Globalisation Traumas

and New Social Imaginary

Viswakarma Community of Kerala

Without being able to identify with either the upper castes or the lower castes on caste questions, or with left ideologies or rightist forces on the political front the

viswakarma community of traditional artisans in Kerala aimlessly wanders from one shelter to another. The changes that are taking place in the self-identity of this community buffeted by new economic forces provide a clue to the process of reformulation of community

identities by middle caste groups in recent times.

GEORGE VARGHESE K

I

Globalisation in combination with mechanisation is wielding

a devastating influence on the traditional arts and

crafts of India at present. The case of the traditional

artisan community of Kerala, otherwise called visvakarmas,

becomes a sordid tale of pauperisation and dispossession in this

context. The predicament is pithily put by one of the community

leaders, Sthanumalayan: “Visvakarma community is in the grips

of LPG at present. By LPG I mean liberalisation, pauperisation

and globalisation”.1 This state of things is creating subtle shifts

in community identity and political behaviour.

The visvakarma community consists of five subgroups: blacksmiths,

carpenters, bell metal workers, stonemasons and goldsmiths.

2 They are neither too high nor too low in the pollution

based caste order of Kerala while at the same time never fit into

the apparel of the grimy manual labourer. Parity with brahmins

had been a strident slogan for long as well as the argument for

the recognition of their profession as something more exalted

than manual labour, which they consider as a combination of

scientific, artistic and manual skills rolled into one. The truth

or force of these arguments notwithstanding, the community is

still in political wilderness and in the brink of professional

extinction. Globalisation at present has added to their traumas.

This has also incited subtle shifts in their identity projection at

present. Manufacturing a new community consciousness on the

bedrock of primordial glories and its deployment in the present

politics of communal bargain become salient in this process. But

we also notice this agenda pitiably floundering on newer political

boulders created by the state under the fiat of globalisation.

The community has many peculiarities that make their case

unique and precarious especially in the case of Kerala. First of

all the artisan community is claimed to be the largest single group

under the Hindu fold in India with a population of 14 crores.3

Similarly this is one of the very few castes in Kerala that has

its representation outside the state also. It is the third largest

community after ezhavas and nairs in the Hindu fold [Karmayugam,

November 2002:6]. Yet the artisan community never made a

decisive social or political presence in India or in Kerala. In the

case of Kerala they were always marginalised and are specifically

noteworthy for their ineptitude in fetching the communally

brokered political privileges. According to Sobha Ramakrishnan,

an ideologue of the community, “Visvakarma community could

never consolidate itself like other communities either politically

or communally. It failed to organise politically since it never had

a philosophical vision needed for political organisation. On the

other hand, it could never organise communally also since it

lacked a spirituality that could impart symbolic coherence to the

community’s aspirations. We have lost the label of the Hindu

itself due to the lack of this spirituality and have become outcaste

Hindus” [Ramakrishnan 2003:5].

The visvakarma community’s identity had always been pivoted

around their profession, almost aprioristically. Hence their claim

to brahminism, a strident refrain in their centuries long struggle,4

had always been aligned to the theme of the retrieval of the old

glory of their crafts. The craft traditions, it is claimed, go back

to the ancient Indus Valley civilisation itself. Their work manuals

inherited from the early history manifest high influence of

cosmology, geometry, astronomy, physics, meteorology and

metallurgy [Somanathan 1987, 1989]. The visvakarmas also

strongly hold that they were the real architects of the Indus Valley

civilisation and not the brahmins of today who were in fact

usurpers of their glory later. So improvements in their

present condition also mean the reinstatement of the dignity of

their crafts.

In the pragmatic terms their demand is that they should be

recognised as the “traditional or basic labourers”5 and be given

the due protection, which even the unskilled labourers enjoy in

Kerala [Mathrubhumi, February 27, 2003:14; Malayala

Manorama, February 27, 2003:11]. Of course there are certain

sections of labourers who are recognised as traditional labourers

by the Kerala government and they are confined to four sectors

mainly: coir, cashew processing, fishing and hand weaving.

According to R S Manian of Pazhayasala from the community,

this is unjust since these professions are very recent when compared

to the ancient crafts of the artisans. He argues that the traditional

crafts associated with Visvakarma, the archetypal Creator of the

Hindu pantheon, bear the stamp of the primordial act of Creation

itself. Living matter like animals and plants were created only

after the creation of the non-living matter like stones and metals.

The artisans work on the non-living matter like stones and metals

(except for wood) that were the first creations of the lord. But

ironically the government gives protection as ‘traditional industries’

to professions associated with vegetal and living matters

like coir, cotton and fish, which were subsequent creations after

metals and stones (interview on March 18, 2003).

‘Tradition’ and ‘labour’ have other connotations as well in the

parlance of the brahminic ideology. First of all ‘labour’ in the

political economy sense, which means an intrinsic human act

that adds a definite value and therefore price to a product, had

never been present in the Hindu vision wedded to the caste system.

Ordinary labour was always considered polluting and menial. In

an upturned ideology the brahmin who spurned the physical

labour governed the Hindu cosmos and the so-called lower castes

that toiled for the sustenance of the system existed on its fringes

or even outside it. The category of labour was seriously distorted

in the Indian ideology and we find only its philosophical hyperboles

like karma, dharma, etc, circulating with currency and

dignity. The rising in the scale of caste order for visvakarmas

therefore means reinstating the dignity of their profession on par

with that of the ancient crafts in the pre-brahminic and pre-caste

period. At present this is possible only through higher economic

returns for their work and stable working conditions, which can

be guaranteed only through the protective measures of the

government.

But under the imperatives of globalisation the state is already

withdrawing the support to the traditional crafts and industries

like coir industry, cashew processing and hand weaving. Under

this general turmoil the visvakarma artisans who once hoped to

improve their socio-economic position are floundering on fresher

boulders created by the state. The community today is a disillusioned

lot especially with the serious dislocation of the goldsmiths.

They are launching many struggles under the banner of

Visvakarma communal organisations and various trade unions.

