Les Feux de la Deesse: Rituels villageois du Kerala (Inde du Sud) (review)

This book examines some of the Hindu propitiation rituals of Kerala, a state on the southwest coast of India. Despite the first part of the title, not all of the rituals covered are devoted to one or more forms of the goddess (Bhadrakali, Bhagavati, Nagayaksi, etc.); some worship other Saivite and Vaishnavite deities, serpent gods, heroes, and ancestors. Thus the numerous miniature ethnographies that make up most of the book lead to a consideration, not just of goddess worship in Kerala, but of Kerala village Hinduism in general: "the sense of the sacred," as the book's back cover notes. Many of these rituals have been covered elsewhere, but often in (as yet) unpublished dissertations and/or short pieces, so this work is particularly welcome. Even regarding the rituals that have previously occasioned book-length monographs (such as those by Sarah Caldwell and Stuart Blackburn on Mudiyettu and Tolpavukuttu, respectively), Aubert's work is valuable in its specificity. Aubert wisely chooses not to attempt to reinvent the wheel with respect to these two genres (or to any of the others); instead of trying to paint a general picture of a given ritual, he usually details his team's own personal experiences with each at specific times and places, including descriptions of rituals, their visual surroundings, and interviews and other interactions he had with his chief informants. Instead of trying to declare, "Mudiyettu is x," he says, in effect, "The Mudiyettu we saw on February 8, 2001, was x." This approach gives the book immediacy and validity, as well as (as Aubert notes, 371) serving as a potential foundation for future larger studies that could be written on these genres, especially those that have not yet inspired European-language books or dissertations (such as Tirayattam, Sopana Sangitam, and the utukku songs sung at the Ayyappan Vilakku ritual, among others).

The book divides into four parts, in addition to introductory and concluding material. After a brief introduction tracing Aubert's interest in Kerala and detailing a few theoretical concerns, the first part's initial two chapters introduce the reader to Kerala history, geography (although the small maps list only a few of the book's crucial place-names; Aubert notes [376] that he is more interested in landscape than in geography, a remarkable understatement), and caste. The third chapter develops some themes from religious studies and performance studies, such as the distinction between "suggested presence" and "real presence," the relationship between goddess worship and tantric practice, and the continuum between art and ritual. The second part is devoted mostly to four goddess rituals, each receiving a chapter: Mudiyettu (a theatrical representation of Bhadrakali's defeat of the demon Darikan), Bhutanum Tirayum (a dance by performers representing associates of the goddess), Tolpavukuttu (a shadow puppet narration of the Ramayana, yet performed as an offering to the goddess), and Patayani (a celebration of Bhadrakali's defeat of Darikan). The fifth chapter includes a few comparative notes on the four rituals, and concludes with a depiction of an ascetic who, "totally identifying with Kali . . . no longer has the possibility of communicating normally with humans" (151).

The three chapters of the third section cover a procession with a Veliccappatu (representative of the goddess, "revealer of the light" [155]), Tirayattam, and Teyyam, respectively. The latter two rituals propitiate a variety of Saivite deities, forms of the goddess, ancestors, a form of the god Ayyappan, and in the case of Teyyam, heroes. As with many of the rituals considered in this book, in all of these the sacred being inhabits the body of a (usually low-caste) ritual specialist, and performs a dance. The fourth part of the book also includes three chapters. The first of these devotes most of its space to the high-caste, temple-solo vocal genre Sopana Sangitam, although there are a few pages...