Possession Rites and the Tantric Temple: A Case-Study from

Northern Kerala
J. R. Freeman
Department of Anthropology
University of Pennsylvania
USA
This paper represents a rather schematic summary of a much
more
extended
argument
for
what
I
call
"formalized
possession" being a central locus of religious experience in
south India (Freeman 1992). Though I believe the core of my
findings would hold for most other areas of south India, both
presently and in historical perspective, I shall confine my
presentation here to the region of northern Kerala, where I
have worked most intensively with primary textual and
ethnographic materials.
To begin, let me state briefly what I intend by the term
"formalized possession." I refer to the widespread belief
throughout south India that formally stipulated and ritually
prepared "bodies", whether of animate or inanimate matter,
can routinely become receptacles for the consciousness and
person of deities.<1> It is through these bodies that deities
are subsequently perceived to interact, communicate with, and
tangibly benefit worshippers, and this indeed constitutes the
raison d'etre of worship. By highlighting the formal features
of this paradigm of worship I intend to stress the facts that
possession phenomena are: 1) culturally constructed and
codified at the conceptual level; 2) socially stipulated and
regulated at the level of organization and recruitment; and
3) ritually effected through the process of performative
enactment.
I believe this tripartite understanding of formalization
affords a useful perspective on spirit possession in south
India for several reasons. First, it gets us beyond certain
dichotomous and inadequate generalizations about the locus of
possession phenomena: that they must either be sought in
individual religious or psychological experience (Eliade
1964; Freed and Freed 1964) or in collective responses to
societal inequities (Lewis 1971). Second, my alternative
focus on the specific socio-cultural (and therefore intersubjective) construction of possession accords better with
the indigenous understanding that this state is primarily
effected through the power of its constituent ritual
procedures rather than through the psychologies of individual
practitioners
(Freeman
1993).
Finally,
this
focus
on
possession
as
a
deliberately
directed
and
formalized
operation illuminates more general beliefs concerning the

relation of consciousness to matter in this culture, beliefs

that blur our seemingly commonsensical distinction between
animate and inanimate forms of existence. While I must defer
the philosophical treatment of these issues to a later work,
an important anthropological finding follows directly from
these beliefs and is central to the present paper. This is
the fact that the worship of materially inanimate images in
puja, on the one hand, and of ecstatic human practitioners,
on the other, are demonstrably informed by the self-same
cultural logic of the deity's ability to possess and act
through various media, irrespective of whether these media
are normally perceived as living beings or insentient
objects. The thesis that what I am calling formalized
possession has been conceptually central to much of south
Indian religious practice further suggests the need for
dismantling the distinction between image-worship or puja as
"classically Hindu", versus "possession cults" as "folk" or
"tribal" practices (Jones 1968).
Accordingly, in the present paper I shall briefly compare two
ostensibly very different traditions of worship in northern
Kerala,
one
"high-Hindu"
and
one
"folk",
through
a
consideration of their orientation to formalized possession.
The first tradition examined is the austerely agamic or
tantric worship of high-caste temples, conducted by Brahmans
according to their Sanskrit sastras. The second is the
widespread folk-tradition of teyyattam, which expressly
entails possession as central to its mode of worship, and
which is the principal religious forum for those castes who
were traditionally designated as Untouchable (Kurup 1973;
Ashley 1979; Freeman 1991). In comparing these traditions, I
hope to demonstrate their conceptual, social, and likely
historical linkages to each other through their mutual
reliance on an enduring paradigm of formalized possession.
[----DISKUS Editor's note: diacritical marks (for sastra,
teyyattam, etc.) cannot be shown in the text but a list of
Malayalam and related terms indicating diacritics has been
included at the end of this article for convenience of
readers. You may delete this Editor's note once read.---]
Tantra in Kerala
Teun Goudriaan says of tantrism that "What is most often
called by this term is a systematic quest for salvation or
for spiritual excellence by realizing and fostering the
bipolar, bisexual divinity within one's own body" (1981:1).
Elsewhere, he further specifies how this realization is
achieved in tantrism through elucidating a characteristic set

of techniques such as mantra, yantra, cakra, mudra, and nyasa

(1979). These techniques are outside Vedic Hinduism, he
writes, yet are similarly oriented to realizing spiritual
liberation (mukti) or worldly enjoyments and domination
(bhukti) (ibid.: 6).
Broadly speaking, these characterizations would apply fairly
well to the content of tantra in Kerala. In terms of
Goudriaan's general observation, I shall indeed argue that
tantric belief and practice in Kerala are fundamentally
predicated on the living presence of divinity within the
human being, and on the invocation of this divine presence
into and its evocation from a conscious human host.<2> More
specifically, Goudriaan's coverage is also apt in terms of
the particular ritual techniques of mantra, yantra, mudra,
nyasa, etc., being employed as the chief means by which these
invocations and evocations are accomplished, at least among
the Brahmans. These ritual techniques are interrelated as
part of a complex of worship in Kerala, and it is in these
techniques' conceptual linkages both to each other, and to
the doctrine of embodied divinity that I would identify this
Kerala complex as characteristically tantric .
There are, however, important differences between the
"tantra" practiced in Kerala as an anthropologist or
historian would perceive it, and the picture usually
presented by our textualist colleagues working elsewhere in
India. Most importantly, there is the fact that tantra has
been institutionalized in Kerala (and elsewhere in south
India) as the official form of temple worship, mediated and
controlled by hereditary priests. It is therefore not
generally known or practiced for spiritual liberation (mukti)
by individual aspirants (sadhakas) according to their
personal inclination. Prominence is instead given in Kerala
tantra to concerns of a decidedly this-worldly sort (bhukti),
pursued in the institutional setting of the temple by Brahman
ritual specialists acting on behalf of a worshipping
clientele (cf. Brunner 1990). Furthermore, since in Kerala
the designation tantri can usually apply only to a Brahman of
a relatively high rank whose practice of tantra is predicated
on his exclusive access to Vedic verses, there is no sense
that tantra or its practice is extra-Vedic, heterodox, or
antinomian in its orientation.<3>
This tradition of temple-based tantra has been remarkably
well consolidated by the single caste of indigenous Kerala
Brahmans, the Nambutiris. Their formulations took canonical
form in a 15th century Sanskrit treatise called the
Tantrasamuccaya, which has been consistently recognized, if
not followed, as the single authoritative manual of Kerala
temple worship (Unni 1989). My preliminary study of this
living textual and ritual tradition has suggested that there

