Amman’s Kuṟai – Emotional Friction during a Pandemic

Abstract

This paper explores the annual festival at a Tamil Hindu Mariyamman Temple in Eastern
Sri Lanka during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conceptionalizing the goddess’ changing
mood as an integral part of devotees’ interactions and relationships with her, it examines
the notion of kuṟai that came up in the wake of the toned down festival as an expression
of an emotional friction between Mariyamman and her devotees.
Kuṟai is a complex term that can encompass a range of emotional states pertaining to a
sense of loss or lack. It can also refer to something that is incomplete or has been left
unfinished. Isabelle Clark-Decès (2005) argues in her work on Tamil funerals that kuṟai
connotates more than a deep seated embodiment of grief as it also captures a more
general sense of loss and depletion. She suggests to read it as the loss felt of a
relationship ‘that was (and could otherwise still be) fulfilling and centering’ (2005: 27).
Yet how can Mariyamman, a Hindu deity, experience kuṟai? We argue in this paper that
people cultivate aXective bonds with her that draw on embodied and sensual ways of
knowing and engaging with her. Mariyamman does thereby not figure as a goddess aloof
but as a sensitive actor who is deeply enmeshed in people’s live worlds and whose
relationship to her devotees is shaped by mutual empathy.
The paper will conclude by shedding light on the insights that can be gained by analyzing
such ‘emotion knowledge’ (Pernau 2014) as a central part of human and non-human
relationships and interactions.