Their acute sense of futility seems to eventuate the increasing

influence of the Hindutva ideology as well as the rearticulation

of their history with a new logic. The latter looks awkward many

a time.

II

The visvakarma community traces its lineage to Lord

Visvakarma, the divine architect of the Hindu pantheon, and his

five children. It is believed that the five children (or five essences)

of Visvakarma, Manu, Maya, Tvashta, Shilpi and Visvajna were

the forefathers of the five groups among the visvakarma community.

Manu was believed to be the forefather of the blacksmiths,

Maya of carpenters, Tvashta of metal casters, Shilpi of

stonemasons and the last one Visvajna of the goldsmiths. The

title ‘visvakarma’ was adopted only recently, before that the

community was known under the name ‘kammalan’. Kammalan

which according to Edgar Thurston, may have derived from the

Tamil ‘kannalan’ or ‘kannalar’ which means ‘one who rules the

eye or one who gives the eye’ [Thurston 1909:106]. This refers

to the ritual act by the artisan or the artificer who makes the idol

coming forward and painting its eyes at the end of the consecration

ceremony of a temple or a ‘vihara’. In Ceylon and south

India, this act of ‘eye painting ’ or ‘netra-mangalya’ is believed

to infuse the idol with the divine powers before which it is only

a lump of metal or clay [Coomaraswamy 1979:70-75; Singer

1972: 122].6

The visvakarmas occupy an ambivalent position in the caste

order. Distance pollution marked the early caste system in Kerala,

which was prevalent till the 20th century. Though no more

practised, its spatialisation is still the best indicator of each caste’s

position within the ideology of caste order. Ayyappan, the ethnographer

of Kerala, furnishes us with the spatial scale of this system

as practised in 1937. The namboodiri brahmin was the solar centre

of the system. A nair must keep seven feet away from him, ezhava

32 feet, a cheruman 64 feet and a nayadi from 74 to 124 feet.

In turn the various distances between the lower castes were

deduced by simple subtraction: the ezhava must keep 25 feet from

the nair, and cheruman 32 feet from the ezhava. Castes like

nayadis were not only untouchables but ‘unseeables’ also

[Hutton1969:80]. The visvakarma was supposed to stand 24 feet

away from the brahmin accordingly [ibid]. So he stood eight feet

ahead of an ezhava and 17 feet behind the nair.

The system was ‘audio-visual’ with the rules of pollution based

on sight, touch and sound. The nair who stood seven feet away

could not touch the brahmin. The nayadi who was to remain

beyond 74 feet could pollute by sight also. The visible circumference

of this sacred space seems to have the limit point at

64 feet where the cheruman stood. The ezhava who stood at

32 feet away from the namboodiri constituted the middle point

of this cosmos. If we add a physical-spatial dimension to the

ideological hierarchy of Dumont7 the ezhava’s position logically

becomes the threshold point between the purity-pollution

divide of the system. It means the community that occupied this

point was neither too polluted nor too pure. In that case the

visvakarma at 24 feet stood within the vantageous segment of

purity.

But this did not secure the visvakarmas any socially significant

position under the brahminic hegemony. This they believe

was the result of a historic villainy perpetrated by the brahmins

(see below). Their position in the middle of the caste order

became critical. Being neither too pure nor too polluted made

them a pivotal caste between the upper and the lower ones. As

a result their professional status became ambivalent. They

built temples, sculpted the deities, made their ornaments and

these were undoubtedly pure and sacred acts. But the moment

these acts were finished they were thrown out deemed as

polluted. Thus straddling pollution and purity indecisively

became their jinxed life state or existential ontology under

brahmin dominance.

III

The disasters in the occupational front have roused many

ideological and political responses from the visvakarma community,

which is especially noteworthy for disunity, factional

fights and incoherence. This derives from the lack of an integral

vision about the community identity on which their struggles

could be launched. This in turn is pivoted on the peculiar way

their profession and caste order are bound up together. The

argument for upper caste status is inextricably bound up with

the historically claimed merit of their crafts. So their putative

brahminism and the dignity of their crafts go up or sink together.

The community identity thus becomes a resilient node that could

be pulled from various directions and also one that could be

manipulated by a host of ideological and political forces that

range from hardened Marxism to fundamentalist Hindutva. As

Paul Zachariah, the famous littérateur of Malayalam told me,

“This is the most confused community about their own identity

in Kerala”.

The identity of the community suffers from a number contradictions

engendered both within and without. The immigrant

Tamil goldsmiths consider only themselves to be brahmins while

they hold their Malayali kins to be an inferior and untouchable

jati. Even within the Malayali fold there is no unity. As an

informant told me this is because of the ‘bad ego’ deriving from

the nature of the respective professions of each group. “The

goldsmith, since he works upon the precious metal, thinks that

he is the most superior. The blacksmith, since he works upon

iron, which is the most essential and strongest of metals, thinks

that he is higher. On the other hand the bell metal worker and

stonemason since they make human and even divine forms think

that they are the greatest. The very medium they work upon and

the nature of the profession foment jealousy towards each other

and prevent the community from coming together.”

Again the community always identified with wrong ideologies

and causes at wrong times, thus thinks many influential ideologues

of the community. For a long time, to be exact till 1980s,

the community identified with communism, which hampered

their prospects, according to one of the vice-presidents of the

KVS. Almost 70 per cent of the community had always been

Left Front supporters headed by the CPI (M) [Karmayugam, April

2002:6]. But the Left Front never did anything worthwhile to

improve their condition. Similarly the identification with the

communists also prevented them from participating effectively

in the freedom struggle led by the Indian National Congress.

According to Karamana Balakrishnan, one of the community

leaders, “There were very a few freedom fighters from the

community like Moothapillai Achari from Choorakkattupalayam.

