Embodying the Spirit (meyppāṭu): A puttiṇai Perspective
Religions January 24, 2025 Nirmal Selvamony
The author explains the early Tamil concept of meyppāṭu as a kind of action involving embodying the spirit, manifesting in ordinary emotional experience, love at first sight, theatre emoting, and spirit possession. Using the personaic triad (mūviṭam) from puttiṇai theory, the author outlines meyppāṭu across primal community, state society, and industrialist state. In the primal world (viḻuttiṇai), meyppāṭu ensured a love-based lifeway necessary for the wellbeing of people and non-human beings. The author argues this understanding is needed today to end the Anthropocenic industrialist lifeway that has brought humans and other beings to the brink of disaster.