The poem tells us that birds of prey and crows gathered on the gibbets, mistak-
ing this for the real thing. Then amidst a roar of drums like the ocean’s waves,
Ks.e ̄trapa ̄lan was ritually invoked and installed in the site. Summoning the god
to witness the sight, they cried, “O Lord, we your slaves, wanting any valuables,
have offered the Sacrifice to the North, rending our chests with our hands and
taking this to offer on the gibbet” (Lns. 429–30). Even today Malayans recount
an exorcism for the gods as their myth of origin that they use in contemporary
rites of exorcism for human patrons. Some of these rites still entail the mock self-
sacrifice of the performer, and for one of these the Malayans pierce their veins
and spew out their own blood as an offering in the awesome ucca-bali. Of course
today these rites have been demoted to the level of “the folk,” but they still live
on in the rather robust underground world of Kerala’s “sorcery” (mantrava ̄dam).
The next great work of Hindu affiliation extant in Kerala was the aforenamed
Ra ̄macaritam, of the fourteenth century (George 1956). Like the Tirunil
̄
alma ̄la,
the phonology, orthography, and metrical structure are largely in conformity
with Tamil conventions, but given its modeling on the Sanskrit epic, a somewhat
greater portion of the lexicon is Sanskrit-derived. In narrative structure,
however, this work effects a unique departure from its original model. The
Ra ̄macaritamis narratively framed entirely within the Ra ̄ma ̄yan.a’sbook of war
(theYuddha-ka ̄n.d.a), and reconstructs the earlier parts of the epic through flash-
backs and other retellings.
It has long been surmised that the recasting of the Ra ̄ma ̄yan.aentirely around
the war may have been related to the militarism of Kerala, suggesting this was
a devotional work essentially for the edification of the soldiery. While there is no
direct evidence for this, the ethos and tone of the work seem to support this idea.
Its occasional reveling in the gore of battle draws images in common with Tamil
war poetry, like the dance of the headless corpses. Consider the following descrip-
tion of the effects of Lord Ra ̄ma’s arrows on the demon hordes that attack him
(77.3–5):^6
Many shining arrows went swift and continuous
To plunge in the bodies of those foes who surrounded him to fight.
They were terrorized, as on every side of the battlefield,
The gore and corpses mounted through their great destruction.
The earth was thickly adorned with corpses and gore,
And as the great warriors advanced, striving to search him out and do battle
with him,
They could not even glimpse him, without being struck by this King of king’s
arrows...
Numbers of corpses, severed of their heads, entwined among themselves in a
fine, frenzied dance...
As their lives were spent on the field of battle,
And the bodies of those forces were rent in destruction, one on top of another,
Wherever one turned, the river of blood sent its courses in numbers beyond
reckoning.the literature of hinduism in malayalam 165