ern work, throughout the region of Kerala. The text itself declares that it was
composed by a S ́u ̄ dra, that “reading and reciting it” frees one from the greatest
sins, and that “those who desire learning” will become greatly illumined thereby
“with the consent of the Aryan folk” (i.e. the Brahmans).^13 Though grounded
in a different milieu than the temple theater and festivals, this text was also
clearly performative, by design. The manuscript distributions and the functional
implications of the text’s structure and content clearly suggest that the context
of use was domestic recitation, either privately or on ceremonial occasions. At
numerous places the text breaks into metrical lists of epithets and phrases of
praise, like it were a kind of breviary for Ra ̄ma devotionalism.
The narrative style, using a pastiche of metrical couplets that El
̄
uttacchan
developed, was called Kil.i-pa ̄t.t.u, the “parrot’s song” after the convention he
adapted from old Tamil of having a parrot narrate the story to the author. While
El
̄
uttacchan wrote a condensation of the Maha ̄bha ̄rata in the same style, a work
generally considered of greater literary merit, but less popular than the
Adhya ̄tma Ra ̄ma ̄yan.am, most of the other works attributed to him are in dispute.
It is clear, however, that he and his followers sparked a whole literary movement,
and there are scores of adaptations of Sanskrit works in this genre reaching into
modern times.
Some scholars have seen in this marked increase of bhakti literature, with its
shift in style and content that supplants and nearly eclipses the earlier Sanskri-
tized, eroticized poetry, a popular upswell, or a “movement.” Some attribute it to
revolt against a decadent Brahmanism, while others find in it an indigenous
response to the incipient colonialism inaugurated by Portuguese involvement in
Kerala’s mercantile life and ports. Different scholars, however, find and date dif-
ferent bhakti movements (as with the earlier Niran.am poets or the still earlier
Ra ̄macaritam), and in this absence of consensus, I find little convincing histori-
cal evidence for anchoring specific texts to specific historical contexts or events
at this stage of research, let alone finding clear historical phases or breaks in
these developments. I think the movements were too dialogically complex, in
terms of caste-strata, linguistic media, and shifting political and religious con-
texts to demarcate any simple lines of development with the rather patchy
evidence we have.
An interesting problem, for instance, is how and why even the highly Brah-
manical register of the campu(the mixed prose and poetry genre mentioned
earlier) shifts from the fifteenth century or so out of a concern with courtesan
culture, and into almost exclusively religious literary themes. Many of these
works come out of the temple theatre and its various spin-off genres of re-
citation, and there is some debate as to what the communities or forums of
performance actually were for this class of works.
The greatest exemplar of the campuproper (other shorter works, called
prabandhams,having the same mixed prose-poetry form), is the Ra ̄ma ̄yan.a
Campuof Punam Nampu ̄ tiri, alluded to earlier. This creatively restructures
theRa ̄ma ̄yan.a,weaving together Sanskrit verse, Man.iprava ̄l.am verse, Dravidian
verse (labeled “prose”), and various kinds of quasi-versified prose (dan.d.akams,
etc.). The composite nature of this “work,” the free borrowing of whole passages
174 rich freeman