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Feeding a Thousand Souls: Women, Ritual, and Ecology in India- An Exploration of the Kolam

Online ISBN:
9780190858100
Print ISBN:
9780195170825
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Feeding a Thousand Souls: Women, Ritual, and Ecology in India- An Exploration of the Kolam

Vijaya Nagarajan
Vijaya Nagarajan

Associate Professor

Associate Professor, University of San Francisco
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Published online:
22 November 2018
Published in print:
25 October 2018
Online ISBN:
9780190858100
Print ISBN:
9780195170825
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Drawing on extensive fieldwork, this book investigates aesthetic, symbolic, metaphorical, literary, mathematical, and philosophical meanings of the kōlam, the popular Tamil women’s daily ephemeral practice, a ritual art tradition performed with rice flour on the thresholds of houses in southern India. They range from concepts such as auspiciousness, inauspiciousness, ritual purity, and ritual pollution. Several divinities, too, play a significant role: Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, good luck, well-being, and a quickening energy; Mūdevi, the goddess of poverty, bad luck, illness, and laziness; Bhūdevi, the goddess of the soils, the earth, and the fields; and the god Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. Braiding art history, aesthetics, and design, this book analyzes the presence of the kōlam in medieval Tamil literature, focusing on the saint-poet Āṇṭāḷ. The author shows that the kōlam embodies mathematical principles such as symmetry, fractals, array grammars, picture languages, and infinity. Three types of kōlam competitions are described. The kinship between Bhūdevi and the kōlam is discussed as the author delves into the topics of “embedded ecologies” and “intermittent sacrality.” The author explores the history of the phrase “feeding a thousand souls,” tracing it back to ancient Sanskrit literature, where it was connected to Indian notions of hospitality, karma, and strangers. Its relationship to the theory of karma is represented by its connection to the five ancient sacrifices. This ritual is distinguished as one of the many “rituals of generosity” in Tamil Nadu.

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