The community somehow missed the legacy of the Indian freedom

struggle” (interview on March 22, 2003). The community

failed to organise under an eminent community leader during

the freedom struggle, which in fact happened to many other

communities, like the nairs and ezhavas. P R Devadas, the

president of K V S, cites another interesting incident. During

the freedom struggle, when the outcaste pulayas were organising

under the community leader Ayyankali, the upper castes beat him

up for travelling in a decorated bullock cart (‘villuvandi’) which

was forbidden to the lower castes at that time. In the group that

beat up this pulaya leader there was one Kesavan Achari from

the visvakarma community who identified himself with the upper

castes. This, according to Devadas, shows that “the community

always stood with its back turned to history and always failed

to imbibe the social changes occurring around it” [ibid:10].

We again notice that it is not the paucity of communal

organisations or similar cultural outfits within the community

that has thwarted the construction and projection of a viable

community identity. The first communal organisation of the

smiths in south India was started in 1903 in Madras namely the

‘Visvakarma Kulabhimana Sabha’. After that we see a number

of communal organisations budding, growing, splitting, merging

and vanishing among them. The year of India’s freedom 1947

witnessed the formation of the Akhila Thiruvithamkore

Visvakarma Maha Sabha (ATVMS) in the Travancore area. After

10 years in 1957 it grew into a statewide organisation called

Akhila Kerala Visvakarma Maha Sabha (AKVMS). Many local

associations coexisted with this frontal organisation while many

associations emerged newly due to factional rivalry in this period

[Achary 1998:305]. Some of them like Kerala Visva Brahma

Maha Sabha (KVBMS) and Kerala Visvakarmala Sangham (KVS)

emerged as rivals to the Maha Sabha. According to Vikraman

Achary, who wrote a thesis on the political modernisation of the

community, a ‘Round Table Conference’ itself was held in 1966

in Aluva under the initiative of the Maha Sabha to resolve these

internecine conflicts (ibid). Then in 1968 an entirely new association

emerged under the name Visvakarma Service Society

(VSS). But this group was alleged of articulating the interests

of only one group among the visvakarmas, the goldsmiths. The

year 2001 witnessed the merging of three separate organisations,

AKVMS, VSS and Tamil Visvakarma Samooham (TVS) into

a single frontal oragnisation, Kerala Visvakarma Sabha (KVS).

Also a section of the Tamil goldsmiths who consider themselves

distinct from others especially on the question of brahminic purity

have formed their own oraganisation namely, Visva Brahmana

Kulodharana Sangham (VBKS). They also organised under

two political parties of their own namely Progressive Democratic

Front (PDF) and Bharathiya Labour Party (BLP) in 1980s

and 1990s respectively, to negotiate more effectively with the

government, but failed miserably (interviews with different

community leaders).

The claim to brahmin status or the equivalent had always

been one of the mainstays of visvakarma identity. They consider

the brahmins – whom they call ‘go-brahmins’with an air of

contempt and themselves ‘visvabrahmins’ – have always constituted

the ‘Other’ of the community.8 The notion of the ‘Other’

in the case of visvakarmas has an identical form as the brahminic

one but with a different content. In the case of the brahmins the

Other becomes a mediated category rather than an oppositional

one. The Other was always incorporated through a process of

‘inclusivism’ and ‘hierarchisation’ [Jaffrelot 1996:4; Dumont

1998] The failure to address the Other in terms of opposition

inhibited the growth of the Hindu consciousness, according to

the Hindu nationalists of the early 20th century. This is because:

Hinduism has always recognised the existence of ‘aliens’ and

‘barbarians’ (mlecchas). But such groups were made the object

of discrimination, not on the basis of ethnic criteria but because

they did not conform to the prescribed rituals of which the Brahmins

were the guardians. Once this obstacle had been removed there

was no longer a barrier preventing their socio-cultural integration.

In this process the internal logic of the caste system reveals its

capacity for assimilation; in so far as the hierarchy represents a

system of gradation based on the notion of ritual and purity,

everyone can find a place in it, below he Brahmins, according

to his degree of conformity with the exalted values personified

by Brahmins [Jaffrelot 1996:2-3].

The Hindu community, for nationalists like Golwalker, is a

community of ‘lack’ in the Zizekian terms [Hansen 1997:271].

The essence of the community is empty and inexpressible. It could

only be felt rather than defined or measured. This emptiness also

promotes possibility of the production of more insidious communal

imaginaries as ‘fantasy constructs supporting reality’, to

use a Zizekian expression again [ibid: 181]. The lack perceived

in the present makes the imaginary curve back to fictional Utopias

and primordial worlds in which the community in question is

envisaged as the rulers and masters. Castoriadis conceptualises

it cogently:

It (the signifier) designates the collectivity in question, but it does

not designate it as pure extension; it designates it at the same time

as intention, as something, a quality or a property. We are leopards.

We are macaws. We are the Sons of Heaven. We are the children

of Abraham, the chosen people whom God will make triumph over

his enemies. We are the Hellenes – the people of light. We call

ourselves, or others call us German, Frank, Teutsch, Slav.We are

the children of God, who suffered for us…, the name was not

restricted to denoting them but at the same time connoted them

as well – and this connotation refers to a signified that is not and

cannot be either real or rational, but imaginary…[Castoriadis

1987:148].

In the case of Hindu nationalism, the Vedic ‘Golden Age’

connotes the primordial grandeur, which later collapsed under

the incursion of alien Other. Now the retrieval of this primordial

glory depends on the vanquishing of the Other through militant

nationalism.

The visvakarma identity construction manifests an identical

historical imaginary of similar intensity, but with a construed

Chronotope9 and with the same actors in changed roles. In the

traditional Hindu worldview, to which the Hindu nationalists

subscribed, the Vedic world was constructed with specific notions

of territory, language and social structure. The Aryans of the

Vedic times were deemed as the chosen people of god to whom

the formless god revealed the perfect knowledge of the Vedas.

Some time after Creation they came down to Aryavarta – the

territory between Himalayas and Vindhya mountains, the Indus

and Brahmaputra – and then became the masters of the earth.

They instructed the inhabitants in the ‘mother of all languages’,

the Sanskrit, before falling into idolatry and superstition [Jaffrelot

1996:16]. The legacy of the Aryans continued through the brahmins

who instituted polytheism and caste system, the pivots of the

Hindu culture later. In the ensuing hierarchical order the brahmin

became the apex point to whose pre-eminence everything in the

Hindu world was subjugated.

