourses, in which the failure to get vaccinated is couched more in terms of sacrilege than in terms of civic duty or individual welfare.

I discussed how Abbe Dubois, an eminent ethnographer and a smallpox vaccinator, precisely represented a fissure between the discourses of the colonial ethnography and colonial administrative records on the one side, and the public campaign discourses of smallpox vaccine on the other. While as an ethnographer he disparaged

Mariyamman as a “cruel” goddess, at the same breath, as a fieldworker propagating the smallpox vaccine in Mysore region, he underscored the importance of deploying

Mariyamman as the source of the “modern” scientific vaccine in disseminating it among the people. Exploring a few vaccine propaganda materials, which appeared nearly a century after Dubois, but which still subscribed to Dubois’s suggestion of incorporating

Mariyamman, I suggested how such a figuration of the smallpox vaccine could be an instance that demonstrates that Western medical science and cultural practices need not be posited as dichotomous sites, but rather the science could be given an indigenous cast and assimilated within the framework of ‘indigenous’ cultural practices, such as worship of the goddess.

440 As the background of the above discussion, let us explore the assimilation of biomedicine into the “indigenous” realm of perfomative healing further. One might be naturally tempted to equate the colonial smallpox vaccine, advocated in the propaganda materials as the “grace-filled” offering or “child” of the goddess, with the crocin pills given in the name of margosa leaves in the “local” healing performance. The biomedicine, reframed as a gift or child or an accoutrement of the goddess, provides a distinct conception of how “scientific” biomedicine, a “sign of the modern,”6 is reframed and incorporated as a “sign of the goddess” in the local cultural realm.

Yet there is a crucial difference between instances of colonial vaccination propaganda and “local” healing, where science as biomedicine is appropriated as the

“sign of the goddess.” This difference could show us how discursive practices of colonial vaccination and habitual practices of ammai foreground the human “subject.” In the colonial discursive practices, while the smallpox vaccine was advocated tactfully in the name of the goddess during propaganda, yet the immanent identification of an ammai-afflicted body with Mariyamman was not acknowledged. One can recall from our earlier discussion on the colonial public vaccination campaign (Chapter Two) that in the propaganda materials, Mariyamman was articulated as the source of the smallpox vaccine, but an identification of ammai-affliction or an ammai-afflicted body ‘as such’ with Mariyamman was refused. Smallpox, rather, was presented in the materials as a punishment of the goddess against those who failed to undergo vaccination. Thus, even when the colonial discourses conceded the goddess’s eminent authority over the human

6 Gyan Prakash (2003), in his article on “Religion and Nation in Colonial India,” discusses the “science’s position as a sign of modernity” in colonial India (40). On the one hand, the idea of “signification through dissemination” suggests that “science’s authority” can emerge at a different “alienated site.” On the other, in its “dissemination” and emergence at an “alienated site,” science can never exercise “a despotic power,” but rather it negotiates with its “others” in exercising its authority (40).

441 body, they were at work to produce an “objectified body” that was abstracted from the goddess or the divine.

Prakash in another of his articles on the body politic in colonial India, delineates how the objectified human body was produced “as an aspect and effect of governmentality” (2000, 192-93), which responded to epidemics.7 As Prakash shows, by the late-nineteenth century, the colonial “governmentality,” through its “network of knowledge and tactics,” produced a “spectral body” as an “object and effect of medical attention” (194).8 In the path to create such an objectified “spectral” body by the colonial governmentality, a disinvestment of the divine from the human body could have been perceived as a necessary step.

On the one hand, the discursive practices of colonial vaccination needed to take into account the important role played by the goddess in cultural practices to promote the modern scientific vaccine. At the same time, as part of the network of larger governmentality, the practices have attempted to snatch away the significance of the divine from the body. In a complementary place, till today the habitual, performative practices during ammai, engage in constituting the ammai-afflicted body as the cosmic person or the goddess. But this constitution does not preempt science: the biomedicine that is occasionally included in the repertoire of the cultural practices under the authority of the goddess partakes of such constitution of the cosmic personhood.

