Richard Freeman

Rubies and Coral: The Lapidary Crafting of Language in Kerala Author(s): Rich Freeman Reviewed work(s): Source: The
Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), pp. 38-65 Published by: Association for Asian Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2659023 . Accessed: 24/12/2012 07:16
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Rubiesand Coral:
The LapidaryCrafting of Languagein Kerala
RICH FREEMAN
Kerala in medievalSouthIndia. I say "problematic" because,ofcourse, languagesare neverreallyborn.Indeed, the dominanttradition languagegenesisin India long of thatall languagesthereonlygradually asserted aroseby degenerate mutation out of If the primordially beginningless Sanskrit. thereis a generaltruth be foundhere, to it is that since thereare no human communities withoutspeech, novel formsof from earlier is languagemustalwaysbe emergent forms. Languagegenesis thusalways a matter linguistic and towards of differentiation, fromsome standard away another. But the sustainedcontrivance these particularclaims for Sanskritalso reflects of thatlanguagesand theirconstituent another truth: elements routinely are linguistic and made intoobjects shaped,conditioned, ideologically figured beingthemselves by of discourse.' In termsof language differentiation, means the continuumof this that transformations mayat somepointcoalesceintoa claimfor linguistic separateness is alwaysmodeled and monitored and throughlanguage itself.The reflexive in or oriented the to nature thisprocess, of is metalinguistic however, alwayscontextually in social fieldsin which it operates, that the ideologicalpositionsand interests so those fieldstend to carryover into the discursive productsof a language and its literature. This studywill attempt highlight web ofrelations to the amonglanguage in and on socialcontexts, identities, documented a treatise the as varieties, ideologies, languageof medievalKerala whenthatregionfirst raisedits claimsfora distinctive linguistic identity. further This treatise the fourteenth of called theL7i-tilakam, illustrates century, in our difficulties fixing birthofMalayalam, the sincetheworkdid notyetdesignate
of in at Rich Freemanis a Lecturer Anthropology the University Pennsylvania. at An earlydraft thispaperwas presented the 47th annualmeetingof theAssociation of of Asian Studies,Washington, D.C., April 1995. I would like to thankBenedictAnderson I forhis helpfulcomments both when he was a discussanton our papersand subsequently. Ramaswamy, havealso benefitted from by readings CharlesHallisey,SheldonPollock,Sumathi of SandriaFreitag'sencouragement and an anonymous reviewer TheJournal Asian Studies. for at in was instrumental severalstages,as has been myparticipation the National Endowment forthe Humanitiesproject organizedby Sheldon Pollock and V. NarayanaRao (note 31, below). are 1My thoughtson language differentiation indebted to Gal and Irvine (1995); on to in reflexivity language,to Lucy(1993); and on languageideology, Woolard and Schieffelin (1994) and Silverstein (1979). 1998):38-65. TheJournal Asian Studies no. 1 (February of 57, (? 1998 by the Association Asian Studies,Inc. for
38
HIS PAPER ADDRESSES THE PROBLEMATIC BIRTH
of theMalayalam language of
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thelanguageby thatname.Its focuswas rather Manipravalam, literary on a medium thatstatedly was based on the "speechof the Keralas" (K&rala-bhdsd), yetcould and still call thisspeech"Tamil" after dominant the politicaland literary languageused that Kerala's over the mountainsto the east. It was only in subsequentcenturies literaryand spoken registerswould notionallymerge under the single rubric, Malayalam (Malaydlam), by which the region's language is known today.2 it that first Nevertheless, was the purelyliterary projectof crafting Manipravalam Tamil grammatical of and phoneticfeatures favor in urged the rejection eastern of principledKerala-speech alternatives, while simultaneously legislatingthe massive introduction Sanskrit of vocabulary literary and forms. Thesearethevery features that we recognizetodayas havinggiven rise to Malayalamas a separatelanguage,and thoughwe mayobjectively charttheiremergence through Manipravalam bothin the and after Lfldtilakam, the wereclearly forthe first and centuries before they argued withinthe scope of thissingularly incisivetreatise. onlytimein premodernity
TheoreticalMoorings
If theLfhatilakam presented onlya straightforward description legislation and of it and these innovations, would have little interest any but the areal literary for it.3 what linguistic specialists whohaveso far analyzed As an anthropologist, however, I have foundfascinating the level of social and linguisticself-awareness this that is its Of interest how it throws is into workdisplaysin pursuing objectives. particular the of of focus several issuesin thestudy language through development itsarguments thatshouldbe ofcritical and culture interest researchers in thesocialsciences to both and textual disciplines, generally. in Many of these issues seem to be usefully converging the cross-disciplinary addressed "languageideologies"(Woolardand Schieffelin to scholarship 1994). Most thisresearch concerns variety cultural the of discourses conceptions and broadly, (the in have developedabout and invested their "ideologies")thatdifferent communities Morepointedly, semiotic of particular languages. analyses languagein thismodehave revealed complexfeedback the through timebetweenlinguistic evaluations speakers and on make,theactuallinguistic patterning whichtheseoperate, thesocialpositions from are whichthoseevaluations made(Silverstein 1979; Hanks 1996). In thisregard, in the Lfldtilakam's attemptedintervention fixingfavoredstatus on a particular mediumand its literary withina widerand changinglanguage linguistic products, revealsits complexideologicalpositioning and operations withunusualclarity. field, The fact that ideologies of language may be both consciouslyheld and assumed directly unconsciously implicatesa relatedarea of research-the reflexive of the capacities languageuse (Lucy 1993). A principal questionhereconcerns relation
2Thoughthe language of Kerala is todaycalled Malayalam,thatusage forthe language the emergedseveralcenturies after Liidtilakam, whichcalls the languageonlyKe-rala-bhdsd or Tamil.Similarly, havefoundthatthewordKJrala I itself rarely seemsto occuruncompounded in Sanskrit Manipravalam or worksexcept withpersonalendings(singular, rulers, of plural,of theirpeople). I take thisas evidencethatit was primarily ethnonym eponym(like C5ila an or or Pdndya)in theseworks,and not the name of a place exceptby extension (e.g., KFrala-dFia, "land of the Keralas"). Accordingly, refer the people as "Keralas," but use the standard I to Englishform "Kerala" (forthe modern Ke-ralam) my own discussions the region. in of 3Anexception thebrief highly M. is but suggestive articleby historian R. RaghavaVariar (1993-94). I am grateful the authorforsharingthis with me, and thoughthis was after to I of completion the current paper'spenultimate draft, am pleased to findthatwe are in clear I do accord on basic issues of the Liidtilakam's sociopoliticalsignificance. cannot,however, of justiceto the otherpointshe raisesin the frame thispresent paper.
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betweenthe routinebanteraroundlanguageform and use thatgoes on all the time withinany speechcommunity, the intention abilityto fixthis into a system and or regulating linguistic practice withina sociallyevaluative hierarchy. While metalevel assertions about languagemay seem moreor less overtly ideological,dependingon theirfitwith wider sets of culturalpropositions, ideologiescan also be implicitly instantiated patterns linguisticpractice,out of which theyare then read as in of naturallyemergentevidence for the claims being advanced. As an extended metalinguistic treatise thepoeticsand grammar Manipravalam, Lflatilakam on of the revealsboth these aspects of its reflexively ideological endeavor, since it not only in the of and usages current medievalKerala, but exemplifies array linguisticforms also providesevaluations and reasoning theirinclusionin or exclusionfroman for ideal language-form. Equally implicatedin this approachto languageideologiesis an understanding of linguistic relations. meaningas pragmatically constituted through social-semiotic The claimhereis notonlythatmeaningis alwayscreated through in an emergent use context(Levinson1983), but, further, that contextitselfis alwaystied to a set of marked implicitly or socialcoordinates identities, and whether explicitly presupposed (Goodwin and Duranti 1992). We will indeed see how much of the Lilhtilakam's in frame and normskeyedto specific evaluative inheres sets of culturalassumptions contextsof linguistic activity,and how such ideological conditioningthrough linguistic norms strives shape or maintainsocial identities. to All these issues perhapscome to bear most significantly aroundcontemporary issues of power and social domination.This would seem particularly given the so emphasison languagein contemporary poststructuralist theory. Indeed,muchrecent can to workin criticaland anthropological linguistics be readas attempting provide theworking mechanics a majorpremise poststructualism-that dominating for of the life discourse. Work effects socialpowerprimarily of workbyshapingcultural through in this vein strivesto establishthat the structuring rules of language-useare and producedas part of the same masterwork "power" that Foucault,forinstance, of to attributes "discursive formations" (1972), or thatBourdieulocatesin the largely and automated of unconscious reproduction the "habitus"(1991). Though following such analyses as to of partway, particularly pertinent exposingthe intentions elites,I will finally arguethatwe need not acceptthe poststructuralist agendumforrelating thatthevery and languageto socialpoweras given.I find, instead, complexity reflexive and formation workas readily can layering linguistic of structures, practices, identity becomesapparenteven againstprojectsof dominationas forthem. This resistance that as withinthe confines theLfldtilakam of itself, an elitistundertaking was forced in of to contendwith alternate voices and identities the veryconstitution its own literaryand cultural claims. These countervailing capacities become even more in for trends disclosedat thispaper'sconclusion, it is evident, however, thehistorical thatthe complexity, in historical and consequent perspective dynamism, instability the oftherelationship between languageand powerbecomesmostapparent, exposing short-run illusion of stablyreplicating patternsthat is built too readilyinto our naturalized tropeof "social reproduction." Indeed,when we situatethe Lfldtilakam in thecontext its own historical and whatwe areconfronted of constitution trajectory, withis localizedand temporally instabilities linguistic of emergent patterning, despite and societally comprehensive claims of the the most formidabletraditionalist and Tamil. supervening ideologiesof bothSanskrit That this destablizinginfluence sourcesforcing clearlystemsfromnonliterate theirpresenceinto inscription further suggeststhat the domain of "the literary,"
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in emergent from larger a is despiteitsstrict circumscription eliteideology, reflexively While thusrecognizing that and contextual interrelations. fieldof generallinguistic and ideologies governingthe productionand there are special social constraints of works(cf.Pollock,thisissue),I am led to construe such circulation strictly literary of textualactivity undera broader semiotics languageand culture, whichliterary of in texts are only one possible mode. I find this necessary order to theoretically of the nonliterary ideologiesand practices languagethat acknowledge heterogeneous of werenot onlyindexedwithinthe individualtextualproductions Kerala,but that in itself historical perspective. altered overalltrajectory textuality the of demonstrably in particular trajectory Kerala, The Lfldtilakam neartheapogeeofManipravalam's was metadiscursive abouttextstext whereits statusas a poeticgrammar-a reflexively of and has leftus one of the most explicitand complexrecords linguisticidentity world. ideologyforanylocale of the premodern of analysisto show how an awareness and It is therefore goal in the present my and can texts attention the above kindsof distinctions processes bringpremodern to issuesoflanguageand culture withcontemporary intoa moreproductive engagement to links thanis usuallyventured. the one hand,I will attempt tracethesemiotic On in exposition the Lfldtilakam betweenthe variouslevels of poetic and grammatical I into theirsocial matrix production of and debate.On the otherhand,though, will trendin the use thisengagement pose a substantive to argument againsta dominant of and social identities humansciencesto reducethe complexities languagevarieties terms.I would to relationsof "power" in sociopoliticalor economicinstitutional of suggestthat it is only by attendingto this semioticcomplexity language-its and from constituent simultaneously interactively thegrammatically systems ranging whichconstitute the concrete-thatthe textualartifacts abstract the contextually to objects of literary study can be grasped in a fullersense of their cultural and sociohistorical significance.
Historical Considerations
whatis historically ofthelatestand mostexplicit one The Lfldtilakam represents mediumit defines in ofIndia's premodern languageprojects, thattheManipravalam and describes tied specifically the regionand speechof late fourteenth-century to is in Kerala. What is perhapsmost significant the Kerala case is that the Lfhatilakam of hybridization the regionallanguage sought not just to authorizethis particular the of withSanskrit, also to establish unique identity theregional but languageitself it in this process.Furthermore, stroveto do this not just against otherregional of but languages,generally, most especiallyagainstthe hegemony the neighboring been a part. Tamil grammatical of and literary tradition, which it had historically The textthusdevelops levelsofsociolinguistic claimsthatworkat tworelated identity and formation: a charterof linguisticdifferentiation declarationof linguistic as withinthe widersphereof South Indian culturalpolitics,and as an elite autonomy literary project,rangedagainstothersuch projectswithinthe Kerala regionitself. The interdependence these two projectslay in the fact that in seizing literary of had withinKerala,anywould-belitterateurs also to supplanttheauthority authority Tamil tradition. and moreextensive and prestige the earlier of The historical evidencewe have suggeststhat changedpolitical conditionsin authority. SouthIndia mayhaveencouraged undermining Tamil's literary this of The
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dated to thelast quarter thefourteenth of and Lfldtilakam be firmly can century, was in almostcertainly written the southern realmofVenatu,laterknownas Travancore (I. Kunifan Pilla 1985, 12-19; Gopala Pillai 1985, 80-82). This regional provenance is of likelyhistorical significance, since earlierin thatcentury troopsdispatched by the Delhi Sultanatehad conqueredand briefly ruledpartsof the Pandyanrealmof the the Tamils to Travancore's east. This not onlybrokethe long suzerainty Tamils held oversouthern Kerala, but fora brief period,duringthe reignof Venatu'sRavi turnedthe tables on them. After Varma Kulasekhara(1299-1314 C.E.), further routing Muslim "Turks" (Turukkar), the Ravi Varma reportedly seized the Pandyan lands,took a lady of the Pand.cyan house as his wife,made donationsto some major Tamil temples, and had himself briefly crowned Emperor (cakravartin) SouthIndia of in 1312. His donatory at inscriptions found several placesin Tamil Nadu during these fewbrief yearsof glorydeclarehim "masterof the 64 arts"and hail him as "Bhoja India.4In of the South,"after famousscholar-king eleventh-century the of northern lightof Pollock'sreflections the relation royalpanegyric the riseof regional on of to literary languages(this volume),it is interesting note the co-occurrence verses to of in of praise in the Lfldtilakam, Kerala-basedManipravalam, and the inscriptional in praisefrom Pandyancountry, Sanskrit the languageand Tamil grantha characters. Both sets of materials attestto similareventsand claims forthis king, but in two different registersand linguistic media, obviously addressed to two different audiences, one at home and one "abroad"in the "Sanskrit cosmopolis."5 it Also in keepingwithPollock'sobservations, however, shouldnot be supposed thatVenatu'srise in discursive self-acclaim eithera well-knit territorial represented overthe Pand.yas, nor-most polityin Kerala,or anyactual regimeof rule exercised importantly-that eitherof theseis theoretically requiredto accountforthe facts of language and literary production.However we want to theorizethe varietiesof far premodern Indian polities, we are certainly fromthe linguisticideology or conditions themodernterritorial nation(cf.Ramaswamy, volume).Viewedas this of a structural polity,Venatu'ssphereof influence comprised pasticheof subterritories such as Desiifianatu, Otanatu, Cirava, and Ktupakam)each (ndtusor svarfipams, centered relatedlineageswith theirseparate on lines of alliance palaces and shifting and controlof coastal and internal trade(Padmanabha based on warfare, marriage, thatVenatudid not constitute Menan 1989, 42-42). Thereis a solid consensus any Pilla 1966, 54), thatits boundaries sortofimperial formation internally (Velayudhan were fluidly battles (Raghava Variar and dependenton the outcome of recurrent Gurukkal 1992, 246), and that its impact on south Indian history was neither of greatnorlastingconsequence NilakanthaSastri1966, 217-18). (cf. The Lildtilakam was probably itself commissioned earlyin the long ruleofCera after Udaya Martandavarma (1383-1444 C.E.). Though morethana half-century the glorydaysof Ravi Varma,his reignalso likelysaw another, smallerscale renaissance ofVenatu'sculturalinfluence Menon 1980, 161-63, 228-30; Raja 1966, (Sreedhara 39-45). Nothing is known of the Lfldtilakam's author,his life,or circumstances,
4Fortheseinscriptions thetitles, and suchas catussasti-kald-vallabha daksina and Bh5jardja, see Hultzsch(1979; 1981), and Kielhorn(1979). 5Fortheprincipalinscriptions, theabove note,and forthe textualreferences, 138 see LT, vs. 64; 225 vs. 161; 240 vs. 174; 253 vs. 190; 274 vs. 203; 276 vs. 205; 277 vs. 206. All citationsto the LTldtilakam (LT) are fromthe appendixin the most readilyavailableedition of I. Kufifian Pilla [19623 (1985), by page number.References exemplifying versesin to and (occasionally) Sanskrit, given,as here,withtheirversenumbers, are while Manipravalam are in unprefixed page numbers to the Sanskrit sgtras theircommentary Pilla's appendix. or
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exceptthat he was a punditversedin both the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions, and thathe had a fair familiarity thesurrounding with regional languages and their literary it and forms. Despite thistext'sversatility learning, though, is knownfrom onlyfour manuscripts Kuniiian (I. Pilla 1985, 9-11), and is never citedin anyother premodern it havemade ofits rediscovery, was likely source.So in spiteofwhatmodern scholars it never widelycirculated the authority had hopedto become.This does not,however, lessenthevalue of its author's perceptions his literary on culture. Evidenceon thebroader historical literary and context thisworkthusindicates of no direct simplerelationship or the of between interests anyspecific Keralapolityand either our text's particularproject or the larger field of Manipravalamliterary At in production. best,we can posita subregional intensification patronage Venatu of thatwas already generalscopeamongelitesin Kerala,and fora literary movement of thathad alreadydevelopedstandards practicewhichthe Lfldtilakam seeking of was retrospectively authorize to and prospectively foster. to Earliercenturies already had workslike the VaisIkatantram, whichwere thematically definitive of broughtforth and those like the Unniyaccf- Unniccirut&vManipravalam's courtlyeroticism, and and centralKerala, beyondthe caritram, composedin and forregionsof northern sphere of Venatu's southern kings.6 The emergence and circulation of this Manipravalam literature clearlyseems to have developedin the context scattered of and courtsand temple-institutions, in the absenceof any well-integrated unified or we the polity.Accordingly, mighthavea good deal to learnfrom considering broader ideologyof literary production evidencedamong the learned, elite elements these of context thatI chooseto focushereon the shifting polities.It is againstthishistorical internal concerns theLfi-tilakam of itself, revealing moreoftheemergent as far literary and linguistic culturalidentity Kerala thantheparticular of vagariesof its medieval politics.
Grounding the Language: The SanskriticContext