The visvakarma rendition of the Vedic world and its legacy

becomes a mutated version of the brahminic one. For them the

brahmins have completely misrepresented their role in the Vedic

times, which was nothing short of villainy and manipulation. For

a prominent historian from the community, Edava Somanathan,10

the Hindu religion and brahminic religion are two different

things. The true Hindu religion was pre-brahminic, Vedic and

egalitarian. The brahmins only created the four caste divisions

and also the fifth division of untouchables called the Panchamars

later. Sage Vyasa who compiled the Vedas stands at the provenance

of this contrivance .The Jains used to call this Hindu

religion corrupted by brahmins ‘Vyasa religion’ with contempt

[Somanathan 1989:120].

The sense of ‘lack’ at present prompts the community to ransack

the reasons for it in the Vedic milieu as similar to the romantic

theorisations of Hindu nationalism. As usual they strongly feel

that the primordial world was theirs and they were the masters

of it. The locus of this pre-brahminic world was Aryavarta itself

and the civilisation they gave rise to was the Indus Valley

Civilisation. The Vedic Civilisation and the Indus Valley

Civilisation were one and the same. This was an ‘Artisan

Civilisation’ in contradistinction to the later authentication that

it was aryan/brahminic. It was an egalitarian civilisation with no

caste divisions in it. The arts and sciences were highly developed

in this milieu with thousands of treatises produced on astronomy,

metallurgy, chemistry, geography, physics, textile technology,

architecture and even aerodynamics. They made even aeroplanes

using a rare alloy called ‘rajaloham’ (royal metal) [ibid:24-27].

In ancient India the artisan was an artist par excellence: the

‘silpin’ or ‘silpan’. The products of arts and crafts were not

considered as inert or alienated objects of their creators but

something that contained the live creative spirit of the artist or

the silpin; more precisely instead of objects they were subjectobjects.

This creative spirit that shaped the objects of art or crafts

was part of the cosmic spirit that ruled everything. Hence the

products of arts or crafts were equally the vehicles of Maya, the

playful expressions of the Absolute. And therefore the exclamation

of the artist or craftsman before his or her creation “O how

did I make it? [Kramrisch 1954:14].

Silpa was a complex concept constituted of many aspects like

art, craft, labour, ingenuity, rite and ritual as well as form and

creation. Therefore silpi more than a mere technical performer

becomes an agent of magical and divine powers. The crafts in

early India embraced the whole of the culture and ethos and hence

came to be classified as 64 arts or kalakal. Its variegated range

included mundane crafts like pottery making and blacksmithy,

magical and occult practices and even agonistic arts of love as

laid down in the Kamasutra. On the other hand, vidya or pure

sciences formed only half the number of arts: thirty-two in the

ancient India [Kramrisch in Miller 1983:59-60].

The silpins or the artisans of Indus Valley were originally called

‘Vis’ or ‘Vissa’, derived from the Pali usage ‘Viskamma’. The

later brahminism and its language, Sanskrit, corrupted this original

Pali expression. In this amendation ‘vissa ‘ became ‘vaisya’

which signified a lower status. From ‘vaisya’ the name

‘visvakarma’ ought to have evolved according to scholars. From

the Pali ‘viskamma’ the dravidian ‘kamma’ and ‘kammalar’ took

birth in all probability [Somanathan 1987:28]. The vissas worshipped

Brahma and his demiurge, visvakarma. The later members

of the Hindu Trinity, Vishnu and Siva were not important

in this original pantheon. There were a number of temples for

Brahma in this period. Later, cleavages rend this Vedic community

specifically due to the rivalry between the sages Vasishta

and Visvamitra. Vasishta conspired with one of the kings,

Sudasana, who fought the 10 clans of the artisans and finally

destroyed them. The Indus civilisation declined eventually and

the artisan vissas fled to different parts of the world [Somanathan

1989:76-77; 1987]. Vasishta who was instrumental in the destruction

of these artisans nurtured another priestly class who

became the brahmins later. The brahmins instituted the new

Hindu Trinity in which Brahma was given an inferior place. All

his temples were destroyed and the decree was passed that he

should not be worshipped anywhere in the Aryavarta.

And how did the brahmins soar and the artisans sink? For the

visvakarma ideologues a different chronotope is discernible in

the pre-history of India. This chronotope is marked by a deep

scission in the stretch of Indian history from the later part of

the Indus civilisation around 2500 BC to 1000 BC. This is the

period that is called the ‘Dark Ages’ of the Indian history. We

get the faint glimpse of the Vedic period from Vedas especially

Rig Veda. Then suddenly there is a gap of 1,500 years with no

historical documents. Then history is born anew around 1000

BC and Jainism and Buddhism follows around 600 BC. The 1,500

dark years between 2500 BC and 1000 BC is the critical period

for the visvakarmas. They claim that in this period the brahmins

did everything possible to deliberately erase the traces of their

glory in the Vedic/Indus period [Somanthan 1989:42-43].

The argument goes as follows. We find evidence of scripts

and writings in the Indus period. The archaeologists have found

out around 400 letters from the writings on seals, vessels, etc,

retrieved from the Harappa-Mohanjadaro sites. So if writing was

known in the Vedic/Indus period how come the Vedas were

preserved in the oral tradition for thousands of years till they

were translated to Sanskrit born only around 3rd century BC?

The answer is simple. The brahmins who wanted to destroy the

great legacy of the artisans and foist their own glory destroyed

every trace of historical and cultural records that spoke about

the artisans and their civilisations. So the thousands of scientific

treatises of the Indus period were destroyed. But Vedas were

spared since they understood that with proper construal they could

be used as vehicles to freight their own glory also. But to keep

the exclusive preserve of them they destroyed the written forms

of Vedas and instead started keeping them in their own heads

by by-hearting them. Thus started the oral tradition of Sruthis

and Smrithis through which Vedas were transferred from generation

to generation for hundreds of years. Only with the

systematisation of Sanskrit by Panini around 3rd century BC the

Vedas were reproduced in the written form [ibid: 96-101,115].

