Books on the topic 'Toḷḷāyiram (The Tamil word)'

This chapter tests a strong loanword integration hypothesis: that donor-language material that has been borrowed will display variability in morphosyntactic integration paralleling that of the recipient language. This requires explicitly marshalling the recipient language as the benchmark for comparison, an innovation implemented here for the first time. Illustrating with the typologically different Tamil-English language pair, word order and case-marking of English-origin objects of Tamil verbs are analyzed. English indirect objects are overwhelmingly inflected with Tamil dative markers, but direct objects tend not to be marked for the accusative. Comparison reveals that this patterning reflects the case-marking variability inherent in the recipient-language benchmark, compelling us to recognize even these apparently bare forms as borrowed, and supporting the Nonce Borrowing Hypothesis. This demonstrates that the facts of variability must be taken into account to identify which forms have been borrowed and which have been code-switched.

This book is an ethnographic account of three Roman Catholic women in contemporary Tamil Nadu, south India, who claim to be possessed by Mary, the mother of Jesus. It follows their lives over more than a decade, describing their own, the researcher’s own, and devotees’ understandings of the women’s healing and possession practices along with questions about agency, gender roles, authenticity, and social power. It asks, how is it that some experiences of “possession” (a word introduced to India by Christian missionaries, which the book complicates through Tamil renditions) are recognized as authentic, yet others are not? What are the local conditions that enable their very possibility? Discussions of local and widespread “Hindu” practices and discourses shed light on how these women and their followers navigate their bodily experience, socioeconomic status, caste, and gender roles in a modern world of technological change and global economy—and how Church officials navigate these women. Part travelogue, part academic analysis, the book addresses a wide audience, including academics interested in the study of religion, spirit possession, anthropology, women’s and gender studies, postcolonialism, Global Christianity, Tamil culture, Mariology, fluid boundaries across “traditions,” and the relationship between the ethnographer-“Self” and “Other.”

This chapter explores multiple dimensions of the reenactment of a thirteenth-century ritual dance-theater work, Kaisika Natakam, of South India. A collaborative effort by scholars, musicologists, and performing artist Anita Ratnam, the revival and reconstruction of this tradition has been performed annually since 1995 in Tirukurungudi village in Tamil Nadu, India. We theoretically distinguish reconstruction from reenactment. This ritual reenactment appeals to modern democratic impulses in that the story uniquely challenges the caste system; indeed it demonstrates that Nambudevan, Lord Vishnu’s devotee, though low-born is an honorable individual who keeps his word, even if that may lead to his death. The story reminds audiences of the significance of music and dance in Hindu worship, exemplified in Nambudevan’s devotional singing that plays a key role in transforming a demon into human form. The chapter also discusses gender issues such as male roles played by females in this ritual dance-theater.