may be little remarkable about its central practices and

beliefs that would differentiate it from what scholars term
agamic temple worship of the neighboring Tamil Nadu or
elsewhere.<4> The central tenets of worship are similarly
predicated on the ability of the Brahman priests to install
the conscious power (caitanya) of the deities into permanent
images which are protectively insulated in temples as
repositories of that power, in order to conduct controlled
ritual
interactions
with
the
deities
on
behalf
of
worshippers.
As
stated
earlier
however,
what
is
characteristically tantric in this tradition is that this
ability to install and maintain a deity depends centrally on
the priest's ability to first invoke the god into his own
body - in some sense, to himself become the god.<5> It is
only subsequent to this process of self-invocation that this
caitanya is deposited in the permanent images.
For those not familiar with the specifics of tantric worship,
I can here provide only a brief characterization. Most
centrally, the practitioner's organism is subjected to a
series of gestures and visualizations whereby its various
elements
and
constituents
are
imaginatively
dissolved,
purified, and then reconstituted in divine form. This process
is achieved by various incantations (mantras) which are
visualized as deposited (nyasa) in various parts of the
organism, replacing its gross parts with their subtler
mantric
counterparts.
Conceptually,
this
involves
an
introjection of the macrocosm and its elements into the
microcosm of one's own being, such that the two are one and
the practitioner is visualized as merged with, or identical
to, the substantial presence of the universal deity.<6>
The key juncture in this image worship is the subsequent
invocation, or avahana, of this humanly embodied power into
the image itself. In its clearest form, this process of
avahana, starting in the body and ending up in the image, is
described from a modern Malayalam treatise (closely following
the Tantrasammucaya and its commentaries) as follows:<7>
"Taking the aromatics, flowers, and grain mixture along with
water from the conch in the two joined hands, bring them into
the proximity of your muladharam [at the base of the spine],
and in order to dislodge that caitanyam situated in the
muladharam, intone one pranavam [the syllable "Om"]. With
another pranavam, raise that caitanyam upward through the
susumna, and bringing the hands reverently to the heart,
praise [the deity] with the upacaram [the mantra of honoring
the god as guest]. Then uttering a pranavam, separate a
fragment of the caitanyam from your heart, and with another
pranavam, raise the hands up to the dvadasanta-lotus [above
the head], and join that fragment of consciousness with the
Supreme Self (paramatmavu) that is situated there. Intoning

the "root" [the basic mantra of the deity] three times,

conceive the actual form of the root-mantra, and uttering,
"Lord! Come, come!", with a pranavam, separate that fragment
of consciousness from the Supreme Self and bringing it
through the susumna-channel, conduct it into the pingalachannel [of the heart]. Then, with the utterance "I invoke
[you]", conduct it in the form of breath through the right
nostril that is the portal of the pingala, into the flower
and grain mixture in the hands. Intoning the root-mantra,
offer the flower and grain mixture to the heart of the image,
and make that consciousness enter the image's left nostril,
which is the portal of the ida [-channel], into the susumna.
Through that course, visualize it as joined to the heartlotus of the image, and then performing a flower-offering,
show the mudras of invocation."
The portent of this passage, then, is that the divine
consciousness (caitanyam) originates in the body of the
priest (in the psycho-physical locus of the muladharam), is
conducted upward through the appropriate channels (nadi) to
join its divine counterpart in an imaginary locus above the
head (the dvadasanta-lotus), then is brought down again into
the body to be exhaled as breath into the offerings, through
which it is transferred by similar physical conduction into
the heart of the image. Following the establishment of the
divine consciousness in the the image's heart through some
final mantras and gestures (mudras), the priest then carries
out the full routine of mantric depositions (nyasam) on the
image that he earlier carried out on his own body. What is
clear from this sequence is that the treatment of the image
is based on the priest's own earlier transformation into the
deity rather than from its possessing any independent program
of invocation. Once this ritual transformation is completed,
the substantial image (murti) is then visualized through
meditation (dhyanam) by the recitation of those verses which
describe the appearance of the deity (dhyana-slokam). This
process of meditation is reported to render the deity visibly
present, and he or she is then offered all the hospitalities
of worship including food offerings, etc.. Worshippers
participate in this primary process only at a distance and by
proxy and their main interaction with the deity concerns the
transfer of its blessings to them, effected through receiving
the leftovers of food, flowers, and unguents given to them as
"grace" or prasadam.
The Teyyam Complex
Kerala Brahmanism was reportedly one of the most exclusionary
systems of caste-Hinduism practiced in India. Most of those

castes below the tiny minority of Brahmans, castes who

elsewhere in India would have belonged to one of the higher
of the four varna categories, were in Kerala placed in the
lowest grade as Sudras. All the rest, probably the
demographic majority of the Hindu castes, were formerly
designated as Untouchable (literally "those without castestatus", the a-varnar). In Kerala, however, the latter were
not just forbidden physical contact with the upper castes;
they were banned from even approaching the castes of varnagrade (the sa-varnar), according to a measured scale of
distances keyed to particular caste identities.
This system was mapped into the regime of Brahmanically
served temples by forbidding the avarnar from approaching
even the outer walls of temples, and by further dividing the
interior space of the temple into architecturally marked
zones of proximity to the sanctum which further sorted the
Sudras and other savarnar according to their sub-caste
standing. For all those castes of the avarnar grade this
traditional setup assured that they never entered or
participated in the functions of a Brahmanical temple, except
either through mediation by other castes or in those temples
that partially relaxed the rules for certain festival days.
This
exclusion
from
"high
Hinduism",
however,
hardly
impoverished the religious life of the lower castes; rather
it ensured that they maintained and further developed their
own modes of worship and institutionalized networks of
shrines for serving their own unique deities.
These deities are known as teyyams (cognate with the Sanskrit
daiva) and the mode of worshipping them is called teyyattam,
literally the "dancing of the gods". This worship takes place
at shrines specifically dedicated to one or more of these
deities. The principal rite, the actual teyyattam sequence,
entails specialists of the lower avarnar castes donning a
costume specific to a particular deity, reciting that god's
mythical history in song, becoming possessed by its spirit,
dancing through the shrine compound, and then interacting
with worshippers, as the god, to receive their offerings and
distribute to them blessings and grace. These shrines are
generally organized and managed on a caste or lineage basis,
and are still an integral part of the social organization of
all the traditionally avarnar castes of northern Kerala. In
terms of their religious and social import, these shrines
were (and usually still are) the functional equivalents of
temples among the upper castes. The shrine structures may
range from an architecturally elaborate, walled, temple-like
structure, to a small closet-like affair in an open compound,
to nothing other than a cleared space in a wood or field
where a temporary shed or altar may be set up. The fully
costumed teyyam worship occurs only on an annual basis,

