Sorcerous Technologies and Religious Innovation in Sri Lanka

Abstract

This essay examines the importance of sorcery in the dynamics of religious inno vation in contemporary Hindu and Buddhist Sri Lanka.1 My interest stems from two observations. First, in almost stark contrast to other Hindu ritual forms that emphasise unchanging text-based rites, the sorcery practices I describe display an almost modernist preoccupation with innovation. Second, much of this innova tion originates, or is seen to originate, from outside the cosmic order both of the pantheon and of society. Consequently, sorcery practices manifest a dynamism that often results in the appearance of sorcery having sprung up from nowhere or of being on the sharp increase. However, such an appearance of growth is less of an increase by degree than a shift in visibility. Moreover, it is a characteristic Sri Lankan sorcery practices share with practices elsewhere. When social scien tists whose gaze has been primed for spotting anomalies light upon these shifts in visibility, the reaction is usually one of alarm. Scholars whose basic orientation is to the problem of social order and stability tend to judge these apparent aber rations in terms of social breakdown and anomie. Instead of considering what sorcery reveals anthropologically, they instead analyse sorcery as a symptom of a social pathology. The restless dynamism of sorcery and its role in religious innovation remain unaddressed, and this contributes to a conservative view of both the phenomenon of sorcery and the study of religion in general. I commence my discussion with the Tamil Hindu Bhadrakali temple at Munnesvaram on the north-west coast of Sri Lanka in order to introduce a major site for sorcery practice in present-day Sinhala Buddhism. Having situ ated the Hindu goddess Bhadrakali (or more simply Kali) in the contemporary pantheon and introduced some of the sorcery practices associated with her, I turn to an analysis of a special ritual event held near the west-coast town of Kalutara and sponsored by a female trance specialist, or maniyo, who is a devotee of Kali. Sorcery is a practice that looms large in this maniyo's world, but so too is the pursuit of new sorcerous technologies. Followers of the maniyo include a significant number of women who are returned labour migrants to