If the sentiments regionallanguageautonomy for voiced in theL2Tldtilakam were not born of any felt political unity,neitherwere they directlyreflective any of consciousness constituency. Li-dtilakam's provenience or The elite "popular"linguistic thanin the languageand genreof composition is no moreclearly revealed itself. For in for despitebeinga guide to the Kerala literature exemplified its verses, clearly use medium is nevertheless by native speakersof that language, its expository pure in Sanskrit.7 The text'sSanskritlinguisticmedium findsreflection its structure as
6The Vaisikatantram dated to anywhere is centuries betweenthe eleventh and thirteenth is dated to theearly (cf. George 1968, 46; VelayudhanPilla 1965, 75). The UnniyaccTcaritam thirteenth century and descriptively rangesoverareasof Vayanatuand northern Kerala (Gopalakrs.nan Nayar 1990, 1-2); the Unnicirutevicaritam, roughly contemporaneous, based in is inlandnorth-central Kerala (Valluvanatu)(George 1968, 48). Pilla 7My expositionhas benefited greatlyfromthe translations Suirandttu of Kunifian ([19463 1996), Ilafikulam Kufifian Pilla (1962), and Gapikuttan(1986) ofall or partsof this theirinterpretations the workintoMalayalam,thoughI have not hesitated departfrom to on of basis of my own readingand interpretation the Sanskrit original(appended to both the Pillas' editionsin Malayalamscript).Analyticsummaries and discussions the workin Enof glish can be foundin Ezhuthachan (1975, 61-129) and Gopala Pillai (1985).
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built up out of cryptically and briefaphorisms well, forit is formally (sz7tras) their treatise Sanskrit of thataspires expandedcommentaries, like anyothertechnical just to authorizeits hold over a "discipline" (?dstra). And further mandated in this of disciplinary genreare intertextual to thewholeedifice metaliterary ties discourses, the thatthevery also in Sanskrit. instance, Lfhatilakam For openswiththeinjunction shouldbe identicalto thoseofhigh "purposes"and "causes"ofManipravalam poetry I Sanskrit literature terms whosesignificance exploreshortly (kdvya), using technical (LT, 281).8 to So whileon theone handthe textmakesexplicitclaimsforregional affiliation Kerala and its language,on the otherhand the verylinguisticform theseclaims of to in signals the author'ssimultaneous aspirations membership the transregional literary cultureofIndia's Sanskritic elites.This illustrates, first, thatthestandards of were ideologicallyconstrued appropriate, as Sanskritgrammarand literature not as merely thatparticular for language,but forLanguageitself, a Perfected (Samskrta) thatthis ideologywas operationalized an ideal; and, secondly, through actual set of requisite textual practices. Thirdly, we shallsee below,thisoperationalization as itself was underwritten a kind of ideological genealogy,relatingall otherformsof by in languageto Sanskrit a gradedhierarchy. Therewerealso morepragmatic levelsof consideration, however, indexedfrom withinthis Sanskritic of and evaluation. discourseto the social contexts production the actual contentof the above mentioned This is indicatedthroughconsidering "purposes"(prayojana) thatwereto be and "causes" (nimitta) Sanskrit of production A theexplicit modelfor Manipravalam works. listof"purposes" thehighliterature for a in Sanskrit, from textwhichthe Lfldtilakam cites,includessuch practicalends as material wealthfrom achieving public fame;deriving patrons; beingable to move and in courtly circles, wardoff various calamities, derive and generally useful counselfrom literary models. The "causes" of literary productionlikewise include the poet's in immersion diversebodies of knowledge-not just pertaining literary, to to but and worldlypursuitsas well. Pedagogically,this is effected scientific througha lengthy "cultivation" (vyutpatti) his talentsthrough of repeated practice underthose who "know both how to make and to judge literature."' This clearlyindicatesa model for the production, of developed Sanskritic support,and reproduction its literary culture,under a disciplinary model that was grounded both in social and authorities a politicaleconomy patronage Lienhard1984, 13-42). of (cf. In keepingwithmy openingtheoretical observations the complexly on reflexive nature a treatise of such as this,it mightbe helpful tryto distinguish to someofthe dimensions thusfar.First,note along whichits semioticoperations seem to function thatthe literary "purposes"and "causes" thatthe textmandatesare not just metaintoother discursive but in thatthey pointers literary texts, explicitly meta-pragmatic, tie and But note of discourse. expressly intothecontext theproduction uses ofliterary in as well that the contentof thesepragmaticinjunctions the Lfldtilakam be can realized onlythrough recognizing indexical the valueofthetechnical terms pointers as into an intertextual that universe Sanskrit of references our authorcould presuppose
8Yat sa,mskrtakdvyasya prayojanam kathyate nimittam asydpi eva mainiprav,lakdvyasya ca tad mantavyam. 9Thoughthisdiscussionof the "purposes"(prayojana/artha) "causes" (nimitta/kdrana) and I ofpoetry fairly is standard, havetakenthisfrom Mammata'sKdvyaprakasa 2-3), a Sanskrit (I. treatise cited by theLildtilakam othercontexts. Dwivedi's textand translation, in See withthe commentary, Sampraddypraka-inT(1977, 4-8).
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the of his audience. In this way, the use of these termsservesboth to reaffirm Sanskritic literary culture, to orient and ideologically regnant standards a pan-Indic, of languagein terms those of thepotentially radicalprojectofmandating newliterary a standards. our treatisecould thus access was But the strengthof the presuppositions circularity, we have seen how the for underwritten more than an intertextual by Sanskrittexts themselvescontain ideal descriptionsof the social and material that conditions their of ownproduction. Indeed,we needto understand thecirculation intotheworld oftextualsignswe encounter hereforms partofa semioticcontinuum of social and material with conversions acrossthe symbolic, social,and transactions, As material registers being commonplace. was the case with littleVenatu,we know froma wealth of othersourcesthat the medievalcourtsand kingswho ultimately the elite institutions literary of productionwere themselves socially underwrote and evaluatedat least in partby the qualityof the literature literati theysupported. piecesin praiseoftheir specific patrons These literati, turn, in producedbothliterary treatises modelingtheideal contexts and supporting institutions, well as technical as of production such as we have been led to draw upon here.In this way, linguistic and reproduction should ideally representation its social contexts production and of feedeach otherin a mutually circuitry. perpetuating the is Of course, Lildtilakam playinga double game,sinceits reflexive operations worknotjustintertextually, across as object but languages well.Thoughthelinguistic its treatment ofdiscussion notSanskrit, a regional-language hybrid, discursive is but in theSanskrit intertextual linkagesto invokethelatter's mediumenablesit through textual and contextualfeatures productionas applicable to itself.This is an of their not reflecting given important instance how texts operate justbypassively of can from of but contexts, bycreatively mappingthepresuppositions one universe discourse Thus byanalogically the modelingitsKerala intoanother, thereby changing context. to the was on striving language-form that of Sanskrit, LlA-tilakam simultaneously and for institutions subventions its bringinto being an analogousset of supporting own regionalliterary production.
ConstitutingManipravalam
as This Sanskritpresence,however,is registered far more than a descriptive as important thesefunctions apparatusor analogical role-model Manipravalam, for in of are.Sanskrit indeedsubstantively is installed thecomposition thelanguageitself, how languageideologiesoperate justoverlinguistic not but through objects, showing I in media themselves, thatrelation linguistic of feedback touchedupon in linguistic thisvolume).This constitutive of Sanskrit role is my introduction Ramaswamy, (cf. in and aphorism defining Manipravalam, is foregrounded the Lzletilakam's veryfirst commentthat followsit. "Manipravalam," the expandedupon in the explanatory definition and states, theunionofSanskrit Bhdsd" "is (LT, 28 1).1oThoughtheidentity and handlingof Sanskrit be presupposed relatively can as the unproblematic, second term of the union, bhdsd,could refergenerallyto any spoken language. The it mustaccordingly thatby thisdesignation exclusively intends commentary specify witha passage whichit strives exemplify to the speechof the Keralas,Kerala-bhasa,
'Bh.dsdsamskrtayogo manipravilam.
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example itself froman apparently popular text." But, interestingly, clarifying the provesto be problematic, thoughclearly mixture Kerala speechand Sanskrit, for a of a the exemplifying verserefers itselfas being composedin Bhdsd-misra,"mixed to Thus, language,"which it is not what our authoraims to establishin this treatise. the ratherthan providinga free-standing definition Manipravalam, Lildtilakam of members insteadpresents complexly a structured languagefield,whose constituent of it seeksto rangeon a gradient (LT, 281-82). Thereare popularmixtures Sanskrit (Bhdsd) text the and a vernacular whosevernacular languagecomponent (Bhdsd-misra), strives extract to and specify thebhdsd a people called theKeralas,and whichit as of fashion into a language thenwantsto recombine withSanskrit a moreprincipled in called Manipravalam,used for higher literary purposes,on explicit analogy to in compositions the still higherSanskrit! politicsof The pictureis still further complicated, though,forin the linguistic in to medievalSouth India, Sanskritfounda contender its pretensions being the paperhereexemplifies, paragonofliterary cultural and achievement. Ramaswamy's As in standards matters Tamil had long stakedits own regionalchallengeto Sanskrit's of language, literature, and their intersection with religion. In its distinctively Dravidian linguistic basis, and its own ancientlydeveloped poetic and literary a to traditions, Tamil alone could potentially rivalthe claims of Sanskrit articulate a culture India. The Keralacountry beenanciently partofthis in had classicalliterary had beenintermittently Tamil macrocultural underthepolitical region, and,as noted, sway of kings who ruled fromthe Tamil heartland.That is no doubt why the has vernacular whichour textseeksto unitewithSanskrit, to be immediately bhhsc7, one defined a specifically otherwise mightassumeit to be a merely as K&rala-bhasa; for of this undistinguished variety Tamil. Indeed,as thetextprogresses, assertion the distinctiveautonomyof Kerala-bhasa,directlyagainst the Tamil spoken in the marked.The second two books of the adjoining kingdoms,becomes increasingly in Lfldtilakam factcontaina grammatical sketchof the Kerala speech,aimed mostly at settingout what differentiates fromthe languageof the Tamils, even though, it ironically, language of Kerala was still readilyknownto its own speakersand the literati "Tamil" as theirManipravalam
Disciplining Language into Literature

