Embodying the Spirit (meyppāṭu): A puttiṇai Perspective

Abstract

I explain the early Tamil idea of meyppāṭu as a kind of action, which consists of embodying the spirit, and show how it manifests itself in ordinary emotional experience, in love at first sight, in emoting in theatre, and in spirit possession. The analytical tool I employ is the concept of mūviṭam, or the personaic triad, the central concept in the theory called puttiṇai. Using this tool, I outline the idea of meyppāṭu in the primal community, in the state society, and also in the industrialist state, and show how the understanding of meyppāṭu in the primal world (what I have called viḻuttiṇai) ensured a love-based lifeway necessary for the wellbeing of the people and all the beings other than humans that were also part of that world, and why this understanding is necessary today to end the present Anthropocenic industrialist lifeway, which has brought humans and beings other than humans to the brink of disaster.

1. Introduction

In Tamilological discourse, meyppāṭu1 is commonly understood as the physical expression of emotion. But in the present essay, I show how it is in fact the embodying of the spirit, and how this embodiment is manifest in such actions as feeling an emotion, emoting, love experience, and spirit possession. The understanding of meyppāṭu has not been the same in the pre-state primal community, the state society, and the industrialist society because there has been a change in the understanding of the relation between the human and spiritual energy. As the industrialist mainstream state society is often a postcolonial one (as in the case of India), it is necessary to understand how postcoloniality has impacted meyppāṭu. By privileging Western scientific methodology, coloniality has discredited the spiritual aspect of human experience and, in turn, impacted the praxis of meyppāṭu. Further, such impact is evident in the case of the interspecific home called tiṇai (Selvamony 2021). The ancient pre-state Greeks called such an interspecific home “oikos”, which is the central concern of ecotheology (Conradie 2022; Adiprasetya 2015). Everett, a theologian who specialised in the theory of oikos, pointed out that oikos is synonymous with the Tamil word “illam”, which means “household” (37). As in the Tamil illam (home) and tiṇai, the members of the ancient Greek oikos were not only humans but also beings other than humans, including ancestral spirit beings (Everett 1990, p. 37; Selvamony 2021). The postcolonial discrediting of the spiritual aspect of human experience denatures not only the homo-naturo-spiritual tiṇai (oikos) but also the praxis of meyppāṭu.

Using the theory of puttiṇai (put, new + tiṇai, interspecific community = puttiṇai, new interspecific community; Selvamony 2024, 2025), I show how the understanding of meyppāṭu in the primal world (what I have called viḻuttiṇai) ensured the sustenance of a love-based lifeway necessary for the wellbeing of humans and all the beings other than humans that were part of that world, and why this understanding is necessary today to end the present industrialist lifeway, which has brought humans and beings other than humans to the brink of disaster. The engine of this lifeway is economic progress, which, according to Thomas Berry (2023), has put people in a “technological trance” (The Dream of the Earth). This essay upholds viḻuttiṇai as the alternative lifeway that has the power to break the trance and end the present Anthropocene by focusing only on one aspect of this lifeway, namely, meyppāṭu, which is essentially the inter-relationship between humans and spiritual energy. Before setting out to outline the idea of meyppāṭu in the primal world, in the state society and the industrialist society, it is necessary to begin with a brief explanation of the concept of meyppatu itself.

2. meyppāṭu

The Tamil word meyppāṭu denotes emotions such as humour or laughter (nakai), sorrow (aḻukai), repugnance (iḷivaral), wonder (maruṭkai), fear (accam), anger (vekuḷi), happiness (uvakai), and pride (perumitam) (tolkāppiyam III, 6. 3; Selvamony 2000 (see note 1)). Etymologically, it derives from two words: mey, body, and paṭu, to appear (meyppaṭu [verb] > meyppāṭu [noun] that which appears in/on the body, emotion). The noun mey is taken to mean “that which is real or true” also. This meaning underlies tolkāppiyar’s definition of meyppāṭu (tolkāppiyam III. 8. 201). According to him, meyppāṭu is that which does not need inference because it is perceptible. That which has to be inferred is not perceptible because it remains a thought in the mind. But when it is perceptible, it does not have to be inferred because the thought is concretised by means of embodiment. For example, when a girl falls in love and when her mother hears about it, in the mother’s mind her daughter’s new relationship is only a thought. But when the mother sees obvious changes in the body of her daughter, her daughter’s new relationship is no longer a thought because it is now concretised as perceptible physical and behavioural changes. The concept of tolkāppiyar refers to passion becoming perceptible as “kāmam meyppaṭuppiṉum” (when passion becomes perceptible also, tolkāppiyam III. 3. 25: 1). Therefore, even when “mey” means “real” or “true”, whatever is referred to as being real or true is such because a non-perceptible mental entity like thought or feeling has now become perceptible by means of embodiment. This implies that when “mey” is taken to mean “real” or “true”, whatever is not embodied is not real or true. Therefore, “body” remains the fundamental meaning of the concept of “meyppāṭu.” Further, the verb “paṭu” is sometimes interchanged with the verb “niṟuttu” or “to establish.” Accordingly, when meyppāṭu is used in the verbal sense (as meyppaṭutal), the verb “meyniṟuttu” is used often as a variant. For example, “muṉivu meyniṟuttal” is “showing displeasure” (tolkāppiyam III. 6. 23: 1). Evidently, muṉivu meyppaṭuttal could well be its variant. However, there is a difference between the two verbal forms, “paṭutal” and “niṟuttal”. While the form “paṭutal” is the involuntary appearance of emotion, the form, “paṭuttal” is its voluntary appearance, but “niṟuttal” is always voluntary showing. Accordingly, meyppaṭutal is involuntary embodiment, while meyppaṭuttal or meyniṟuttal is always voluntary embodiment.

An emotion is meyppāṭu because it is a kind of embodying of the spirit and making concrete and perceptible changes in the body. But the word also refers to the embodying experience known as spirit possession (puṟanāṉūṟu 259: 5–6), which is also accompanied by bodily changes. However, the meaning is ambivalent. Each meaning needs some explanation.

3. Types of meyppāṭu

3.1. Emotion as meyppāṭu

When one undergoes an emotional experience such as laughter (nakai), one moves the lips in a certain way; breathes rapidly, making the torso move in a certain way and makes certain noises. In other words, nakai, one of the eight types of meyppāṭu (tolkāppiyam III. 6. 3), is evident from the corresponding change that appears in the body or the manner of embodiment of the energy that causes the bodily changes. The verb “malital”, which means “to be filled with”, also denotes involuntary visible change in the body due to an emotional experience in the phrase “meymalital”, as in “meymali uvakai” (akanāṉūṟu 262: 12–13, happiness that fills the body).