7 Scholars such as Arnold have pointed out the significant role medicine played in constructing the “cultural and political construction of subjects” (Arnold 1993, 9). 8 These are Prakash’s observations: This emergent regime of knowledge produced the image of an anterior and spectral body composed of unhygienic habits and superstitious beliefs upon which modern knowledge and tactics were to be applied in order to reform it, to restore its health and well-being. (2000, 194)

442 The story of Mariyamman and colonial smallpox vaccination seems to be a story of creative exchange and accommodation rather than one of enmity and all-out battle.

One issue that has been swept under the carpet of the story is that of the notion of the

“modern subject” as a sovereign individual self, which is a cornerstone of modernity. Rex

Ambler, in his article, “The Self and Postmodernity” (1996), argues that modernity entails an understanding of “a fundamental attitude to the world” that concerns self,

“which separates it from everything premodern” (147):

This attitude, referred to as ontological self-affirmation, is associated

psychologically with the bid for maturity as self-determination. Played out

in the world, however, this defiant assertion, with its attendant denials and

rejections, creates conflicts of various kinds which lead in turn to various

‘crises’ of modernity. These have usually been resolved by the

intervention of a new form of self-assertion. But with all these, resolution

was possible because the human self was still able to assert itself. (146)

In the story of Mariyamman and the colonial smallpox vaccination, the self that is

“ontologically affirmed” seems to have no role to play. Subsisting between objectification and “colonization” on the one hand and production into the goddess on the other, the human body is lodged at a location far away from the so-called individual self, if there is any such thing. So far away, as they say in my place, you need to “cross seven hills and seven seas” to bring them together.

443 Conclusion

The Last Pearls in this String …

I could not imagine writing this dissertation without recourse to the works of

Madeleine Biardeau and Judith Butler, both of whom I cite throughout it. My title

“Stories of the Flesh” is a direct acknowledgement of their “presence” in my work.

“Stories of the Flesh” mimics “Stories about Posts” of Biardeau appreciatively; “Flesh” has been borrowed from Butler’s (Gender, 177) reading of Simone de Beauvoir.

Moreover, “stories” have another connotation as well. The term ‘story’ introduces a fictive nature to the text, diffusing an aura of authenticity that can/would develop around a body of writing over time.

This work has several major goals. First, it emphasizes the need to acknowledge the discursive practices that circulate “local authoritative constructions” (Scott 1994, 174) producing the “truth-effect” of the goddess corporeally. We saw that these constructions concerning Mariyamman are organized around the trope of pox-affliction. Poxes, eulogized as rain and pearls, feared as poison and punishment, and articulated as justice and love in the discursive practices, provide a significatory domain that correlates

Mariyamman’s authority over affliction with her authority over life in general in her capacity as a sovereign arbitrator and protector.

Secondly, the work shows that, implicated with Mariyamman, discourses of affliction of poxes spill beyond the ambit of sickness; marked with affliction of poxes, and identified with the goddess, bodily contours are rendered as a “signifying surface” of materiality or as “porul” that posits the indissolubility of signification and materiality.1

1 “Porul” here can also be referred to “iraiporul,” meaning “divine materiality/signification.”

444 Similar to the production of the goddess as “styles of the flesh” in affliction through bodily contours, one encounters the “styles of the flesh” marked with the “presence” or arul of the goddess during festival contexts as well. The corporeal “styles” of the goddess are perpetually enacted and constituted through performative and citational discursive practices at home and in the temple.

Thirdly, a body that is taken or considered as the goddess enacts hegemonic cultural norms under the sign of the goddess. I have argued that one such significant norm is the heteronormative chastity that materializes the body as the goddess. In connection with my arguments, I would like to point out briefly, Foucault’s reworking of

Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of “bodily inscription” into “incorporation” of the “prohibitive law,” as pointed out by Butler (Gender, 171-72). We explored the descriptions of poxes as a wealth of “pearls” strung or inscribed upon a body. Poxes are also considered as

Mariyamman’s royal seal over the body (see Chapters One and Five especially).