though many shrines also have monthly rites, conducted by

locally resident caste-priests attached to the shrine (called
komaram or veliccappatu). In our usual manner of speaking,
teyyattam is a "possession cult", since the entire program of
worship is predicated on the deity's taking over the body and
mind of the dancer and speaking and acting through his body
as the vehicle of expression and interaction with the
congregation. The same process is experienced by the shrinepriest of a teyyam deity, as well, when he performs the
aforementioned monthly rites of worship. These practices and
their officials are cognate with a whole range of similar
"folk" traditions throughout south India, and I am convinced
that teyyattam is thus part of a relatively coherent
"Dravidian" paradigm of worship. The paradigm is predicated
on possession, is strongly implicated in a cult of the dead
and has historical roots which we can clearly trace back to
the classical Tamil literature of the early centuries C.E.<8>
Indeed, most of the teyyam deities either explicitly derive
from the apotheosis of deceased human beings, or can be shown
historically to have connections with lineage ancestral cults
in their specific social origins. The understanding in all
cases of teyyam-worship is that the original spirit of the
departed being or god has been ritually re-enlivened through
invocation into the body of his or her vehicle. This
invocation,
however,
is
always
deliberate,
ritually
controlled through a series of formalized procedures and has
as its vehicle a person who is socially entitled and inducted
into that role. It is therefore clearly a case of formalized
possession as I have earlier defined this term, and it is the
relation of this to what we usually call tantra that I now
wish to take up for consideration.
The first link in this relationship has to do with the way
the images used in worship are conceptualized in regard to
the teyyam dancers or to the teyyam priests. When they are
not activated through possession, most teyyam deities are
housed in some kind of enshrined image, be it a full image
(vigraham), a flat icon (titambu), a sword, or a simple altar
or stool. This power has been previously installed exactly as
we noted above with regard to Brahmanical temple installation
(pratistha), either by Brahmans themselves, (for those castes
they consent to serve), or by priests of other castes. We
previously saw that all Brahmanical invocations, whether in
the initial act of installing an image, or as the prelude to
daily worship, entails summoning the deity first into the
body of the priest and then transferring it to the image. It
is this power which is then tapped and serves to (re)activate
the body of the teyyam dancer or priest and turn him
literally into the god. As a highly charismatic teyyam priest
told me:<9>

"The consciousness (caitanyam) of the goddess has been

deposited in a certain place; that is the temple at which we
worship. At the time we get the spiritual vision of
possession (darsanam), all of that divine power (sakti) we
get comes from that image which is installed in the shrine
chamber...The possessed vision of all the teyyam performers
and teyyam priests is one and the same, but it is only in the
rites [by which they get it] that there are differences."
These rites in which he notes a difference are the rituals
(karmam) and incantations (mantras) which the teyyam priest
performs closed up in the sanctum, in contrast to the
analogous rituals and narrative songs (torrams) which the
elaborately costumed teyyam dancer performs in front of the
shrine. Both receive their power bodily from the image
through these respective rites, and both speak and behave as
the deity, until they return this conscious power (caitanyam
or sakti) to the shrine, where it is stored for another day.
But it should not be supposed from the foregoing quote that
precedence is thus given to the inanimate locus of this power
over its human vehicles. Indeed we have earlier seen how
temporal and logical priority is rather given to the human
organism as the source of divine power in Brahmanical temple
rituals. Similarly, in relation to his teyyam rites, the same
priest just quoted described for me the role of the teyyam
priest as follows:
"A teyyam priest is a man whose human spirit, standing within
him, is witness to the goddess in whom we believe. It is that
very consciousness lodged in our heart which we transfer into
some other object. It is then to show others that there is
consciousness in this object, that the teyyam priest performs
his rituals."
Besides the image itself, such objects which are enlivened
may include swords, umbrellas, and different kinds of ritual
insignia, which leap and quiver in their bearers' hands.
Semantically, the 'behaviors' of such objects ("leaping",
"dancing", "quaking", etc.) qualify them as 'possessed' by
the deity in exactly the same terms that are applied to a
human medium. During performances, the divine consciousness
may freely pass back and forth between human and normally
inanimate media, and this capacity is reflected in the
foundation myths of teyyam shrines as well."
Finally, the conceptual equivalence between the image worship
entailed in puja and the rites of possession is preserved in
the Malayalam semantics of worship itself. To give the most
striking example, the Sanskritic word darsana (literally
"seeing"), which refers in standard Indian religious usage to
worshippers passively viewing the enshrined idol of a deity,
has the common meaning in Kerala of becoming possessed by the
god. These semantics reveal how the "seeing" of the deity's

external physical image, which in Kerala worship serves

largely as a conceptual prop, merges with the internal
"vision" that is the real goal of worship; it is a "vision"
not in the sense of viewing deity as an object different from
oneself, but in the sense of perceiving oneself as deity.
This
again
clearly
parallels
the
conception
of
the
Brahmanical invocation and "possession" in temple tantra, and
what I wish to do now is briefly consider the means by which
this state is effected in teyyam worship for comparison with
that of the temple.
The Rituals of Possession Compared
Ideally, the teyyam dancer is supposed to keep various vows
and a limited fast before major teyyam performances. The
teyyam priests similarly keep a series of lifelong vows
dedicated to the particular gods they incarnate and serve. In
the case of major festivals, a teyyam performer will actually
live in partial seclusion in a specially built hut near the
shrine for as many as forty-one days before the teyyattam
begins. In such cases he is supposed to concentrate all his
mental energies on the deity he will incarnate, and he
recites various verses to the deity with other minor rites
under the supervision of a senior dancer. It is not much of a
stretch to suggest the obvious similarities of this period of
seclusion, tutelage, recitation, and meditative rites to the
stage
of
initiation
known
as
diksa
in
the
tantric
traditions.<10> Though such major performances with their
extended seclusions are relatively infrequent, even the
routine
teyyam
performances
find
their
scaled-down
equivalents through the dancers' residence in the make-up
shed. Almost every shrine has such make-up sheds either
attached as permanent structures to their compounds or
temporarily thatched for the occasion. The performers arrive
there the night before a festival begins and consecrate the
shed with a flame from the central shrine. From the time just
after their arrival when they are ritually dedicated to the
particular deity they will perform, they are supposed to
remain in the make-up shed and its environs, observing a
partial fast for the duration of the festival.
Immediately before a dancer's costuming for the possession
and dance begins, he comes before the shrine, and is given
banana leaves containing sandalwood paste, some parched grain
mixed with turmeric powder (called kuri), and five cotton
wicks lit from the lamp of the deity. The items in the leaf
are said to be the deity's prasadam (material grace), and
after eating some of the grain mixture and tossing it over
the crown of the head, the dancer smears the sandalwood paste