3.2. Emoting as meyppāṭu

meyppāṭu could also mean “emoting”, which involves making deliberate bodily changes to convey an emotion either on the part of people in everyday life or theatrically as in the case of a trained actor. The verbal form of meyppāṭu-as-emoting is “meyppaṭuttal”, as in “kāmam meyppaṭuppiṉum” (when passion becomes perceptible also, tolkāppiyam III. 3. 25: 1) or “meyniṟuttul”, which means voluntarily “showing in the body”, as in “muṉivu meyniṟuttal”, which means “showing displeasure” (tolkāppiyam III. 6. 23: 1).

meyppaṭuttal or meyniṟuttal is not only showing a particular emotion like displeasure in the body but also using one’s body to suggest the shape of an existing creature (like a tiger) or a non-existent one (like a talking tiger). By skilful manipulation of the body and/or costume and mask, the body of a tiger could be “created” by an accomplished actor. meyniṟuttal of animals (like the serpent, elephant, deer, and birds like the peacock and swan) is often a part of dance and drama. Though perfect meyniṟuttal belongs to the province of art, some degree of modification of the body occurs in ordinary life situations also.

While discussing meyppāṭu, tolkāppiyam uses the term “viṉaiyam” (tolkāppiyam III. 6. 19; Selvamony 2000). The commentator iḷampūraṇar explains it as “karaṇam”, which means “hand gesture” or “gesture.” In other words, karaṇam is a type of meyppāṭu that expresses a thought or feeling through a gesture, particularly a hand gesture. It is a gesture that imitates something. For example, a viṉaiyam or karaṇam of one who is about to attack another (ceṟṟār pōla nōkkutal, looking as if about to attack, tolkāppiyam III. 6. 19, iḷampūraṇar’s commentary) is not just using one’s body to convey a particular meaning to someone but also creating an appearance of a new body of an attacker. In other words, the spectators are able to see not just the actor, but an appearance of an attacker created by the actor. This is not much different from an actor imitating onstage a serpent or a deer in order to create an imaginary serpent or deer.

3.3. Spirit Possession as meyppāṭu

The word meyppāṭu can also mean spirit possession2, in which a particular form of spiritual energy such as muruku (puṟanāṉūṟu 259: 5–6), veṟi (kuṟuntokai 318: 3; 366: 3) or aṇaṅku (kuṟiñcippāṭṭu 175) inhabits the body of a female shaman (veṟiyāḷ, kuṟuntokai 366: 3) or male shaman (vēlaṉ, akanāṉūṟu 292: 4; cāmi 1971; Kurup 1973; Pallath 1995; Hitchcock and Jones 1976; Smith 2006; Bloomer 2018; Selvamony 2000, 2011).

3.4. Incarnation

Both “meyppāṭu” and “incarnation” (literally, “to take on flesh”) involve embodiment of spirit. But both are quite different all the same. The former is marked only by such temporary changes undergone by a person as the bodily changes due to an emotion, an actor’s emoting, or assuming the form of something other than one’s own form. The latter, on the contrary, is permanent embodiment as long as the person lives, and this type of embodiment is not denoted by the term “meyppāṭu.” For example, Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the incarnation of God. Such incarnation cannot be described as meyppāṭu. In short, meyppāṭu does not mean incarnation in Tamil tradition.

3.5. kūṭu viṭṭu kūṭu pāytal, or Leaving One’s Body and Entering Another’s

This phenomenon is also not denoted by the term “meyppāṭu” in Tamil, but it involves radical bodily change (kūṭu, nest, body + viṭṭu, leaving + kūṭu, body + pāytal, leaping; leaving a body and leaping [into another’s]). This is spoken of as one of the superhuman practices attributed to such persons as cittar, or those with supernal powers. At will, such a person could leave his body behind and enter another’s. The Tamil poet tirumūlar, who is also regarded as a cittar, is said to have entered the body of a dead shepherd out of pity for the flock that lost its shepherd. Like incarnation, this type of embodiment is also permanent and voluntary.

What is common to all five meanings explored above is embodying or making visible changes in the body of the one who undergoes the experience called meyppāṭu. Types 4 and 5 are permanent types of embodiment, and they are not discussed in the tiṇai songs, nor do the ancient Tamil sages associate them with meyppāṭu. Therefore, they will not be part of the discussion in this essay.

While meyppāṭu is used in the first (tolkāppiyam III. 6. 1), and the second senses (tolkāppiyam III. 6. 19, 20; meyniṟuttutal, tolkāppiyam III. 6. 20: 1) in the sixth chapter of the third section of tolkāppiyam, it occurs in the third sense (of spirit possession) in a song in puṟanāṉūṟu (259: 5–6). In this song, one finds a washerwoman possessed by the spiritual energy known as muruku. The song does not say whether she invoked the spirit being like how an akaval makaḷ does (literally, a woman who calls [the spirit], kuṟuntokai 23: 6–7). But when she was possessed, the spiritual energy (muruku, as says the song) manifested in her body and provoked her to prance wildly like a deer. This song calls manifestation of spiritual energy in the body meyppāṭu.

Summarily, in early Tamil sources, the word meyppāṭu is used in the sense of ordinary emotional experience (sense 1 as in love), voluntary emoting (sense 2), and spirit possession (sense 3). While the third is thought of as embodiment of spiritual energy, the first two are not. Now, a couple of relevant questions are whether spiritual energy is involved or not in the first two types and how the understanding of meyppāṭu, especially as spirit possession, has changed over the years. In order to grapple with these questions, it is necessary to probe meyppāṭu further with the help of the theory of “puttiṇai.” A brief explanation of this theory is in order before using it to interpret meyppāṭu.

4. From tiṇai Theory to puttiṇai

The classical tiṇai theory outlined in tolkāppiyam (III. 1) forms the basis of several songs in the ancient Tamil poetic anthologies called the Eight Anthologies (eṭṭuttokai) and the Ten Songs (pattuppāṭṭu). This theory presupposes that the earth is divided into four basic land types (scrubland, mountain, riverine plain, and seacoast) and each has distinct plants, animals, birds, and cultures that have evolved due to the interaction between the human communities and the other beings and realities of the land type.

Due to anthropogenic impact on the earth, including deforestation, urbanisation, industrialisation, and ecological imperialism, and also due to the natural occurrences like change in the course of rivers, volcanic eruption, earthquake, drought, and tsunami, among other types of impact, the land type and the life forms peculiar to that land as well as the culture germane to that land type have all changed beyond recognition. The changes have assumed global proportions, resulting in the dawn of the Anthropocene (Crutzen 2006; Latour 2018; The Great Acceleration 2015; McNeill and Engelke 2016). In this scenario, the classical theory is not at all applicable to the present world. Therefore, I have tweaked tiṇai theory into a new theory I call “puttiṇai”, which explains the basic differences between the world of tiṇai, the state that emerged by overturning tiṇai, and the industrialist lifeway that ensued from the latter.

