Nāgarāja e le sue spose. Rappresentazioni di divinità ofidiche in alcune pratiche cultuali e rituali del Kerala

Abstract

Cults and ritual honoring snakes are common in various regions of India. In particular, the Nāgas and Nāginīs represent a class of divine beings with an ophidic, semi-human appearance, whose characteristics and functions are transferred to snakes, towards which various human communities have feelings of respect. In this study, I will focus my attention on two religious scenarios: the Mannaraśālā temple on the southern coast of Kerala and the ritual of pāmbin tuḷḷal, involving the Nāyars and Puḷḷuvars communities. The perspective from which I intend to analyse certain aspects of snake worship and ritual draws on 'neo-animist' theses in some respects, emphasising the material and non-hierarchical relationships between human and non-human animals. Considering the historical dimension of such religious phenomena, the interweaving of these relationships will be placed in the context of the continuity of certain cultural values represented by the snake in Indian religious history, which is inevitably marked by Brahmanical culture. At the same time, the specificities and changes that have taken place that renew its meaning in the Malayāḷam-speaking communities of Kerala, where the ophidic cult is primarily linked to the promotion of fertility and the fear of sterility, which snakes can provoke in women, will emerge. The cultic and ritual complex stages the anxieties of the human groups involved, related to the risk of disappearance due to lack of offspring. Individuals, therefore, relate to snakes, regarded as embodiments of ophidic deities, as powerful non-human persons.