given to application of techniques to striking or penetrating the vital spots
(marmam) of the body—those junctures that are so vulnerable that an at-
tack on them can in some cases lead to instant death. The earliest textual
evidence of the concept of the vital spots dates from as early as the Rig
Veda (ca. 1200 B.C.), in which the god Indra is recorded as defeating the de-
mon Vrtra by attacking his vital spot with a vajra(thunderbolt). By the
time that Susruta wrote the classic Sanskrit medical text in the second cen-
tury A.D., 107 vital spots had been identified as an aid to surgical interven-
tion. Over the years the notion of the vital spots has been central to mar-
tial and healing practices, since the master must learn the location of the
vital spots to attack them, to provide the emergency procedure of a
“counter-application” with his hands when an individual has been injured
by having a vital spot penetrated, or to avoid them when giving therapeu-
tic massages.
Martial practice, like meditation, is understood to tame and purify the
external body (sthula-sarira), as it quiets and balances the body’s three hu-
mors. Eventually the practitioner should begin to discover the internal/sub-
tle body (suksma sarira) most often identified with Kundalini/tantric yoga.
For martial practitioners this discovery is essential for embodying power
(sakti) to be used in combat, or for healing through the massage therapies.
Long-term training involves the development of single-point focus (eka-
grata) and mental power (manasakti). A variety of meditation techniques
have traditionally been practiced as part of the development of these sub-
tler powers and abilities, so that martial artists could conquer themselves,
that is, their fears, anxieties, and doubts, as well as gain access to specific
and subtler forms of sakti for application.
These subtler aspects of practice include simple forms of vratam—
simply sitting in an appropriately quiet place and focusing one’s mind on a
deity through repetition of the deity’s name. A more advanced technique is
to sit in the cat pose, facing the guardian deity of the kalari, and repeat the
verbal commands for a particular body exercise sequence while maintain-
ing long, deep, sustained breathing. Repetition of such exercises is under-
stood to lead to dharana—a more concentrated and “higher” form of one-
point concentration. Subtler and secretive practices include becoming
accomplished in particular mantras.Ubiquitous to Hinduism from as early
as the Vedas and to all aspects of kalarippayattu practice from ritual pro-
pitiation of the deities, to administering massage, and to weapons practice
are repetition of mantras. Usually taking the form of a series of sacred
words and/or syllables, which may or may not be translatable, these are
considered “instruments of power... designed for a particular task, which
will achieve a particular end when, and only when,... used in a particular
manner” (Alper 1989, 6). Kalarippayattu masters in the past had a “tool230 Kalarippayattu