on various parts of his body in a specified manner. He then

passes his hand over the flame from the burning wicks three
times and touches his brow, wafting the vapors towards him.
The wicks are then taken to a special masonry altar to the
north of the shrine, laid out in a specified manner and
worshipped briefly with some rites and silent verses.
The exegesis of these rites I received from various
performers indicate clear parallels with those performed by
their Brahmanical counterparts, the temple tantris. The kuri
is literally the "mark" or "trace" of the deity, his or her
physical substance which is ingested and smeared onto the
body of the dancer. This process is concretely conceptualized
as the absorption of the god's being into that of the
performer, and the acts of smearing are on certain nodes of
the body believed to correspond to the nadis and cakras of
tantric physiology. There is a clear correspondence here to
the process known in the Kerala tantra texts as vyapaka,
literally "pervasion", wherein purely imaginary mantric
syllables and elements of the deity are rubbed onto the body
parts
of
the
practitioner,
effecting
his
physical
transubstantiation into the person of the deity. In teyyattam
this smearing is done literally using the physical substances
of the god's worship, while in tantra, the vyapaka or nyasa
(imposition) of the elements is imagined and cursorily mimed.
Similarly, for the teyyam rites of inhaling the fumes of the
five wicks and offering them on the altar, there seems to be
a more substantialized re-enactment of what in tantra is
accomplished through acts of breath-control (pranayama),
partly
mimetic
gestures
(mudras)
and
imaginative
visualization (sankalpa). In teyyattam, the flame of the
wicks is understood as the physical substance of the deity's
sakti, absorbed by conduction through the skin, and the wicks
themselves and their fumes represent either the five lifebreaths (pranas) known to tantra or the five physical
elements (bhutams), understood here to be the breaths or
elements of the god's body which are inhaled and absorbed
into the body of the dancer. Finally, the offering of the
wicks is done on the special altar at the northern end of the
teyyam shrine compound, where blood-sacrifices are performed
at the close of a teyyattam.
In temple tantra, there are elaborate visualizations of the
destruction of the gross body and its elements as the prelude
to their replacement with the subtle elements of the deity.
There is almost certainly some such idea in teyyattam as to
why the breaths or elements of the mundane body are laid out
as an offering where blood-sacrifices are performed; they
must be destroyed before being replaced with their divine
counterparts. Again, however, there is a kind of literalism
operative here, for we should recall that many teyyams are in

fact the apotheosis of deceased human heroes and heroines who

were only reconstituted as divine following their deaths as
living persons. These deaths are not infrequently portrayed
in the teyyam narratives as a kind of self-sacrifice or as a
victimization to various social forces or injustices which
the soon-to-be deity willingly endures. What is in evidence
here is a series of correspondences: the ritual of selfsacrifice
shades
readily
into
that
of
battle;
the
surrendering of one's life-force to the deity is tantamount
to possession by it; and possession itself is both
assimilated to and effected by the absorption of the
ancestors into the persons of deities, whence they can be
periodically reinvoked through the living hosts of their
mediums.<11>
With the introductory rituals over, the elaborate process of
completing the makeup and costuming begins. This is generally
done in public view before either the main shrine or northern
altar and may take as long as an hour or more to complete.
The items are applied to the body of the dancer by his
support-troupe as he sits on a ritual stool called the pitham
which corresponds to the one in stone on which the image of
the deity sits in the sanctum. He meditates on the deity
throughout this process, while he and the troupe sing the set
pieces dedicated to the specific deity he is incarnating.
Known collectively as torrams, these songs verbally depict
the origins, life-history, physical description and migration
of the god to the present site of performance. They culminate
in the dancer singing the song of possession (uraccal torram)
which "fixes" (urayuka) that state in his consciousness.
There is a productive interplay operative here between the
external process of the costuming and make-up that transforms
the dancer into a tangible icon of the deity, and the content
of the songs that supplies the dancer and audience with a
rich set of verbal images to fill out cognitively and
emotively the physical transformation. Externally, his body
is made into a living icon of the deity, even as verbally he
introjects images and narratives of the deity's living
presence into his person through song. These torram songs
again find parallels to the Brahmanical texts of worship. The
torrams very much fill the same functional roles as the texts
of praise (stotras), invocation (avahana) and meditation
(dhyana-sloka) used in tantric rites. In the case of the
torrams, though, these functions are elaborated and expanded
and they are all more clearly linked into the instrumentality
of actually effecting the deity's descent as an animate and
interactive presence than is the case in the temple rites.
Thus rather than being merely descriptive of the deity's
appearance, as in the case of Brahmanical stotras or dhyanaslokas, we have noted that most torrams have, in addition, a

well developed narrative content. They usually recount the

deity's origins and actions which they then explicitly
analogize to the process of recreating the deity and its
active powers in the ritual context of teyyattam.<12> This is
further charted in the sequence of deictic shifts - from
third person praises and narrative episodes, to second person
praises and the genre of invocation (vara-vili, the "call to
come"), to the torram of "congealing" the god's presence
which finally culminates in first person "speech of the god"
(daiva-vakku) and direct interaction with the worshippers.
The performance of teyyattam, then, is much more explicit and
overt in its development of the process of transforming the
priest or dancer into the person of the god, the process
which in agamic literature is called sivikarana, or "becoming
a Siva" (Davis 1992). And what I trust is by now quite clear
in all of this is that the procedures - verbal, mental and
physical - by which this possession-transformation is
effected, are culturally scripted, formalized undertakings.
Their effectiveness may thus be said to be "performative" in
the Austinian sense of speech-acts. As I have suggested
elsewhere, however, the domain of such performatives may
perhaps be fruitfully extended to include formal acts of
mental imaging; these we might call, on analogy, " thoughtacts"(Freeman 1993:121-23) .
Just as we found that the semantics of the Sanskritic term
darsanam provided evidence at the linguistic level for the
interpenetration of image-worship and spirit-possession in
Kerala, so we find a similar confirmation in the specific
semantics of Dravidian terms relating to the process of
visualization entailed in the possession itself. The word
torram as we saw earlier is the generic name for the songs
which describe the deity and bring on possession in
teyyattam, but it is also used of the whole initial phase of
a teyyattam performance, wherein the deity is first summoned
and possesses the dancer. This noun torram and its allied
verbal forms are related to the intransitive Dravidian root
/tonr, meaning "to seem," or "to appear", referring to the
passive reception of cognitive or sensory experiences. When
turned into transitives by strengthening this root to /torr
however, such words further imply an active agency which
intentionally conceives of things in such a way as "to make
them appear", that is, in actuality, as effective entities in
the real world. Most Western ontologies would of course deny
such a materially effective capacity to purely imaginative,
mental activities; yet the usage of these words in the
Malayalam texts and among my informants, makes it quite clear
that such a power is indeed being posited of human and divine
consciousness.
Similarly, in keeping with our agenda of comparison with the

