From Grove to Temple
Effects of Sanskritization, Hinduization, and templisation of sacred groves in the ritual performance of teyyam, in North Kerala.
Abstract
Sacred groves are very important elements of Hinduism, and take on different characteristics in different parts of India, just like Hinduism does.
However, due to political, cultural or social processes, some of these forests have been converted into temples, and the rituals practiced there have been brought closer to the dominant Brahminical cult, with an evident loss to the richness and cultural diversity of Indian spiritual practices.
Those processes can mostly be viewed as Templisation, Sanskritization, and Hinduization. In this short essay we examine the consequences of those procedures upon the sacred groves of northern Kerala, and especially upon the ritual of the teyyams, living gods who inhabit these woods.
References
Ashley, Wayne. 1993. Recodings: Ritual, Theatre, and Political Display in Kerala State, South India. PhD Thesis, New York University.
Chandran, M. D. Subash, and J. Donald Hughes. 1997. “Sacred Groves of South India: Ecology, Traditional Communities and Religious Change”, Social Compass 44 (3): 413—427.
Chandran, M. D. Subash and J. Donald Hughes. 2000. “Sacred Groves and Conservation: The comparative History of Traditional Reserves in the Mediterranean Area and in the South India”, Environment and History, Vol 6, No 2. 169—186.
Chandran, T. V. 2006. Ritual as Ideology, Text and Context in Teyyam. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld Ltd.
Chandrashekara, U. M. and S. Sankar. 1998. “Ecology and management of sacred groves in Kerala, India”, Forest Ecology and Management, 112: 165—177.
Dasan, Mannarakkal. 2012. Theyyam, Patronage, Appropriation and Interpolation. Kannur: Kannur University.
Datta, Reema, and Lisa Lowitz. 2005. Sacred Sanskrit Words. Berkeley: Stonebridge Press. Freeman, John Richardson. 1991. Purity and violence: Sacred power in the Teyyam worship of
Malabar. PhD Thesis, University of Pennsylvania.
Freeman, John Richardson. 1999. “Gods, Groves and the Culture of Nature in Kerala”. Modern
Asian Studies, Vol. 33. No. 2: 257—302.
Gabriel, Theodore. 2010. Playing God, Belief and Ritual in the Muthappan Cult of North
Malabar. London: Equinox.
Gadgil, Madhav and V. D. Vartak. 1975. “Sacred groves of India: A plea for continued conservation”, Journal of Bombay Natural History Society, 72: 314—320.
Gadgil, Madhav, and V. D. Vartak. 1976. “The Sacred Groves of Western Ghats in India”, Economic Botany, 30 (2): 152–160.
Gadgil, Madhav. 1992. “Conserving Biodiversity as if People Matter: A Case Study from India”, Ambio, vol. 21, no. 3: 266–270.
Gadgil, Madhav, and M. D. Subah Chandran. 1992. “Sacred Groves”, India International Centre Quarterly, 19, (1-2), (Spring-Sumer): 183—187.
Gough, Kathleen. 1954. The Traditional Kinship System of the Nayars of Malabar. Cambridge: Harvard University.
Grotowski, Jerzy. 1995. “From the Theatre Company to Art as Vehicle”, in Thomas Richards, At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions, 115 – 135. London: Routledge.
Klostermaier, Klaus K. 1998. A Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism. Oxford: Oneworld Publications.
Koga, Mayuri. 2003. “The Politics of Ritual and Art in Kerala: Controversies concerning the Staging of Teyyam.” Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 15: 54–79.
Komath, Rajesh. 2013. Political Economy of the Theyyam, A Study of the Time-Space Homology. PhD Thesis, Mahatma Gandhi University.
Kurup, K.K.N. 1977. Aryan and Dravidian Elements in Malabar Folklore: A Case Study of R?mavilliam Kal? akam. Trivandrum: Kerala Historical Society.
Nelson, Lance. 2007. “Hinduism”, An Introductory Dictionary of Theology and Religious Studies, edited by Orlando Espín and James Nickoloff, 561–564. Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press.
Malhotra, Kailash. 2001. “Cultural and Ecological Dimensions of Sacred Groves in India”, Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi.
Pallath, J. J. 1995. Theyyam: An Analytical Study of the Folk Culture, Wisdom, and Personality. New Delhi: Indian Social Institute.
Pereira, Filipe and Madina Ziganshina. 2020. “A post-colonial instance in globalized North Malabar: is teyyam an ‘art form’?”, Asian Anthropology, 19, no 4: 257—272.
Roopesh, O. B. 2019. The Makings of A ‘Temple Public’: A Study of Modern Hindu Temples in Contemporary Kerala. Ph.D. Thesis, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
Roopesh, O.B. 2020. “Temple as the site of modern contestations: Kshetra punarudharanam in postcolonial Kerala”, South Asian History and Culture, Vol 11, no 3: 300—316.
Sharma, Rajendra Kumar. 1999. Indian Society, Institutions and Change. Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors Ltd.
Srinivas, Mysore Narasimhachar. 1952. Religion and Society Among the Coorgs of South India. Bombay: Asia Publishing House.
Srinivas, Mysore Narasimhacha. 1956. “A Note on Sanskritization and Westernization”, The Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol. 15, n. 4: 481—496.
Srinivas, Mysore Narasimhachar. 1969. Social Change in Modern India. Berkley: University of California Press.
Sax, William. 2010. “Ritual and the Problem of Efficacy”, in The Problem of Ritual Efficacy, edited by William Sax, Johannes Quack, and Jan Weinhold, 3—16. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Staal, Fritz. 1979. “The Meaninglessness of Ritual”, Numen, Vol. 26, Fasc. 1: 2—22.
Tarabout, Giles. 1997. “l’évolution des cultes dans les temples hindous. L’exemple du Kerala (Inde du Sud) ”, in Renouveaux religieux en Asie, edited by Catherine Clémentin-Ojha, 127— 154. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient.
Thadathil, Abhilash, and Amita Bachan. 2022. “Another wave of Forest and Adivasi Land Alienation? Revenue versus Forest Pattayam and Adivasi Land Question in Kerala”, Artha Vijnana, Vol LXIV, no 1: 75—87.
Waghchaure, Chandrakant, Pundarikakshudu Tetali, Venkat R. Gunale, Noshir H. Antia and Tannaz J. Birdi. 2006. “Sacred Groves of Parinche Valley of Pune District of Maharashtra, India and their Importance”, Anthropology & Medicine, Vol. 13, No. 1, April: 55–76.
Vadakkiniyil, Dinesan. 2016. “From Traditional Authority and Colonial Domination to New Social Dynamics: Has the Cosmic and Social Space of Teyyam changed through time?”, Govt. Arts & Science Research Journal, Vol. 7, Issue 1: 79—105.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The copyright belongs to the authors and PRS.
