A jar of pure poetry over the head of a polluted god: On the cultural economy of Tiruniḻalmāla

Abstract

The present essay grows from the contention that we need to learn more on how the historical survival and career of indigenous knowledge systems and of related literary genres depended on genre-specific vehicles of transmission and on changing institutional structures of patronage that sustained them. As in many other instances of surviving early Malayalam literature, we know next to nothing about the process of producing intended audiences or actual users of the work titled Tiruniḻalmāla. So is the case with the historical moment of its composition, its sociocultural context or the economic basis of its transmission in terms of patronage patterns that might have framed its composition and later circulation. This situation calls for a new critical attention to the editorial processes of rediscovery pertaining to this and other early works in their bearing on the regional history making. The article proposes a closer look at the work in question as an instance of specific type of premodern textuality with its problematic standing in terms of genre, language and type of discourse against the backdrop of the practices of inscription prevalent in later medieval and premodern South India. It touches also on the complex relationship of Tiruniḻalmāla with the Āṟanmuḷa temple and the ritualised performances of Teyyam of North Malabar while exploring the historically understood cultural economy of its transmission and reproduction.