of exercisethe authorof the Even if the linguisticconstituents Manipravalam a Lildtilakam a considerable to extent, greater partof the textis takenup withhow are Indeed,it is not alwaysveryclear theselanguageforms combinedintoliterature. to whetherthe termManipravalamrefers primarily the language itselfor to the literature composedin it. As an explicitprojectof turningnaturallanguage into witheach are and the implicated literature, text'sgrammatical poeticefforts mutually forms thatthe linguistic to and it is onlyin subservience theirrole in literary other, and analysis. are elements themselves isolatedfordiscussion on of of focuses In anyevent,thisconstitution the literary specifically the nature in The the "union" ofSanskrit and the Kerala-bhasa flagged the openingdefinition. or commentary glosses this union of the two languagesas a special "accoutering"
or an manualknownas theMuhgrtavidhi, Tdmaranall7r "The citationis from astrological Pilla 1996, 174 n. 1). Bhdsa(I. Kuifian Pilla 1985, 25 n. 1; S. Kufifian
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in "equipping"(samnnha) thewords,as theyare brought of together poetic or prose though, none are phrasings (LT, 281). It turns thatthemeansofthisaccoutering, out and the the (dosas), otherthantherequisite verbalqualities(gunas), absenceofdefects thatare thesubjectofSanskrit poetics.In fact, figures soundand sense(alaMkaras) of remaining five after the first threechapters, nearlythe entirety the Lildtilakam's of a and chapters form relatively unexceptional straightforward applicationof standard Sanskritpoetics to the Kerala-bhasa.So, fromthe vantage point of the poetics, of Manipravalam reallycomprises wholesaleborrowing meageradaptation the a and figures meaningand form of directly of the Sanskrit. out What is again centralto our concerns, though,is the pragmaticsof literary evaluationthat is explicitly chartedout in this text'sideologyof the language.For that is this"accoutering" constitutes literary the "union"oflanguageelements neither nor apparatus. self-validating capable of merely formulaic applicationas a technical Instead,it is explicitly evaluatedwith regardto the effect has on those socially it "The [lpoetic] qualifiedto adjudicateliterary matters. union,"readsthe gloss, "is an sensitive accouteringengaged in winning over the hearts of the aesthetically (sahrdaya)" (LT, 28 1).12 This last term,famousto Sanskrit poetics,means literally a one who is "possessedofheart," personwho has been ideallysubjectedto thesame thatwe detailed prolonged educativedisciplining (anufilana) thepoetsthemselves as above.'3 So, the verydefinition Manipravalam literature anchoredto those of as is of thatspecify who theproducers receivers and shouldbe in terms of features context theirdisciplinary qualifications. the is place Aside from participants, another crucialaspectof context obviously The LfIJitilakam or setting. alludes to this in termsof the ideal institutional forums tradition for thoseassemblies the learnedknownto theSanskrit of as poeticactivity, or What is again significant how thisaspectof context evokedas is is gosthis sabhhs. a part of constituting language formand contentitself.Thus our text cites a the Sanskritauthority, saying of the poet, "Let him gain esteem in the world, by in withneither muchSanskrit recitations too performing thepoeticconclaves (gosthi) nor too much of the regionallanguage (dea'-bhhsd)"(LT, vs. 5).14 While it is 34 that herea generalized warrant itsownSanskritfor Sanskrit interesting ourtextfinds notehow the stipulation languagecontent of vernacular amalgamof Manipravalam, in is foundationally simultaneously boundup withperformative context terms of and and setting, personnel, theirevaluative judgments. of as the Similarly, our textgoes on to refine applicationof thismodel in terms to from balanceof the languagemixture the regional the languagecontent, shifting it constituent reaches of itself, inevitably again intothesocialcontext itsparticipants' that the onlyvariety Bhdsd of Thus our authorsimmediately qualifications. specify that should be used in Manipravalamis that which is ordinarily used by the
'Yogas sanndhah sahrdaydvarijanavisayah. the above,thatdescribed the "3Thecomment the Sanskrit on passagefrom Kdvyaprakasa, as "causes" of poetry, says theyalso apply to the sahrdaya well. A famouswork,which the the LTldtilakam certainly knew(I. KunifanPilla 1985, 196), describes qualityofthesahrdaya in have of like this:"Those who, in themirrors theirmindsmade pureby disciplining poetry, the the capacityto imaginatively identify with what is described,theyalone, experiencing cited in assent of theirhearts,are called aesthetes(sahrdaya)"(fromthe Dvanydlokalocana, Gopikuttan1986, 34 n. 3). /1 loke defabhdsyd kathdm go.t2su kathayan bahumato 14Ndtyantam samskrtenaiva ndtyantam 12) bhavet. This passageoccursin boththeKdmas)7tra 7) and theSarasvatTkanthdbharanya(JJ. (I.4.3 (I. Kufifian Pilla 1985, 34 n. 1; S. KunifanPilla 1996, 178 n. 5).
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"educated"(literally, "non-ignorant," the apdmarajana) (LT, 282). As a laterpassage will make clear,this contrast the educatedversusthe ignorant equated to the of is divisionbetweenupperand lowercastes,a divideregistered a divergence other in of dialectfeatures well. Thereis thusclearevidence thatsociolinguistically as for typical mappingofcultural, social-structural, dialectalfeatures and ontoeachother, harnessed to an exclusionof the disprivileged that is the necessary counterpart claims to of culturalrefinement.'5 To summarize the constitution Manipravalam a literary of as medium,we can viewit as a configuration languagethatwas to be multiply of regulated: itsvarious in language-specific formsand constituents, drawn fromSanskritand Kerala-bhasa, includingconsiderations dialect;in the way theseconstituents of wereblendedinto in formally stipulatedpoetic structures; the aestheticproduction and reception of these pieces by disciplinedpoets and audiences; and in their circulationwithin institutional thatbothpresuppose fora and reinforce thesesocial-pragmatic strictures on the context production, of and performance, participation. What is telling,especially lightof our concerns in withideologicalconstrual, is thatthishigh degreeof regimentation notpresented coercive was as artifice, as a but naturally occurring coincidence betweenthe variousforms of and structures poetic, versusmundane,language,and theirappropriate contexts use. For example,the of LF/dtilakam assertsunderits treatment the poetic union of wordsthat when an of utterance notpoetically is its directed accoutered, usage will be semantically onlyto It of dailyactivities reportage denotation. will accordingly gladdentheaesthete, or not and will also exhibitpoetic flawsat the level of sound and sense. Similarly, even if aesthetes to talents usageoutsidetheaesthetic qualified applytheir linguistic context, theirspeechwill still somehowlack the requisiteformal qualities of poetry and so failin its"Manipravalam-ness" 281). Clearly, unstated the thatmotivates (LT, concern suchstatements thatordinary poeticlanguagemightbe confounded is and witheach it otheras to content, or context, genre,forotherwise is odd to have to statesuch a is from variety languagesthatthere correlations. of Indeed,there very good evidence are no inherently hard and fast lines between the poetic and the prosaic; these are boundaries established withineach speechcommunity a matter itsparticular as of and control language ideology and subject to varyingdegrees of formalization (Bauman and Briggs 1990). I thus read the LLldtilakam's detailingof the formal, and contextual not aroundthe normsof Manipravalam as a semantic, congruencies factualdescription naturally of but as a occurring use, the way it is presented, defense forms and genresof languagewithclaims prescriptive againstotherexistent to poeticand literary statusbased on actualpopularusage.
Troublesome Congeners
with the ones made earlier on the presenceof unorthodox These remarks, "mixtures" of"ignorant" and dialects within Keralalanguagefield, the shouldcaution
"5WhileRaghava Variarsimilarly notesthatthe dualityof SelfversusOtherin the lanis (varnot guage politicsof the LTldtilakam reflected just in regional,but in communalized internal sensitive he avoidsdwellingon thepotentially gTkaranam), exclusions, understandably (1993of castepoliticsofthisworkin the context his articlefora popularMalayalamweekly 94, 25). Earlierscholarshave not been so deft,such as in I. KunifanPilla's clumsyattempts at ethnicizing caste in this textby denyingthe highercastescould have been eitherKeralas or "Dravidians"(e.g., 1985, 33 n. 1). This was rebutted S. Kunnan Pilla in the context of by this Manipravalam overinterpreting and other extended contentions betweenthetwo scholars works(1996, 50 ff.).
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us against assuming that the normative impressiveness Manipravalam's of sweep necessarily reflected scope of its actual effectiveness discipliningthe wider the in of I currents regional languageproduction. wantto turnnowto a coupleofexemplary instances how the LF/dtilakam to engage the issue of languagediversity of had and potential competition evenwithinits own immediate learnedsphere. This issue arises around the adequacy of the same opening definition (stating merely thatManipravalam thepoeticunionofSanskrit Kerala-bhasa), is and whenit comes to applying this to actual instancesof literary production.Two kinds of examplesare raised in this context:workswherethe language seems to meet the formal criteria Manipravalam, be called by another of yet name;and worksthatcarry thedescriptor "Manipravalam" their in titlesor in thebodiesoftheir texts, whose but formal features don't fitthebill, criterially. These twoproblemcasesareposed in the in voice of a hypothetical of objector, thatgenreconvention Sanskritic commentarial stylethat makes it appear inherently heteroglossic (Bakhtin1981). I say "appear," because we should rememberthat these other voices are themselvesauthorial strawmen set up to ultimately contrivances, vindicatethe established position;yet, on theother is in hand,there a kindof "double-voicing" thepresent cases,wherethe objector's viewsregister certain factsof history thatour authors had to address. The first case has to do with a language variety called "Tamil" in the Kerala country, which was used by temple-drummers theirrecitation narratives for of in sacreddramas.An objectorraisesthe questionas to why,ifthislanguageis clearly a union of Sanskritand Bhasa and possessesall the formalqualities of poetryas the stipulated, nameManipravalam not used forit, instead.Our textresponds is by explainingthat the Sanskritwords in these cases do not exhibit actual Sanskrit inflectional terminations, only the Sanskrit but rootsinflected with Bhasa suffixes. Throughbearingtheseterminal signsof "Bhasa-ness," Sanskrit the seemslike Bhasa itself, so the designation the wholespeech-form "Tamil" (LT, 281-82).16 and for is The ideologicalclaim hereis thatwhenManipravalam makesuse ofits requisite themas theywould be in Sanskrit, theirpure (suddha) in Sanskrit words,it inflects as termination. form, againstuse withan indigenized While it seemsgenerally true thatthe extantperformance textsin the morepopulartemplegenresdiscussedhere it the shyawayfrom using Sanskrit grammatical terminations, is not therefore case that Manipravalamwas clearly marked by a preponderance true Sanskrit of at terminations the expenseofvernacularized Thereare in facttwo laterrules forms. in the LF/dtilakam which the veryBhasa terminations by here imputed to these and drummers their"Tamil" is made a routine constituent proper of Manipravalam. Those lexicalitemsofBhasa thatareclassified being"Sanskritic form" as in (samskrtargpa)and those of Sanskritthat are "Bhasa-ized" (bhdsa-krta) both have this same "Tamil" form(Sanskrit root with Bhasa terminations), with no principledway to betweenthem (LT, 292, 294).17 What we have here is an attemptto distinguish
16Sanskrit nouns,forinstance, regularly are borrowed intoMalayalamby addingan -mto the bareSanskrit rootand theninflecting themas theywould be in Malayalam.For example, Sanskrit loka-,"world,"would becomelokam Malayalam;in the locativesingularit would in "in become lokattil, the world," whereasthe Sanskritequivalentwould be loke.These two alternatives would thenmarka grammatically naturalized Malayalamusage, as opposed to a more learnedly Sanskritic one, respectively. the more learnedretention Latin plural Cf. of suffixes certainborrowings for fromthat language into English; e.g., gymnasia, versusthe morecommongymnasiums. 17Lexical itemsofBhasa forwhicha distantSanskrit origincan be guessed(such as tevar, from Skt. deva),are called "Sanskrit-derived" as opposedto thosecalled "San(amsakrta-bhava),
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thatour textdoes not even deployselectively, criteria againsta rivalgenre,formal applyto its own languageand cannotevengroundwithinits own normative system. The response the second problemcase is equally if not more dubious. The to objectorhere raises the problem of all those works explicitlybearing the name in "Manipravalam" theirtitles.He arguesthatdespitetheirnames,theseare merely technical treatises and so are devoid of any aesthetic savor(rasa); theyconsequently bringno pleasureto the aesthetes (rasika)and so cannotpossiblyembodytheproper "union"between their otherwise formally correct of blending Sanskrit Bhasa(LT, and 282). The imputation thatsincetheir is valid namingas Manipravalam undisputed, is theLT/dtilakam's definitional stipulation to the natureof theaesthetic as unionmust be wrong. Our textresponds thischallenge linkingtogether to by features a formal of argument a pragmatic withan apparently hocterminological and one ad contrivance. The formal argument recourse a typology gradesofManipravalam has to of developed laterin the text,wherethe lowestgradeis characterized a deficiency aesthetic by of as compared withdenotative content (LT, 289). This lowestgradeis thenapplied to the objector'sexample,claiming that in such cases, thoughthereis in factsome aesthetic savor, is so slightthatit seems be totally it to lacking.But in theseinstances, the aesthete who is authentically "possessedof heart"(sahrdaya) derivejoy from can theformal merits the languagealone,while the objector's of kind of aesthete (called a rasika), whollydependent the manifest is on aesthetic content his joy. So in the for former case, the validityof the definition secured.What our authorhas done is terminologically set up the objector is withone termforaesthete (rasika)againsthis own (sahrdaya), and then contrive characterological a distinction betweenthem in orderto defendthe aestheticstipulationforhis Manipravalam, against the clear historical for usageoftheterm texts suchas theobjector cites.By thisbit ofexegetical gymnastics, whenthe requisite aesthetics not in the texttheycan be suppliedin are such definitional cases by the aesthete,since they are immanentin the literary receptivity his character. of These examplesconfirm how the LLldtilakam not seekingto createa wholly was in new form languageand literature, rather intervene a complexly of but to arrayed linguisticfield that was alreadyan historicalgiven. Indeed, woven throughthe that Sanskrit and the are aphorisms commentary constitute text'sexposition sometwo thatit drawsupon to exemplify virtues hundred verses Bhasa-based of the and poetry defects the languageand styleit would mandate.The LF/dtilakam's of overallproject is to create,througha complex of descriptive and prescriptive that abstractions, rulesthatconstitute grammar poetics.We have its and explicitset ofmetapragmatic such work often is. This just gotten an inkling of how ideologicallyinflected ideologicalaspect showsitselfmost clearlyin cases wherehistorical elude practices the formulated circumscription thenewly by norms, eliciting needto either discipline or excludethem,eventhrough and As artifice contrivance. in theobjector's casesjust we reviewed, findclearevidenceof othersignificant bodies of linguistic and literary in and on bases. production commoncirculation predicated different practical In the instanceof the temple drummers, our text indexes a rich corpus of clustered into the templeartsforwhich Kerala is performative genres,particularly famous.Such forabroughttogether and shifting of powerful convergences worship, wheremuchofthesynthesis the language,and performance, between Tamil heritage,
in a skritic form" (samskrta-r?pa), whichareidentical withtheSanskrit exceptfor Bhasaending. lexicalitemsoccurin their Sanskrit properly inflected form "pure"(?(uddha), as versus "Bhasaa ized" (bhjsT-krta) wherein form theyagain can takeBhasa endings.Note thatthelatter options forboth lexicaltypesare thusformally identical.
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and wereworked its Sanskritization, a confrontation popularculture religion and with literature, encounter wholemode we a out. In thesecondcase oftheprosaictechnical the of of rival intellectual activity alreadyharnessing linguisticresources Kerala to and callingtheir formalized, less thevastmodelsofSanskritic learning (?astra), already but learnedsynthetic form, Manipravalam.
Literary Resources in Regional Perspective

