Kalaripayattu
കളരിപ്പയറ്റ്Traditional martial art of Kerala, rooted in at least the twelfth century. It teaches body training, wooden and metal weapons and the vulnerable points marmmam.
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About Kalaripayattu
Kalaripayattu is a traditional martial art of the Indian state of Kerala. According to Phillip Zarrilli, author of the entry on it in Green's encyclopedia of martial arts, the name, composed of the words kalari, a place of training, and payattu, exercise, only began to be used for the Kerala art in the twentieth century. The forms practised today go back, in his view, at least to the twelfth century and are rooted in both the Tamil and the Dhanurvedic warrior tradition. Zarrilli describes it as the most complete surviving martial tradition of South Asia. Tradition attributes the founding of the first kalari to the warrior and sage Parasurama, the founder of Kerala.
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From the twelfth century until the arrival of British rule in 1792, the art was linked mainly with Nair families, who served as soldiers and attendants of local rulers. But some Brahmins, members of the Ilava caste, Christians and Sufi Muslims practised it as well. Under British rule it declined because of firearms and European institutions and survived only among a few masters, mainly in the north of Kerala. The general public first noticed it in the twenties of the twentieth century, in 1958 the Kerala Kalaripayattu Association was founded under the Kerala State Sports Council, and from the seventies the art spread across India and the world. Training is led by a master called gurukkal or asan in the kalari, traditionally a pit dug into the ground with a roof of coconut leaves, which is regarded as a temple. It begins with body training, poses named after animals, steps, kicks and jumps, then come wooden weapons and after several years metal ones, among them the dagger, spear, sword and shield and the flexible sword urumi. All weapons teach attack on the vulnerable points of the body, marmmam, which the masters also know from their healing practice. Since 1958 the association has organised district and state competitions in forms, and in December 2020 the Indian ministry of sport included kalaripayattu in the Khelo India Youth Games.
History
Phillip Zarrilli writes in Green's encyclopedia Martial Arts of the World that kalaripayattu has been practised in its present forms since at least the twelfth century and has roots in both the Tamil and the dhanurveda warrior traditions. It was practised along the whole Malayalam-speaking southwest coast of India, that is in today's Kerala and neighbouring parts of the Coorg district in Karnataka, and according to Zarrilli every village had its kalari with a master. Oral and written tradition attributes the founding of the first kalari and of the hereditary lines of teachers to the warrior and sage Parasurama, the founder of Kerala.
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Between the twelfth century and the start of British rule in 1792 the art was linked mainly with subgroups of the Hindu Nairs, who served as soldiers and attendants to village heads, district governors and local rajas. But some Brahmins, part of the Ilava caste with the title chekor, some Christians and Sufi Muslims also practised it. In some Nair and Ilava families girls trained too, up to adolescence, and according to the northern ballads some female pupils of famous masters reached high mastery. Some Ilava fighters fought duels to the death, ankam, which settled disputes between branching families of the higher castes. At the Mamakam festival, held until 1766, fighters from Valluvanadu sworn to die attacked the army of the zamorin of Calicut. Under British rule the art declined because of firearms and of the police, army and European-style institutions, and survived only with a few masters in scattered areas of Kerala, mainly in the north. The English Wikipedia states that the British banned kalaripayattu in 1804, while Zarrilli does not write about a ban. The wider public first noticed the art in the twenties of the twentieth century, during the rediscovery of native arts. In 1958, two years after the formation of the unified state of Kerala, the Kerala Kalaripayattu Association was founded under the leadership of Govindankutty Nayar as one of seventeen members of the Kerala State Sports Council. Zarrilli writes once that it began with fifteen member kalari, elsewhere with seventeen. Even in the seventies, according to him, the art was little known to the wider public, and since then it has spread across Kerala, India and the world.