The central concept in puttiṇai is mūviṭam, or the personaic triad. The three personae are paṭarkkai, muṉṉilai, and taṉmai (tolkāpppiyam II. 1. 28). If paṭarkkai is the context of action, taṉmai is the agent and muṉṉilai is the patient. As the agent (taṉmai) and the patient (muṉṉilai) are the essential constituents of action, these two may be regarded as the counterparts of uripporuḷ (appropriate action) in tiṇai. The context (paṭarkkai) could be the counterpart of all the other three aspects of tiṇai: mutal porul, or the ultimate values; mutal, or place–time; and karu, or the naturo-cultural features of place–time.

Of all three personae, it is not taṉmai but paṭarkkai that should be regarded as the first principle of an action (Selvamony 2002). As meyppāṭu is a type of action, it has to be understood as a type of interaction among the three personae. A brief description of each of the three personae is necessary to proceed with the analysis of meyppāṭu.

As paṭarkkai is the context for the interaction between taṉmai and muṉṉilai, it can never be foregrounded in any action. If at all it is, what is foregrounded is not paṭarkkai but muṉṉilai. Though paṭarkkai can only be the background of an action, it is that which makes a particular action good or bad. Part of paṭarkkai (context) is the acting area called kaḷam3 within which taṉmai and muṉṉilai interact. To say that taṉmai is locatable in paṭarkkai is to say that taṉmai’s body, for all practical purposes, is locatable therein, whereas taṉmai’s uyir, or soul, is not.

As the context of taṉmai and muṉṉilai is not confined to kaḷam but extends beyond it, it is called paṭarkkai, or that which spreads (from “paṭar”, to spread out like a creeper or vine). In other words, paṭarkkai is both immanent (lying within kaḷam) and transcendental (as it spreads outside the kaḷam) at once. Both material entities, like other people and things, and entities that are non-material, constitute paṭarkkai. Place-time and the collective mind are a part of paṭarkkai. The collective mind consists of communitarian conventions, tradition, and commonly shared non-ultimate values (like efficiency and success). Another important part of paṭarkkai is uyarnta pal (tolkāppiyam III. 3. 3) or the transcendental persona, and its constituents are spiritual energy and mutal poruḷ, which is love and its triadic aspects, namely, ethicalness (aṟam), substantialness (poruḷ), and happiness (iṉpam) (tolkāppiyam III. 3. 1).

The spiritual energy of uyarnta pāl is kaṭavuḷ, or god. It might be thought of as the positively teleological transcendent–immanent spiritual energy (kaṭavuḷ: from kaṭa, to transcend + uḷ, inside, immanent = kaṭavuḷ, that which is transcendent and immanent, god), which expresses itself in such forms as teyvam, veṟi, kaṭi, muruku, aṇaṅku, and cūr. If the spiritual energy (or kaṭavuḷ) of teyvam, veṟi, muruku, and kaṭi is like the strong fragrance of flowers, that of cūr is pungency, especially intensity of heat, and that of aṇaṅku is terrible beauty. None of these forms of spiritual energy including cūr is malevolent (see note 2). Were cūr malevolent, as described by Zvelebil (1981), men in tiṇai would not have taken their marriage oaths before cūrara makalir (kuṟuntokai 53). Another objection (to cūr being malevolent) is a categorial one. If muruku is kaṭavuḷ (naṟṟiṇai 34: 8–11), and kaṭavuḷ is a category that subsumes teyvam, veṟi, kaṭi, muruku, aṇaṅku, and cūr, all forms of spiritual energy should partake of the nature of kaṭavuḷ, namely, being spiritual energy that is not only transcendent–immanent but also positively teleological. Yet another objection is the fact that spiritual energy is one of the constituents of uyarnta pāl (and therefore, paṭarkkai), which is the seat of love, and the ultimate values. Finally, even the apparent negative associations (like sickness and fear) of some forms of spiritual energy ultimately serve positive purposes, like telling the future and healing the sick.

Now I will describe muṉṉilai briefly. It is the patient to whom the agent, taṉmai, stands in relation in the acting area or kaḷam occupied by both. The muṉṉilai may be bodily present or absent. Even in situations where it is physically absent, its presence is ineradicable, like that of taṉmai or of paṭarkkai.

In primal communities (like tiṇai), taṉmai enjoyed face-to-face contact with muṉṉilai. This does not mean that primal people had no idea of what Anderson calls “imagined community” or people with whom they could not have face-to-face contact (Anderson 1985, 15). But their familial, economic, and political actions transpired within microworlds in which face-to-face contact was possible. Such contact was increasingly impossible in state and industrial societies. As tiṇai is an interspecific community, muṉṉilai was not always a human; beings other than humans, material and non-material entities, also played this role. Except on those occasions when the spirit presents itself to taṉmai as an abstract muṉṉilai (like the role to an actor or a spirit being to the shaman), very often it does concretely as air, or the earth or water or an animal or a bird or some artefact or other. In order to forge a positively teleological relationship with muṉṉilai that is material (such as a tree) or non-material (like a spirit being), taṉmai ought to sustain a heterarchic (non-hierarchic) relation with muṉṉilai that involves reverence not only for the spirit being but also for entities like trees. Reverence for muṉṉilai is acknowledgement of its spiritual energy.

The taṉmai is the agent to whom action and responsibility for the consequences of the action are attributable. In actions that are describable as rational ones (like the training of an actor), taṉmai is the initiator of the action and so it is morally responsible for it, whereas in actions that are describable as meta-rational or irrational (like spirit possession), taṉmai is not the initiator and therefore cannot be held morally responsible for it. While under the grip of an emotion, taṉmai is partially rational, and that is why taṉmai is expected to be morally responsible for her/his conduct in the community. But in the case of an entranced shaman, responsibility becomes complicated by virtue of problematic agency. The question is, “To whom should all actions of a possessed person be attributed—to the person who plays the role of a shaman or to the spirit being that has possessed her/him?” Agency is problematised not only due to the interdependence of the three personae but also due to their continuity (Selvamony 2005a, p. 40; 2005b, p. 14; 2007, p. xx; 2012b).