of While I have so far concentrated the interface Manipravalam on with the I thatthewelcoming thisSanskritic of embrace Sanskrit tradition, havealso suggested that seemslargely bornofthefraught relationship theKeralashad withthehegemony the ofTamil. Ideologically however, hold ofTamil overtheKerala country speaking, of cannotbe reducedto the linguisticexpression dynastic politics,since,as I have had a unique positionboth in the largerregion noted,the Tamil literary tradition that Tamil was the onlyregionallanguageon the subcontinent and in Kerala itself. tradition, replete withan autonomous poetics had anciently producedits own literary thatcould therefore rival,in its own regionalsphere, the and grammatical tradition of the Tamil represented pan-Indicascendancy Sanskrit. from Kerala perspective, So dialectalspeechofpeoplesunder whosedomination had boththeeastern they suffered, models forelite artisticand religiousliterary but also the sourceof long-standing withintheirown regionalkingdoms.In this senseTamil was both the productions intodiverging and dominant spoken dialects, a reigning regional language, segmented witha deep historical and culturallegacy. literary standard as based literary standard thus The establishment Manipravalam a regionally of entailed a selectivecombinationof differentiating moves, on the one hand, and betweenthe local legitimating moves,on the other,workedout in triangulating of The standard Tamil,and thepan-IndicSanskrit. moves Bhasa,thesouthern regional Tamil locally, establish in to 1) involved thisproject seemto havecomprised: rejecting of the autonomy Kerala-bhasaas the basis forManipravalam; replacingTamil's 2) withthoseof Sanskrit, thussevering culturefrom literary regional literary standards back to Tamil in Tamil domination transcending sphere;but 3) also resorting by its to and historical the formof an ideological construct providethe regionalmoorings depth that this inventedtraditionrequired. What emerges here is a complex of and between and transregional relations tensions regional reconfiguration standing in and And thisprocess ideologiesoflanguageas manifested literary spokenpractices. exhibitsthe same strategy shifting of among linguisticand pragmaticlevels in the and "Tamil" as notedearlierbetween construing relationbetweenKerala-bhasa the local languageamalgamsand Sanskrit. At the most comprehensive undertakesa taxonomic level, the Lfldtilakam and segmentation the greaterregional language field. In order to of refiguring differentiate establishthe positionof Kerala-bhasawithinthe regionalsphere, and thegreater fieldofTamil is broken constituent dialectalparts, on all downintothree a commensurate level. In additionto Kerala-bhasa, remaining the Tamil domain is further intotheputative dialects(de?a-bhdsd) Cola- and Pandya-bhasas, of split regional the after namesof thosepoliticalrealms.'8 will becomeclear,thisdividedTamil As
"8Both theserealmswerelocated in present-day of Tamil Nadu as the seatsof powerful and long-lived dynasties thatat various pointsin their histories controlled larger partsofSouth India, often holdingswayoverKerala as a tributary.
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worksalong two dimensions, in additionto territorial for segmentation into dialect a varieties,it also effects higher order, lateral taxonomic split between these territorially anchoredspeech forms, and a supervening stratumof "Tamil" as a in transterritorial ideologicalconstruct whichall three regions participate can equally. This allows the simultaneous demotionof Pandyaand Cola imperialpretensions, as linguistically expressed,to the level of mere regionaldialects,while freeingthe literary-historical legacyand identity "Tamilness"as a transregional, of transhistorical ideologicalformation theKeralasmightdrawupon,freed its negative that of political implications. Note thatthe taxonomic splitting the Colas and Pandyasfrom of each commensurate with theirdemotion, seeksto undermine other, theircontinued joint claimson the high Tamil tradition, the exclusionof the now refractory to Keralas.19 I will return some of the culturalidentity to aspectsof thesemovesbelow. in With the culturallinguistic the territory configured thisfashion, LF/dtilakam in proceeds its first three chapters various through grammatical topicsin itstreatment of Kerala-bhasa, contrastive observations usages thatare to be on makingexplicitly avoidedas specifically characteristic Co-la Pandyaspeech.Linguistically of or speaking, it manyof thephonological and morphological contrasts stakesout are descriptively valid ofincipient established or differences would nowrecognize distinguishing we as Tamil. Othercases,however, seemmoreartificially motivated the Malayalamfrom by What is in anycase clearfrom larger a imperative differentiate to itself.20 perspective is that it would not have been necessary definethese features proscriptively to as if contrastive thecontinued to vigorofTamil werenotseenas a threat Manipravalam, from morepowerful rivalcourtly bothexternally, traditions whereit was based,and internally, fromKerala's own Tamil literary and culturalheritageagainstwhich it was struggling innovate. to
Grammar Identity and

