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12 meanings of ananku...............................................2
Ananku Basic Properties...........................................7
Ananku -- Heat.............................................................8
Ananku -- Colour and heat...........................................9
Early Tamil culture placed great weight upon ananku
as connected with female energy..............................11
Woman occupies a central position in a Dravidian
family unit.................................................................11
In accordance with the ambivalent nature of ananku
the woman may be benevolent and, also, intimidating
and dangerous..........................................................12
Saivite and Visnuite attributes of Korravai................13
Blood life force........................................................13
"Food is a metaphor of life and resurrection."...........14
The notion of Ananku is crucial for the Tamil culture and deserves
careful consideration.
12 meanings of ananku
enemies of gods and men" [Zvelebil 1979: 167] and at the same
time signifies strength, reliability and benevolence (hence in AN
20, 11 it is termed, nallananku, that is, "good," "beneficial"
ananku). Secondly, in spite of the fact that the word ananku is
employed to denote spirits and deities, it primarily signifies a
certain force related to various objects and phenomena of the
world.
According to G. Hart, "This power... was a potentially dangerous
sacred force which was considered to inhere in any object or
person thought to be especially potent for a number of reasons.
Anything in which it inhered had to be carefully controlled, lest the
power go out of control and wreak havoc. But if ananku were
present in its proper place and under control, then it lent to things a
sacred correctness and fitness which was the most important of all
criteria to be satisfied for human fulfilment. Among the places in
which this power inhered were a chaste woman, a king, certain
drums, special columns, memorial stones inhabited by the spirits of
dead heroes, dead bodies, widows, and women in their menstrual
or puerperal periods. In certain places, it was potentially more
unstable than in others, but under all circumstances it had to be
carefully controlled." [Hart 1976: 321].
The view of K. Zvelebil has it that "The sacred was thought of as a
force immanent in certain places, objects, and beings, and not as
the property of well-defined transcendent gods. The term used for
the sacred was ananku, originally conceived of as an impersonal,
anonymous power, an awe-inspiring supernatural force inherent in
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will choose to assume" (AN 158, 9) and, also, their ability to move
around in space: ananku kal kilarum mayarikirul natural "a dark
night when ananku wander (Lit. 'when ananku's legs rise' )" (Nar.
319, 6).
The spirits in ancient Tamil poetry defined by the term katavul (that
which moves or exceeds boundaries) are characterised in the same
fashion: "the painted deity (katavul) is leaving", that is, leaving its
representation (AN 167, 15); "the pillar deserted by the katavul"
(AN 307, 12); "a gloomy night when katavul is abroad" (MK 651).
In these examples the katavul is obviously an equivalent of ananku;
therefore, in certain contexts the terms can be considered as
synonyms. This does not seem to contradict the fact that in other
contexts the word ananku "is not interchangeable with katavul"
[Rajam 1986: 264].
Ananku Basic Properties
Returning to the sacred power ananku, let us now consider its basic
properties. Scholars define it as an impersonal, supernatural force,
analogous to the Polynesian mana (e.g. [Hart 1974: 163]). I think
this point of view fails to take into account the Indian specificity of
the phenomenon: there are reasons to view ananku, instead, as a
basically natural rather than a supernatural power, its characteristic
expression being heat or/and fire (which places ananku in the same
order as tapas, the concept produced by Vedic culture. It should be
noted, however, that in ananku and in tapas heat is viewed in a
broader sense: as natural heat and, also, to a considerable degree, a
religious phenomenon linked with the accumulation of virtue).
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Ananku -- Heat
The association of ananku with heat and fire can be traced in the
following examples: "thick pieces of fat roasted (anaiikiya) in the
red fire" (AN 237, 9); "she (the woman) became torture (ananku)
for the villagers like a fire kindled under a tree" (PN 349, 6-7); a
hearth with ananku (anarikatuppu) (MK 29).
In some other instances the fiery nature of ananku is not expressed
explicitly yet nonetheless it is fairly well defined: ananku is
inherent in serpents (AN 108, 13; Nar. 37, 9; KT 119, 2) because
they possess "the heat of wrath" (see KT 190, 4: "a hot-wrathed
serpent"), an elephant run amok (KT 308, 2), a battlefield (PN 25,
6) which is always associated with dry and scrub lands, palai.
Ananku can be associated with dance (Cil. V, 70), suffering or pain
(Nar. 322, 10) and sexual passion (Nar. 245, 9-10).
Such an interpretation of ananku is supported by the evidence of
anthropologists who study modern rituals in Tamilnadu, that
employ the idea of heat and heating and, as its antithesis, that of
cold and cooling. As B. Beck puts it, "In essence, heat is associated
with life and fertility. The energy which can both activate and
nullify life is a kind of heat. The heat when taken alone, however,
can be highly dangerous. It must be focused and controlled in order
to become a source of power which humans and superhumans can
utilise." [Beck 1969: 553].
Heat or overheating accompanies certain human conditions such
as illness, suffering and sexual passion. Heat is suffered by women
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taining control over the energy in its various forms. Generally the
evidence is not to be found on the surface, yet not infrequently the
poetry provides direct data on the ritualized actions whose aim is a
symbolic "taming" of the power, the cooling of the heat inherent in
humans or in objects: for example, putting on garlands of cool
flowers (TMA 236), wreaths made from margosa or palmyra
palm3leaves (AN 138, 4-5); rubbing saffron (kurkuma) and sandal
paste (with cooling properties) onto the skin (TMA 235); oiling
gates (MK 353-354), decorating spears (PN 95 1-2) and memorial
stones (AN 67, 10) with peacock feathers (a peacock is associated
with coolness).
Early Tamil culture placed great weight upon
ananku as connected with female energy
3 The leaves of both trees: the margosa and the palmyra palm possess a
"cooling" effect. It is particularly characteristic of the margosa. Its'branches and
leaves are employed in rituals throughout India as guarding or purifying (see for
example [Beck 1969: 569; Reiniche 1979: 177; Beck 1982: 46; Whitehead 1976:
56-57, 64-65; Lakshmanan Chettiyar 1973: 68]).
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6 21 Korravai as the goddess of victory was linked not only with the tribe of the
eyinars. She had acquired this meaning in the lore of all the Tamils in ancient
times. In this respect the lines from a poem in NV are quite remarkable: the
maid-servant of the heroine suffering in separation thus addresses the goddess,
who, according to [Hardy 1983: 163], is undoubtedly Korravai: "So that the
unfortunate suffering of the good woman in separation should cease provide him
(that is the heroine's husband) with victorious might to stop the battle
immediately, o mother!" (NV 166-168).
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