Though taṉmai is a role, a persona, it is always an embodied entity consisting of uyir (soul) and mey (body). uyir is the life breath that drives (uy, to drive > uyir, that which drives) the body. The word uyirttal also means both inhalation and exhalation. In the sense of inhalation/smelling, tiruvaḷḷuvar uses it in his phrase “kaṇṭukēṭṭu uṇṭu uyirttu uṟṟu aṟital” (tirukkuṟaḷ 1101), which means, “knowing by seeing, listening, tasting, smelling, and touching.” In the sense of exhalation, such as a sigh, it occurs in the phrase “paḷḷi yāṉaiyiṉ uyirttu” (exhaling like a sleeping elephant, kuṟuntokai 142: 4). Another cognate of uyir, uyirppu means “breath”, “fragrance”, and “invocation of a deity to abide in an idol” (Tamil Lexicon 1982). What is referred to as a deity is spiritual energy that animates the idol.

uyir cannot be life breath and drive the body if it were not energy. Today we understand energy as a quantitative property of matter. But in ancient times, it was both material and spiritual at once. As it is evident only in specific actions, it may be spoken of as a characteristic of action, be it natural (such as a storm) or organismic (such as lifting weight or spirit possession). Further, the positive and negative uses of energy are distinguishable only from the purpose of the action. This also shows that energy is inseparable from action.

In early Tamil imagination, the ultimate source of energy of an agent is uyir, which is both material and spiritual. As life breath, it is material energy, and as soul, it is spiritual energy. The latter is further confirmed by the assertion of the ancient Tamil philosopher pūṅkuṉṟaṉ, according to whom uyir follows the course of muṟai or ethical order (puṟanāṉūṟu 192), and this shows that uyir is energy, which is intrinsically positively teleological.

As energy is strength, it may be profitable to consider a couple of Tamil terms (from among several) that denote strength—āṟṟal and vali (vaṉmai)—in order to see if they could be described as “spiritual” at all. āṟṟal and vali are predominantly innate forms of energy of the agent and, to a large extent, physical. In the case of the word āṟṟal, its etymology explains its meaning. Deriving from “āṟu”, or way, it is putting something through its course. In this regard, āṟṟal is the potential to achieve what it intends by following a certain course. Unlike āṟṟal, vali or vaṉmai is innate strength, with no reference to its movement from one point to another. However, both could achieve the same end with proper intervention of uyir. For example, a ruler’s āṟṟal or vaṉmai (puṟanāṉūṟu 22: 33; 3: 26) could relieve a person from poverty if it is positively teleological. But taṉmai cannot provide the teleological orientation because it is not the seat of ultimate end. This shows how innate strength also depends upon something outside of taṉmai.

While āṟṟal and vali, like many other Tamil words, denote strength that might fail or succeed, their spiritual counterparts, like muruku and aṇaṅku, mean unfailing strength. A ruler who can accomplish what he intends to is comparable to muruku (puṟanāṉūṟu 56: 14), because muruku, being spiritual energy, never fails. If the strength of an army is described as aṇaṅku (puṟanāṉūṟu 362: 6), it must be the unfailing kind. Poets also likened such strength to kūṟṟam (patiṟṟuppattu 99) the death god. The meanings of these words show that if the strength is spiritual, it is unfailing because it does not depend upon the (human) agent to achieve its goal. If so, it is reasonable to presume that strength that is not describable as spiritual (like āṟṟal and vali) is innate in the agent, especially as characteristic of the agent’s uyir, whereas spiritual strength is not locatable within the agent. However, even innate strength requires the guidance of something outside of taṉmai.

The word uyir also means “spirit”4 (tolkāppiyam III. 6. 20), which can wax and wane. tolkāppiyam denotes waning of the spirit by the term “uyir melital” (literally, the weakening of spirit, dispirited). When uyir-as-spirit wanes, action could wane and become impossible also. Though uyir-as-spirit is not entirely within the control of the agent, it is not the same as spiritual energy like muruku. This shows uyir-as-spirit is not the same as spiritual energy. If spiritual energy does not reside in life breath energy or uyir-as-spirit, where does it? At this point, it is necessary to consider the nature of uyir-as-soul.

uyir is also the soul (puṟanāṉūṟu 192: 9), of which consciousness (uṇarvu) is a constituent. Speaking about uṇarvu in love, tolkāppiyar says it is the uṇarvu of one partner that unites with that of the other in love (tolkāppiyam III. 3. 26), and to iḷampōtiyār it is the uyir (consciousness) of one partner uniting with that of the other (naṟṟiṇai 72: 3). Arguably, this is possible because uyir is regarded as a synonym of uṇarvu. Besides uṇarvu, maṉam, or mind, should also be locatable in uyir-as-soul, as consciousness and mind are inseparable. But mind cannot be the seat of spiritual energy. Nor can soul be what it ought to be if it were locked within taṉmai without its roots in paṭarkkai.

How about the collective mind, and mutal poruḷ, or the primary entity, namely, love and the three ultimate values (ethicalness [aṟam], substantialness [poruḷ], and happiness [iṉpam]), which are its aspects (tolkāppiyam III. 3. 1)? As these guide all lives, including those of beings other than humans, they cannot be located either in taṉmai or in muṉṉilai. If so, where can they be located? From tolkāppiyam and the early Tamil songs, it is possible to know that it is uyarnta pāl (literally, “the higher or noble division” tolkāppiyam III. 3. 2), or the transcendental persona, a part of paṭarkkai, which governs human life and probably the lives of the other creatures too. Also, it is due to uyarnta pāl that matching lovers (taṉmai and muṉṉilai) meet, fall in love, get married, and make a home (tolkāppiyam III. 3. 2). From a song by kapilar, it is possible to know that it is uyarnta pāl that has control over the soul after it leaves the body (puṟanāṉūṟu 236: 12). Therefore, the spirit, especially spiritual energy, the collective mind and the soul can only be located in the transcendental persona. From what I have said so far about uyir of taṉmai, it is possible to see how taṉmai is already not only dependent on paṭarkkai but also ontologically incomplete without the latter.

Even the body of taṉmai is not wholly confined within a human, as it depends on entities outside a human for the air and food (which are part of either muṉṉilai or paṭarkkai) it needs. Though puttiṇai acknowledges that body and soul are the primary constituents of a human, it does not endorse the view that a human is a psychosomatic individual, which is the basis of most modern institutions, like economy, polity, and even family. As I have attempted to show, a human is located not only in taṉmai (agent) but also in paṭarkkai and muṉṉilai, and for this reason, it is more reasonable to see a human as an embodied personaic community and not as a discrete individual.

Though the three personae were described individually, they never exist individually. Ontically, they are continuous and constitute a personaic community or microworld. In fact, the principle of inter-relationality, which is the first of the four ecological laws of Barry Commoner (1981, 29–44), has its equivalent of ontic continuity in mūviṭam. While the ecological law generically indicates inter-relationality, the Tamil concept specifies the structure of the ontology of inter-relationality and identifies its three basic constituents (paṭarkkai, muṉṉilai, and taṉmai).

