Abstract:

Kaḷaricikitsā, a unique traditional medicinal praxis, practised in a kaḷari or arena where young men and women learn kaḷarippayaṭṭu, martial arts of Kerala, employs various massage therapies for healing and wellness in which the human body plays a significant role. Though the human body has been a subject of study in various disciplines including philosophy, anthropology, sociology, history, and religion, scholars of religion have not explored kaḷaricikitsā from a Hindu religious perspective. Based on fieldwork, this essay explicates the connection between religion and healing in kaḷaricikitsā and augments current discourses of the body from a Hindu devotional perspective. Divided into two sections, first it discusses the tensions, traditions, and treatments of kaḷaricikitsā within its historical framework, second it explicates the role of the human body as a nexus of the divine and human enterprise in kaḷaricikitsā. I suggest that kaḷaricikitsā attempts to restore and maintain equilibrium of the physical and religious through the human body as a space transcending the dichotomy between the microcosm and the macrocosm, the divine and human.

Author: George Pati