that Therewas a still moregeneraldifficulty the authorof our textencountered in his attempts bringout and develop as a discursive to expositionthe immanent of reflected historical the between grammar his nativeBhasa. This difficulty disparity Tamil the development poetics,grammars, lexiconslegitimating eastern of and the traditions anchoring by themin the classicalor Caikam Tamil,and the absenceof any such authoritiesto legitimatea separate Kerala-bhasaor its Manipravalam amalgam. This had serious ideological implicationsfora culturewhose ethos of authorization derivedfrom The problemspecifically confronts scholarly inscription. the Lf/dtilakam when it seeks to differentiate own vocabularyfromthat of its
19Despite theirfrequent politicalrivalry, despitea long tradition the Tamil literand of aturehavingits mythical academiesat Madurai in the Pandyancountry, have come across I no references which the Pandyasand Colas soughtto differentiate in themselves fromeach The seemalwaysto haveconsidered other, linguistically. inhabitants theserealms of themselves speakers thesame languagewithsharedliterary of traditions. Given theirunityin thisregard, the anxietyof the LTldtilakam that throughits own projectof differentiation might be it shuttingitselfout of the Tamil heritageis understandable, and indeed turnedout to be historically justified. 20The judgment on whether call suchcontrasts, individually considered, seemdescriptively is as of versusideologically motivated, ofcoursea function historical of hindsight to forms the and languagedocumented before and after LTldtilakam, the "natural"trajectory conthe and stitution the languageat the time of this intervention. of
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Dravidian language regions,forcing the acknowledgment that many surrounding lexical itemsthatKerala-bhasa would claim foritself in factattested are onlyin the earlierlexicons of the Tamil tradition(LT, 285). Historically, this is of course unremarkable, given the sharedcognationof theselanguages,but it is ideologically problematic mountingproofof linguisticautonomy a culturalmatrixwhere for in authorization through is recorded traditions. Againstthishistorically scholastic threat its autonomy, textexpoundsan to our important principle:the identity any language,and the discreteness of fromother languagesthismustentail,is primarily not established by prescriptive texts,but by or And that observed usage(prayoga vyavahdra). anyfurther metadiscourse is developed in learnedtreatises, textasserts, our must necessarily built on such a basis (LT, be 285). This observed usage, however, mustallow forevidencein two distinct modes. a Since the LF/dtilakam strivesto construct literary medium out of its own local some standard spokenlanguageas a base from of language,it mustauthorize which to build, and thisit terms "ordinary" "commonusage" (sdmdnya-). since, the or But as we haveseen,there also a considerable was legacyoflocal,hybrid literary production it whichit was utilizing, neededto recognize itself a legitimating as literary practice in a to paradigmof use. This it termed, contrast the ordinary, "specializedusage" In of withTamil, thesearguments developed are (visesa-). terms the specific struggle to assertthatthe observed usagesof boththe spokenand written languagein Kerala are precedent enough to defendits identity against the historical and intellectual and traditions. weightof theTamil literary scholastic These practicalclaims of usage, however, further are underwritten a more by of and generalstructural principle languageidentity, thisbearscrucially bothon our text's ideologyof language and its reflexive engagement with it. The LLldtilakam a resorts number timesto thegeneralclaim thatthoughthere of maybe manyshared and lexical features grammatical between languages, each language has its own that integral ordering (vyavasthd) prevents identity its from being subsumedin that of another as structure (LT, 286, 291). It is this ordering, a purportedly objectivist immanent observable usage,thatseemsto anchor and in claim to its Manipravalam's and linguistic differentiation, henceits identity. What is not clear,though, where is in these of reside-whether theimmanent features thespoken of principles structuring language,or in thoseof the literary which are theirrefinement, in or productions thoseof the metadiscursive whichbringout and discusstheseorderings, treatments but also legislatewhattheyshouldbe. For despiteembracing principle spoken the of and written usage in the case againstTamil, we must not lose sightof the factthat theLF/dtilakam itself as theauthorizing sets up whichwill declare what metadiscourse that are usages themselves to be allowed and disallowed.It thus statesexplicitly cannot be left to popular understanding since the Manipravalam (atiprasiddhatva), must be a knowledge that determinately fixesits knowledge of this literature characteristic features our (LT, 288). On theone hand,then, textwould seemto argue forthe popular aspectsof usage when contrastively the confronting morepowerful Tamil scholastic edifice,but against these very aspects as being insufficiently whenit turnswithin,to the stratified fieldof Bhasa overwhichit would principled its exercise own domination. Here we encounter of entailed both the reflexivity the metalinguistic operations in developing normative a out structures languageuse, of grammar ofthe immanent and the ideological cast those operations acquire throughthe circuitof applying of stipulative languageback to thefield languageproduction Gramsci1985, 180(cf. 82). Patterns usage are in thisway abstracted of out ofthe language,subjectedto a
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process of selective enhancement culling, and then reapplied as supposedly or immanent principles regulatefuture to languageuse. The ideologicalinflection lies in representing processof selection the and intervention one ofobjectively as neutral discovery and description. And this putatively disinterested stanceis linked to the fact that the whole metalinguistic procedure, though clearlyembedded in social in pragmatic entailments evaluations, and presents itself contextually as insulated its It from analysis thetext's of own scholarly apparatus. shouldbe evident, though, my that the degreesand kinds of creatively indexicalinterventions own analyses, shift withthecontexts engagement. of Different kindsofdifferences marked in the are out treatment the local spokenlanguage; its variouswritten of forms and LF/dtilakam's Tamil tradition its spoken,written, in and classicalvarieties; mixtures; greater the in in and theroleand construal Sanskrit all ofthis.Thoughoften of inconsistent their is own terms,what clearlyseems to orchestrate these differentiations the central a and cultural for and concern withforging linguistic identity bothManipravalam its of literary practitioners, firmly situatedin the social context theiractivities. Indeed, a number recent how and of studieshaveconvincingly demonstrated manyforms uses that oflanguageare invested withsemiotic functions signaland shapevarious aspects of social identity (e.g. Urban 1991; Gal and Irvine1995). In thisvein,I now want of to traceout some illustrative linkagesrelating L[/dtilakam's the treatment genre, and theircultural to style, associations issuesof social identity.
Being "Dravidian," Kerala-Style

