experiencing the world from body to ĀTMAN 153
Sreedevi’s Mother: She is not eating, and she has started crying. And when
sleeping, she’ll suddenly wake up complaining of stomach pain. She shows
bahalam [agitation/boisterousness].But then Sreedevi’s mother explains:Because this is a mental problem [manassikamāyittulla vishamam], we have been
coming here.All these excerpts reveal features of culturally defi ned phenomenological
experience. Th e phenomenological orientation engaged by patients in Kerala
is marked by several modes of experience that range from the more material
to the more intangible, subtle and rarefi ed: that is, from the body to manas
(mind) to bōdham (consciousness) to ātman. Th e other idioms of “conscious-
ness” off ered by informants, such as ōrmma and buddhi, lie between manas
and ātman on this continuum of modes of experience. Th e people we spoke
with do not explicitly say that these modes of experience lie on a continuum
of increasing intangibility, but they use these terms in a way that is consistent
with the philosophies described earlier, which outline a continuum of body-
mind-consciousness-ātman. Patients’ concerns for their more subtle states of
experience were also highlighted in the analysis of the preceding interviews.
In addition, it is noteworthy that in the fi rst set of excerpts, which focused
on explanations for seeking treatment, interviewees referred to the terms
manas (mind) and problems of thinking to explain why they pursued psy-
chiatric therapy, allopathic or ayurvedic. In later excerpts, when patients were
recounting their more personal, proximate experiences of illness, terminology
focused more on idioms of consciousness (bōdham, ōrmma) or losing con-
sciousness (mayakkuka). Th is indicates that the various styles of consciousness
are likely more experience-near, more personally valued modes of experience
while manas, in addition to being more mechanical and tangible, appears more
de personalized and pragmatic.
Unlike many other ethnographic examples in anthropological studies of the
body, some of which are discussed at the outset of this chapter, people suff er-
ing affl iction and illness in Kerala do distinguish mind from body and locate
experience in emphatically disembodied and highly valued, non-tangible
realms. Yet, mind and body are not diametrically opposed in Kerala as they are
in Western mind-body dualism. Th ey are simply diff erent, and in fact mind—
manas—is more embodied, more gross and material, and thus closer to the
body than bōdham and ātman. Mind and body are only parts, and not even the
focal parts, of an experiential orientation that, if anything, is most concerned
about bōdham, ōrmma and other states of consciousness.