hierarchical. In all cases, it is expressed through spontaneous and selfless feel-
ings of caring (pa ̄lana), nourishing (pos.an.a), and supporting (bharan.a) for one
another. Delight (ananda), gratification (tr.pti), and contentment (santos.a) are the
fruit of such feelings (Inden and Nicholas 1977: 21).
An elaborate ideology of love in Tamil Nadu comprises the ideas ofanpu(love),
pa ̄cam(attachment), a ̄cai(desire),ka ̄ppu(bonding),pat.t.u(devotion), etc. These
are articulable, and sometimes articulated, in explication of how the members
of a household relate to one another (Trawick 1996: ch. 3). Anpu is a complex
notion that connotes a multitude of emotions and moral judgments. Thus, love
must be contained (ad.akkam, containment), for excess is harmful; moreover “love
grows in hiding.” Even a mother’s love for the child must be “kept within limits,”
for “letting love overflow its bounds could be harmful not only to the recipient,
but to the giver as well” (Trawick 1996: 94). While the legitimacy and power of
sexual love and pleasure inpam, “sweetness”) may not be denied, the love of
spouses is also best contained to the point of concealment. Such concealment
takes diverse forms including, particularly among the lower castes, the deroga-
tion of the husband by the wife.
Love is a force, but its essence is tenderness. It grows slowly by habituation;
indeed it becomes a habit (par.akkam) that even death does not destroy. The loved
person becomes a part of oneself. Pa r.akkamimplies friendliness, easiness, and
grace (Trawick 1996: 100). But it has its emotional costs. Love and attachment
have a cruel aspect, for they produce restlessness. Moreover, being parted from
the loved person is painful; it is like having a part of oneself severed. Love makes
one do strange and even improper things, such as defiance of the rules of purity:
picking up the leaf from which someone has eaten, and which is therefore
impure, is an act of love and meritorious. It conveys a message of union and
equality. Love teaches humility (pani). “In acts of love, the humble became
proud, the servant became master, the renouncer became possessed” (Trawick
1996: 106). Love normally produces servitude (adima), a sense of being con-
trolled by another person, but then this feeling itself is “a powerful expression of
love” (111). Ultimately, love means that the members of the household “are all
one” within the “four walls of the house.” As a Tamil householder (a woman)
has put it, “In order for you to understand my heart, you must see through my
eyes. In order me to understand your heart, I must see through yours” (115,
116).
There is a gentle and authentic simplicity about the manner in which the
Tamil villager articulates the place of love in the ideology of the householder.
There are other values too that are generally affirmed elsewhere by other Hindu
communities, but raised above them all is the ideal of domesticity itself. The
Kashmiri Pandits are the self-aware ideologues ofga ̄rhasthyawithin the value
framework of Hinduism, expressed, for example, in the notion ofpurus.a ̄rtha
comprising the goals and orientations ofdharma,artha, and ka ̄ma. The Pandit
ideology of the householder is lukewarm about the fourth purus.a ̄rthaofmoks.a,
and explicitly negative about renunciation as a way of life or as the last stage of
life. As a householder, a Pandit may legitimately seek joy and plenitude, but
the householder tradition in hindu society 299