temple practice of tantra, the Sanskrit term sankalpa and

other such derivatives from the root /klp which are common in
the tantric texts clearly show the same semantics of
effectively bridging between what we would call a "merely
imaginative" and a materially effective reality.<13> Such
terms are regularly used in the Brahmanical tantric texts as
directives instructing the practitioner to "imagine", or
better, to "conceive" of such-and-such an entity or state of
affairs as being actually manifested during the invocation
procedure. The whole of the subsequent worship indeed depends
on the assumption that such thought-acts are performatively
effective
in
actually
summoning
and
establishing
the
ontologically real presence of the deity. Here again, such
mental conceptions are formalized in that their actual
contents are verbally specified, imaginatively internalized,
and intentionally performed as directed cognitive acts such
that practitioners conceive of themselves and their images as
identified with or possessed by the consciousness and person
of the deity.
Social and Historical Interaction
I have indicated something of the convergence between tantra
and teyyattam in their mutual concern with effecting
possession by the deity, at the level of both ritual practice
and espoused belief. In this final section, I wish to review
some supporting evidence that the interrelation between these
two complexes has been correspondingly intimate, longstanding and clearly registered both structurally and
historically in the religious practices of Kerala.
If, in keeping with the general theoretical orientation of
this paper, ritual is viewed not just as reflecting culture,
but as in part constituting it, then we would expect the
ritual structures of tantra and teyyattam to define spaces
and practices which replicate the social-structural relations
between the constituencies of the two religious complexes.
This is indeed the case. At the most general level, we have
seen that the Brahmanical temple is exclusionary of the
teyyam festivals, since the performers and their rites are
not permitted within the outer walls of the temple. The
situation is actually far more complex however, and closer
attention reveals that both within the Brahmanical complex
and in the articulations of this complex with the wider
society, there is a clear integrating of ritual structure,
belief, and personnel between the systems of tantra and
teyyattam.
To begin with, all Brahmanical temples have annual festivals
in which the consciousness of the deity is invoked into a

special festival image (utsava-bimbam or titambu) that is

taken out on procession within the outer walls of the temple,
and then often out into the village streets for a mock "hunt"
and a bath in a local river or tank. Such festivals are the
closest analogy we have to teyyattams within the purely
Brahmanical temples. Like teyyattams, these events have as
their very rationale the annual issuance of the deity out of
its sanctum and into contact with the general populace from
whom it is normally insulated in the temple precincts.
Furthermore, the festivals are clearly "popular" to the
extent that they require drumming and music by non-Brahman
castes, accompaniment by armed attendants of the martial
castes and various rites and services of the artisan and
servant castes. This emergence of the deity into freer
interaction with a lower-caste public is also registered in
its corresponding association with lower, demonic divinities
and their associated human attendants who accompany the image
in its procession outside the temple. The latter lower-caste
attendants
are
often
in
fact
the
ecstatic
priests
(veliccappatus or komarams) of nearby teyyam-shrines who
become possessed by their respective caste-deities on these
occasions, just they would during teyyattams.
What the festival thus represents is a phase in the normal
program of orthodox Brahmanical worship where popular rites
(which from the Brahmanical perspective are therefore tinged
with the impure and the demonic) can effect an accommodated
intrusion into the temple in association with the high-caste
utsavam. From the societally more encompassing vantage point
of teyyattam, however, it seems likely that utsavams
themselves have developed in emulation of and interaction
with the distinctive non-Brahmanical paradigms of worship
which exist outside the temple, rather than the "folk cult"
being dependent on or derivative of the textually mandated
festivals.
This becomes more apparent when we look comparatively across
the
spectrum
of
castes
to
the
differently
patterned
relationships between festivals and temple worship. For
example, Brahmanical temples which do not allow teyyam
festivals within their walls may nevertheless have associated
teyyattams celebrated outside their walls, managed by lower
castes but temporally orchestrated so that they correlate
meaningfully with the textually conducted utsavams inside. In
temples of the royal and martial castes both kinds of
festivals may coexist, calendrically adjusted to accommodate
each other and managed by a single set of personnel serving
in festivals of both types. Alternatively, among the middle
castes the teyyattam itself may alone occupy the role of the
principal festival, in which case the rules of temple entry
are normally suspended so that the teyyams can be performed

within the walls of the outer temple-compound where the

festival-image would normally process. In this instance the
rituals of invocation correspondingly exhibit a clear
synthesis between the rites that would ordinarily be
performed on the festival-image, and those that are performed
by the teyyam dancers to invoke the deity into their bodies.
Finally, in the shrines of the lower castes, there are no
daily rites performed to images (aside from lighting lamps in
the morning and/or evening outside the shrines) and the only
ordinary worship is that offered to possessed teyyam dancers
or priests in annual and monthly rites.
What I believe all of this indicates is that the possessionfestival
complex
that
characterizes
teyyattam
is
not
dependent on those features of Brahmanical image-worship in
temples that we regard as classically Hindu. Indeed, the
opposite case might be argued, for we have seen that the very
logic of image-worship itself is predicated on the priest's
formal possession by the deity. Now it becomes further
apparent that the possession-festival paradigm is neither
logically nor culturally dependent on the Brahmanical temple,
and that high-caste worshippers even strive to incorporate
this low-caste paradigm into their temple regime, as we see
in the following.
Clear evidence of this relationship emerges where pollution
concerns have kept Brahmanical temples ostensibly sealed off
from low and demonic modes of popular worship, but where
these institutions have subsequently developed their own
substitute ritual forms in evident emulation of the same. One
such form occurs in temples that prohibit teyyattam but put
on festivals known as pattutsavams, or "song-fests". These
are performed in the temple-compound by drawing elaborate
images (kalams) of popular deities on the ground in colored
powders and employing non-Brahman temple servants to invoke
the deities into the images by singing their praises in
Malayalam songs to the accompaniment of drumming, just as
would be done over the body of the dancer in teyyattam. The
deities are often in fact the same named beings as those
worshipped in teyyattam, and the powder-images are sometimes
clearly modeled on the costumed forms. The songs are very
similar to torrams and the specialists are known as
teyyampatis, "those who sing for" (<patuka) or "are entitled
to" (<patu) "teyyams".
Another form of apparent imitation occurs in those temples
where the Brahmanical festival image is not just carried
around the temple courtyard in circumambulation but is danced
in procession by a special division of Brahman performers.
For this, the deity is invoked from the main image into a
lighter icon of the deity known as a titambu which is then
brought into the outer compound around the sanctum and placed

on the head of the Brahman specialist who performs the dance.