It is the nature of the ontic continuity or discontinuity among the three personae that determines the nature of the tiṇai also. Proper ontic continuity ensues when action is oriented to the ultimate end (called mutal poruḷ, which is love-based ultimate values); it evinces a happy blend of equality and authority as in true love, and the kind of tiṇai that emerges is viḻuttiṇai, which means “excellent tiṇai” (puṟanāṉūṟu 27: 1–3; Selvamony 2024). When the relationship among the three personae is oriented to a non-ultimate end, it is primarily dominant, and the kind of tiṇai that emerges is vīḻtiṇai, which literally means “falling tiṇai” or “diminishing tiṇai” because this is a defective form of tiṇai. When the persona, paṭarkkai, is denatured and reduced to mere material context devoid of sacrality and ultimate values, the relationship among the three personae is failed dominance, and the kind of tiṇai that emerges is altiṇai, which literally means “no tiṇai”, because mutal poruḷ of tiṇai is either absent or dubitable, and mutal and karu of this tiṇai exist in degraded form. As mutal (of tiṇai) is absent or dubitable, and karu (of tiṇai) is degraded in altiṇai, this type of tiṇai is anarchic. It is such because the more dominant the humans the more unsuccessful they are (with regard to their interrelationship with other humans and beings other than humans). Now, let me show how the triadic personae interact in the praxis of meyppāṭu in each of the three types of tiṇai—in the primal or pre-state community (viḻuttiṇai), in the state society (vīḻtiṇai), and in the industrialist society (altiṇai).

5. meyppāṭu in viḻuttiṇai

The interrelationship among the three primordial personae expresses itself in the form of action. As life is not possible without the interaction of the three personae, any action is possible only within the triadic personaic community. Like all other actions, meyppāṭu is also one that is possible only within the personaic community. Arguably, meyppāṭu is caused by the onset of some form of energy that causes visible changes in the body of the agent. What is the nature of the energy involved in meyppāṭu?

Consider nakai, or laughter (tolkāppiyam III. 6. 4). The agent who experiences this emotion expresses the emotion by laughing. Apparently, the sudden onset of some energy provokes the agent to behave differently by laughing. Put differently, the energy that provokes laughter performs a disjunctive function. By making the agent do something unusual (like laughing), the energy expresses its disjunctive impact. It is successfully disjunctive because the agent who experiences nakai cannot help behaving differently than laughing. The disjunctive impact is successful because the energy of nakai is disproportionate to the nature of the agent who experiences it. In other words, the joules of the external energy are greater than the joules of the innate energy (such as āṟṟal or vali) of the agent. As pointed out earlier, while ordinary energy is amenable to control, spiritual energy is not. Such energy is more like veṟi or muruku, which makes the possessed shake uncontrollably (kuṟuntokai 105; 362) and lose consciousness, which is necessary to control one’s behaviour (such as laughter).

The effect of spiritual energy is unlike that of energy innate in taṉmai. For example, the energy of life breath does not disrupt normal behaviour. But when spiritual energy enters a human, it disrupts the normal, and this disruption is expressed by what the ancient Tamil sages have called “viṟal”, which is physical expression. If laughter is the viṟal part of the meyppāṭu of nakai, frolicking on the part of the washerwoman is viṟal due to the sudden onset of muruku (puṟanāṉūṟu 259: 5–6). As viṟal is partly, if not fully, involuntary, it shows the victorious nature of the emotion. For this reason, viṟal also denotes victory. Significantly, the type of spiritual energy called veṟi also derives from the verbal base vel, which means “to win.” As energy that impacts the agent is victorious over reason, the agent who experiences nakai is unable to control the accompanying viṟal, namely, the physical act of laughing. Were nakai fully under rational control, it would be possible for the agent to experience nakai and not express its accompanying viṟal (physical expression), as a result of which the others will not know that the former underwent the experience of nakai.

Therefore, the emotion of nakai, I am persuaded to say, is caused by a form of spiritual energy rather than by energy that manifests as the strength (mataṉ) of a wrestler (puṟanāṉūṟu 80), or the āṟṟal (strength) of a wife who endures the temporary separation of her husband (kuṟuntokai 38: 6), or the vali (strength) of the husband who is able to steel his heart to leave his wife behind, though temporarily (kuṟuntokai 187: 4–5). This is further corroborated by the fact that one and the same word, meyppāṭu, denotes emotion (tolkāppiyam III. 6. 3) and spirit possession (puṟanāṉūṟu 259: 5), and, what is more, both meyppāṭu-as-emotion and meyppāṭu-as-possession are experiences of some disruption of the normal. Therefore, it is possible to presume that the disruptive energy does not generate from the experiencer’s body itself but from outside the body, as in the case of spirit possession.

Now, from where does the spiritual energy of meyppāṭu like nakai originate? As it is an experience of a personaic community, it is not wholly attributable to taṉmai. Just like uvakai, or happiness, cannot be defined as satisfaction of desire (Sihvola 2008), any meyppāṭu cannot be reduced to a subjective explanation. Often, the trigger of meyppāṭu is muṉṉilai, which could be an entity like a wild animal that causes accam (fear) or someone’s joke that causes nakai (tolkāppiyam III. 6. 8, 3, 4). Even when an abstract muṉṉilai, like the thought of a difficult examination, is the cause of fear in taṉmai, the contextual idea about examinations, which is a part of paṭarkkai, is necessary to explain the origin of the emotion. In fact, a kind of spiritual energy emanates from paṭarkkai and impacts taṉmai, who is already confronted with the thought of examination (muṉṉilai) and causes fear in taṉmai. Though meyppāṭu is the experience of taṉmai, it does not originate in taṉmai. It could be provoked by muṉṉilai, which may or may not be present physically, but the spiritual energy or spirit being that impacts the body and causes meyppāṭu can be located only in paṭarkkai, especially if the latter ought to be positively teleological.

A spirit being that resides in paṭarkkai is invoked because a community that invokes it not only believes that the spirit can exist in the form of an ancestor but also has faith in the concern the ancestor has for the community. Even if the triadic personaic community, which makes possible an ordinary emotional experience, subscribes to such a belief, the experience of an ordinary emotion does not depend upon such a belief. Nor does the situation that gives rise to the emotion call for invoking the ancestor or some other spirit being. Therefore, the experience of an ordinary emotion neither involves the coming of the spirit being nor foretelling or healing of the sick.