“Sanskrit was the last shroud spread on the corpse of the Vedic

Golden Age” [ibid:134]. This also marked the descent of India

from the ‘Aeroplane Age’ of the artisans to the ‘Bullock-cart

Age’ of the brahmins [ibid:131].

The original Vedic conception of the cosmos was different from

the later brahminic one. It was called ‘Visvabrahmam’ created

by visavkarma, the demiurge of Brahma. It is interesting to notice

that this cosmos was oragnised on the principle of ‘five’ or

‘pancha’. Accordingly the Brahma/Visvakarma originally had

five faces. He had five children from whom the five groups of

the artisan community took birth. There were originally five

Vedas with Pranava Veda as the last one. It was suppressed by

the later brahmins but retained its essence as the one-word mantra

of OM.

The various aspects of mundane life also came to be ordered

on this principle of five. The land of Indus where they lived itself

was Panjab, ‘the land of five rivers’. They followed an egalitarian

administration based on the rule of five called ‘panchayat’, which

constitutes the basic unit of civil administration even at present

in India.11 panchaguna (five qualities), panchakalyani (a peculiar

horse), ‘Panchavadyam’ (five musical instruments),

‘panchakarma’ (five practices of Ayurvedic medicine),

‘panchgavya’ (a sacred food made of the five products of cow),

‘pancharatna’ (five diamonds), ‘panchangam’ (the five-part Indian

astrological calendar), ‘panchamrutam’ (food made of five sweet

edibles), ‘panchadukham’ (five sorrows), etc, were some of the

five-based aspects of this prelapsarian reality [Somanathan

1989:51-55; Raveendran 1998:22-40; Suvarnakar 1988:13-17].

The four later Hindu life stages called ‘Varnashrama Dharma’,

were also five in the early period. The stage after death was the

fifth one. Death is only a ‘home coming’ of the human soul to

the Visvabrahmam to be born again according to the Hindu

theology; and, therefore, this temporary stage was also deemed

as a life stage or Ashrama Dharma [Natarajan1997:17].

In contraposition to this, the later brahmins reorganised the

classical world entirely on the principle of ‘four’ or ‘chatur’. The

five Vedas were reduced to four. Among the five faces of Brahma/

Visvakarma one was chopped off. From the four parts of Brahma’s

body four Varnas were born. There came to be instituted four

Dharmas and four Ashrama Dharmas accordingly. Four ages, four

directions, four arts, four crafts all followed from this reduction.

Even cow came to be venerated since it has four legs. This

elevation of four correspondingly debased the order of five into

‘panchama’ that came to represent everything lowly and polluted

in the brahminic ideology. Under this tainted category came to

be included the ‘mleccha’ (foreigner), nishada (squatter), chandala

(the untouchable), avarna (casteless) and the adivasi (tribal)

[Walker 1968,Vol II: 172-75].12

The defeat of artisans and the destruction of Indus civilisation

by Sudasana on the counsel of Vasishta resulted in the mass flight

of the Visavakarmas to other parts of the world. For Somanathan

the Indus civilisation was the ‘mother of all civilisations’ and

the artisans who fled to different parts of the world from the

Indus became the creators of cultures in other parts of the world.

Deploying an incredible historical Chronotope he tries to authenticate

a fabulous Indus-centric theory of diffusion of world

cultures. He argues that the first temples in the world were built

by the Visvakarmas of Indus, which then spread to other parts

of the world with their migration. The sun temples of Egypt and

Sumer, the temple of Athena in Troy, the Mother Goddess of

Philistines, etc, were Indian gods and goddesses. But it is noteworthy

that they were all Vedic gods of the artisan period like

Sun, Varuna, Indra, etc, and not the brahminic gods like Siva

or Vishnu who emerged later. It was not only the areas surrounding

India like Persia or Arabia that came under the influence of

the fleeing visvakarmas but even places as far as Egypt, Polynesia

and America. The Aztec civilisation was built by the artisans

who went there from Indus. The Maya civilisation of South

America was another one, which inherited the legacy of the

Visvakarmas of Indus. The name ‘Maya’ itself derived from the

name of the second son of Visvakarma, Maya [Somanathan

1987].

Europe also came under the overriding influence of the migrant

artisans of Indus. The gypsies and pagans of Europe were their

descendants. The notion of ‘commune’ in Europe from which

communism evolved in fact originated from the settlements of

the early artisans. The name ‘Viskamma’of earlier artisans

shrunk to ‘kamma’ later. The social order of these artisans was

egalitarian and their settlements were called kammakkudi,

kammatheruvu, kammakulam, etc. The notion of egalitarian

‘commune’ derived from these ‘kamma’ (or Camma) settlements

of the early artisans. Marx and Engels who wrote about the

Communes of Europe failed to take note of this umbilical relationship

with Indus civilisation and the artisan makers of it

[Somanathan 1989:18-21].

IV

The identity projection at present evinces a more critical outlook

and negotiatory spirit as necessitated by the political bargains

based on communal headcount and the worsening employment

conditions. As a result there has been a deliberate effort recently

to put a check on the fissiparous tendency prevalent among the

community organisations earlier and a conscious effort to show

unity. This had an initial success when the three communal

organisations AKVMS, VSS and TVS merged into KVS on

March 14, 2001, the eve of the assembly elections. This was done

primarily to negotiate with both the Left and the United Fronts

for more political spoils in the name of the community. The Left

Front headed by CPI(M) didn’t oblige, so KVS declared open

support to the United Front headed by the Congress. The Congress

dealt with them better and gave two assembly seats to the

community members, one of which they won. The United Front

also assured them in their manifesto that if they came to power

they would implement the most important demand of the com

munity: that they should be declared as ‘traditional labourers’.

But nothing of this sort has happened till August 2003, after more

than two years of United Front in power.

It is noteworthy that the Visvakarmas have aligned with all

the political fronts in the last 20 years in the major elections.

It seems that with every decade they change support. Except for

a short interlude they were the supporters of the Left Front in

the 1980s. Early 1990s saw them shifting the alliance to BJP.

