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Lethal spots, vital secrets : medicine and martial arts in South India PDF

321 Pages·2015·8.15 MB·English
by  Sieler
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Lethal Spots, Vital Secrets LETHAL SPOTS, VITAL SECRETS Medicine and Martial Arts in South India z ROMAN SIELER 1 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 978–0–19–024385–2 (hbk.); 978–0–19–024386–9 (pbk.) 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For Harini and Nilan Contents Acknowledgments  ix Note on Transliteration  xi Introduction: The Vital Spots  1 1. Vital Manifestations: Marman, Marmmam, and Varmam Spots  26 2. The Vital Spots: Heterogeneous Theories, Consistent Traditions  59 3. Dispensary and Training Ground: Medicine and Martial Arts Intertwined  95 4. Healing the Hidden: Somatic Modes of Attending to Bodies  133 5. Virtue and Liability: The Vital Spots between Concealment and Revelation  178 6. Embodying Secrecy: A Moral Economy of Learning and the Transmission of Tacit Knowledge  216 Epilogue: From Tactility to Textuality, from Kanyakumari to the World  253 Bibliography  275 Index  299 Acknowledgments Numerous people have contributed to this book in manifold ways and therefore deserve my deepest gratitude. To begin with, I want to thank Bo Sax for his continued support and interest in my research. Moreover, his enthusiasm for anthropology has doubtlessly had a strong impact on me. I also wish to express my gratitude to Gabi Alex, who was crucial in enhancing my interest in the region and culture of Tamil Nadu, and to whom I am also indebted for her support and guidance. I am obliged to numerous people at the French Institute (IFP), Pondicherry—for count- less discussions, invaluable suggestions, and the friendships I made while being there. Most notably, I wish to thank Laurent Pordié, who provided his guidance for the field and beyond. I am also thankful to Guy Attewell and Harilal Madhavan for engaging discussions over tea or cāppāṭu. Thanks are moreover due to IFP researchers and staff M. Kannan, Brigitte Sébastia, Audrey Richard-Ferroudji, N. Murugesan, G. Muthusankar, B. Murugan, and librarians Anurupa Naik, K.  Ramanujam, R.  Narenthiran, and G. Saravanan, as well as to Harish Naraindas, Jawaharlal Nehru University, who all contributed by providing help, valuable information and insights, or by commenting on early versions of this book. I am indebted to many people at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg, as well, such as my fellow doctoral candidates. I owe my gratitude to those who have sparked my interest in learning the Tamil language. Thomas Lehmann started this process, and I am also grateful to several teachers of the Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture—T. Parasuraman, L. Ramamoorthy, and G. Ravishankar—and to S. Arokianathan of Pondicherry University. I have found and keep finding other teachers as well: Tamils, old and young, encountered in day-to-day situations and places, who are happy to learn that a veḷḷaikkāraṉ appreciates their beloved Tamil.

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Lethal Spots, Vital Secrets provides an ethnographic study of varmakkalai, or "the art of the vital spots," a South Indian esoteric tradition that combines medical practice and martial arts. Although siddha medicine is officially part of the Indian Government's medically pluralistic health-care syst
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