Known as titambunrttam, "the titambu dance", this form of
utsavam and the grade of Brahmans who perform it exist only
within the regional boundaries where teyyattam is practiced,
a complementary distribution that seems hardly coincidental.
This combination of an animate agent carrying the divinely
charged icon in dance seems clearly a kind of hybrid form
between the worship of possessed human dancers on the one
hand and of inanimate images on the other.
Further evidence for the adaptation of popular elements of
worship into the tantric practices of higher castes is found
in the actual constituent rites that make up temple
festivals, as well as daily rites. As was the case with many
elements of the program of the divine invocation or
"possession", what we find in the daily and festival rites of
high-caste temples are frequent substitutes for elements of
worship that are literally performed in popular fora such as
teyyattam. A few examples should suffice to make the point.
It was mentioned above that mock "hunts" are prescribed in
the Sanskrit texts for temple festivals in Kerala. These are
performed by taking the festival image to the edge of the
village and shooting an arrow into the ground. Until recent
legal restrictions on hunting in Kerala were tightened,
however, many of the deities celebrated in teyyattam required
that actual hunts be conducted in the nearby jungles. The
meat from this game was then offered before the deity and
distributed among the worshippers as prasadam. There is also
a legend among Brahman tantric exegetes which attributes the
origins of the whole festival-complex itself to a celebratory
hunt conducted by the gods to commemorate their martial
victory over demonic rivals who are symbolized by the slain
animals. Such rituals and their exegesis seem hardly
representative
of
originally
Brahmanical
activities
or
concerns.
Like hunting, animal sacrifices which are called bali provide
a final context for exemplifying Brahmanical mimicry of
popular rites. When the lower castes use the word bali they
invariably refer to actual blood sacrifices, usually of
chickens. What the Brahmans call bali are rites of offering
rice by throwing it down in the temple courtyard on stones
there that represent various demons (Bhutams). The elaborated
form of this rite, called the Sri Bhuta-bali, is indeed an
essential part of the annual temple festival and is done
explicitly to placate the demonic guardians of the temple.
These lower deities are identified with or even identical to
teyyam deities housed in shrines beyond the temple walls, and
the rice offerings made are explicitly analogized to the
blood-offerings given to the more tangible form of the
teyyams. So important are these rites that they, with the

festival itself, have even been incorporated into the daily

rites of the Kerala temple. Known as Siveli, this daily minifestival entails an invocation of the deity into an icon
(much like the image for annual festivals) which is then
similarly brought out into the temple compound for a series
of circumambulations accompanied by bali-offerings to the
same stones representing the Bhutams. This emulation of
blood-sacrifice by Brahmans is even more clearly in evidence
in the context of their domestic rites. Here they offer what
is known as gurusi; water colored crimson with turmeric and
lime, to deities of fierce disposition as an explicit
substitute for the blood offerings they cannot make in
reality. When Brahmans sponsor teyyattams at their own homes
as they frequently do, the teyyam dancers perform their rites
out in front of the household beyond a low earthen wall that
serves as a pollution barrier. Inside this compound, but in
full sight of the teyyattam, the Brahmans conduct their own
rituals in tandem with the proceedings beyond the wall. At
the juncture where blood sacrifices would normally occur the
Brahmans instead bail huge cauldrons of gurusi over their own
temporary altars which formally resemble the kalasa-taras or
"toddy-pot altars" where actual blood-sacrifices are done in
teyyam rites.
In the context of the association of blood and alcohol which
is signified by the kalasa-tara, we may note some final
convergences between teyyattam and tantra that concern not
just ritual usages but the very identity of the ritual
specialists employing them. In the teyyam-performing region
of northern Kerala there is a caste of quasi-Brahmans called
Pitarar who preside as the priests of royal temples. They
study and employ Sanskrit texts in worship, are endowed with
sacred threads and undergo all similar Brahmanical life-cycle
rites. They are in every way Brahmans except for one set of
traits that denies them any claim in that community: they eat
animal flesh, drink liquor and offer these same items in
worship to their gods within the sanctum of the temples where
they serve. While it is not certain whether they represent a
group of Brahmans who were degraded to serve in such temples,
or a martial caste elevated to serve as priests, it is clear
that socially and ritually they represent a hybrid between
the tantric temple cult of the Nambutiris and the popular
rites that use blood and alcohol as powerful signifiers of
divine power among the martial and lower castes.
The Pitarar priests not only offer the cooked meat of cocks
to their deities as a food offering (naivedyam) but they also
reportedly kill the birds themselves as balis, within the
northern door of the innermost temple compound around the
sanctum. I believe this spatial orientation is significant,
for the kalasa-tara where the same rites are done in

teyyattam is always at the vatakken vatil or "northern entry"

