Recipes for Immortality: Healing, Religion, and Community in South India

273 Pages·2009·3.02 MB·English

by  Richard S Weiss

Recipes for Immortality
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Recipes for
Immortality
Medicine, Religion, and Community
in South India
richard s. weiss
1
2009
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weiss, Richard S.
Recipes for immortality : medicine, religion, and community in South India / Richard S. Weiss.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-533523-1
1. Medicine, Siddha—Social aspects—India—Tamil Nadu. 2. Tamil (Indic people)—
Health and hygiene. 3. Group identity—India—Tamil Nadu. I. Title.
R607.T35W45 2009
610.89'9481105482—dc22 2008022066
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Acknowledgments
Th e beginnings of this project, like siddha medicine, sometimes seem to
disappear into the origins of time itself. Th ere have been many who have
provided support, teaching, and critique along the way.
Th rough his inspiring teaching, Douglas Brooks at the University of
Rochester planted in my mind, at the time immersed in the minutiae of
electromagnetic waves and density indexes, the practicality of pursuing
an academic life in the humanities. Without his generous off er of time
and encouragement, I might have gone on to produce lasers and weap-
ons rather than this book. At the University of California at Berkeley,
Sally Sutherland Goldman initiated me into the linguistic complexity of
South Asian languages, and Robert Goldman instructed me in my early,
awkward attempts to examine yogis and narratives.
My greatest intellectual debt is to my teachers at the University of
Chicago, Wendy Doniger, Bruce Lincoln, and the late Norman Cutler.
Wendy supported the project from start to fi nish with insight and
warmth, and she consistently helped me to see how siddha medicine
fi t into broader South Asian contexts. Bruce has always challenged me
to look at material critically, and this work has benefi ted immensely
from his close reading and incisive comments. Norman was my pri-
mary Tamil teacher, and he saved me from many errors through his
gentle criticisms and deep and wide-ranging knowledge. My study of
Tamil began with Sam Sudanandha, whose remarkable teaching and
love for the language made for a splendid summer of Tamil in Madison,
Wisconsin. Indira Peterson has off ered substantial input on the project,
viii acknowledgments
reading an earlier version in its entirety. My colleagues at Victoria University, and
especially in religious studies, have provided a wonderful environment in which to
work, write, and teach.
Th ere have been many in India who have supported me and my research in
numerous ways. S. Bharathy of the American Institute of Indian Studies in Madu-
rai played a signifi cant role in the development of my Tamil skills, and she intro-
duced me to the topic of siddha medicine. In Th anjavur, V. R. Madhavan assisted
me in the overall conception of the project and especially in its manuscript legacy.
G. Bhaskaran led me in reading some of the poetry of the yogi siddhars, and
C. Prema generously allowed me to be present in her consultations.
I n Chennai, V. R. Jayalakshmi spent more than a year meeting with me to
read early siddha medical texts, and her expertise and patience have contributed
signifi cantly to the project. Th e Institute of Asian Studies off ered an institutional
affi liation for my research. At the Mariamalai Adigal library in Georgetown,
Mr. Sundaramurthy was always extremely helpful in tracking down items, and he
led me to several sources that I would not have found otherwise. A number of
siddha practitioners were particularly helpful: Kundrathur Ramamurthy, G. J.
Parthasarathy, K. Venkatesan, K. V. Abirami, and Ajita Porkoti all generously
off ered their time, knowledge, publications, and invariably excellent food and
drink. Jeyaram Soundrapandi deserves special recognition for his skill in orienting
me to the landscape of contemporary siddha medical practice in Chennai.
M any others have played a role in shaping this project. Among them are
Barney Bate, Joe Bulbulia, Maheswari Chidambaram, Whitney Cox, Don Davis,
Deepali Dewan, Anna Gade, Lorena Garrido, Greg Grieve, Gary Hausman, Aliki
Kalliabetsos, Srinivas Krishnamurthy, Layne Little, McKim Marriot, Cei Maslen,
Paul Morris, Parimal Patil, Anushka Perinpanayagam, Sheldon Pollock, Michael
Radich, T. N. Ramachandran, Ajay Rao, Frank Reynolds, Jon Schofer, Brigitte
Sebastia, David Shulman, Jeyaram Soundrapandi, Will Sweetman, Peggy Trawick,
Katherine Ulrich, A. R. Venkatachalapathy, R. Vijayalakshmy, Blake Wentworth,
and two anonymous readers at Oxford University Press. I want to express my grati-
tude to Cynthia Read at OUP for enthusiastically taking on the project.
A number of grants supported this research. A Social Science Research Council
Pre-Dissertation Fellowship (South Asia) provided funding for an exploratory
trip to Th anjavur in 1997. Research in Chennai in 1998–2000 was supported by a
Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship and a Social
Science Research Council/American Council of Learned Societies International
Dissertation Field Research Fellowship. Th e Committee on South Asian Studies at
the University of Chicago provided grants to support various stages of the project.
Th e Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School supported
a year of writing and provided a forum in which to present early versions of my
acknowledgments ix
ideas, and a William Rainey Harper Fellowship from the University of Chicago pro-
vided funding for an additional year of writing. Finally, the Faculty of Humanities
and Social Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, provided a
grant for a trip to India for additional research materials. Without such generous
support from a variety of institutions, this research and the book that has resulted
from it would not have been possible.
E arlier versions of parts of this book were published as “Th e Autonomy of
Tradition: Creating Space for Indian Medicine,” in H istoricizing Tradition, edited
by Gregory Grieve and Steven Engler (2005); and as “Divorcing Ayurveda: Siddha
Medicine and the Quest for Uniqueness,” in M odern and Global Ayurveda: Pluralism
and Paradigms, edited by Dagmar Wujastyk and Frederick M. Smith (2008).