Nerttikkatan or a debt vow is undertaken and performed for Mariyamman after the pearls of ammai descend. A popular proverb in Tamil goes like this: “Aru katan ninralum Mari katan akatu,” meaning “Debts to others can wait, debts to Mari cannot.”

The notions of debts owed to and debt vows performed for Mariyamman take us to Nietzsche’s ([1887] 1999) discourse on the genealogy of morals, which he draws from the relationship of debt between a debtor and a creditor in a society. Nietzsche speaks of the prominent place given to inflicting pain on the body in the “early history” of humankind to make a man keep his contractual obligation of repaying his debt to another,

445 such as branding and burning, as the “strongest aid to mnemonics.”2 As observed by

Douglas Smith (1999), for Nietzsche, the contractual dynamics between a debtor and creditor, reinforced and effected by pain-inflicting mechanisms, installs an

“anthropological matrix” for the development and establishment of “justice, religion, and the state” (xvii). 3 Nietzsche’s theorization of the body as a surface of “inscription” is displaced by Foucault with the conception of the “incorporation” of prohibitive law, with such “incorporation” manifesting “around, on, within, the body” (Foucault 1977, 29), as

Butler points out (Gender, 171-72). While bodily “inscription” assumes a pre-given materiality, “incorporation” of the law articulates the body as a product of this law as well as that which signifies the law. And it is this law that constitutes the “self” or

“essence” corporeally, if one goes by Butler’s reading of Foucault (Gender, 171-72).

In practices related to Mariyamman, the “incorporated” prohibitive law is primarily the law of “cuttam” that manifests and materializes as the “essence” or the cosmic “self” during affliction and arul.4 This “essence” or the “self” is none other than the chaste goddess or her power (sakti). The prohibitive heteronormative law, incorporated as the cultural norm of cuttam, which, of all restrictions, primarily means sexual abstinence, is articulated as the chaste goddess/her power. One might ask: “Men also get arul and ammai, and they are also disciplined and restricted by the cultural norms. These instances demonstrate that men can become the feminine and the goddess.

2 Nietzsche observes: “When man thinks it necessary to make for himself a memory, he never accomplishes it without blood, tortures, and sacrifice; the most dreadful sacrifices and forfeitures …” (37). Among these “sacrifices and forfeitures,” while Nietzsche includes “most cruel rituals of all the religious cults,” he also observes that “ascetic methods and modes of life” can be “ascribed” to the instinct of inflicting pain with the explicit purpose that certain ideas remain “unforgettable” compared to other “competing ideas” (Nietzsche 37). 3 Elizabeth Grosz in her Volatile Bodies (1994) points out that Nietzsche “outlines the rudiments of an account of body inscription as the cultural condition of establishing social order and obedience” (129). 4 See Butler (Gender, 171-72) for prohibitive law materializing as the “essence” or “self.”

446 Do these instances not obviously express that the feminine and masculine categories are not fixed? Do these instances not show the fluidity of such categorizations?” Whether it is a man or woman, it is the chaste goddess that is materialized and signified as the body.

The prohibitive law, which constitutes the chaste goddess through the discourses of her narratives and festival performances, reinforces and reminds one of this heteronormative chastity, when cuttam as abstinence in sex is inscribed and reiterated as the requisite condition for a body to matter as the feminine, as the goddess.

Another objection might also arise: “What about male gods? Is not cuttam necessary for their arrival upon the body as possession?” I may have to undertake further research to respond to this question. As of now, a cautious observation could be:

“cuttam” can refer to a complex set of cultural norms and meaning-constructions, of which the discursive practices of a particular deity might emphasize a selective few of these norms and their meaning-constructions. Cuttam, as it foregrounds chastity in the context of practices related to Mariyamman, might foreground misogyny in another context of practices related to a male deity. For instance, consider the conventional taboos associated with the male god Ayyappan of Sabarimalai in Kerala: Menstruating women cannot even visit his shrine even on normal days, let alone during his festival.

