This module begins with the answer to the question ‘What is a kaḷari?’ and sets out the practice – martial and medical – that comes from the kaḷaris of Malabar (the north of the modern state of Kerala in southwest India).  We overview the history of Kerala as it pertains to its martial culture.  We interrogate what the Malayalam texts Kēraḷōlpatti and Vaṭakkan Pāṭṭukaḷ tell us about the culture of Malabar kaḷaris, uncovering as we go tales of virtuosic kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘ heroines.  We explore the religious framework that underpins the kaḷari training-shrine and its rituals, in particular its relationship to so-called ‘Kerala Tantra’ and the apparent taming of sanguinary deities.  Finally, we tour the inside of a kaḷari as it exists today, to understand the tantric underpinnings of the training space and how these relate to its notions of the body.

This module explores how the kaḷari body negotiates between tantric, āyurvedic and biomedical models of the body.  We study a detailed overview of this kaḷari body to lay the foundation for how it is understood in kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘ practice, in which practitioners’ virtuosity is determined by their harnessing and control of vāyu, the wind that is both cosmic and subtle.  How one embodies this wind is enshrined in the codification of the practice.  This codification is what makes kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘ a śāstra, according to its masters, and so we examine the training structures and principles that underpin the kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘ system.

This module focusses on a particular element of kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘ practice: vaṭiv˘ or posture.  We examine texts from kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘ lineage manuscripts to explore the understanding and function of postures in kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘ (and how these might diverge or cohere with our understanding of posture in other contexts, for example yogāsana).  We discuss the importance of an embodied knowledge of the lineage from which kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘ texts come in order fully to decode them.  There are different kinds of texts in kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘, so we explore what these are, which ones we have access to, and what limits our access or understanding of them.

This module explores how knowledge is conceived in kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘ and what must be ‘joined together’ to create it.  We examine the role of the kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘ guru and how s/he is instructed to recognise a fit student.  We interrogate the relationship between exoticised secrecy and the tools and processes of initiation in kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘.  We discuss the role of kaḷari mantram in the transmission of knowledge.  Finally, we look at the near-disappearance of kaḷarippayaṟṟ˘, followed by its twentieth century revival, and consider the parallels with Tirumalai Krishnamacharya’s establishment of modern yoga in a neighbouring  Indian state during the same time period.