in to of Corresponding the linguistic rejection Tamil thatwe have notedearlier, a the sphereof literature itselfthe LF/dtilakam designates whole genreof Tamilized that is explicitly Kerala literature opposed to Manipravalam. This genre is called to or simplyPdttu, "Song," and is said to be characterized restriction Dravidian by and assonance. phonology, and to special metersand namedpatterns consonance of that Manipravailam not to be is While the L[/dtilakam a separatestatement has on dependent the canonsof classicalTamil works(LT, 285), in the case ofPdttuwe confront the features classicalTamil, but as specifically of precisely diagnostic applied to Bhasa-basedworksas a genreof Kerala literary production (LT, 290).21 What I is threat Tamil's classicality of believePattuthusrepresents, all ofthecompetitive as and specifically contrastive with the Sanskritpoetics that poeticallyformulated It takeson wholesaleto underwrite own literariness. is clearfrom its Manipravalam our text'sengagement withthisgenrethatthere was indeeda feltneed to cordonoff in the remnant of effects classicalTamil canons of poetics and literary production orderto definethem as outside the scope of Manipravalam.22 While we have very
21Aside from formal the features, textnotesof the constituent our languageofthisgenre itself that"In the Kerala-bhasa used in Pattu,thereis a greatdeal ofsimilarity withthebhdsd of the Pandyas" (Pdndyabhasasdrfipyam bdhulyena pdttil[sic!] k-ra.labhdsdydm bhavati). 22Pattu was characterized an exclusiveuse of Dravidian orthography Dravidian by and metersand patterns consonanceand assonance.Among the literary of Dravidianlanguages, Tamil alone neveradoptedthe orthography Sanskrit of into its script, whichmeantthateven as Sanskritwordswere borrowedinto Tamil theyhad to be phonetically Tamilized in the processof inscription. The genre of Pattu imitatesall of thesefeatures and so leans in the the of from Kerala peroppositedirection Sanskritization, havingschematized and captured, thatwas fundamentally characteristic the classicalTamil literature as spective, everything of againstthe Sanskrit.
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little surviving literature fromKerala in the pure Pattu style,thereare numerous that show the persistent other works, both before and after the LTldtilakam, continuance features of whichour textattempts hereisolateand exclude.Indeed, to the most popular earlymoderngenre of verse-form, markingthe watershed into modernity, called Kili-p.ttu, "Parrot-song." is the And perhapsnotsurprisingly a for formcalled simply "Song," most folk and modernpoetic genres today show a preference formal for features similarto Pattu,manyof whichare commonnot just to Kerala and Tamil Nadu, but throughout Dravidianlanguageregionof South the India (Subrahmanyan 1977). Thoughwe haveno direct evidence to thesocialidentity whowas producing as of thisTamilizedPattustyle literature Kerala,itsclearassociation of in withtheclassical that the contains Cankam canons, statement Pdttu manyconformities Panndya-bhasa, to and theLF/dtilakam's citation learned own of Tamil grammatical treatises suggests an elite provenience literary of similarto thatwhichManipravalam production would claim foritself. of of And givenwhatI notedearlier thehistory politicaldomination and of in by thePand.yas Colas, theregistry their linguistic patterns Pattumightvery in well refer remnants theircourtlyinfluence Kerala, an influence to of perhaps as supported the "Tamilized"languageofroyalinscriptions well. It was doubtless by at thislevelofa rivalelite tradition thatthecompetitive threat from Pattumightbe mostkeenly experienced. On the other hand, the fact that those Dravidian featuresof phonology, thatourtextsubsumes theelitegenreofPattucontinually in and vocabulary, prosody resurface historically fromfolkand popularizinggenres,as well, points to another levelofcontribution thesociolinguistic in matrix. We haveseenthattheLF/dtilakam registers dialectsplit of Bhasa betweena variety a thatis "crude"(apakrsta), spoken versus thatis "refined" one current bythe"ignorant," (utkrsta), amongthe"educated," it with only the lattervariety admittedto Manipravalam. Socially,however, also and associates refined the languagewiththeupperthree caste-divisions (traivarnnika), or the unrefined with the inferior degraded castes (h7na-jdti) (LT, 282, 292). the withinKerala, as of Significant thisis in recognizing caste-mapping dialectstrata the textgoes on to note thatthe phonology the lowerstratum largelylike the of is Tamil oftheColas and Pandyas.In sociopolitical terms, however, textis quick to the thatdespitetheirlanguage,theselowerclassesstill belongto the Keralas(LT, stress thatare rejectedin the high of 292-93). So the same features Dravidianphonology Tamil are simultaneously to of genreof Pattu as being diagnostic foreign consigned thelowerrungsofsociety, wheretheyare resignified belonging as to properly Kerala. of Note that not only are education,caste,dialect,and attributions "foreign-ness" conditioned being semiotically mapped onto each otherin an ideologically fashion, at but that it is in termsof the location of Tamil features, both ends of the thatthismappingis mostproblematic. sociolinguistic spectrum, of it Fromtheperspective a historical sociolinguistics, would seemclearthatthe in was LLldtilakam intervening thelanguageofKeralaat a timewhenit was innovating of weredrivenby away froman earlierstandard Tamil, and that theseinnovations in of and upper-caste literary performative activities, particularly thecontext Kerala's templeartsand courtly culture.23 Not onlywas the languageheavilySanskritizing,
dividebetween the in of mentioned support terms theearlier 23There clearinstitutional is to any sincethelowercasteswerenotpermitted enter major castesas a cleavageofinnovation, castes, evento approach nor and palaces)ofthehigher temples, thedwellings(hence,courts nor thesecasteswithinfixedrangesofdistance.
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but therewerealso internal changesafoot,again stemming fromthe highercastes, thateventually to theemergence modern led of Malayalam.24 Interestingly, forces the of conservation the olderTamil speechforms for wereto be locatedsimultaneously at both ends of the social hierarchy: the upper end therewere remnants the at of earliercourtly culture,and, at the lower,therewere the laboringcasteswho were sociolinguistically farthest fromthe sourcesof language innovation. This peculiar positioning the elite in termsof the competing of classicalities the Sanskrit of and Tamil, and thefurther intersection thiswiththecastedynamics language,lends of of a somewhat schizophrenic flavor some of our text'sinjunctions. to in Forinstance, itssupport theSanskritizing educatedspeech, LT/dtilakam of of the in sanctions some hyper-Sanskritizationsphonology and especially verbmorphology thatwereoutlandish, and neverwidelyaccepted(e.g., LT, 300; 292 vs. 29). On the other to within hand,it also attempted stemsomepopularinnovations Bhasa,through invoking rulesout ofclassicalTamil thatmusthaveseemedarchaic foreign or enough to theaverage languageuserthatthey wereequallydoomedto failure (LT, 298-300). What this last point flagsonce again is the conflicted desireof theseelites at some level to retaintheirlinksto a widerand moreancientTamil heritage. What I would like finally consideris how this identification to with "Tamil" is transformed, by reworking category the itself through tyingthe signsoflanguageto wideraspectsof culturalcontext. to to the and Corresponding theearlier arguments attempting dissociate Pand.yas Colas fromeach other,and fromtheirexclusiveclaims to the wider ideological constructof "Tamil," the LTldtilakam also advances argumentsfor the Keralas' in continued for inclusion thatconstruct well.This it does byarguing thecontinued as Tamil-ness, Dravidian-ness or of (Dramida-tva) the Keralas,through invoking ways of connecting Our languageto widerpoliticaland religiousaffiliations. textsaysof Dramida, the Sanskritterm used to expressthis identity(fromwhich Western linguistscoined "Dravidian"),thatit is formally identical cognateand semantically with Tamil. The shift from the formerto the latter it ascribes to vernacular the of was degeneration theSanskrit pronunciation (LT, 282). Historically, derivation with "Dramida" being the Indo-Aryan doubtlessin the otherdirection, attemptat "Tamil,"but what is of greater that interest the ideologicaland categorical is shifts termto themselves. SouthIndiansapplyingthisSanskrit accompany At the level of tyingidentity a diffuse to notionof polity,our textassertsthe their of traditional inclusion withthePandyas Dravidian-ness theKeralasbystressing and Colas in thegloriousTriumvirate Kings (MivJntar), are celebrated the of who in ancient Tamil literature rulingoverthegreater Tamil country. as Indeed,theKeralas themselves namedeponymously one of thesethree are for kinglyhouses(theCe-ras or it Ceralas).In actuality, is doubtfulhow much of what is todayKerala thesekings everruled,and thereis scantevidencefortherehavingbeen a widerTamil political in formation thisearly the period.As a politicalentity, classicalTamil sphere (Tamila and was akam)seemslargely bardicinvention, at best thisliterature producedin a over which these Three Kings held some loose milieu of allied chieftaincies
24Jt has oftenbeen suggestedthatmanyof the internal innovations thatled to theemerof the gence of Malayalamshow the influence Kannad.a, languageof Karnataka,to the north of Kerala. There is also some historical evidencethatthesechangeswereusheredin through a seriesof late Brahmanmigrations and settlements fromthatregioninto Kerala. Thereare to as indeed a numberof references Kannada and its Brahmansin the LTldtilakam, well as to in the charter to mythwhichrefers the Brahmans'joint settlement Kerala and Karnatakaby the god Parasurama, with Kannada havingbeen createdearlierthanMalayalam(LT, 290).
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we paramountcy. a lowerlevel of politicalsegmentation, have seen thateven at At did had neverexistedas a the timeof theLT/dtilakam, Kerala itself not and probably and related as singlepoliticalentity, rather a pasticheofculturally linguistically but and intermarrying units.25 What is interesting, then,is thatthe invocation feuding at Tamil spherein of a politicalcommunity, the level of the Keralas or the greater is which theyclaim membership, one that is largelyimagined.And this imagined throughthe historical legacy of the overlapping community seems largelyfigured mobile intellectual elite (cf. Anderson1983, literary culturalspheres a fairly and of spreadof Sanskrit, and the morerestricted 20-25). Indeed, the verysubcontinental at influence Tamil, attestto the force elite mobility workoverlong of of peninsular in periodsof history SouthAsia (again,see herePollock). to the also asserts its Corresponding this political figurement, LF/dtilakam This it a of "Dravidian"identity through peculiaraffiliation languagewithreligion. to effects throughclaiming a linguisticproximity the canon of Tamil Vaisnava Tamil country in medieval literature. This literature produced theearly was devotional as vehiclefor as an evidentchallengeto the exclusiveclaims of Sanskrit the literary Indeed, in supportof this our text cites a verse religiousrevelation and liturgy.26 proclaiming equalityof this "Tamil Veda" (as the Vaisnavacanonprovocatively the of called itself) withtheVedic scripture Sanskrit orthodoxy (LT, 282 vs. 5). But what then does is link itselfto this quintessentially Dravidian scripture the L2idtilakam It a the and through setoflinguistic similarities contrasts. advances claimthatKeralaof closerto the mediumof this bhasa, with othervarieties Tamil, is linguistically "Dravidian Veda" than the other neighboring regionallanguages of Andhraand Dravidian identity the Keralas of the Karnataka,thereby establishing distinctively What bearsparticular and theirlanguage,evenas it excludestheseothers. attention here is the relationbetweenthe linguisticmedium of Kerala speech and of this that valorized attributing religiously scripture is beingreadas a signofsocialidentity, the thatadheres a religious as to thespeakers Kerala-bhasa sameDravidianidentity of to "Dravidian"as partof a religious attribution this text.The tendency construe to in in whichrefers illustrated thecitedverseitself, identity thesecirclesis beautifully "the Dravidian(thing),"revealedto the saint, to this scripture simplyas Dramid2, Nammalvar.27 a The larger point I wish to make hereis thattherewas clearly set of culturally of literary history, semiotic associations amongfeatures politicalrelations, interpreted an that and religiousaffiliation were figured through ideologyof languageinto the thatis "Dravidian."This was clearly wherethe LF/dtilakam partly complexcategory
25Kerala scholarship used to hold unanimously that therewas not onlyan earlyunited of kingdomoverwhat is todaythe whole of Kerala, but thattherewas a gloriousresurgence who thenhad their millennium, thisline knownas the Perumalsaroundthe turnof the first in own HundredYears' War againstthe Colas. It was theirdefeat thisthatled to theirbreakdown into the feudalism the latermiddle ages, leading into the modernperiod.Though of in much of this is still official history currently circulating texts,therehas been a healthy revisionist move underway whichI followin mycharacterizations (Balakrsnan1983). here 26 This so-calledbhakti in started the Tamil country earlyas as or devotionalmovement in the sixthcentury C.E., with devoteesof the god Visnu composinghymns Tamil. Interestownphaseofvigorous it who begantheir ingly, is theVaisnavasin theC6la and Pandyacountry at on was Manipravalam commentary theseTamil hymns about the same timetheLLldtilakam written (Venkatachari 1978). textualassociation 27Cf. this issue,of this same specific among Ramaswamy's discussion, of the easternTamils, and indeed of the whole religiousvalorization Tamil language and literature.
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in to positioned itself regard thatequallyladensupervening category Sanskrit, of with its similarkindsof culturalinterpretations productions. while I havepartly and But DravidianwithTamil, thewayour textdoes,we mustnot lose equated the category is for sightofthefactthattheformer a specializednomination a specialized construal of"Tamilness," "Tamil" intoSanskrit (as thereversal effected bothbytranslating and oftheactualderivation the shows)by repositioning relation between twocultural the spheres bearingthesenames.This leads me to suspectin thatbroadhistorical sweep the ideologicalform this category "Dravidian"seemsto take was partof a dialectic reaction Sanskritic to culture through time,and an attempt reshape to and reposition an originally in of regionalclassicality emulation a transregional exemplar a new for local forum.What else might it mean when historically "Tamil" peoples begin to referring themselves a transregionally by Sanskrit label, if not a wideningof the literary and culturalcontextin which they seek to situate their identityfor an enhancedlocal effect?
The Tropes of AestheticPolitics