(Recently a big controversy shot up when the female film actor Jayamala announced that she entered the sanctum of the temple twenty years back, when she was 27 [see the website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5132602.stm]). Every year several thousands of male devotees, especially from south India, visit his shrine, after observing a strict viratam for more than a month. There is no need to mention that in the case of

Ayyappan too, the cuttam component of the viratam primarily emphasizes sexual

447 abstinence. Furthermore, it is common to see male devotees dancing in frenzy with

Ayyappan arriving upon them during ceremonial celebrations, when devotees forming into groups set off in pilgrimage to Sabarimalai. I have also observed earlier (Chapter

Five) that while sexual abstinence and asceticism is considered as ideal for both sexes, they inscribe as normative chastity for the feminine in the south Indian context. Hence, alluding to chastity, cuttam in the form of sexual abstinence in the cult of a feminine goddess such as Mariyamman, is not just theoretically restrictive in its meaning; rather, such conceptualization opens up the polysemy of a cultural norm in its contextualization here in the discursive practices related to Mariyamman.

As its fourth goal, this work attempts to locate Mariyamman within the modern milieu of colonial vaccination. One argument that this work has stressed is: the dichotomous divide of “the universalistic, civilizing, normal, European science” and

“particular, peculiar, cultural practices of goddess (Mariyamman) worship” cannot be sustained. As we have seen, there has been mutual accommodation and negotiation between these realms. The biomedicine, which is occasionally incorporated in the healing of poxes, further proves that the “signs of science” can be appropriated in the “local” cultural practices with ingenuity and creativity on their own terms.

Pearls Out There…

This dissertation has mapped not only the transformability of states that interconnect the discursive practices at the home and the Mariyamman temple, but it has also suggested how this conception of transformability can facilitate the reworking of the discursive practices of ammai upon the terrain of the “great goddess” worship. In analyzing Kattavarayan’s hi-stories, we discerned a basic, common episteme, namely,

448 “one seed multiplying into many” among the discourses of ammai and of debt vows performed at Mariyamman temples, and the classical discourse of the Devi-mahatmya.

At another point in the dissertation, I discussed a practice of buffalo sacrifice that takes place alongside the uprooting of the “husband-post” at a Mariyamman temple.

The husband-post, as we know now, is a body with boils or poxes all over. When

I discussed the exteriorization of poxes (on the body of Mariyamman), which reappear upon the body of Mariyamman’s husband, depicted as a Dalit in the discourses, I focused on the discursive violence perpetrated upon Dalits. I further showed how these hegemonic discursive practices have been contested by some local Dalit groups, but notwithstanding such contestation, how the construction and enabling of the Dalit feminine as an abject figure through these practices have gone unnoticed. Exploring the social relations of power has been the main focus of my work. At another level of analysis of worship practices of Mariyamman, an identification of the husband-post with the buffalo demon is discernible through the asuric connection of smallpox. The utukkai singer Gnanaraj once mentioned: “People also say that there was an asura who was known by the name Vaicuri (smallpox). The goddess fought with him and tamed him with her trident.” I suggest that the asuric identification of smallpox might have facilitated the equivalence between husband-post and the buffalo demon of the Devi- mahatmya. More research needs to be done on the Vaicuri asura and the possibility of his transformation into the buffalo demon of the Devi-mahatmya. 5

One can see that this asuric dimension of the smallpox was emphasized and manipulated, when the smallpox vaccination was introduced in the colonial period.

5 I learn from Alf Hiltebeitel that there is a north Indian painting (Chamba painting, eighteenth century) that shows Mahisasura with probably a body covered with smallpox. See Veronica Ions 1967, 75.

