In Fluid Signs. Being a Person the Tamil Way.

Daniel, E. Valentine. 1984. “Introduction.” In Fluid Signs. Being a Person the Tamil Way. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press.

Compare and contrast the purpose and practices of flower divination of and prescriptions for achieving cukam (see Daniel, Ch. 5) with the purpose and practices of undertaking a pilgrimage to worship Lord Ayyappan in order to achieve a kind of temporary moksa (Tm: mokam) or what Daniel refers to as “equipoise” (see Daniel, Ch. 7).
Be sure to address (a) concerns about kunam/dosa disequilibrium in flower divination and (b) the metaphysical movement from “firstness” to “secondness” to “thirdness” in a Tamil pilgrimage (Daniel Ch. 7).
Another way to think about this is to explicate the following semantic opposition:
“Degraded” equilibrium (Tm: cukam = Kn: madi = “purity”) vs. “Genuine” or “ultimate” equilibrium or “equipoise” (Tm: mokam; Sk: Moksa).
1. Your paper must have a thesis statement. Explicitly state and underline your thesis statement.
2. Everything following your thesis statement must clearly work to support it.
3. Your paper must clearly deal with a topic that relates to our course.
4. Your paper must be correctly formatted according to MLA standards.
5. Your paper must be at least 6 – 8 pages in length. (Including Introduction and Conclusion.)
6. You must properly integrate several lines from at least three of the texts we have read in class.
7. You must also properly integrate several lines from at least five of the sources within your annotated bibliography. “In Fluid Signs. Being a Person the Tamil Way” by Daniel, E. Valentine.