They along with a few other backward communities (OBCs)

formed Bharathiya Labour Party (BLP) and aligned with BJP

in the elections. The alliance broke miserably later. Again, as

we saw, the birth of the new century had them shifting allegiance

to the United Front under Congress. This alliance has also not

fructified in any meaningful way till now.

Their communal politics therefore becomes a restless itinerancy

from one camp to the other and getting more debilitated with

each switch over. The image the community as a whole conveys

is undependability and opportunism for many from other political

parties. All political parties in Kerala view them as a taken for

granted vote bank that could be lured on the eve of the elections.

But such political wanderlust, normally equated with ideological

effeminacy, could be critical in its long-term effects when seen
in the backdrop of the growth curve of Hindu nationalism in India.

The super-saturated Hindu core of visvakarma ideology in

conjunction with the lack felt from the continuous political

debacles could incite an ethno-religious movement on the Hindutva

lines or make them identify with the mainstream Hindutva forces

on bargained terms and conditions. It seems that the Hindutva

ideology is gaining more popularity among the city-dwelling

visavkarmas and the youths. A survey in Trissur, which has the

largest goldsmith population in Kerala, shows BJP commanding

support second only to Left Front while the ruling United Front

is pushed to the third place. According to informant from

Trivandurm, the Hindutva ideology is gaining popularity among

the youth of the community not as a utilitarian instrument but

as a refuge to hold on amidst the present confusions. “This is

just because they give respect to our symbols. The BMS has

accepted Visvakarma as the patron god of crafts and labour. The

psychology that we worship ‘your god’, therefore, ‘give us vote’

works to a great extent. Moreover, Hindutva gives a better

personal identity to the otherwise faceless Visavkarmas steeped

in poverty today. Their khaki shorts, the red vermilion mark on

the forehead and the lathi in the hand render an immediately

identifiable individuality to people ”.

But the leadership contradicts this. According to one of the

vice-presidents of KVS, there is no substantial influence of

Hindutva on the community. The community is pragmatic and

would only resort to a political line that could help them solve

their problems in the occupational front. “Everybody knows that

in Kerala BJP is never going to come to power. So what is the

point in supporting them? Of course out of sudden resentment

with the other two Fronts, which ignored the community, they

might support BJP temporarily as in the earlier election. What

is the use of an empty vessel for a man who is hungry? Only

a vessel filled with food makes any sense to him. So people are

not going to support BJP which cannot deliver goods in Kerala

in the present situation” asserted the vice-president.

Though there is a tentative swing to the BJP camp this also

doesn’t show a clear path of progression. Notwithstanding their

identification with what is potentially negative in the Visvakarma

Hinduism, the BJP leadership refuses to share power with them

in any meaningful manner. They also try to nurture them as a

vote bank. The Left treated them badly in the 2001 elections.

When they asked for a specific number of seats for the community

members in return for political support the leadership retorted

brazenly. One of them asked, “Who in Kerala will vote for a

goldsmith if he is fielded as a candidate in the present situation?”

(interview with Karamana Balakrishnan on March 28, 2003). The

United Front also ditched them after winning the last elections

with their support.

It seems that there are some congenital flaws at work behind

their no-escape situation and perennial political marginalisation.

Firstly, there is something innate in their ideology and worldview

that prevents them from rallying under a coherent political ideology

or political leader. Secondly, there is some structural elasticity

in their worldview that facilitates their identification with political

ideologies of all hues: from left, centrist to far right. Thirdly,

though they are the largest single community under the Hindu

fold in possession of a religio-ideological system potentially as

xenophobic as militant Hindu nationalism they have never shown

any capacity to rally under it in a combative manner. Fourthly,

as a corollary to the above, in their hands this potentially explosive

super-brahminic ideology becomes an instrument of subjection

and self-surrender.

The symbol par excellence that represents the community is

their patron lord Visvakarma himself. As mentioned previously

he is the divine architect who as the demiurge of Brahma created

the universe and everything in it, according to the Hindu religion.

But this god also suffers from confusions as regards his status

within the Hindu pantheon.13 In an interesting complement the

destiny of the god and his people coincide. The god’s exalted

position in the pre-brahminic Vedic cosmology, the eventual

cutting to size by brahminic theology as an artisan god, and the

present marginalisation with limited appeal and no temples become

an ironic commentary on the destiny of his people who also lived

through a similar historical trajectory. The god is being acted

upon at present by the modern forces, which recreate and legitimise

him in strange shapes and roles backed up by quaint theologies

and compulsions of politics. The forms the god assume and the

incumbent legitimacy he comes to enjoy also become the semiotic

barometer of how his people fare in their worldly path at present.

So let us try to look into this people by gauging this divine

barometer.

Visvakarma is the Hindu Vulcan, ‘the shaper’ of things both

celestial and terrestrial. He built the heavens and palaces of all

the gods: Indra’s Vaijayanta, Kubera and Ravana’s Lanka and

the Pandavas’ Indraprastha.He also created fabulous animals like

Indra’s horse, Uchchai Sravas. But his most famous artefacts were

the weapons of gods: Indra’s thunderbolts, Kartikeya’s lance and

Shiva’s trident [Ions 1967:88]. Visvakarma as Brahma’s demiurge

is also known by names like Vidhatri (creator), Karu (workman),

Takshaka (carver) and also Sudhavan (having a good bow)

[Walker 1968,vol II:577].

With the ascendance of brahminism, Saivism and Vaishnavism

gained prominence and Brahma’s status fell; and along with it

Visvakarma’s also. Vyasa, the crafty compiler of Vedas did

everything possible to distort the exalted status of Brahma and

his demiurge in the eyes of posterity. Vyasa portrays Visvakarma

in Mahabharatha as follows:

Visvakarma, Lord of the arts, master of a thousand handicrafts,

carpenter of the gods and builder of their palaces, fashioner of

every jewel, first of craftsmen, by whose art men live, and whom,

a great and deathless god, they continually worship (Mahabharatha

1:2592).

