Comment citer

Schuler, Barbara: Of Death and Birth: Icakkiyammaṉ, a Tamil Goddess, in Ritual and Story, Heidelberg: Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing, 2023 (Ethno-Indology: Heidelberg Studies in South Asian Rituals, volume 8). https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.1040

Identifiants

ISBN 978-3-948791-36-0 (PDF)

Publié

04/06/2023
The print edition was published in 2009 by Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden. ISBN 978-3-447-05844-5

Auteurs

Barbara Schuler

Of Death and Birth

Icakkiyammaṉ, a Tamil Goddess, in Ritual and Story

Scholars of popular Hindu religion in India have always been fascinated by oral texts and rituals, but surprisingly only few attempts have as yet been made to analyse the relationship between rituals and texts systematically. This book contributes to the filling of this gap. Focusing on the dynamics of a local (non-Brahmanical) ritual, its modular organisation and inner logic, the interaction between narrative text and ritual, and the significance of the local versus translocal nature of the text in the ritual context, the study provides a broad range of issues for comparison. It demonstrates that examining texts in their context helps to understand better the complexity of religious traditions and the way in which ritual and text are programmatically employed. The author offers a vivid description of a hitherto unnoticed ritual system, along with the first translation of a text called the Icakkiyamman-Katai (IK). Composed in the Tamil language, the IK represents a substantially longer and embellished form of a core version which probably goes as far back as the seventh century C.E. Unlike the classical source, this text has been incorporated into a living tradition, and is being constantly refashioned. A range of text versions have been encapsulated in the form of a conspectus, which will shed light on the text’s variability or fixity and will add to our knowledge of bardic creativity.

The films, which were originally published on a DVD accompanying the book, are archived in the heidICON multimedia database and can be viewed via the following links:

Of Death and Birth: A Ritual of the Vēḷāḷas in Paḻavūr, India

  1. Original recording with voice-over in English.
  2. Original recording in Tamil without voice-over.
  3. Stories. The „Stories“ option comprises summaries of both texts sung in the ritual: The translocal story Icakkiyammaṉ Katai and The local Icakki story.

Dr. phil. Barbara Schuler, Universität Hamburg, is an Indologist, with a focus on Tamil. Her
current research focuses on the history of emotions in premodern Tamil-speaking contexts. She
worked as Principal Investigator of a DFG-funded project in the field of the History of Emotions.

Chapitres

Table des matières
Pages
PDF
Titelei
Contents
vii-x
List of Illustrations
xi-xii
Conventions
xiii-xiv
Preface
xv-xvi
1 Prolegomena
1-4
PART ONE: TEXTS
2 The Text Material
7-26
3 Tracing the Name Nīli throughout Tamil Literature
27-56
4 An Introduction to the Story of Icakkiyammaṉ
57-62
5 A Critical Edition and an Annotated Translation of the Icakkiyammaṉ Katai (N1)
63-218
PART TWO: INTERPRETING THE TEXT
6 Notes on Major Themes in the Icakkiyammaṉ Katai
221-230
PART THREE: THE LIVING RITUAL CONTEXT
7 A Living Tradition
An Introduction to the Context of the Icakkiyammaṉ Katai
233-270
8 Ethnographic Notes on the Ritual Context of the koṭai Festival of Paḻavūr Icakki
271-280
9 A Ritual System Observed
281-340
10 The Relationship between Text and Ritual
341-344
Final Conclusions
345-348
Appendices
349-476
List of Abbreviations / Table of Signs
477-478
Glossary
479-480
References
481-494
Index
495-501

Comments