I (Deepa) meet Vadivelou Sir at his footwear shop close to the Nandhikeswara temple. Conversation ranges widely from his own research on dance and literary forms, the devadasi tradition (and what the loss of the tradition has meant for temple cultures generally), to panchamukha vadyam and the rules of its use as a ritual instrument (each face for separate jatis), to various facts and details about the Nandhikeswara temple, and to music in general. This note is not a summary, but an acknowledgement that things he said he woke me to
(1) the importance of music and dance in temple cultures as creating not merely atmosphere but auspiciousness (therefore, indeed, the term “mangala vadyam” or the instrument which generates mangalam)--and the integration of nadaswaram traditions with dance, which also aspects destroyed by the abolishment of the devadasi tradition;
(2) likewise the roles of odhuvars and araiyars (offering araiyar cevai) using mudras in their enactments of hymns and songs – they are not merely recitations, but enactments – so should we think of tantric puja forms similarly then, as enactments?;
(3) I had a picture of the temple as coming alive in the evenings, with devadasi groups resident nearby, dedicated to specific temples, dancing and “gesturing” during sayarakshai and palliyarai sevai. Picturing it thus, I could see the clear harmony between the mudras used as part of “common” tantric ritual, and the mudras and gestures used in dance by the devadasis of old. They were partners in form. Devadasis were the animators of so many moments in a temple’s ritual life; their lallis or other songs accompanied by dance movements and mudras were counterparts to the specialised puja recitations of the priests. That they extended them and elaborated them. Vadivelou sir told me later that the Thiruvarur temple devadasis were known as “Kai kaattum Murai Kari” or “the ones who would show with the hand” (“Thiruvarur Temple Devadasis were traditionally known as “Kai Kaatum Murai Kari.” Aug 19: “According to the Tamil and music scholar B. M. Sundaram, as mentioned in Marabu Vazhi Maanikkangal, they used to perform mudras simultaneously with the temple rituals near the sanctum, without chanting.” This ceiling painting from the Devasiriya Mandapa of the Thyagesa temple in Thiruvarur offers an actual image of such a processional scene, with the Kai Kaattum Murai Karis enacting ritual forms ahead of processional utsavas.)
Until the “system” or “Devadasi culture” if it were ever that cohesive became corrupted and plagued with its own problems, and we destroyed it and killed everything good it ever engendered alongside.
Most people I’ve met in the course of any work in Pondicherry town have a high regard for the devadasis, as powerful women who did a great deal of good in terms of social service. The few remaining, like R. Muthukannammal from Viralimalai, whom Vadivelou sir went to meet and whose videos he shared with me – she was singing songs that had been included by MLV Akka when she prepared the music for Rishi Valley’s Sillapadigaram dance ballet aeons ago, so I knew them – are feted and festooned but nothing about their kalacharam can be recovered by just encouragement at this point. They’re museum relics at best.
Notes here are my reflections on the conversation with Vadivelou Sir, not always sentiments he expressed, though I think he may well share them!