Earlier, it was shown how the spiritual energy, muruku, could impact a person and manifest itself in the body of that person. For a similar reason, ordinary emotion is also called meyppāṭu. This is the reason why an emotion like uvakai, or happiness, is described as “meymali uvakai”, or happiness that swells up in the body (akanāṉūṟu 56: 13; kuṟuntokai 398: 7; puṟanāṉūṟu 45: 9; naṟṟiṇai 43: 7).

The manifestation in the body is the effect caused by the same energy associated with spirit possession. This is evident from the fact that an ordinary emotion is also initially involuntary, like spirit possession. It is such because the cause of the emotion is not ordinary energy like āṟṟal or vali, which is amenable to initial voluntary control, but spiritual energy, which is not. The ancient Greek notion of happiness, denoted by the term eudaimon (good spirit), endorses this point because it associates the emotion with the daimon, or the good spirit (Sihvola).

An emotion may be initially involuntary, but eventually it has to be controlled by the agent. The agent should see to it that her or his emotion facilitates positively teleological interrelationship, especially with muṉṉilai. Of all the emotions, the one that needs maximum control by the agent is vekuḷi, or anger (puṟanāṉūṟu 6: 23–24), because it could persuade the agent to do wrong (tirukkuṟaḷ 303). All the eight meyppāṭukaḷ could be positively teleological provided the agent who experiences them orients them to mutal poruḷ, or the ultimate ends.

At this point, it is important to note a couple of differences between ordinary emotion and spirit possession. Firstly, in spirit possession, the shaman goes into a trance, whereas not every emotional experience involves going into a trance. There is a greater degree of loss of consciousness in spirit possession than in the experience of an ordinary emotion. A high degree of loss of consciousness will only create a condition in which emotional experience will become an impossibility. In other words, only mild loss of consciousness can provide an emotional experience without entrancing taṉmai and enabling the entry of a particular form of spirit being such as an ancestor or any other spirit being. This is why an emotional experience could only be possession of spiritual energy such as muruku or veṟi in the form of fear or humour but not possession of an ancestor or some other spirit being.

Like the onset of an emotion, spirit possession is also a temporary phenomenon. From the description of meyppāṭu in puṟanāṉūṟu (259), it is possible to infer that when the spiritual energy enters the washerwoman, her original taṉmai vacates her body, which is complemented by the entry of muruku, the spirit being. However, after the performance (ritual), the spiritual energy exits from the washerwoman’s body, and the latter returns to her routine life of washing clothes. Typically, meyppāṭu in viḻuttiṇai denotes temporary embodying of the spiritual energy. It is such because spiritual energy resides permanently only in paṭarkkai (like mountains, ocean, rivers, trees, and cultural artefacts) and not in taṉmai.

People of viḻuttiṇai accepted the normative nature of the spiritual energy, which consists of being temporary. To say that spiritual energy is temporary embodiment is to say that it enters and exits when it pleases. It can do so because its power to enter and exit is not checked by humans. Though humans can invoke the spiritual being like how they can call a peer, they are willing to remain powerless to a considerable extent. At times, tiṇai people do command the spirit to descend and perform the task they want it to. The device they use for the latter purpose is called “kaṭṭu” (literally, binding, tolkāppiyam III. 3. 25: 3), a kind of magic square. In kaṭṭu ritual, the performer exercises authority over the spirit invoked. But even kaṭṭu does not bind the spirit permanently to a place.

Further, meyppāṭu is not really an extraordinary experience of a shaman but rather a basic human experience, though the degree of the impact of the spiritual energy involved therein is highest in spirit possession and lowest in ordinary emotional experience. It is the embodying response of taṉmai to the impact of the spirit of paṭarkkai (in the form of veṟi or muruku or cūr or aṇaṅku), which is conveyed through a particular muṉṉilai (the one who amuses taṉmai as in a humorous situation, taṉmai’s beloved in a love experience, the role impersonated by an actor, and a spirit being that possesses taṉmai in spirit possession).

An ordinary emotional experience caused by a joke begins as an involuntary one when the spiritual energy that resides in paṭarkkai impacts taṉmai and produces the latter’s viṟal, namely, laughing, and ends as a voluntary one when taṉmai controls the experience or terminates it. Such experience involves four types of change—physical, mental, identitarian, and possessional. Convulsions of laughter indicate physical change. Also, taṉmai will admit that she or he cannot (mentally) “control” laughter wholly because the impact of the spirit is not rationally controllable. To some extent, laughter makes taṉmai other than what he or she was earlier. The otherisation of taṉmai is due to the entry of the spirit of paṭarkkai that processes muṉṉilai’s joke into an emotional experience for taṉmai. The emotion generated by the personaic context swells up in the body of the taṉmai or possesses taṉmai, and this is the reason why happiness swells up in the body (“mey mali uvakai”, puṟanāṉūṟu 45: 9, which literally means “happiness that swells up in the body”). However, meyppāṭu requires rational control in order to remain positively teleological.

Like ordinary emotional experience, love at first sight also begins as an involuntary one when, at the sight of a matching muṉṉilai, smitten by the impact of the power of the spirit of paṭarkkai (this is probably why the ancient Greeks called it “theia mania”, meaning “deity madness”), it progresses and ends as a voluntary one, though the love between the partners does not end when the initial experience ends. There are visible bodily changes on the person of taṉmai (wide opening of eyes, probably a smile on the lips, and even slight perspiration), and such an experience is not wholly controllable on the part of taṉmai, as the consciousness of the latter is lulled to some extent. Also, this type of meyppāṭu changes the nature of taṉmai—if not wholly, at least to some extent. Unless the self of taṉmai exits in order to accommodate the other, the experience will not count as love. Though lovers may not identify their love experience as a spiritual one, the divine aspect of love is universally acknowledged. Therefore, it is a possessional experience, though not the same as spirit possession. Despite the uncontrollableness of love experience, love experience can remain positively teleological only when the wellbeing of muṉṉilai is prioritised by taṉmai.

Emoting begins as a voluntary praxis and continues as an involuntary one until the actor ceases to emote. Through mask, makeup, costume, and gesture, the artist-taṉmai tries to make present an absent muṉṉilai. Successful emoting results in the impact of the spiritual power of the persona-muṉṉilai, which animates the portrayal of the artist-taṉmai. Impersonation involves visible physical changes on the part of taṉmai, loss of personal consciousness to some extent in order to accommodate the impersonated persona (muṉṉilai), taking on a new identity, and letting the spirit of muṉṉilai (which resides in paṭarkkai) take hold of the actor-taṉmai. However, as theatrical action is a rehearsed and pre-determined one, impersonation and empathy may not be wholly meta-rational actions. But emoting is fulfilling experience only if it becomes involuntary at least briefly. Evidently, the rational control of theatrical meyppāṭu ensures its positive teleological orientation.

meyppāṭu as spirit possession could begin as a voluntary sequence of actions such as costuming and dancing, climax as an involuntary one when the spirit being enters the body of the shaman, and end as a voluntary one when the spirit being exits from the shaman’s body.