449 Mariyamman, depicted as a source of smallpox vaccine, was presented as a deity who could destroy the demonic smallpox.6 Speaking of smallpox vaccination, what has been left out in this work is the interactions and possible exchanges that the postcolonial smallpox vaccination campaign in south India has had with the cultural practices of

Mariyamman. There was a radio broadcast of the speech of Satyanarayan Sinha, Union

Minister of Health, Family Planning and Urban Development on November 6, 1968. The speech, which was broadcast in both Hindi and English on the eve of National Smallpox

Eradication Week (Nov. 6 to Nov. 12, 1968), was also published. An excerpt from his speech:

I am sorry to say that there are people in our country who hesitate to get

themselves vaccinated when the health worker approaches them and they

try to find out various excuses. There are others who are still tradition-

bound and believe in old superstitions. I do not want to say anything

against their belief, yet I would request them to get themselves vaccinated.

(3, “National Smallpox Eradication News”)

It is easy to discern a careful approach here, when the Union Minister sets apart

(or rephrases?) “old superstitions” from “belief.” During my research at the Chennai

State Archives, I came to know about smallpox vaccination propaganda plays in Tamil with “Mariyamman” in their titles, which were broadcast through All India Radio in the

6 The discursive projection of the vaccine as the “child” of Mariyamman can also be perceived in the light of the relationship between Mariyamman and Murugan as mother and son. Devi Karumariyamman of Tiruverkadu, according to one hi-story, has bestowed her spear or lance on Murugan to kill the demon Surapadman. The “vaccine” as an adversary and antidote to smallpox can be seen against this mythological background.

450 latter half of 1960’s and early 1970’s. The postcolonial paradigm of the interaction between the goddess and smallpox vaccination campaign is worth exploring further.

Another discursive area that is missed out in this work is Tamil films on

Mariyamman. At least twelve Tamil films, produced between 1970 and 2003, have the name of the goddess Mariyamman in their title, and the narratives of these films are woven around the figure of the goddess. In addition, some other films have employed the affliction of poxes as an effective narrative device for articulating certain political and social concerns that one encounters in a “modern” era.7 When we bear in mind that, before India became smallpox-free in the 1970’s, a smallpox eradication campaign was advanced vigorously in the late sixties and early seventies, the discourses of poxes in these films are worth investigating. These films could provide an idea of the articulation of the “modern” in the cultural realm against the background of a “modern scientific project” in the form of smallpox vaccination, promoted by the postcolonial Indian state and government.

Speaking of Tamil films, with films and mega-serials on the goddess (Amman) mushrooming in south India, I believe it has become increasingly difficult to conceive a study on the goddess without taking the films as well as their songs into account.

Mariyamman is not only the goddess of regularly performed rituals or narratives, but she is a goddess constructed through films as well. The diviner Madurai Muttu once told me:

The most annoying and ridiculous thing to me is the way they show

Mariyamman or generally any goddess (Amman) in these films. With four

7 For instance, I would like to draw attention to the following three films of the early 1970’s and 1980’s: Ati Parasakti (1971), Nattaiyil Muttu (1973), and Valayati Valai (1972), which articulate “modern” concerns of colonial resistance, caste abolition, and the “liberated” woman, deploying the trope of pox-affliction. My article on this subject is under publication in a collected volume of essays (Palgrave, 2009).

451 hands, with a big trident and with a one-rupee-coin-sized dot on the

forehead. With angry eyes and dancing all the time. The goddess is

beyond all these forms. But you know what, after seeing all these films,

even when I think of Mariyamman, it is difficult to get rid of the her filmic

image. Images (pimpam) are powerful. That is why, whenever films on

the goddess are broadcast on the television, I get out of the house.

A few years back, I stopped by at an Ati festival of Mariyamman at Perungudi in

Chennai. It was evening. The gruel had been served a few hours back and the neighborhood was getting ready to watch a dance program (mostly the dancers would dance to Tamil film songs played in the background) that was going to start soon.

Meanwhile, Tamil film songs were played through the loudspeaker at the temple. One of those songs was from a new film called “Tirupatchi” (name of a town in Tamilnadu famous for its good swords/knives). Set against the background of Ati festival, in this funny song the Mariyamman-dancer with her trident, dances with a hero as her partner

(Vijay). (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsNJ9oWJ328) When the goddess wants him to bathe her in yellow water, the hero mentions the water scarcity in Chennai and asks her to wait until the water lorry arrives. The hero further says she “arrives” only for some time, and then leaves, and tells her it is “boring” (English) in her absence.