Visvakarma becomes the carpenter and the goldsmith of gods

in Vyasa’s litany. The cosmic fabricator who with his own hands

made stars and moons and heavenly palaces could not withstand

the ideological shelling of brahminism which ruthlessly downgraded

any semblance of physical toil as sign of lowliness and

decadence irrespective of gods, men or monsters. The result:

Visvakarma got entrapped in a double-bind thanks to the gut

contradiction between his own ontology and the dismissive

postures on human labour by brahminism. He was truncated from

his cosmic largeness and plenitude as Purusha to a secondary

deity and an artisan par excellence.

The derogation of his status by brahminism in the past assumes

new modes in modern times. In my fieldtrip among community

I was anxious to see an iconographically ‘correct’ figure of the

lord Visvakarma. As I gathered, the correct figure has five tilakamarked

faces, 10 arms holding a book and writing stylus, a sword,

an adze, a citron, a cup, a water-pot, a rosary, a cobra (about

his neck), a noose, hands betokening sternness and beneficence

(one closed and one open), and a golden sacred thread

[Coomaraswamy 1979:79]. But I could not find one that matched

all these details. All I could find in many homes, workshops and

with the wayside Oleograph vendors were variations of this

figure. The most popular one is that of a single-headed old man

with a sage-like visage surrounded by five boys. The latter are

supposed to be the five forefathers of the Visvakarma artisans.

Finally R S Manian of Pazhayasala told me that these days most

of the community members also do not know who the true

Visvakarma is. What they all worship as the true picture of

Visvakarma is a distorted version given out by Pidilite Industries,

the company that sells adhesive and tools. (This company sells

the adhesive Fevicol and the company is known by the product

than its name itself.) On a closer look I found his version to be

correct. Visvakarma, supposedly the creator of the cosmos sits

on a throne bordered by chisels, hammers, saws, tapes, etc, as

an advertisement piece for tools and paints. On further enquiry

I found out that this version is followed in north India while the

south Indian version is different. Again what Pidilite Company

gave out has been accepted by BMS as the image of their patron

lord of arts and crafts.

Visvakarma becomes subject to another hegemonic appropriation

in the milieu of present factional politics. This is expedited

by another intrinsic ambivalence in his essence. Like other gods

Visvakarma is also attributed a putative birthday by the Hindu

religion. This becomes conjectural according to many in the

community. The more philosophical minded argue that it is

impossible for the original Creator of everything to be born on

a particular day. It is a contradiction in terms since that presupposes

another creator for Visvakarma. But among those who

believe that there is a birthday also there is no agreement. It is

celebrated on two different days under different names: ‘Rishi

Panchami Dinam’ and Visvakarma Jayanthi. The Rishi Panchami

Dinam literally means ‘the day of the solidarity of five rishis’.

Those who celebrate this day believe that Visvakarma didn’t have

a birthday like the mortals but only a commemoration day in

which his five children (supposedly five rishis) came together

to declare their solidarity and pray to their illustrious father. This

day follows the rules of Hindu Almanac and changes with every

year [Achary 1995:221]. Following the practice of their sage

forefathers the five groups among the Visvakarma community

also celebrate this as an auspicious day in commemoration of

their patron god at present.

Another group celebrates September 17 every year as

‘Visvakarma Jayanthi’, or ‘as the birthday of Visvakarma’.

This convention is also rife with contradictory interpretations as

usual in the community. The version given by V Natarajan of

Alappuzha is interesting according to him, September 17 has

importance other than the Visvakarma Jayanthi. It is an important

day in the ritual Almanac of India known as ‘Kanni Sankrantham’.

It was on this particular day that the forefathers of the present

Visvakarma people invented plough and gifted it to humanity.

Plough represents both the artisan trade as well as agriculture

and therefore becomes the most representative symbol of the

ancient Indian civilisation. It changed the course of human history

altogether. This was a change from ‘local mob culture to universal

human culture’ and Visavkarmas of India pioneered it. Coincidentally,

this becomes the birthday of Visvakarma also. So

Indians in the past celebrated this day of many illustrious conjunctions

as an occasion to honour Visvakarma and his descendents

[Natarajan 2001:9-10].

Politics enters in this conjuncture. Bharathiya Mazdoor Sangh

(BMS), the trade union wing of BJP, has taken on the onus of

late to honour Visvakarma and celebrate September 17 both as

the birthday of Visvakarma and the ‘National Labour Day’. (For

many in the community, such a Labour Day or Artisan Day in

the Indian culture is unheard of.) According to Puliyara Venugopal,

an ideologue who supports the BJP, all other festivals in India

are related to a particular community or religion. Visvakarma

Jayanthi is the only secular festival in this regard celebrated by

all people in India. He also resents the fact that no government

has taken initiative to declare it as a national holiday till now

(Mathrubhumi, September 17, 2002).

Among the many attributes of Visvakarma there are also those

that have entitled him to the office of the patron of the ‘Indian

Labourer’, as BMS has made him of late. For a communist leader

from the community (who doesn’t want to divulge his name),

there are subtle manipulations by BMS in this regard. “What they

are trying to foist is a Hindutva duplicate of the revolutionary

working class ideology of Marxism. This process of ridiculous

cloning forces the scientific and ground-breaking principles of

Marxism into motley apparels of reactionary Hindutva”. “No

wonder the revolutionary concepts of dialectical materialism put

on flesh and body in the archaic symbols of BJP painfully

disinterred from those recesses of Indian history marked by

brahminic oppression and cruelty. Visvakarma becomes a hapless

victim of this reactionary exhuming”, supplements theoretical

minded Gopi, an active member of AKGWU.

The celebration of Visvakarma Jayanthi is emerging as an

Indian alternative to the May Day celebrations of the world

proletariat under the aegis of BMS, according to many Marxist

supporters from the community. There are some interesting

interconnections discernible in this regard. The word ‘Visvakarma’

could be split into ‘Visvam’ which means ‘world’ or ‘universe’

and ‘Karma’ which means either ‘action’ or in certain parlance

‘labour’. Hence Visvakarma is translated as ‘world actor ‘ or

‘world labourer’. This is certainly in ideological and conceptual

propinquity to the ‘world proletariat’ of Marxism. Hence

Visvakarma becomes the central pivot of an ideological apparatus

that can combat Marxism in its own discursive terms. Tells

another Visvakarma leader, “The May Day celebrations also

resulted from the actions of the Visvakarma brethren of America.

