Sprouts of the Body, Sprouts of the Field: Identification of the Goddess with Poxes in South India

In south India, pox afflictions are understood as the goddess Mariyamman arriving in the person. The Tamil term 'ammai' means both pustules or 'pearls' of poxes and mother/goddess. Drawing on songs, narratives, ethnographic sources, and classical Tamil texts, the author argues that identifying the pox-afflicted body as the goddess is not simply a matter of possession by an external agent. Instead, this identification is facilitated by an imagistic relationship between the afflicted body and an agricultural field, conventionally regarded as feminine in Tamil culture. This framework helps explain the benevolence associated with pox-affliction and challenges prevalent scholarly characterizations of such affliction as possession.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In south India, when a person is afflicted with poxes of any variety, it is believed that the goddess Mariyamman has “arrived„ in the person. The Tamil term “ammai„ means pustules or “pearls„ of poxes as well as mother/goddess. Indigenous discourses, gleaned from resources, such as songs and narratives, facilitate our interrogation of the Hindu “religious experience„ that underscores the immanent and eminent manifestations of the deity and the dimension of benevolence associated with pox-affliction. Asking what might be the triggering conditions for identifying the pox-afflicted body as the goddess, I problematize the prevalent scholarly characterization of such affliction in terms of “possession„ of a body, taken as a “mute facticity,„ by an external agent, namely, the goddess. Drawing from ethnographic sources and classical Tamil texts, I argue that the immanent identification of the body as the goddess and conceptualization of her sovereign authority over the body during affliction are facilitated by an imagistic relationship of the afflicted body with an agricultural field, which is conventionally regarded as feminine in the Tamil context.