Subversion, Authenticity, and Religious Creativity in Late-Medieval South India: Kaṇṇuṭaiya Vaḷḷal’s Oḻiviloṭukkam

Abstract

This article examines the Oḻiviloṭukkam, a circa fifteenth-century theological text that aligns itself with the South Indian tradition known as Caiva Cittāntam (Skt. Śaiva Siddhānta). Though somewhat forgotten today, the Oḻiviloṭukkam was once widely read, especially among offbeat Caiva intellectuals such as the nineteenth-century poet and reformer Irāmaliṅka Aṭikaḷ. Central to the work’s appeal is the way in which, in the course of unfolding its vision of the path to liberation, it subverts certain literary conventions and normative practices associated with Caiva Cittāntam. The present article unpacks these textual and doctrinal maneuvers within the context of an emergent discourse in late-medieval South India concerning the quest for transcendental knowledge and the authentic religious life. It suggests that a consideration of the Oḻiviloṭukkam’s innovations nuances current understandings of Caiva Cittānta theology by calling attention to the latter’s embeddedness within social and historical contexts marked by ambivalence, contestation, and change.