How it differs
According to Zarrilli, many styles and lineages of kalaripayattu existed historically, among them Arappukai, Pillatanni, Vatten Tirippu and Dronamballi Sampradayam, and several of them were suppressed or died out, mainly in the nineteenth century in southern Kerala. The Kerala Kalaripayattu Association today officially recognises three styles according to their approximate area of origin: northern, central and southern. After 1958 kalaripayattu itself came to be called the northern style, because it survived mainly in central and northern Kerala. The Tamil forms, also called varma ati or adi murai, came to be called the southern style. Zarrilli describes them separately, because their origin myth and techniques differ considerably from kalaripayattu proper.
Technique
Zarrilli describes the traditional practice as a combination of three conceptions of the body: the fluid body of humours, with which Ayurveda works, the body of bones, muscles and vulnerable points marmmam, and the subtle inner body of yoga, in which kundalini shakti is awakened. There are usually eight basic poses, named after dynamic animals, for example the horse, peacock, snake and lion, and elsewhere Zarrilli names the elephant, horse and lion. Weapons come in order. First wooden ones: the long staff, the short staff and the curved staff otta, through which unarmed fighting is also taught. After several years, metal combat weapons: the dagger, spear, mace, sword and shield, double-edged sword against sword, spear against sword and shield, and the flexible sword urumi. According to Zarrilli, the bow and arrow was practised long ago but has vanished from the kalaripayattu tradition. All weapons teach attacking the body's vulnerable points and defending them. Unarmed fighting, verumkai, is taught either through the otta or by special techniques in advanced training. According to Zarrilli, marmmam are body points so vulnerable that an attack on them can in some cases cause instant death. The master learns them to attack them, to provide countermeasures after an injury and to avoid them during therapeutic massage.
Training
According to Zarrilli, training traditionally began at the age of seven in a specially built kalari, ideally in a pit dug into the ground with a roof of woven coconut leaves. The kalari is regarded as a temple, and in Hindu kalari seven to twenty-one deities are present and worshipped daily, at least during the training season. Preparatory training took place in the cool monsoon season from June to September and included a thorough massage of the whole body, which the master performed with his feet while holding on to ropes hung from the ceiling. The rules included not sleeping during the day, abstaining from sexual intercourse during the period of intensive massage, not staying awake at night and eating milk and clarified butter.
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Body training, meippayattu, combines poses resembling yoga asanas, steps, kicks, jumps, turns and arm movements into ever faster sequences, which the trainee performs back and forth across the kalari. Subtler practice includes vratam, sitting in the cat pose facing the protective deity, during which the trainee repeats the commands of the training sequence with deep breathing, and mantras, which the master passes on only to the most advanced pupils. Gitanjali Kolanad describes in the peer-reviewed journal Martial Arts Studies (2022) vanakkam, the ceremonial salutation at various stages of learning and practice. Each weapon has its own vanakkam, and they differ in Hindu, Muslim and Christian kalari. George Pati (Contemporary South Asia, 2010) writes that the kalari transmits a whole body of the knowledge of Kerala and that today it is often called merely a centre of cultural performance.
Ranks and progression
The teacher is called gurukkal, a respectful plural of guru, or asan. Some hereditary lines of masters bear the titles Panikkar or Kurup, granted to them by a local ruler. According to Zarrilli, a pupil should take up the first weapon only when ready physically, spiritually and ethically. First the wooden weapons are learned, first the long staff, then the short staff and finally the curved staff otta, and only after several years the metal combat weapons. Mantras are given only to the most advanced pupils. The tourism website of the Kerala government divides training into four branches: meythari, body training, kolthari, wooden weapons, angathari, metal weapons, and verumkai, unarmed fighting, and states that mastering all techniques takes at least five years. Zarrilli confirms the order of body, wood and metal, but according to him unarmed fighting is learned either through the otta or as part of advanced training.