of the teyyam-shrine compound and the rites themselves are
sometimes named after this location.<14> In those temples
served by the Pitarar, the associated teyyam performance area
is in the outer compound of the main temple itself, and the
kalasa-tara for the teyyams is indeed located midway along
the northern wall corresponding to the area where the Pitarar
do their killing within the inner compound wall.
As mentioned earlier, the kalasa-tara is named for the toddypot (kalasam) that sits atop this altar. In Brahmanical
temple usage, this same Sanskrit word kalasa refers to pots
of water or other potable fluids like coconut-milk that are
offered to the deities or poured over them in ablution
(abhisekha). These fluids have divine powers invoked into
them and are thereby believed to strengthen and vivify the
god's image in temple rites. They also retain some of these
powers after divine use and they are recirculated among
devotees as potable prasadam (tirtham).
In teyyattam, where the kalasams routinely contain alcoholic
beverages, the possessed teyyam dancers actually consume part
of these kalasam offerings from ritual vessels. Sometimes
they urge worshippers to consume the liquor with them as
participants in the rite, and later the surplus is
redistributed as prasadam. In temples where the Pitarar
preside, giant, ornamented kalasams of toddy are carried in
procession within the outer compound during teyyattam, and in
such cases, the teyyam festival itself is called kalasattam
"dancing the kalasam" after this rite. Even in the case of
humbler teyyattams it is required that a kalasa-tara be set
up and tended by a special priest of the toddy-tapper caste
(Tiyyar) who will carry the pot in procession with the deity.
In the Pitarar temples, however, one of these same Tiyyar who
brings the giant kalasams for the teyyattam, will supply an
alcoholic kalasam to the priests on a daily basis for their
offerings within the sanctum itself. In the Pitarar's daily
use of this same liquor that is diacritical of low-caste
festivals, supplied by the same low-caste official, we thus
find another telling example of higher incorporation of
popular festival elements into the daily rites of the temple.
Indeed, in the whole complex of blood sacrifice, liquor, and
flesh offerings being brought inside the Pitarar temple we
find in this case, as with the various substitutions used by
Nambutiris we considered above, clear evidence for a long and
synthetic convergence between those traditions we label
"folk", on the one hand, and tantric on the other.
By the brief sampling of materials presented in this section,
I trust I have made a case for the complex and sustained
nature of interaction between the tantric temple cult of
Kerala Brahmanism and the popular practice of teyyattam. What

I wish to reiterate here, however, is that all of these

component rites I have examined are implicitly predicated on
the charging of these ritual substances and their human
agents with the power of divine consciousness. That is why in
the first part of the paper I tried to indicate that there
were also conceptual continuities informing this interaction,
and that despite the effect of caste and pollution barriers
in generating different ritual expressions there was a basic
and underlying rationale to worship which I have glossed
generally as "formalized possession." To conclude, I wish to
present two brief, but important pieces of textual evidence
in support of the nature and depth of this interaction.
The first evidence comes from the oral ballad literature
known as Vatakkan-pattu, the "Northern Ballads". These are
basically secular songs describing the exploits of various
heroes of the martial castes, and while undated they seem
clearly to have been composed in the pre-British period
(perhaps as early as the 16th century)(George 1968:24-27;
Parameswaran Nair 1967:46-49). In the context of our
discussion, what several of these songs depict is quite
remarkable:
they
describe
how
Brahman
temple-priests,
specifically Nambutiri Brahmans, used to become bodily
possessed by the deities they served and speak in the voice
of the god as oracles, exactly in the manner teyyam-priests
do today (e.g. Appunni Nambyar 1983:396). Such evidence
points to a time when it was possible for Brahmans
simultaneously to play two roles; that of sastric ministrant
to the enshrined image within the temple and that of
ecstatically possessed medium out in the compound for
worshippers. This suggests, along with other evidence I have
gathered that there has been a fairly recent suppression of
the outward forms of possession among the higher castes, but
that the paradigm of worship nevertheless retains its
conceptual underpinnings in the rites of invocation, as we
have seen.
The second piece of evidence comes from the teyyam songs
themselves and points in the other direction to the downward
filtration of the Sanskritic technical vocabulary of tantric
religious experience. It is harnessed in this case however
against the caste system and argues for a universally human
experience of divine possession against the social canons of
an exclusionary Brahmanism. The teyyam in question is named
Pottan, the apotheosis of an Untouchable laborer who is
supposed to have encountered and challenged that great
advaita champion of Brahmanism, Sankaracarya. The narrative
of this confrontation, which dates back at least to the 14th
century, tells how Sankara, fearing ritual pollution, once
ordered an Untouchable who was blocking his way to get off
the path and withdraw to the appropriate distance. Rather

than yield the path the Untouchable delivered an enlightening

sermon on the spiritual baselessness of caste-distinctions
and ultimately revealed himself to be a deity in disguise. In
the teyyam-song, Pottan's rejoinder to the great sage is
predicated on an unambiguously tantric claim to spiritual
experience:
"That indestructible Lord who dwells in the dvadasantam, As
our preceptor, who remains divorced from all desires,
fetters, and defilements, Who, in you and me, in the earth,
as in the sky, Exists as One, pulsating with radiance
Bursting from the muladharam, he courses through the inner
nadi, And passing through the Sadadharam, He arrives at the
"cranial lotus", situated above; Then when he reaches the
"susumna-portal", and strikes against it, Drops of nectar
exude from the "moon's orb" and reach the muladharam. And
when there comes such a feeling of bliss,How can one
entertain notions of duality? When you do not even know
yourself, How can you have aversion to me? <15>
These verses, which I have heard sung by modern descendents
of the formerly Untouchable castes, clearly describe the same
tantric process of bodily fusion with divine consciousness
that we examined in the Brahmanical text translated in the
first part of this paper. We should recall however that here
the context is that of teyyattam, where the singer of these
verses is overtly manifesting possession by the deity Pottan
whom he literally impersonates. And we might finally note
that Pottan claims this experience not just for ritual
specialists, whether Brahman temple-priest or lowly teyyam
performer, but rather as a universal capacity of all humans
to tap that divine consciousness in the depths of our being.
It is a consciousness which we all possess, and which
therefore possesses us.
Notes
1. This notion that enlivened bodies can be of either
biological or inanimate material finds support in such words
as vigraha which can mean both the human body and an
inanimate image of a deity. Similar usages are found for the
word murti.
2. It is important to keep in mind, when we refer to the
"divinity within one's own body", as Goudriaan does, that the
tantric view of the human bio- and psychological nexus (parts
of which are explicitly subtle and non-physical) posits a far
more comprehensive entity than is currently covered by the
Western, biological conception of the human organism (see
e.g. Flood 1993). For an intriguing thesis relating the
priests'
transubstantiation
with
the
deity
to
their

