Summary

This book discusses the Brahminical colonization of Kerala, focusing on the festival of Onam and the Vamana and Bali myths and using them to examine the socio-cultural and religious transformations that occurred. It discusses the power dynamics, exploitation, and oppressive nature of brahminical dominance, highlighting the link between caste, land ownership, and temple control. Additionally, it touches upon the role of Vishnu's avatars in upholding unethical actions and the reinterpretation of history from a non-brahminical standpoint, particularly through subaltern perspectives. It also delves into the appropriation and transformation of local deities and practices, through the examples of Krishna, Ayyappan and Muthappan, the influence of Buddhism and Jainism, and the socio-political role of Theyyams.

A Festival Of Memory

• Pierre Bourdieu conceptualises cultural capital as a form of power beyond the economic form, exercised through various non-economic means. The arrival of brahminism reversed all mechanisms of cultural production of the original inhabitants: those parts of their mythology which held the pride of place were made into the antagonistic principle in the Hindu landscape. This robbed subaltern castes of their accumulated cultural capital, immediately relegating them to the bottom of the new hierarchy. The folk tradition having consistently revered Mahabali, it is possible that he was a non-Hindu god before being hijacked into the brahmin myths as happened in the case of many subaltern deities. By floating the Vamana Jayanthi theory, brahminism seeks to rob the Subalterns of what remains of their cultural capital.
• Onam falls in the Malayalam month of Chingam (August-September.). Onam The previous month, Karkitakam, is marked by shortages. Even so, preparations and the excitement of anticipation is very much in the air. After Karkitakam, the granaries are full and people are afforded a holiday. The appearance of the Attham asterism, which is accompanied by the Athachamayam procession n Trippunithura off Kochi, marks Onam proper as only ten days away. In some other parts of the state, the subdued merriments in the days that follow Attham, reach a crescendo on Tiruvonam tapering off in the following days. The main celebrations are on the asterism of Shravana. The word Onam perhaps comes from Shravanam.
• Onam finds mention in Sangam classics like Mathuraikanchi, There are references to the festival in Austrian missionary, Paolino da San Barthalomeo's A Voyage to the East Indies, an account of his journey through India between 1776 and 1789 CE. A celebration in honour of Mayan, a Dravidian god who became Vishnu in the wake of Aryan arrival, was marked with feasts where meat was not taboo.
• You will find Trikkakkarappans, 'lords of Trikkakkara' made of soiled mud, in the courtyards of homes during Onam. KT. Ravivarma (2001) says Trikkakkara was originally Tiru-kal-karai, translatable as land of (Vamana's) three holy feet.
• The first vague reference to the Bali myth appears in the Rig Veda, the earliest of the tour Vedas, produced around 1500 BCE. In the Rig Veda, however, there is neither Vamana nor Bali. As Indra's sidekick, it is Vishnu himself who takes the three giant steps, creating three worlds because the population had multiplied and the people needed fresh pastures and land for habitation. Thus, the objective behind his action seems to be the welfare of the people and prosperity-not elimination of asuras. The proverbial animus between devas and asuras was still far away. The three steps he took earned Vishnu the name Trivikrama. Later, in the Brahmanas (1000-600 BCE) the Dwarf boy is introduced, but he is Vishnu in disguise and not an avatar. Here Vamana takes the three steps and defeats the asuras to seize land for the gods, but once again there is no mention oF Bali. It is in the Mahabharata that for the first time we come across Vishnu's dwarf avatar doing a 'trivikrama' to usurp the asura emperor's kingdom.

