RELIGION AGAINST THE SELF This page intentionally left blank RELIGION AGAINST THE SELF An Ethnography of Tamil Rituals Isabella Nabokov OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2OOO OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chi'nnai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico Cily Munibai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright CO 2000 by Isabella Nabokov Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue. \ew York. New York looib Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced. stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means. electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise. without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nabokov, Isabelle. Religion against the self : an ethnography of Tamil Rituals / Isabelle Nabokov. p. cm. ISBN o-i L)-;J i i ^64-0: ISBN 0-19-51 i ^65-9 Ipbk.l i. Hinduism—India—Tamil Nadu—Customs and practices. 2. Tamils (Indie people!—Customs and practices, v Tamil Nadu (India] Religious life and customs. 4. Spirit possession India Tamil Nadu. 1. Title. BI.122(1.is.T}6N^ 2000 }ofi.6'ot)54'82 - dc.ii c.)i)-.54727 i 5 s 7 S 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-tret1 paper For Penelope This page intentionally left blank PREFACE This book is a documentation and analysis of a spectrum of practices by means of which congregations of suffering and congregations of kinship in the South Arcot district of Tamilnadu, South India, deal with crises of inclu- sion and exclusion. It emphasizes that these practices are so strongly similar to one another that anthropological categories like "initiation," "divination," "sorcery," "countersorcery," "demonic possession," "exorcism," "investiture," and "sacrifice" do not gloss their common symbolic structures, processual dynamics, and underlying resonances. It also contends that anthropological dualist or triadic models of the ritual process fail to describe Tamil rituals. Participants, for instance, are not separated from society, put in the realm of liminality, and then put back in society as is assumed in most of these models, but are continuously drawn into an "innermost" space. Finally, the book dis- tinguishes between two kinds of ritual structures: "prescriptive" rituals, which pressure people to incorporate an outer or public image of themselves, and "performative" rituals, which let them author their own transformations; but it argues that both kinds ultimately do violence to the self. At its broadest level, this book is about how religion coerces the Tamil person into becoming someone at odds with his or her self. This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank all the Tamil women and men who accepted my garbled questions, invited me into their homes and shrines, tolerated my intrusions at family rituals, and made my ethnographic project possible. My debt to them is enor- mous. No words could express the gratitude I feel for their patience and hos- pitality. Ethnographic research was funded by the American Institute of Indian Studies to which I extend my deepest appreciation. Throughout fieldwork, the A1IS directors and administrators in India and in the United States, Ms. Kaye Hill, Joseph W. Elder. P. Venugopala Rao. and especially Pradeep Mehendiratta, assisted me in every possible way and I thank them all for their support. Without the help of my five field assistants this work would not exist. I single out M. Savarana Kumar from Madurai, whose good-humor and cour- tesy won me the sympathy of many South Arcot villagers and contributed to the success of the entire field project. Saravana was recommended to me by Ulrike Niklas and introduced to me by Eveline Masilamani-Meyer, so my thanks to them as well. R Srida from Alampoondi offered English translations and valuable commentaries of many interviews. From Madurai, P. Velraj, and D. M. Saravanan also worked with me on interviews, transcriptions, and translations of many tapes. Finally M. Thavamani of Gingee, who joined me halfway through my fieldwork, came closer than any to becoming a true intellectual collaborator in this research Other established scholars provided mentorship and assistance in India. AH' Hiltebeitel's lecture on the cult of the goddess DraupadT at the Kamaraj University of Madurai inspired me to settle nearby Gingee where he had doc- umented her festival. T. Murugarathanam, professor and head of the Depart- ment of Tamil Studies at Madurai Kamaraj University, served as my academic mentor in India. J. Rajasekaran. coordinator for the University of Wisconsin Language Program Abroad, always made my stays in Madurai productive and fun, offering not only experienced advice, but, perhaps more importantly, his