of We haveseenhow thevery bound identity theKeralasas a people is intimately mediatednegotiations with the literary culturesof up in a seriesof linguistically Sanskrit Tamil. I wantto closemysubstantive and of treatment thistextbyreturning to the identity theManipravalam and the interpretation its own of of languageitself the metaliterary figurement through tropethatis its name.The stockimage in this as namingentailsthemodelofhybrid languageforms a necklace "pearlsand coral" of wherethemorevaluedpearlsweretraditionally understood be the to (mani-pravdlam), of Sanskrit and the coral to be the elements some vernacular speechor otherliterary with this languageinterspersed it.28Our text, however, reverses evaluative association, an from earlier Kerala treatise wherethevernacular, termed citinga definition Tamil, forms pearls,and Sanskrit coral (LT, 282 vs. 2). There thusseemedto have the the of in beena somewhat subversive withwhich already reading themetaphor circulation, But of ourauthor was familiar. theL7/dtilakam pushesthisresignifying themetaphor still farther claimingthatthe gems (mani)in questionrefer to whitepearls, not by but by a moreobscuremeaningto red rubies.The aestheticresultis therefore not but a one ofredand whitevariegation, rather harmonious blendofthesameredhues. of What I would like to suggesthereis thatthe novelty thismetaphor's construal is both motivatedand in keepingwith the ideologicalslant embeddedin the text's aesthetic claims. larger The firstevidence of this motivationis found in the clearlyinsupportable claim that the termManipravdlam accompanying applies only to a language that
28Theearliestexplicitusage of the termManipravdlam dates froma Jainaauthorof the in ninthcentury, the territory in held by the Rastrak-uta dynasty South India. Though there the termwas used forSanskrit mixedwith Prakrit (originally regionalIndo-Aryan languages that became scriptural and liturgical Buddhistsand Jains),the name and metaphor for seem to harkenback to earlieruses forgenremixtures withinDravidianlanguages;the termmaniTamil anof mitai-pavilam ("pearls mingledwith coral") was used by a redactor a Canikam in thology theearly centuries, That theterm C.E. was widelyrecognized referring as exclusively to mixtures South Indian regionallanguageswithSanskrit confirmed Abhinavagupta of is by writing from Kashmirin the eleventh century (Ezhuthachan 1975, 8-10).
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combines Sanskrit withtheparticular vernacular speechofKerala (LT, 286).29Given the wide learning textotherwise our displays, thisdescriptively definition a false for termthathad long been established covera variety languagemixtures only to of can be construed a motivated as for attemptto monopolizethe label Manipravalam its own Kerala-based production. would thusargue thatit is the dubious uniqueness I claimed forthis language-form partlyinforms strained that the readingof its basic trope: thenovelty thisproject, needsa novelinterpretation theestablished for of one of metaphor. This metaphor morethana meretrope,though.It is further model,in that is a it figures bothhow the languageconstituents to be selected, are and how theyare to at be strung levelofpoeticcomposition a designated for together thehigher aesthetic in effect. betweenthe Sanskrit Bhasa elements and First,theenjoinedcolor-harmony the figureof the necklacegets operationalized throughthe varied set of lexical, phonological, morphological and injunctions, that,ideally, so Sanskrit wordsaremade to seemlike natural elements Bhasa whentheyappearin Manipravalam of (LT, 283). thispattern holdsat thecompositional Secondly, levelas well,for Manipravalam and Sanskrit to wordsareput together according Bhasarulesofmorphophonemic harmony (sandhi),and Manipravalamversesare sortedinto nine grades,the highergrades of showing always a preponderance Bhasa vocabularyitems and the worst a preponderance Sanskrit(LT, 289). Finally,in termsof principlesof language of for of there a spirited is defense theintegral uniqueautonomy Dravidian and structure, thattheseare merely morphology, phonology, semantics, and againstthe suggestion fromthe Sanskrit otherIndo-Aryan or unprincipled degenerations languages(LT, 291; 292-93).30 Fromtheoveralleffect thisevidence mightconcludethatmany of we of the languageconstituents theirintended and aesthetic seemclearly inclined effect towardsthe Bhasa pole of evaluation, and away fromthe Sanskrit, despitethe fact thatthe formal poeticsderivedfrom latter. the we Caught betweenthe two macrocultural spheresof Tamil and Sanskrit, have thatallowedit selectively playboth to seenhow our textdeployeda complexanalytic in off theselinguistic cultures againsteach other, the imageofjuxtaposed beads,and over otherliterary against locally rival forms, extollingits own hybridartifact by It manufactures. is thislast issueofgainingand holdingontoregionally local literary dominancethat I thinkshould commandour attention, especiallysince this also
29Allfouroftheliterary languagesofSouthIndia-Tamil, Kannada,Telugu, and Malayin Sanskrit with the regional alam-had variousstylistic registers which theyintermingled speech,and with the possible exceptionof Kannada, poets in all of these knew the term process for Manipravdlam thisprocess.In Kannada,Telugu, and Malayalam,thishybridizing the of media,and theycould scarcely virtually defined emergence theselanguagesas literary today.Tamil, too, survivewithouttheirthoroughly naturalizeduse of Sanskritvocabulary thoughtheantiquity itsdistinctively of Dravidian underwent heavy periodsofSanskritization, of politicaluses ofthisfactin movements literary tradition, conjoinedwithtwentieth-century substantial contribution thatlanguagein to linguistic purism,has tendedto mask Sanskrit's thisissue). popular,and often scholarly, perception (see Ramaswamy, 30 The Liidtilakam whereby Sanskritis the primordial, does accept the classical theory a whichall others devolvethrough kindofdegeneration. beginningless (anddi)languagefrom from thisprocess therefore are unprincipled But it does notadmitthatthelanguagesresulting Instead,it arguesforthe integrity a distinctive of assemblages randomforms of and features. of betweenlanDravidianphonology(LT, 292-93) and forsystematicity the interrelations for derivation cognation and and semantics the necessary as principle establishing guage form it the of linguistics, despite (LT, 291). In short, recognized basic principles a soundhistorical from Sanskrit. withinthe largerideologyofuniversal languagedevolution being framed
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of towardsthe Bhasa field accordswith the overallaesthetic figuring Manipravalam of reception and evaluation. From this perspective,negotiatingbetween the and interregional ones with Tamil appearas a transregional relations with Sanskrit of thatlocal eminence whichI would readas the givenculturalentailment securing and politics.I believewe can push overallgoal of the LF/dtilakam's literary aesthetic something thesocial logic bywhichthis of thisstillfarther, though, and also discern of worked. politicsof the knowledge languageand aesthetics described It seemsquite clearto me thattheeffect whichtheManipravalam works in ourtextattempt generate an aesthetic whichthey in will be at onceexperienced to is as naturalizedproductionsof Kerala's "Tamil" linguisticheritage,while simulall luster theSanskrit of tradition. we haveseen But taneously displaying thecultural mastery Sanskrit its canons, of and how theproduction processitself seemsto require and thatas a bodyof knowledgethiswas highlyexclusionary. the otherhand,it On seemscertainthe Kerala targetaudiencesweresupposedto receivethe end-product of this arcaneprocessas aesthetically pleasurable, even naturally local, but without sourceof Sanskrit generative themselves havingreadyaccess to the authenticating, counterto the Sanskritideal that poets and their knowledge.Though seemingly I is audiencesbe similarly tutored, thinkthis disparity both intelligibleand even a in milieu was admittedly level necessary the present case. First,the Manipravalam lower than Sanskritassemblies,and so the Sanskritenjoined therewas explicitly I that as qualified easyand accessible.Secondly, thinkthe requirement audiencesbe to as redeployed an attribution any refined educatedcould itself pragmatically and be a withtherequisite The normcould thus approval. audiencethatreceived production in to function thatfamiliar wherethoseaspiring highculture displaytheir circularity and are in turnpraisedfortheir connoisseurship consumingculturedproducts, by It our of discernment theauthors thoseproducts. is in anycase clearfrom historical by seemed knowledgeof the Kerala contextthatthe role of the audience-as-consumers one to two divergent lines of knowledgeattribution: for simultaneously constitute the audience and another for the authors. By consuming such products of their ownrefined the Manipravalam literature, audiencewas thusat onceestablishing the of while simultaneously ratifying Sanskrit tastesand sensibilities appreciation, from authentication whichthe bulk of themwereexcluded.From sourcesof literary the vantagepoint of the authorsof this authenticating knowledgeand its works,I think we can read their prolonged effortsover the scholastic standards of to Manipravalamas an attemptsimultaneously shape and capture the aesthetic and alonecouldsupply demandofa literary market, to do thisin sucha waythatthey theproduct.
and the Openness Historical Indeterminacies of Discourse