From Primitive Communism to Landlordism

• ...projections into the past often widely missed the mark and led to much grand standing, with claims like there was no gender discrimination there was no exploitation ... all were happy.' Not only are such 'truths' hard to ascertain, one can be fairly certain that they are untrue. Nevertheless, the point Marx was trying to make by historicising class relations was to locate the emergence of surplus production. On one level, it is undeniably true that a surplus of commodities wasn't produced by communities of the distant past who could produce just enough for their immediate needs. Capital's need to reproduce itself by draining every ounce of surplus value from commodities was a tendency that evolved with time, and which was provably exploitative and unnecessary. The point was to change this dynamic by revealing its contingency in history and to demystify its hold on our imagination as necessary.
• Change in the nature of forces of production is fertile ground for the proliferation of inequality, despotism and of course foreign occupation. Vamana's three steps then symbolise the first act of primitive accumulation in India, an act of appropriation of communally owned property to benefit a handful. It is doubtful that the primitive, egalitarian society we like to imagine would have sustained itself in the absence of an external onslaught. That internal contradictions were already too large within its fold is probably true. Nevertheless, it was an outside force that as instrumental in the collapse of the Maveli paradigm leading to 'social reorganisation', the particular aspects of subjugation that evolved can undeniably be attributed to this invading force, of brahmin domination and sacral caste hierarchy.
• There is a tendency to look for a chronological sequence in the story of avatars. How could Maveli rule over Kerala and be overthrown by Vamana, the fifth avatar of Vishnu, if the land was created, as the myth says, from the sea by Parashurama, a later-sixth-avatar? There are other contradictions too. How could Krishna and Balarama be Vishnu's avatars and contemporaries? In the Ramayana, Parashuramna confronts Rama when he breaks king Janaka's bow, and both Ramas are Vishnu avatars!
• The Parashurama myth, however, reveals the material underpinnings of changes in society. The fib gave a divine aura to the land-owning brahmin, whose position in the agrarian economy remained largely unchallenged for centuries.
• The Aryans first came Vidarbha from where sage Agastya, along with the king of Nidarbha, led a humungous contingent of brahmins to what is now Tamil Nadu. Brahmins in Kerala swear by Parashurama, while Agastya is a popular icon of their Tamil counterparts. The period from the ninth century CE to the early decades of the twelfth, the era of the Chera kingdom of Perumals with their capital at Mahodayapuram, saw the stabilisation of brahmin power and hegemony. In the absence of a sound administrative set-up and strong reserve army,Chera suzerainty over local rulers was limited and they were subject to the whims of the Pandyas and the Cholas.
• Buddhist viharas and pre-Aryan kavus got converted nto temples. Many mega shrines like those in Sucheendram, Thiruvananthapuram, Thiruvanchiyur, Ettumanur and Thrissivaperur (Thrissur) were built in the eighth century. Land oners and the common people funded the construction of the shrines, but their management was in the hands of committees consisting mostly of brahmin uralar (landlords). Brahmins alone could consecrate deities and perform puja. This remained the rule for the next many centuries.
• The historian Kesavan Veluthat argues that "The temple developed as the hub around which activities of production and distribution revolved; it was the temple that decided the pattern in which the institution of caste evolved and got congealed...The temple even developed into a centre of political activity, both as a semi-autonomous entity within the territory of a local chieftain and also as the points behind which the different locality chiefs rallied. In short, the temple, which was the nucleus of the Brahmana settlement, functioned as the agency which transformed the way of life in Kerala--in terms of economy, society and polity' (Veluthat 2013). The period from the ninth century to the eighteenth was the golden age of temples, as they grew in prominence dwarfing even the state in its political importance. Only in the eighteenth century did Martanda Varma, the king of Travancore, and Sakthan Thampuran, the ruler of Cochin, attempt to rein in the temples. Control over the temples enabled the brahmins to acquire vast tracts of land.
• For nearly two centuries preceding the regime of Marthanda Varma the Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram as managed by an outfit called Ettarayogam, ettara meaning eight anda half, eight brahmins and one nair.
• Entitlement to land gifts, known as brahmadeya, and control over religion became commonplace for brahmins and these privileges had the putative sanction of the scriptures. The myth about Parashurama's land gifts symbolised the donation of huge estates of land and villages by the Chalukyas, Pallavas and Kadambas to brahmins. Believing that a brahmin's blessing brought divine grace, the rulers brought over brahmin families from distant lands and donated sprawling estates to them for performing yajnas