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

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. vi 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,

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