Four characteristics of meyppāṭu are noticeable in all these types of experience. Firstly, as all three personae are involved in an experience that qualifies as meyppāṭu, the latter is possible only in the community of the triadic personae articulated in the actions of humans, animals, and birds. Being a type of action or a sequence of actions, meyppāṭu is a temporary phenomenon that lasts until the spiritual energy that drives the action(s) vacates the taṉmai. For this reason, the embodiment of spiritual energy in trees, mountains, water bodies, and other such entities is not considered meyppāṭu because in those entities neither is embodiment temporary nor does the embodying spiritual energy cause a recognizable sequence of actions.

Secondly, the self-identity of taṉmai (“yāṉ” in Tamil, which means “me”) exits from taṉmai’s body and also from the triadic personaic community where meyppāṭu transpires. While there is a greater degree of loss of self-identity in spirit possession, it is less so in ordinary emotion. Further, as the self of taṉmai exits, spiritual energy enters the body of taṉmai. This phenomenon may be called “partial taṉmai substitution” because only one constituent of taṉmai, namely, self-identity, exits, allowing the spiritual energy to enter the body of taṉmai. As the other constituents of taṉmai, namely, the body, life breath, and soul, are intact, the substitution is only partial.

Thirdly, taṉmai experiences ayarcci (kuṟuntokai 362: 1; 294: 2), or a state of unconsciousness when spiritual energy as muṉṉilai (be it a situation, a person, or a material entity) impacts taṉmai. This is true of the experience of any emotion, love at first sight, emoting and inspiration in art, and spirit possession. Due to ayarcci, taṉmai cannot control the muṉṉilai (spiritual energy/spirit being) and also can control it (cognitively), and such an experience can only be heterarchic.

Fourthly, all normative types of meyppāṭu (emotional experience, love, emoting, inspiration, and spirit possession) are positively teleological in that they serve purposes such as communitarian love, creativity, and wellbeing.

Summarily, it is possible to aver that meyppāṭu is the embodying of spiritual energy that impacts the bodies of humans, animals, and birds, and the type of meyppāṭu is determined by the degree of impact. If the impact is the greatest, the meyppāṭu is maximally involuntary, as in spirit possession, and if it is least, the meyppāṭu is maximally voluntary, as in an ordinary emotional experience. As meyppāṭu is action-based in viḻuttiṇai, it is temporary, and the relationship between the spiritual energy and the body it inhabits is heterarchic.

6. meyppāṭu in vīḻtiṇai

In vīḻtiṇai, the one who will be possessed by the spiritual energy is not the washerwoman, as in tiṇai, but an idol that is a monistic (Selvamony 2015), universal deity for all the subjects of the state. This idol, housed in a temple (the likes of which was absent in tiṇai), gains its spiritual energy not through an erasable kaṭṭu (a kind of kaḷam, or magic square), as in tiṇai, but through an unerasable iyantiram (a type of kaṭṭu) that feeds spiritual energy to the idol permanently (Choondal 1975; Jones 2023; Selvamony 2006). In other words, the religious institution of the state ensures that the idol embodies spiritual energy permanently. Under the care of specially appointed priests, the sacralised idol does not interact with the devotees directly, as in spirit possession rituals in tiṇai, but rather through the institution of priesthood.

Permanent meyppāṭu of the sacralised idol not only universalises worship but also replaces multiple local ancestral spirit beings of numerous families of tiṇai and thus uproots the subjects from their own worship traditions. A common deity is necessary in a state because the latter consists of people from diverse familial backgrounds, each having its own familial spirit being. Further, as tradition of worship is part of the paṭarkkai of a taṉmai, the subject of a state is coerced to adopt a common paṭarkkai, especially its constituent, namely, the spirit being that is not part of one’s tradition. The subject and the ruler share neither the same paṭarkkai nor the same kaḷam, resulting in disruption of true communitarian living. As meyppāṭu is permanent embodiment of spiritual energy in vīḻtiṇai, the relation between the superior idol and the relatively inferior worshipper is homoarchic.

7. meyppāṭu in altiṇai

In the case of postcolonial states like India, the predominant worldview of the industrialist state is scientific materialism, which the coloniser had bequeathed to its colony. In this dispensation, energy is understood not as spiritual energy but as a quantitative property of matter. The energy involved in an emotion can only be biologically innate in taṉmai, and meyppāṭu can only be a wholly taṉmai-centric experience. It is not understood anymore as the visible changes in the body impacted by the spirit but by one’s own mind. Such an understanding is based on the idea that a human is a psychosomatic individual rather than a triadic personaic community. Communitarian agency is irrelevant in altiṇai because paṭarkkai is wholly material context devoid of a positive teleological orientation due to rejection of the spiritual aspect of paṭarkkai. As love is a kind of spiritual energy that persuades one to be selfless, rejection of the spiritual paṭarkkai, especially uyarnta pāl, amounts to rejection of love. If at all an experience in altiṇai is describable as love, it is a mere biological one. Without love, there is no ontic continuity necessary for true community, and consequently, the relationship between taṉmai and muṉṉilai becomes one of failed dominance.

Similarly, the experience of falling in love also involves meyppāṭu because it is basically an emotional experience. Emoting in art also is explained in psychological rather than spiritual terms. Spirit possession does occur in the industrialist state, but it is considered a primitive throwback from a primal era or a psychological phenomenon—specifically, split personality disorder (Connolly 1998; Bloomer 2018; Keller 2002; Lewis 2003). These two approaches to spirit possession are the result of the industrialist lifeway’s investing in modern science and technology. The view that spirit possession could be personality disorder is untenable, as those who are possessed in rituals of spirit possession are mentally healthy humans who return to their daily routine soon after the ritual.

altiṇai not only dismisses temporary meyppāṭu but also permanent embodiment of spiritual energy (as in the case of sacred mountains). Consider the relationship between the mountain Niyamgiri (muṉṉilai) and the mining company (taṉmai). To the Dongria Khonds of Odisa the mountain is sacred because “he” is their ancestor, whereas the same mountain is a repository of bauxite to the mining company. To a Dongria Khond-taṉmai, Niyamgiri-muṉṉilai is an ancestor because both share the tradition of the same paṭarkkai, which requires reverence on the part of the Khond-taṉmai even when the latter makes a shelter or fashions an arrow using a part of the mountain. But the relationship between the miner-taṉmai and the mountain-muṉṉilai is one of anarchic failed dominance because when the miner displays his dominance and destroys the mountain for gainful ends, the pollution he causes has ill effects on the humans and other living beings (Amnesty International 2021).

