Book ID: CBB655720705

Lethal Spots, Vital Secrets: Medicine and Martial Arts in South India (2015)

unapi

Sieler, Roman (Author)


Oxford University Press


Publication Date: 2015
Physical Details: 320 pp.
Language: English

Lethal Spots, Vital Secrets provides an ethnographic study of varmakkalai, or "the art of the vital spots," a South Indian esoteric tradition that combines medical practice and martial arts. Although siddha medicine is officially part of the Indian Government's medically pluralistic health-care system, very little of a reliable nature has been written about it. Drawing on a diverse array of materials, including Tamil manuscripts, interviews with practitioners, and his own personal experience as an apprentice, Sieler traces the practices of varmakkalai both in different religious traditions--such as Yoga and Ayurveda--and within various combat practices. His argument is based on in-depth ethnographic research in the southernmost region of India, where hereditary medico-martial practitioners learn their occupation from relatives or skilled gurus through an esoteric, spiritual education system. Rituals of secrecy and apprenticeship in varmakkalai are among the important focal points of Sieler's study. Practitioners protect their esoteric knowledge, but they also engage in a kind of "lure and withdrawal"---a performance of secrecy---because secrecy functions as what might be called "symbolic capital." Sieler argues that varmakkalai is, above all, a matter of texts in practice; knowledge transmission between teacher and student conveys tacit, non-verbal knowledge, and constitutes a "moral economy." It is not merely plain facts that are communicated, but also moral obligations, ethical conduct and tacit, bodily knowledge.Lethal Spots, Vital Secrets is an insightful analysis of practices rarely discussed in scholarly circles. It will be a valuable resource to students of religion, medical anthropologists, historians of medicine, Indologists, and martial arts and performance studies.

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Reviewed By

Review Nathan McGovern (2016) Review of "Lethal Spots, Vital Secrets: Medicine and Martial Arts in South India". Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity (pp. 280-281). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB655720705/

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Authors & Contributors
Borgo, Melania
Eva Jansen
Richard S. Weiss
Leslie de Vries
Echeverry B., Kevin Alexander
Mason, Katherine
Concepts
Medicine
Medicine and culture
Medicine and society
Public health
Apprentices and apprenticeships
Medicine and politics
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
Early modern
21st century
Medieval
16th century
Places
South India
Europe
Great Britain
South Asia
Nepal
Himalayan Mountains (Nepal)
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