Competition
According to Zarrilli, the Kerala Kalaripayattu Association has aimed since 1958 to promote and govern the art. It holds annual district and state championships, sets rules for practice and for building a kalari, and accredits member kalari. At competitions, students of the northern and southern styles perform forms, solo or in pairs with weapons, and a jury of masters judges them, awards diplomas and trophies, and names an overall winner in each of the two styles. On 20 December 2020 the Indian Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports approved the inclusion of kalaripayattu, gatka, thang-ta and mallakhamb in the Khelo India Youth Games 2021 in Haryana. According to a minister's answer in the lower house of parliament in July 2022, kalaripayattu was part of the third edition of the games in Panchkula and is among the domestic sports that the Khelo India programme supports with grants for sports venues, equipment, coaches and scholarships. The Kerala daily Kerala Kaumudi reports that kalaripayattu was a demonstration discipline at the 2015 National Games in Kerala and was recognised in 2023 as a competitive discipline of the National Games.
Today
Masters of kalaripayattu still provide traditional Ayurvedic physical therapies and massages for muscle complaints and set fractures. In the 1980s the theatre director Kavalam Narayana Panikkar used the art to train his Sopanam troupe, and the choreographers Chandralekha of Madras and Daksha Seth drew on it heavily. Zarrilli writes that interest in the art grew again in the 1980s and 1990s, but that traditional practice may seem outdated to young people who want quick results, compared with karate and kung-fu. Ian McDonald (Contributions to Indian Sociology, 2007) argues that globalisation is reshaping the formerly integral kalaripayattu into a bodily practice, a stage art and a competitive sport. According to an article by Ashitha Mandakathingal (Women's Studies, 2020), Meenakshi from northern Kerala received the state honour Padma Shri at the end of 2017 for a lifetime of kalaripayattu practice. The Indian Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports made a documentary about kalaripayattu and other domestic sports, and the daily Kerala Kaumudi reports that the Indian Kalaripayattu Federation gained nationwide recognition in 2015.
Did you know
According to Zarrilli, a Malayalam saying that the body becomes all eyes captures the ideal state of a practitioner. The same words form the title of his monograph on kalaripayattu, published by Oxford University Press in 1998. According to Zarrilli, the notion of vulnerable points is very old. The Sanskrit medical treatise of Sushruta from the second century CE defined 107 such points as an aid for surgical procedures, and already in the Rigveda the god Indra defeated the demon Vritra by attacking his vulnerable point. Kalaripayattu directly influenced the ritual dance teyyam from northern Kerala, the dance drama kathakali and the Christian dance drama cavittu natakam, which took over its techniques for stage combat. The Christian master Thomas T. Tuttothu Gurukkal traces his family tradition to Thoma Panikkar, commander of the Christian soldiers of the raja of Champakassery until his fall in 1754.
Styles & Branches
Northern style of kalaripayattu. According to Zarrilli, after 1958 this became the name for Kerala's own art, as opposed to the Tamil forms of the southern style.
Central style of kalaripayattu, one of three styles recognised by the Kerala association. According to Zarrilli it adds techniques in a rice-flour drawing and steps in five circles.
Southern style of kalaripayattu, since 1958 the name for the Tamil art varma ati. It begins at once with attacks and defence of vulnerable points, with no body preparation.
Frequently asked questions
What does the word kalaripayattu mean?
The word comes from the Malayalam words kalari, a place of training, and payattu, exercise. According to Phillip Zarrilli, it came into use for the Kerala martial art only in the twentieth century.
Are competitions held in kalaripayattu?
Yes. The Kerala Kalaripayattu Association has organised district and state championships in forms since 1958, and since 2021 kalaripayattu has been part of the Khelo India Youth Games.
What weapons are practised in kalaripayattu?
Wooden first, the long and short staff and the curved staff otta, later metal, among them dagger, spear, mace, sword and shield and the flexible sword urumi. The bow, according to Zarrilli, vanished from the tradition.
What are marmmam?
Vulnerable points of the body, a strike to which can, according to Zarrilli, in some cases cause instant death. Masters know them for attack, for treatment after injury and for therapeutic massage.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.