The Practice of madi

Brahmin priests or pucari's regularly practice madi in the preparatory stages and during the performance of specific rituals or festivals. During the observance of madi, the person has to strictly adhere to specific rules. Following these rules enables the pucari to maintain purity (cittam), so gain sakti (strength) to perform the specific ritual. Common circumstances where an pucari has to observe madi include the performance of Grihapravesham (or house purification), the performance of the cermony for one's dead ancestors, the performance of puja in temples, etc.

In all cases where madi has to be observed, the following rules apply.

1. Avoid eating in other's houses or public places
2. Avoid bodily contact with other jatis
3. Abstain from sexual intercourse.

In "Being a Person the Tamil Way" Valentine Daniel explains the mulaikkal or house conception ceremony. The basic ceremony consists of the carpenter/craftsman (acari) (a minimally transacting caste) placing a pole or stone (kal) at the southwest corner (mulai) of the plot where the house will be built. Both the acari and the owner of the plot prepare for the ceremony by observing the same specific madi rules with the additional rule which can be stated as:

• Observe strict vegetarian diet.
• Favor Ganapathy in daily pujas.

Daniel also identifies a set of consequences of violating these rules. However, the consequences seem to be highly mutable and so I don't use that data. Also, I am more interested in explaining the commonality of the rules for madi and those for the mulaikal ceremony.

I will attempt to explain each of the madi rules using Marriott hypothesis applied to the hot-cold data collected above.

• Eating in other houses is a mixing transaction. For the priest, this is always undesirable. Eating in any other house is always heat-generating and will interfere with the sattvik nature of the priest. For a minimally transacting acari, mixing of substances from different castes is necessarily heating, and so interferes with the kunam of the acari.

• Contact with other bodies for a priest is also mixing since all other bodies are of greater rajas. This causes the sattvik nature of the priest to be decreased by mixing. For the acari, the mixing transaction is heating and so is forbidden during the madi period.

• We saw that sexual intercourse is heat generating. The same metonymy applies and the increased mixing reduces the purity (cittam) and hence the the sakti of the priest or acari compromising the madi.

The additional rules that the acari has to follow can also be satisfactorily explained using the metonymic logic proposed by Marriott.

• Meat is generally considered a hot food. The metonymic cluster of hot and mixing implies that the eating of meat will result in a greater degree of mixing. For the optimally transacting Brahmin, meat-eating is forbidden with or without madi. For the acari, eating meat will interfere with the minimally transacting kunam of the acari.

• Ganapathy is the celibate god of fertility. This seemingly contradictory expression has to be explained at two levels. Ganapathy is the child of Shiva, the god of asceticism and tapas. The idea of tapas is the internal manipulation of heat through intense meditation and sexual abstinence. The result of this practice is the enormous build up of internal heat, which when controlled can result in great energy. In Shiva, who is the original tapsya, this heat becomes a great fire (agni) which can be use for great creative or destructive purposes. Being the child of Shiva, Ganapathy obtains the same internal heating force through celibacy but uses this force for enhanced fertility. Praying to Ganapathy therefore enables the devotee to utilize the immediate celibacy to obtain enhanced fertility in future through controlled sexual transactions.