While discussing the role of the public intellectual in sustaining a good democracy, and arguing how certain sections of the society, such as the tribal people, are either voiceless or silenced, Romila Thapar writes,

“While the Dongria Kondh tribes defend their sacred hill Niyamgiri from being destroyed by a corporate company, we should hear from those protecting the hill. Niyamgiri is their sacred hill that they worship. It is the equivalent of the temple to the Hindu and the mosque to the Muslim. To allow it to be mined is like permitting a temple or mosque to be destroyed… If according to the law, the idol in a temple has legal rights of ownership over the land on which it stands, …then can these rights be denied to the deity symbolized by the hill?”.

(Thapar 2015, pp. 30–31)

Apparently, the reader knows where Thapar’s heart lies; she desires to speak for the Dongria Khonds, especially their right to their land, their mountain. But her words do not. To her, the hill and the deity stand in a relationship similar to the one in which India and the tricolour do because the relationship in both cases is a symbolic one. This is why she equates the temple and the mosque, the places of worship of two major religions of the state society with a pre-state tiṇai spiritual tradition that cannot be regarded as a religious system. She does not say the hill is the ancestral deity. She wants the Dongria Khond people to speak up, not the hill “himself.” While Thapar’s heart says one thing, her language does another, because her language is that of altiṇai, where the speaker is always the human. How can a mountain “who” is only a symbol be a deity? How can a symbol speak for itself?

When the mountain is not a taṉmai (of a triadic personaic community) like any other living being but a symbol or an object, it can be manipulated at will by humans such as the miners. As “he” is not a living being, the mountain does not have a mind, a language, or a living body of “his” own. When Aldo Leopold wrote, “The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realise that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the change. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea” (Leopold 1989, p. 132), he presumed that the mountain was not an object or even an ecosystem but a living being because his mountain, if not a thinker, is capable of thinking. When state after state extirpated wolves, the mountain knew that the deer would multiply and overbrowse the bushes to anaemic desuetude and starvation, and eventually to the death not only of their own kind but also of the mountain (Leopold).

In altiṇai, the phrase “to think like a mountain” is an instance of linguistic absurdity. So is a talking mountain. Problematising the humanistic silencing of nature, Christoper Manes writes,

“…for animistic cultures, those that see the natural world as inspirited, not just people, but also animals, plants, and even “inert” entities such as stones and rivers are perceived as being articulate and at times intelligible subjects, able to communicate and interact with humans for good or ill. In addition to human language, there is also the language of birds, the wind, earthworms, wolves, and waterfalls—a world of autonomous speakers whose intents …one ignores at one’s peril”.

(Manes 1996, p. 15)

He adds, “For half a millenium, “Man” has been the center of conversation in the West. This fictional character has occluded the natural world, leaving it voiceless and subjectless” (p. 26). The Anthropocentric period Manes refers to includes the age of the industrialist altiṇai, which anarchised the interrelationship between humans and beings other than humans. Such anarchisation impacted India also due to colonialism. Manes (does not suggest but) exhorts, “In an attempt to reanimate nature, we must have the courage to learn that new language, even if it puts at risk the privileged discourse of reason—and without a doubt, it does” (Manes 1996, p. 24). To reimagine beings other than humans as “autonomous speakers” rather than as inert, spiritless, mindless objects, we need to relate to them not in a self-defeating, anarchic dominant way as we do now, but in a heterarchic way, accepting them as equals and also as beings worthy of respect and reverence. The tiṇai people offered toddy to the mountain as they looked upon “him” as a member of their family who enjoyed a drink as much as they did (akanāṉūṟu 348: 6–9). Just like how elder members in the family are respected, beings other than humans such as trees were respected where respect was due. A song in the ancient Tamil anthology called naṟṟiṇai is the narration of a coastal girl to whom an Alexandrian laurel was a sister. When the boyfriend of the girl tried to court her under the tree, the girl told him, discernibly out of respect for the tree, that they should move away from that tree because the latter was her sister (172).

As for the mountain, the tiṇai people revered it (aiṅkuṟuṉūṟu 259), as it was the abode of the spirit being (akanāṉūṟu 158: 7–11; 198: 14–17; 272: 2–4). In tiṇai, a being other than human (such as a mountain) is recognised as a taṉmai who has claims to rights, respect, and reverence because he/she stands in a relationship to humans that could be described as “love.” In such a relationship, a human could be a dialogical muṉṉilai (listener) who not only listens to the mountain-taṉmai but also understands what the mountain thinks about his own rights (of which Thapar speaks), about the consequences of economic development such as the extirpation of mountain-dwellers like the wolves (of which Leopold does), because the mountain-taṉmai is no more a mere object in an anthropocentric humanistic world but a wise elder (a significant type of Manes’s “autonomous speaker”) whose spirit could show humans the way to end the present Anthropocenic altiṇai and enter the epoch of the puttiṇai or the Neo-tiṇaicene.

8. Conclusions

By employing the theoretical framework called puttiṇai, this essay has revealed the dynamics of the relationship between humans and the spiritual energy that hitherto remained unknown. I have shown that the early Tamil people called the embodying of the impact of spiritual energy meyppāṭu, and such embodying is also evident in ordinary emotional experience, in falling in love, in emoting, in drama, and in spirit possession. Though material entities like stone and human bodies embody the spiritual energy, the ultimate home of spiritual energy is not the human or what could be the patient of a human agent, but the context (paṭarkkai) of human action, which is not directly accessible for human control.

People of viḻuttiṇai accepted this normative nature of spiritual reality and enjoyed a heterarchic relationship with it, which in turn made possible not only a reverential relationship with their context but also a healthy, non-extractive and loving relationship among humans and between humans and beings other than humans.

But the people of state societies were not comfortable with the normative nature of spiritual energy. Just like how they domesticated plants and animals, they did spiritual energy also and forged a homoarchic relationship with it. By attempting to objectify the non-objectifiable spiritual energy, they trapped it permanently in objects like stone, and the person of the king and the saint, and denatured it.

When the very existence of the spirit was rejected in altiṇai of industrial societies that invested in modern science and technology, meyppāṭu had to be redefined as a mere psychological phenomenon experienced by a psychosomatic human individual who is less than a human. Such a human’s relationship with other humans and beings other than humans is nothing but an anarchic one.

In order to restore a loving relationship in our interspecific microworlds and end the Anthropocene, the spirit should, as it was in viḻuttiṇai, be a part of our personaic microworld in such a way that it could embody itself in humans and beings other than humans as it listeth.