Co ̄l
̄
a imperium helped condition and maintain the internal fragmentation of
medieval Kerala into a pastiche of feuding sub-kingdoms.^5 This remained the
political situation of Kerala down to the advent of the European powers, and
formed the social matrix in which Kerala’s version of Hinduism and its literary
expression arose and developed.
The Early Devotional Mode: Literary Songs of Ritual and War
The first literary writing of Kerala in a recognizably distinctive West
coast dialect of the “Tamil” that was to become Malayalam is a commentary
on Kaut.ilya’s Arthas ́a ̄stra(Sambasiva Sastri, 1972 [1930]). The original work
is a Sanskrit treatise on the Indic science of polity, and the commentary is a
virtual paraphrase that adds little to the original. What it does show, however,
is that Brahmanical Sanskritic treatises were imposing themselves on Kerala
society as technical (if improbable) models of political organization and conduct.
As with the largely secular focus of Can.kam literature, there is scarcely anything
we might consider of religious import in this text. Unfortunately, the commen-
tary on the various rites of sorcery and magic that are supposed to secure politi-
cal successes in the final chapter of the work is no longer extant.
Shortly thereafter, in perhaps the thirteenth century, we encounter another
very different work, the first religious work in the Malayalam language, the
only recently discovered Tirunil
̄
alma ̄la, the “Garland of the Sacred Shade (or
Grace).” Until the discovery and publication of this work in 1980 (Purus.o ̄ttaman
Na ̄yar 1981), the advent of Kerala’s literary history was dominated by the
Ra ̄macaritam, a roughly contemporaneous and far lengthier retelling of the
Sanskrit epic, the Ra ̄ma ̄yan.a(George 1956). While in a very similar linguistic
idiom of early Malayalam, however, the Tirunil
̄
alma ̄lacould not be more different,
thematically. It is essentially a ritual text, centered on a series of festival rites
around the still active temple of Kr.s.n.a at A ̄r
̄
an.mul.a, in south central Kerala.
There are a number of interesting aspects to this text that warrant attention.
A ̄r
̄
an.mul.a is first of all one of a small number ofdivyade ̄s ́as, sacred temple sites
known to the Vais.n.ava bhakti poems of the earlier mentioned Tamil A ̄l
̄
va ̄rs, to
be found in the Kerala country. Furthermore, this text reveals that five of the total
thirteen divyade ̄s ́atemples were included within A ̄r
̄
an.mul.a’s jurisdiction, sug-
gesting that Tamil Vais.n.avas formed a rather constricted set of colonies in the
Kerala country.
More remarkable is the nature of the rites highlighted in this work. While
much about the text is clearly embedded in the celebration of Sanskrit gods and
their mythology, the focus of the work is not on the Brahmanical rites of worship
we would associate with the Sanskritic A ̄gamic tradition of Tamil temple
worship, but rather on the blood rites (pali<Skt.bali) performed by what are
today lower-caste exorcists, known as Malayans.
the literature of hinduism in malayalam 163