The Tulunadu region spans across the borders of Karnataka and Kerala and is bound by the Arabian Sea on the west and the Western Ghats on the east. Owing to this relative geographical isolation from the rest of peninsular India, Tulunadu bears a distinct culture.
A significant aspect of the Tulu culture is the worship of animistic nature spirits called būtas or daivas, which are, usually deified local heroes or heroines or wild animals like snakes, boars, and tigers. The central focus of daiva worship is the nēma ritual. Nēma is a community event where specialised people undergo spirit possession and ‘impersonate’ the deities, while poems called pāḍdanas, are sung narrating the myths behind the deity, being worshipped.
One such Tulu deity is Siri. Her pāḍdana, called the Siri-pāḍdana, or the Epic of Siri, is a long piece of Tulu narrative poetry-a length just ten lines short of the Iliad, a complete recitation of the poem takes around twenty-five hours.
The story, briefly, begins with an infant Siri being found on areca flowers by Berma Alva of Satyanapura, who raises her and then gives her away to Kanta Alva in marriage. While pregnant, Siri finds out about her husband’s infidelity and leaves him to give birth in her natal home. Berma Alva dies soon after, and a succession battle ensues over the Satyanapura throne between Siri and Kanta Alva, which Siri loses. Enraged, she burns down Satyanapura with her powers and walks away from domesticity into the forest. Eventually, Siri marries again, and this time her marriage is a happy one. The second half of the Siri pāḍdana then traces the story of Siri’s daughter, Sonne and the events of her life.
The Siri-pāḍdana is significant because it presents a very different image of the ‘ideal’ woman than one expects from generic Indian patriarchal gender roles. Siri, unlike the women of mainstream epics, actively chooses to resist. When her husband sleeps with another woman during Siri’s pregnancy, Siri leaves him. Here, as Yogitha Shetty, Assistant Professor, working under the Govt. of Karnataka, notes, the idea of ‘chastity’ is extended to the husband and is not just a woman’s prerogative. Thus, after her divorce, Siri chooses to remarry. As a woman, Siri is not submissive and does not stay restricted to the household, instead plays different roles – she is a dutiful daughter-in-law, a loving mother, a strong claimant to her grandfather’s throne, a goddess, and a strong voice of resistance, thus navigating with ease through both forests (kāḍu) and civilisation (nāḍu), the dichotomy that characterises worldviews across southern India.
The Tuluvas consider Siri as the founder of their community and trace their matrilineal descent to her. Therefore, it is notable because Siri herself was part of a patrilineal society that she actively resists creating kinship bonds, which were more aligned to the matrilineal system. Subsequently, there is not much emphasis on the relationship between Siri and her husbands. Hence, a greater focus on her bonds with her grandfather, her friends, her co-sisters, her brothers, and her children.
As ancient as the story is said to be, the epic of Siri, was never forgotten. The Siri-pāḍdana continues to be sung by women while working in paddy-fields as part of a larger kabita tradition of paddy-transplantation songs. But where Siri worship truly comes to life is in a Siri-jatre, a practice where groups of women come together to sing the epic together, re-enact roles, and engage in ritual possession where the spirits of Siri and her family are said to enter their bodies. Dr. B.A. Viveka Rai, Professor and doyen of Tuluva folklore studies today, notes that the women who engage in mass possession during Siri-jatres come from social and economic marginalisation and live in strongly patriarchal households. These women, often are paid low wages and denied power, are not allowed a sense of identity, and face abuse from the men in their lives.
In this context, participation in Siri rituals gives them a space that is exclusively feminine where they are allowed to wield power. Their co-participants in the customs form an in-group where their experiences can be shared and validated. The perceived act of divine possession can be cathartic to women who carry the baggage of long-term trauma. Sometimes, the movement from the secular to sacred space may be beneficial. As some women have noted that since they became ‘Siri’ women, they face lesser harassment and abuse at home- with some even mentioning receiving higher respect overall.
Coupled with the epic and the lived experiences of women, the Siri tradition carries a strong sense of female resistance. Siri herself resisted societal expectations to carve out a meaningful life for herself, and reiteration of this mythical epic among the womenfolk of Tulunadu across generations can be known as a way of claiming feminine agency in a larger patriarchal context.
Sookthi Kav
Sookthi Kav is an undergraduate student of history at Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi. She is interested in the social and cultural histories of southern India but enjoys reading anything vaguely historical that comes her way. In her free time, she’s usually listening to Carnatic music or reading Doctor Who fanfiction.
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