relatively lower social status vis-a-vis other Brahmans, see

Appadurai (1983). Many of my ideas in the present piece were
sparked by Appadurai's article, and I hope to treat the
status issue in light of my own partly convergent historical
thesis in the near future.
3. There are citations of tantri being used of other high
castes in temple service, as in Gundert (1872:427). Such
usages seem exceptional, however, and in both my own field
experience and most other sources the term explicitly applies
only to Nambutiri Brahmans who officiate in temple service
(Padmanabha Menon 1933:41; Visnu Nambutiri 1982:87; Unni
1989:7). There is routinely a further distinction between the
tantri, as the original installer and yearly renewer of the
temple images' power, and the daily priest, or pujari,
usually called santi in Malayalam. The tantri is the highest
authority over a temple and appoints and is considered the
guru over the pujaris. We learn from Menon that while most
pujaris did not actually study the Veda (though they recited
Vedic verses learnt from their preceptors on a daily basis in
their tantric pujas and daily rites), the tantris were found
even in the lofty category of Nambutiris known as Adhyans,
who "engage themselves much in the reverent study of the
Vedas" [sic] (ibid.:38).
4. See Davis (1991) for the Saiva tradition of the Tamil
Nadu, and the good description of tantric puja by Sanjukta
Gupta (1979). Though the latter purports to be generally
applicable to pan-Indic schemes of tantric worship it is also
based on a south Indian text. Considering such sources, the
content of Kerala 'tantra' seems substantially the same as
agamic temple worship elsewhere. The significant differences
seem to derive more from the structural differences in Kerala
temples and the particular schedule of pujas and attendant
personnel rather than from different principles of ritual
practices or their underlying beliefs (Unni 1987:68).
5 I am being somewhat imprecise here as to the invocation,
which I will cover from a Kerala tantric perspective below.
The process really proceeds with an evocation of caitanya
from the body, to join the deity who dwells in a subtle locus
(cakra or adhara) outside and above it, then entails invoking
it back into the body, whence the combined power is again
transferred out, this time into the image. On the process of
the priest actually becoming a Siva in the Tamil tradition,
see Davis (1991, Chapter Three). Doctrinally speaking, Davis
is doubtless correct in pointing out that in the southern
dualist school of Saiva Siddhanta one can only aspire to a
qualitative but ontologically distinct identification with
Siva rather than a complete merger in his being, as in the
non-dualist Saivism of Kashmir (1992:111). Ritually and
experientially speaking, however, it seems both traditions

clearly recognize something closely akin to, if not identical

with, possession (Surdam 1984:cvii-cxxii; Sanderson 1985:200201; 213, notes 90 and 91), and from this perspective, the
doctrinal disputes over providing an ultimately dualist
versus monistic fiat for practice appear as strained and
scholastic impositions (following Sanderson 1992).
6 In the Kerala treatises, such a transformation is admitted
to be difficult to experience on a regular basis, though one
is supposed to go through the recitations of the mantras and
attempt the vision, even as a layman, in ones daily rites (K.
Sankaran Nambutirippatu 1974:34-36). For those engaging in
puja however, these rites are essential in a very extended
form
(K.
Narayanan
Nambutiri
1987:1-21;
Mahesvaran
Bhattatirippatu 1987:Chapter 5).
7 This is taken from the textbook of the All-Kerala Tantris'
Association (M. Sankaran Nambutirippatu 1974:39-40). The
spellings of Sanskrit-derived terms in my translation follow
the Malayalam of the text (as they do in other contexts,
where I have the Malayalam, rather than Sanskrit usages in
mind). The exposition in this text closely conforms to the
two major Sanskrit commentaries on the Tantrasamuccaya
(Mahadeva Sastry: 1953:224-226). The basic process, including
the transfer of consciousness into the image through the
medium of the priest's breath, is also confirmed for the
Tamil Saiva Siddhanta tradition, treated by Davis (1991:32).
8 I use the term Dravidian in its territorial and
ethnological sense based on linguistic affiliations across
south India. This linguistic, territorial, political, and
religious usage of the term was well established indigenously
in pre-modern times. For the significations of the term
Dravidian in a 14th-century Kerala text see Freeman (1991:26,
ff.). In terms of a widely shared cult of formalized
possession throughout the region of south India (including
Sri Lanka), I have compiled a good deal of research in an
unpublished study (Freeman 1992).
9 Unless otherwise noted, all such passages are translated
from Malayalam-language interviews I conducted in Kerala,
during the field-season of August 1987 to August 1988 under a
grant from the Fulbright-Hays D.D.R.A. Program.
10 Considerations of space preclude my treating this matter
here. On diksa in the tantric and southern agamic traditions,
respectively, see Hoens (1979) and Surdam (1984). Of great
anthropological interest is the fact that Nambutiris receive
diksa into their system of tantra not from their gurus but
from their fathers, paralleling both the hereditary nature of
Nambutiri control over and practice in temples, and the
similarly
hereditary
nature
of
succession
(generally
matrilineally) to priesthood and teyyam-dancing among the
lower castes.

11 I have recorded a case of a curse between co-lineages, in

which successive victims were absorbed into the joint deity,
only to use that deity to precipitate another death in the
opposing lineage in retaliation for their own. These various
spirits' individual personas emerged through oracles during
festival times.
12 There are usually formulaic invocations either analogizing
the incidents depicted in the song to the present locale of
performance ("as you did there and then, so may you do here
and now"), or indexically linking them in a temporal and
spatial succession ("after doing such-and-such there, you
have now come here").
13 These semantics were first made apparent to me in
Malayalam during interviews and conversations with informants
over the existential status of their beliefs, conceptions, or
imaginings (sankalpam) of their deities' attributes and
powers. It soon became apparent, though, that their usage of
sankalpam could not be translated as belief or imagination,
since in English this implies a state or activity which is
private, internal and need have no objective correlation with
reality except at the level of the subject's volition or
fancy. The unmarked, default semantics of sankalpam, however,
normally implies that the reported mental image or volition
accords with, or even effects an objective reality. To
delimit the usage to the English semantics of "belief" as
implicitly opposed to knowledge of reality, Malayalis usually
feel the need to qualify the word as verum sankalpam, "mere
belief", or sankalpam matram, "imagination only". It was
these usages that led me back to a consideration of the
Sanskrit semantics of such words, as well as of Dravidian
lexical equivalents, such as torram, treated earlier.
14 This association of the northern quadrant with cults to
violent deities (particularly goddesses) who require blood
sacrifice, and even the term "northern gate" itself, is also
widespread and apparently ancient in the Tamil country
(Dumont 1986:426; van den Hoek 1979). Hart's description of
the ancient, royal suicide-rite called "facing north"
(vatakkiruttal)(1975:88-93), is, I believe, part of this same
complex, and continued until recent times in Kerala, where it
was practiced even by lower caste sorcerers (Freeman 1991:7778).
15 Major parts of the texts of Pottan's teyyam songs are
given in Balakrsnan Nayar (1979:425-434), though there are
some problems with a number of the verses as presented there.
I have instead followed versions I collected and recorded
from performers of the Malayan community in the field. I have
written an unpublished monograph on this fascinating deity,
part of which was presented at a conference (Freeman 1990). A
verbatim but somewhat problematic translation of the portions

found in Balakrsnan Nayar (which are not credited to him) can

be found as an appendix in Ayrookuzhiel (1983:170-181).

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