When the World Becomes Female: Guises of a South Indian Goddess

1. An Aesthetics of Excess

27 AN AESTHETICS OF EXCESS The most striking aspect of a jatara for someone experiencing it for the first time is its dizzying multiplicity of rituals and activities, carried out with a seeming lack of coordinated organization. These festivals are multi-sited, multi-caste celebrations; an elaborate web of castes, ritual families, households , and individuals come together in a flow of activities that sometimes intersect and at other times are relatively independent.No single participant experiences the full range of the ritual repertoire; and so, while the repertoire affects each ritual, its “totality,”as described in this book, might appear rather artificially constructed from the perspective of any one participant.1 And yet there is an organizational,aesthetic force that keeps the jatara moving —its rituals performed at the right time in the right place. People seem to know,without being told,what to do,and where and when to show up.In analyzing Draupadi festivals in Tamil Nadu, which share the multiplicity of rituals and sites of Telugu jataras, Alf Hiltebeitel writes, “In a sense, we are faced with distilling what is essential from so much variety when variety is its essence” (1991:11). The multiplicity of Gangamma jatara helps both to elicit and satisfy the ugram of the goddess, the purpose of the festival itself. 1 IMAGINATIVE WORLDS OF GANGAMMA 28 Characterizing Jataras Individual jataras are local events; most are dedicated to gramadevatas for ritual purposes very similar to Gangamma jatara, to protect the land and uru. The village goddesses at the center of jataras are of this place, with local names and narratives of their appearance at a particular place, even as they may attract participants from beyond the local “place.” Jataras are not transposed to new geographic settings when their celebrants settle in different villages, towns, cities, and countries, as pan-Indian or pan-Telugu festivals may be;2 for example, jataras do not find their way across the seven seas to homes, temples, and high school auditoriums in the United States, as do festivals such as Diwali or Ugadi. Jataras are not solely domestic or temple-focused, although they may include both temple and domestic rituals. They are often celebrated at sites at the edge of villages or at their central crossroads; temporary bazaars spring up on open fields and roadsides—stalls selling snacks, low-cost ornaments and bangles, kitchen utensils, and/or toys, sometimes along side small wooden Ferris wheels and other forms of entertainment. With the multiplicity of jatara rituals comes an overload of ritual material: coconuts, pasupu-kumkum (turmeric-vermilion), overflowing pots of pongal, flowers, fruits, neem leaves, saris, goats and chickens—and, finally, an excess of participating human bodies.The simultaneity and wide repertoire of jatara performative genres and materiality contribute to an interpretive frame for any single ritual, creating what I call an aesthetics of excess. By using the term “excess,” I draw specifically from the range of meanings of ugram in Gangamma contexts.3 I use the term aesthetics to refer to performative systems that reflect and shape the imaginative worlds—through words, ritual, and action—of their actors (Hobart and Kapferer 2005, 7). Aesthetics implies performativity, creativity, and attention to experience of both performers and audiences. In the academic study of India, aesthetics has been primarily analyzed in the context of Sanskrit classical aesthetics developed in the Natyashastra, the sage Bharata’s classical text (composed between 200 bce and 200 ce) of dramaturgy, dance, and performance, and the text’s commentators such as Abhivanagupta (tenth century). Although some aspects of the aesthetic theory of the Natyashastra are applicable to folk performances—such as An Aesthetics of Excess 29 assumptions about the creative power of performance—folk traditions perform their own internal systems of creative aesthetics, of which the jatara aesthetics of excess is one example. Arguably, Sanskrit rasa aesthetics can be characterized as an aesthetics of control and subtlety—a raised eyebrow, sidelong glance, subtle shift of hand position eliciting and/or reflecting particular emotions. In contrast, the aesthetics of Gangamma jatara is relatively unrestrained, characterized by excess, over-abundance, multiplicity, and intensity. A Ritual Rationale of Excess: Creating and Satisfying Ugram Gangamma is rarely kept in household shrines throughout the year because she requires services beyond the temporal and physical means of most householders to be kept happy or satisfied (santosha); and a goddess who is not kept santosha may become ugra. Ugram has often...