Lethal spots, vital secrets : medicine and martial arts in South India

Resource Information

The work Lethal spots, vital secrets : medicine and martial arts in South India represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Lethal spots, vital secrets : medicine and martial arts in South India

Title remainder

medicine and martial arts in South India

Statement of responsibility

Roman Sieler

Creator

• Sieler, Roman

Author

• Sieler, Roman

Subject

• Esoterik
• Gesundheitspolitik
• Indien
• Kalaripayattu
• Kampfsport
• Kulturanthropologie
• MEDICAL -- Healing
• Martial arts -- India, South -- Physiological aspects
• Arts martiaux -- Inde (sud) -- Aspect physiologique
• Médecine -- Inde (sud)
• RELIGION -- Hinduism | General
• SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Anthropology | Cultural
• Siddha
• Tamil Nadu
• Vitalism
• Vitalisme
• Volksmedizin
• Medicine, Siddha -- India, South
• Distrikt Kanyakumari

Language

eng

Summary

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

Assigning source

• Provided by publisher
• Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

613.7/1480954

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

LC call number

R607.S68

LC item number

S54 2015

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography