Śiva’s Courtesans: Religion, Rhetoric, and Self-Representation in Early Twentieth-Century Writing by devadāsīs

Abstract

In the year 191 1 a devadâsi from Kochchikade, Colombo, by the name of Ancukam, wrote a Tamil text entitled Uruttirakanikaiyar Katacarattirattu, "A Compilation of Stories about Siva's Courtesans." A remarkable 240 pages in length, it is a highly erudite literary composition that weaves together elements of hagiography, history, philosophy, aesthetics, and autobiography in a seamless manner. As the title suggests, the bulk of the work consists of narratives about women from the Tamil literary past whom the author identifies as "Siva's Courtesans," or devadasis. It begins with the story of Paravaiyar, the consort of the Tamil Saiva saint (nayanar) Cuntaramurtti, and ends with Ancukam's own autobiography. If one were to read Ancukam's text alongside recent scholarly representations of devadasis in South India, one could easily be drawn into a seemingly transparent and fantastic world of temple women, miracles, ascetics, and Tamil Saiva bhakti. Indeed, for the most part, critical writing on devadasis has almost ubiquitously focused on their temple pasts and religious lives, positing their court and salon-based practices as secondary "degenerations."1 In this article, I position Uruttirakanikaiyar in larger historical, literary, and political contexts. Moving away from characterizations of modern devadasis as "temple women," I hope to bring to the foreground an approach to devadâsi social history that takes seriously their attempts to