of and arguments theLLldtilakam Having dweltforthemostparton theinternal and having circuitsbetweentextand context, the linkagesit tracesin the reflexive muchlikeBourdieu of comearoundto a characterization its overallstrategy sounding the with his tropeof linguisticmarkets (1991), I want to concludeby challenging This and wereall thateffective. is to consider, illusionthatthesearguments strategies our ideologicalweight,the impactofall by way of counterbalancing text'sintended those formsof language and literature that the LT/dti/akam sought to exclude or
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to coercively shapeand co-opt.Such consideration demandedby thehistorical is facts in of literary developments Kerala, forManipravalam ultimately failedin its bid to dominatethe fieldof thisculture's literary production. Since I cannottake the space hereforeven a shortnarrative the developments Kerala's subsequentliterary of of history,3' briefest the characterization must suffice. The factof the matteris that Manipravalamwas not terriblysuccessfulin imposing its dictates on literary in expression Kerala,forbetween Manipravalam modern the and Malayalamthere are a whole seriesof documented in shifts style, content, genre,and self-designations of the languageand its speakers which,by comparison without text,mightjustifiably be characterizedas "popular" (Chaitanya 1971). This signal failure of the at it Manipravalam project, thehandsofthosevery forces soughtwithsuchdiscursive to refinement deny,accordingly requiresthatwe part company with thosetheorists whowouldeffectively to of reducelanguagedynamics a mechanics socialreproduction, to a passiveor largely unconscious of reflection social institutional structuring. For instance, while Bourdieu'swritings capture verywell the waysin whichthe of and modes of languageproducedin interests institutional powersand the forms societiesmay coincide,theyprovideverylittlepurchaseon thosecases wherethey oftendo not, wherein factdiscourseofteneludes or even turnsback upon those whichhave (allegedly)producedthe conditions its verypossibility. for institutions in to Similarly, Foucault'sgeniusis often attributed thisregard his demonstration of howpoweris notprimarily but not coercive, productive, productive just ofdiscourse, that but evenofthesubjectivities are thereby producedto give it voice(1983). What is again elided hereis how, and how often, this productive process fails. How is it thathistorically forces powerare routinely of the embarrassed assaultseither by from discourses subjectsthattheysupposedly and themselves or thosethat produced, from arisefrom outside operations power, of wheneverything everyone supposedly the and is inscribed within theseoperations? These theoretical excesses I thinkbe tracedto a fundamental can desireto reduce to a materially themultiplexity language,literature, their of and dictated pragmatics matrix institutional of that determinisms thelanguageevidence itself warrants hardly in anyclear-cut I on fashion. thecontrary,believea historical On perspective language shows just as often,as in the presentcase, the manifest incapacityof dominant and maintain effective the of or languageideologiesto exert programs comprehensive controlattributed them.Formally may tracethis incapacity to to we long-standing all those explicit and implicit featuresof reflexive monitoringthat inherently accompanyall language use, as sketchedin this paper's opening. From a more humanistic this is to acknowledge necessarily the informally perspective, interpretive of consitution all acts of linguisticexchange.The diversity social positionsand of that in mediatednotonlythrough complexities the interests converge suchexchanges, of the languagesystem and its pragmatics, through reflexive but the of monitoring thatmediation, it make it likelythatthe system, the ideologicalapparatus or hardly would secure, will stably reproducethemselvesthroughtime. Indeed, for the it the to evenwithin own its Lfldtilakam, heterogeneity attempts subsumeis apparent in textualconfiguration; historical the overview, textitself appearsas advertisement fora projectof controlthatcould neverbe realized.And it is the factthatall such
3"I am currently workingon an overview Kerala's literary of history my contribution as towards collaborative a projecttitled"Literary Cultures History: in Reconstructions South from Asia," fundedby the National Endowment the Humanities. for
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projectsultimately fail, not just that theymay temporarily appear successful, that shouldjustlycommanda shareof our theoretical attention. If the reflexive propertiesof language representan inherentpotential for in instability the articulation betwen discursiveand institutional orders,as I am arguing, thenthismustbe a potentialbuilt intoliterature well,forthepoeticand as literary oflanguagehavetheirown heightened uses features reflexivity, has long of as been recognized(Lucy 1993; Jakobson1960). Whateverthe otherdisagreements among literary theorists, thereis still a generalconsensusthat literature worksits mostgeneraleffect callingattention its own formal by to patterning againsta special that are thereby set of evaluativeconventions invoked(Enkvist1994). The greater of is social significance this,as I havetriedto indicate, thattheseliterary conventions themselves further constitute semioticsystemthat signals and evaluatesvarious a of societal relationsin and throughthe pragmatics literary We have production. seen this to have been the case both with the whole Sanskritic side of the certainly and conventions regimenting Manipravalam, withthe latter's consequent repositioning vis-a-vis Tamil. But we cannotremainconfined the realmof the strictly to "literary" here,forif the kind of reflexive capacitiesI have been treating operateboth withinthe literary and theoraldomainsofdiscourse, thentheycan also operate between them. Justas the of of variouslevelsand features grammar serveas sophisticated can semioticregisters of identity evenin thecontext nonliterate cultures (Urban 1991), so it can be argured that the kind of conventions that mark the reflexivity "literature" likewise of are in of present variousfolk, oral,and other performative genres a basicproperty their as "textual"nature(Bauman and Briggs 1990). The resultis that such disprivileged non-orsemiliterate genres mayvery well raisetheir owncounterconventions, figuring in thesocial field production waysthatchallenge canonsand languageideology of the oftheliterary on for elite.While I cannotdwell further thesubstantive evidence this at present, is in thiscommunicative it thatI wouldlocatethosevarious sphere popular in performative narrative and genresthatseem to clamorforattention the interstices or of theLT/dtilakam's to project.32In its attempt assimilate, partition, demotethese a other linguisticand literary voices, our text was forcedto construct far more recordthan it might have wished. And indeed it is in historical heteroglossic thatwe mustpay particular to attention thesealternate perspective voices,forit is of seem to undermine attempted the theythatultimately hegemony Manipravalam in overthe fieldof literary production Kerala. of the The congruencies languageand literature with institutional forces reflect face of language ideology that the status quo presents most convincingly. I Consequently, feela critically therapeutic analysiscan do morethandwell forever on the elegance of these congruencies,tracing out all their institutional to interconnections showhowdiabolically convincing they mightbe. In somerespects, of thisis merely rehearse activity theMandarin to the themselves. While intellectuals it is truethat the historical and contemporary and stylesof Kerala forms, content, of to literature would not be whattheyarewithout attempts Manipravalam exert the its hegemonicpretensions over the field,it is equally true that these attempts
literature (t5rramon (Freeman1991) was basedlargely theoralreligious 32My dissertation
depthoftheirresisthe Kerala,documenting historical pdvtu)of subaltern groupsin northern
in of tance to caste-Hinduism.On the numerousformsand movements "Pdttu"literature into modernity, from twelfth the century to Kerala, rangingfrom folkforms high literature, see KrsnanNayar(1994).
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of demonstrably failedto control subsequent the trajectories languageuse and literary production Kerala. in in linguistic, If ideologies, being alwaysrendered language,are alwaysby nature however, ratherthan then ideologiesaboutlanguage are doubly so. Interestingly, of from contexts social life,such languageabout the therefore beingfurther removed of language oftenmakes more explicitthe positionsand workingassumptions its such and authors.But being motivated representations, ideologiesare also selective to of partial,and so must be read in historical perspective revealthosefeatures the to This is how I havesoughtto read larger social fieldoverwhichtheystrive operate. debatesreveal uneasy its positioning theLF/dtilakam: as a textwhoseowninternal first, and Tamil, in regionalcompass,and among its of both betweenthe forces Sanskrit I closerto home.Secondly, variouscompeting though, suggested languagevarieties, in a back-reading againstthe how subsequenthistorical developments may be used in that and theory, surface a conformity text,to pickup thosecurrents undermine, fact of the language field to institutional power. We are instead presentedwith the and hybrid natureof this metaliterary and discourse inherently heteroglossic, riven, its At bothat its inception through subsequent and unraveling. a general its ideology, to to level then, we must eschew the easy tendency reduce language pragmatics institutional lest we lose sightof the semioticresourcefulness determinacy by fields, It required thatlanguageuse actually affords. seemsto me sucha stanceis theoretically that real languagesand literatures demonstrably to accountforthe historical shifts The case at hand undergo, inside and outside of their associated institutions. that combinationof explicitlydeveloped this demonstration encourages through overlong stretches time,that on recorded of metadiscourses languageand literature, site the of makesSouthAsia such a productive forexploring intersections language, in and social identity historical culture, perspective.
List of References
Communities: onthe and 1983. Imagined Reflections Origins Spread ofNationalism. London;New York: Verso. by C. BAKHTIN, MIKHAIL. 1981. TheDialogicImagination: FourEssays M. M. Bakhtin. Emerson and M. Holquist, trans.Austin:University Texas Press. of Kottayam, BALAKRSNAN, P. K. 1983.Jdtivyavasthitiyuzm KJralacaritravum (Pathanam). Kerala: National Book Stall. as BAUMAN, RICHARD, and CHARLES BRIGGS. 1990. "Poetics and Performance on in CriticalPerspectives Languageand Social Life."AnnualReviews Anthropology 19:59-88. Power.G. Raymond and M. BOURDIEU, PIERRE. 1991. Languageand Symbolic Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press. Adamson,trans.Cambridge, New Delhi: Orient CHAITANYA, KRISHNA. 1971. A History MalayalamLiterature. of Longman. DWIVEDI, R. C. 1977. The Poetic Light:Kdvyaprakasa Mammata.Vol. 1. Delhi: of Motilal Banarsidass. and New Interdisciplinarity: Poetics, ENKVIST, NILS. 1994. "Context."In Literature the Amsterdam: Rodopi. Linguistics, History, editedby R. Sell and P. Verdonk. Theories Malayalam. in EZHUTHACHAN, K. N. 1975. The History theGrammatical of Association. Kerala: DravidianLinguistics Trivandrum, A. trans. New FOUCAULT, MICHEL. 1972. TheArchaeologyKnowledge. M. Sheridan, of York: Harperand Row.
ANDERSON, BENEDICT.
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Richard Freeman

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Rubies and Coral: The Lapidary Crafting of Language in Kerala Author(s): Rich Freeman Reviewed work(s): Source: The

HIS PAPER ADDRESSES THE PROBLEMATIC BIRTH

Grounding the Language: The SanskriticContext

Disciplining Language into Literature

Literary Resources in Regional Perspective

Grammar Identity and

Being "Dravidian," Kerala-Style

The Tropes of AestheticPolitics

and the Openness Historical Indeterminacies of Discourse

depthoftheirresisthe Kerala,documenting historical pdvtu)of subaltern groupsin northern

and Metapragmatics, edited by John A. Lucy. Cambridge: Language: Reported Speech

.1993-94. "Lilatilakattinre Rastlyam." Mdtrbhgmi 71(43): 23Alcappatippu

SILVERSTEIN, MICHAEL. 1979. "Language and C. Hofbauer. Chicago:

A Elements: Parasession Linguistic on Units Levels, and editedbyR. Clyne, Hanks, W.

Structure and Linguistic Ideology."

A. 1980. A Survey Kerala History.Kottayam: National Book of

Paraguay, Brazil." In Nation-Statesand Indians in Latin America,edited by G.

Austin: University of Texas Press. P. V. 1966. Madhyakdlamalayd/am. Trivandrum:

Review Anthropology of 23:55-82.

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