Mariyamman assures him that she will “come” and “go” every Tuesday and Friday.

Finally, the song ends with Mariyamman saying “Ok, Good night!” When the audio of the song was played at the temple, a middle-aged man was complaining to me: “See, now in the name of the goddess, they show kuttuppattu (songs with erotic movements, which have become popular in Tamil films these days). And these people (those

452 concerned with the temple) play such songs at the festival.” Then an elderly woman standing near us intervened: “It is only a song of cami (camippattu). We should take it like that.” Yes, again, it is all in how we take it.

453

Figure 1: John Bull and Mother India

:

454

Figure 2: Woman carrying a mulappari pot, Melur

Figure 3: Renuka and her pot. A painting at Renuka Devi's temple, Padavedu (near Vellore)

455

Figure 4: Parasurama joins heads with bodies, A painting at Renuka Devi's temple, Padavedu (near Vellore)

Figure 5: Waiting for alaku-piercing, Samayapuram

456

Figure 6: Valangaiman cetil

Figure 7: Pataikkavati, Valangaiman

Figure 8: Husband-post, Kukai

457

Figure 9: Picture of Mariyamman’s husband on the post

Figure 10: Javaram, Annatanappatti

Figure 11: Alaku-piercing, Kukai

458

Figure 12: Procession of Sadacci and children is going to start, Dindigul

Figure 13: Poster printed by a Dalit group inviting all to participate in planting the post at Mariyamman temple, Dindigul

459

Figure 14: Sakti karakam, Mugapper

Figure 15: Muttukkannu, a healer of poxes, Pudukkottai

460 Table 1

Course of Festival Events (relating to Renuka’s hi-stories)

Panruti Mugapper Muthialpet, Mukaiyur Pammal Greenways Events Pondicherry Chennai Road, Chennai Gathering earth for sprouts 1 ------Tying wristlet 2-B 1 1-B 1 1-A 1-B (for the goddess and devotees)

Flag-hoisting 2-A -- 1-A ------Sakti karakam 3-A 2-A 3-A 1-B 1-B 1-C Debt vows (1) Milk-pots -- 2-A 2 -- -- 1-A (2) Cetal 3-C 2-A 3-D 1-C 2-A 1-A

(3) Fire-pots -- 2-A -- 1-C -- 1-A

(5) Mavilakku 3-B -- 3-B 1-C -- -- Chariot procession 3-D -- 3-D 1-F 2-C 2-B Gruel-pouring 9 2-B 3-B 1-D 2-B 2-A Disarranging 4 2-D 5-D 2-B 3-B 3-B Sakti Karakam Kumbam 10 2-C 3-E 1-E 2-D 2-C offering Pouring turmeric water 5 -- 5-A 2-A 3-A -- Flag lowering 6-A -- 5-C ------Removal of the protective 6-B 2-E 5-B 2-C 3-B 3-A wristlet Alternate cetal 8 ------(maru cetal)

(Note: Numbers 1,2, 3… indicate an order of events that take place on different days. A, B, C ….indicate an order of events that take place on the same day.)

461 Table 2

Course of Festival Events (relating to Mariyamman temple sites with the “husband-post”)

Details Kukai Annatanappatti Rasipuram Ilampillai Salem Salem Offering of flowers 1 1 1 1-C Planting the post (marriage) 2-A 2-A 2-A 1-A Tying wristlet (for the goddess and devotees) 2-B 2-B 2-B 1-B Flag-hoisting (for Mari) 3 3 4 2

[Flag-hoisting (for Kali)) 3-A ------Jakaram (“killing” with fire-pot) 4 4 3 3 Inviting Sakti (for Mari) 5-B 5 5-A 5-A

Mulappari 5 5 5-A 5-A

Inviting Sakti (for Kali) 5-A -- -- 4-A

Pongal 6-A 6 5-B 5-B Fire-walk (with the Sakti karakam of Kali) 6-C -- 6-A 4-B Chariot 7 7 6-B 4-C (Kali) 5-C (Mari) Sattaparanam 8 8 7 6

Palanquin of pearls 8-A 8-A -- 7-A

Yellow-water 9 9 8 7-B

Sending off the post 10 10 9 8 (kambam)

(Note: Numbers 1, 2, 3… indicate an order of events that take place successively on different days. A, B, C ….indicate an order of events that take place on the same day.)

