Symbolic Heat: Gender, Health and Worship among the Tamils of South India and Sri Lanka

For the Tamils, an ethnic community in modern-day South India and Sri Lanka, a concept of physical and spiritual heat as female energy (sakti) influences their diet, their traditional medical practices, their view of men and women and their worship of Hindu dieties. This viewpoint has elements in common with beliefs widespread in South Asia but the specific forms they take in the Tamil-speaking region of eastern Sri Lanka as well as in Tamilnadu, South India, are explained and interpreted photographically here by Dennis McGilvray, a cultural anthropologist who has conducted firsthand field research in both locations. Some of the striking interconnections between 'cooling' and 'heating' foods, male and female relations, popular beliefs about sexuality and the life cycle, and 'hot' Hindu goddesses are illustrated in this volume.