The Lord with a Cockerel Pennant: An Essay on Power, Hierarchy, Violence and Multi-Dimensionality in Kanda-Puranam / Le Seigneur et son coq-étendard. Essai sur le pouvoir, la hiérarchie, la violence et la pluri-dimensionalité dans le Kanda-Puranam. - article ; n°1 ; vol.67, pg 77-97

Chitra Sivakumar

Description

Archives des sciences sociales des religions - Année 1989 - Volume 67 - Numéro 1 - Pages 77-97
21 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Archives-des-sciences-sociales-des-religions
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1989
• Nombre de lectures: 130
• Langue: Français
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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Chitra Sivakumar
The Lord with a Cockerel Pennant: An Essay on Power,
Hierarchy, Violence and Multi-Dimensionality in Kanda-Puranam
/ Le Seigneur et son coq-étendard. Essai sur le pouvoir, la
hiérarchie, la violence et la pluri-dimensionalité dans le Kanda-
Puranam.
In: Archives des sciences sociales des religions. N. 67/1, 1989. pp. 77-97.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Sivakumar Chitra. The Lord with a Cockerel Pennant: An Essay on Power, Hierarchy, Violence and Multi-Dimensionality in
Kanda-Puranam / Le Seigneur et son coq-étendard. Essai sur le pouvoir, la hiérarchie, la violence et la pluri-dimensionalité
dans le Kanda-Puranam. In: Archives des sciences sociales des religions. N. 67/1, 1989. pp. 77-97.
doi : 10.3406/assr.1989.1371
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/assr_0335-5985_1989_num_67_1_1371Sc soc es Rei. 1989 67/1 janvier-mars) 77-97 Arch
Chitra SIVAKUMAR
THE LORD WITH COCKEREL PENNANT
AN ESSAY ON POWER HIERARCHY VIOLENCE AND
MULTI-DIMENSIONALITY IN KANDA PURANAM*
Le Kanda Puranam du sanskrit purana est une des uvres les plus
populaires de la littérature mythologique des Tamils du Sud et du
Sud-est asiatique Kanda le fils de Siva compte plusieurs millions
de dévots Les Puranas se partagent entre deux types les Maha et les
Upa-Puranas le Kanda Puranam appartenant la première caté
gorie Ces textes ainsi que les Upanishads les Vedas et autres oeuvres
religieuses constituent une partie importante de la littérature religieuse
hindoue sanskrite
En insistant sur les thèmes du pouvoir de la hiérarchie de la violence
et de la multi-dimensionalité cette étude propose une approche
conceptuelle généralement négligée des textes hindous et des princi
pes structurels qui sous-tendent univers asocial des dieux et des
démons Une telle insistance comporte aussi des implications impor
tantes au niveau du discours philosophique autour de thèmes
majeurs comme celui de la libération par rapport aux cycles
naissances-renaissances mukti moksha) ou celui de âme atman
ou encore celui de âme universelle Brahman) etc Bien il soit
question de ces thèmes plusieurs reprises dans le courant de la
narration du Kanda Puranam celui-ci est avant tout et prioritaire
ment parcouru par les quatre notions précédemment mentionnées
qui reviennent comme des leitmotives
Une discussion critique dans la foulée des travaux de Spiro des
études anthropologie structurale menées par des auteurs comme
Lévy-Strauss Leach et Douglas est également présentée
This essay is study of Kanda Puranam one of the most popular works of
mythological literature among the Tamils of South and Southeast Asia It would
not be an exaggeration to say that Kandan the son of Siva) also known as
This essay is dedicated to Professor Srinivas on the occasion of his seventieth birthday
am grateful to S.S Sivakumar for his comments and reaction
77 ARCHIVES DE SCIENCES SOCIALES DES RELIGIONS
Murugan Shanmugan Subramanian etc. has several million devout followers in
this region The importance Kandan as an aspect of this cultural and ideolo
gical milieu cannot be overemphasised for there are several thousand temples
and shrines scattered across the region wherein he is worshipped There are two
further dimensions to the myth of Kandan The first is its cross-cultural dimension
at least in Sri Lanka there are as many Sinhalese Buddhist devotees of Kandan
Kumara Deiviyo in Sinhalese as there are Hindus Second is the historical
dimension the worship of Kandan is at least one thousand seven hundred years
old among the Tamil speaking people In fact Kandan is the supposed founder of
the first Tamil ngarn the great literary gathering circa IInd-IVth centuries A.D
Thus the long history of the myth as well as its cross-cultural aspect constitute
deep-seated continuum in the cultural and ideological history of Tamils and their
neighbours
The themes outlined in the present paper power hierarchy violence and
multidimensionality constitute the leitmotif of the Kanda Puranam 1) as the
Puranam unfolds itself with the narration of numerous episodes centering
around the creation of Kandan and later his exploits in the battlefield and other
arenas The study by focussing on the above themes for the first time brings to
light the hitherto neglected aspects of the conceptual order of textual Hinduism
and the structural principles that underlay the asocial universe of the devargal
the asurargal and other beings in the Puranam Such focus has also some
important implications for the hitherto main concerns of Hindu philosophy
where discourses have centered arond issues such as muku or moksha liberation
from the cycle of births and rebirths) atman soul Brahman universal soul) etc
Kanda Puranam while at some places in the narrative does deal with the issue of
muku the major tract of it however deals with the leitmotif mentioned afore
The etymology of the term Purana Puranam in Tamil is given as that
which lives from ancient times containing records of past events ancient
tale etc Puranas constitute significant part of the Hindu Sanskritic
religious literature along with Vedas Upanishads and other religious texts The
study of Purana has been largely the preserve of indologists and few historians
of religion Indologists classify Puranas as species of classical Sanskritic
literature dealing with the five themes creation dissolution and re-creation ages
of Manu and history of dynasties Puranas are divided into two types Maha-
Puranas and Upa-Puranas each eighteen in number Skända Purana or Kanda
Puranam in Tamil) -is one of the eighteen Maha-Puranas 3) dealing with
Skända the second son of Siva who was created for the specific purpose of
emancipating the devargal gods from the tyranny of the asura demon king
Soorapadman In comparison with Maha-Puranas the Upa-Puranas are
considered more sectarian and later in origin 5)
While the interest of indologists in Puranas is circumscribed by their
definition of these texts the approach of historians of religion such as OTIaherty
to these texts has been more comprehensive dealing with themes as asceticism
eroticism and symbolic aspects of androgynes in Hindu mythology 19751980
But it needs to be pointed out however that the themes dealt with in the present
paper have not constituted the focus of attention of any of the above studies
As far as sociologists and social anthropologists are concerned they have
shown little interest in the study of the classical Puranas barring pioneering
study of caste Purana ofGujerat by Veena Das 19822nd ed. Das has adopted
the popular structuralist method la Levi-Strauss to analyse the Purana
78 KANDA PURANAM
According to Das this approach offers panacea for the ills and distortions that
have crept into the understanding of the conceptual order of Hinduism To what
extent her conviction is proved valid by her study is however open to question
For her structuralist discourse abounds in distortions in interpretation and
logical fallacies leading to bewildering confusion regarding the structure
underlying the Purana 6)
In my study of the Kända Puranam have deliberately eschewed the
application of the popular and common place structuralist method but have
instead concentrated on themes as they unfold themselves in the narration of the
Puranam This choice has been made mainly for two reasons First the application
of the method which commends the reduction of the content of the
myths to opposed categories would do little justice to the bewildering complexity
of the categories and their inter-relationships which are woven into the vast
canvas of the Puranam Besides the attributes of the categories themselves are
highly ambiguous and are dependent on the context and the episodes narrated in
the Puranam More importantly whatever binary logic operates in the context of
the is subsumed under an all pervading principle ofmultidimensiona-
lity which renders the former very incomplete Second my study of the Kanda
Puranam has inclined me to agree with critiques such as Spiro who in recent
brilliant essay has offered an extremely incisive critique of some works in symbolic
anthropology such as that of Leach and Douglas and of the structuralist exigesis
provided by Levi-Strauss in his study of South American mythology Spiro
demonstrates that these scholars have deliberately excluded the crucial role
played by the factors of sex and aggression in cultural symbol systems and
structural relationships even when the issues under study are explicitly about sex
and aggression According to Spiro such exigeses amount to nothing more than
a-priori assertions and do little justice to empirical or mythological reality
1979 5-17 Further Ishiguro philosopher has raised certain fundamental
points of critique against the very epistemology underlying the binary logic
1985 He 1985 367-370 points out that splitting off the mind is very old
habit and has been revived with gusto in recent years This habit has been
provided added respectability by Levi-Strauss and the structuralists
Considering the phenomen