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477 Appendix

Song of Mulappari (sprouts) collected at Melur (Singer: Baghyam)

Tananai, tananai, tananai, tananai

To the one who says tananai, she (Mariyamman) gives a fortune of words (tananai)

To the one who says tananai, she gives a fortune of words (tananai)

The pearl that you put on my head, Mother, my head is aching (tananai)

Descend from there specially, I will come bringing honor for you (tananai)

The pearl you put on the forehead, Mother, my forehead is burning (tananai)

Descend from the forehead, I will come doing the debt-vow (tananai)

The pearl you put on the eye, Mother, the eye is burning (tananai)

Look with your eyes and descend, I will bring the “eye-flower”8 (tananai)

The pearl you put on the face, Mother, my face is aching (tananai)

Show your face and descend, Mother, I will beg for pearls (of rice) and bring them to you

(tananai)

The pearl you put on the cheeks, Mother, my cheeks are aching

Descend beautifully, I will do the archanai for you (tananai)

The pearl you put on the tongue, Mother, my tongue is dry (tananai)

Descend from the tongue, I will come with my tongue pierced (tananai)

The pearl you put on the throat, Mother, the throat is sore (tananai)

Descend from the throat, I will come regularly to your shrine (tananai)

The pearl you put on the chest, Mother, the chest is burning (tananai)

Have heart Mother, I will go begging and come to you (tananai)

8 It refers to a debt vow in which the “eye,” engraved on an aluminium foil or made of mud, is offered to Mariyamman.

478 The pearl you put on the hands, Mother, the hands are aching (tananai)

Descend from the hands Mother, I will carry the fire-pot and come (tananai)

The pearl you put on the back, Mother, my entire back is aching (tananai)

Descend from the back, I will carry the ‘bird-kavati’ (hook-swinging) and come (tananai)

The pearl you put on the stomach, Mother, the stomach is burning with sores (tananai)

Descend from the stomach, I will carry the flour-lamp (mavilakku) (tananai)

The pearl you put on the hip, Mother, pain gnaws (katuttal) at the hip (tananai)

Descend from the hip, I will visit your shrine daily (tananai)

The pearl you put on the thighs, Mother, the thighs are throbbing with pain (tananai)

Descend from the thighs, I will come to your shrine continuously (tananai)

The pearl you put on the calf muscles, Mother (tananai)

Descend from the calf muscles, I will make a goat sacrifice for you (tananai)

The pearl you put on the feet, Mother, the feet are aching (tananai)

Descend from the feet, I will come walking with my feet to see you (tananai)

Get into the tongue mother, so that my utterance does not fall short (tananai)

I arrive singing songs with my tongue, you are a good Muttumari (tananai)

In this year, in the month of Panguni, on one day (tananai)

On one of the days of the ascending moon, for the colorful Muttumari

Call all the folks to fix a good day (tananai)

Call the townspeople for pure Mari (tananai)

Fifteen days are to be identified for Mari (tananai)

For the one who sings tananai, she gives the fortune of words (tananai)

For the one who sings songs, she gives the fortune of words (tananai)

479 Call the pucari (priest) to fix the day (tananai)

The pucai (worship) needs to be done and the wrist-thread (kappu) tied on the right arm

(tananai)

We should plant seeds and water them (tananai)

We should open the shops of Madurai and get valuable crops (seeds) (tananai)

We should open the first shop and get one variety of crops (tananai)

…….

……..

(The song then goes on to describe how different varieties of seeds are bought from shops at Madurai and are sown in the pots of sprouts.)

480