It started in Chicago with the strike of carpenters for stipulating

the eight-hour per day job schedule.”

The image of Visvakarma is pregnant with more meanings that

also represent the existential dilemmas of the community at

present. The diminution by brahminism made him a dispossessed

god assigned to the status of a rishi or renouncer within the divine

polis. But in the Hindu ideology ‘renouncer’ is the most exalted

position. For Dumont caste order places human beings within

a system of relations and they have no ‘being’ beyond it. But

at another level this ‘ultramundaneity’ is compensated by a

salvation based on transubstantiation and rebirths. This provision

for escape from the mundane bonds of world and its rigid social

order is epitomised in the figure of the rishi or the archetypal

renouncer. He might exist within the society, yet is beyond all

the relations within it. He represents universality, transcendence

and detachment [Dumont 1998: 184-86, 267-76].

Again, from their claim as brahmins (visvabrahmins) also the

theory of renunciation holds, if we look at it from the theoretical

perspective of Heesterman who holds that brahmins are also

renouncers like the rishis. According to him, the brahmin in the

pre-Classical or Vedic period officiated sacrifices and also imbibed

its pollution. Once the brahmin got disengaged from the pollutionimbibing

process of the sacrificial rituals later, other lower castes

had to take this role. As a result washermen and barbers started

performing the officiating roles in Hindu rituals, especially those

related to death and impurity. This was, therefore, the moment

of the birth of the caste system also [Quigley 1993:58]. So for

Heesterman, the brahmin attained such a position of worldly

renouncer in the Classical period itself once he got dissociated

from the conduct of sacrifices. Hence nothing could affect him

in his new status; he is beyond the pure-impure complementarity

of exchange [Heesterman 1985:43-44]. But on the other hand,

he shows this detachment within society, not outside it like the

renouncer or rishi as Dumont visualises. Hence this detachment

makes the ‘pure brahmin a poor brahmin’ also.

V Natarajan of Alappuzha, a mystic and scholar from the

community, highlights this aspect of Visvakarma in his book

Visvakarma Oru Jathiyude Peralla (‘Visvakarma is not the name

of a Jati’). According to him Visvakarma had always been a

selfless and high thinking god detached from wealth or comforts.

He created all the celestial palaces, divine machines and weapons

for other gods. But for himself he built nothing worthwhile, not

even a house to live.1 4 He is the renouncer par excellence among

the celestial hierarchy [Natarajan 1999:74]. Natarajan rationalises

the relative deprivation of the majority in the Visvakarma community

also on this basis, as the reflection of their own god’s

self-denial. He argues that though the Visvakarma people had

been the true architects of the Indian civilisation they never

amassed any material possessions for themselves. They built great

temples, palaces and all the noteworthy monuments of this culture

like their patron in the celestial world. If they wanted they could

have built the most ostentatious temples for themselves. In the

matter of worship also they in turn identified with the simplicity

and authenticity of nature. Hence they follow an animistic worship

known as ‘vaccharadhana’. They are therefore the true upholders

of the renouncer tradition of the sages and rishis of India. So

they have no jati, caste or even religion. He asserts, “to which

jati rishis belonged, to that jati visvakarmas also belong; to which

religion rishis belong, to that religion visvakarmas also belong”

[ibid:8]. On the other hand, the brahmins though they make claims

to renunciation and austerity, still follow temple worship and

promote materialistic institutionalisation of devotion [Natarajan

1997:50-54].

Without being able to identify with either the upper castes or

the lower castes on caste questions, or with left ideologies or

rightist forces in the political front the Visvakarmas of Kerala

aimlessly straddle one shelter to another. Theoretically they

become important as their case gives some important leads

regarding the manufacturing of community identity by castes in

the middle level especially caught up in the economic throes of

post-capitalism and globalisation at present. We should end with

the words of venerable Visvavani Natarajan, the first English

professor from the community: “The people who once made

palaces, temples, great monuments and some of the wonders of

the world in India are today making septic tanks and toilets. They

grow like the snake-gourds, downwards”.

Address for correspondence:

bobbykala@yahoo.co.uk

Notes

[I am thankful to the Centre for Development Studies, University of Bergen,

Norway, for giving the financial assistance for this study. I gratefully

acknowledge the able guidance and help given by Bruce Kapferer and Gunnar

Haaland of the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen,

Michael Tharakan of CDS, Thiruvananthapuram and P J Cherian of KCHR

in this study. I also thank Prabhash of the Department of Political Science,

Kerala University Centre, Kariavattom, J Devika of CDS, Thiruvananthapuram

and T K Vinodan of Kollam for arranging seminars, and for their encouragement

and extending criticism.]

1 He made this observation in a community meeting in Alappuzha in

October 2001.

2 The total strength of the visvakarma community in the absence of exact

census data is a conjectured issue. It is getting revised by the community

leadership every time according to Vikraman Achary, who wrote a

seminal thesis on the political modernisation of the community. The caste

association, Akhila Kerala Visvakarma Maha Sabha (AKVMS) came

out with different estimates from time to time. In the year 1991 the

estimate was 2 million. But by the middle of 1990s the figure became

2.5 million [Achary 1998:152,n 55]. At present the apex communal

organisation Kerala Visvakarma Sabha (KVS) claims the community’s

total strength to be 12 per cent of Kerala’s population and 4.3 millions

[Karmayugam, April 2002:7; November 2002:7[. Vikraman Achary

calculates it to be 2.5 million and I think that is the more reliable figure.

3 This claim is made in the official monthly of the apex community

organisation KVS [see Karmayugam, November 2002:3].

4 Perhaps it starts with their filing of a petition in the court of the

Vijayanagara king to ratify their Brahminic status in the 17th century.

They got a favourable verdict in 1678. With the British establishing their

rule just after, the Sanskritisation efforts of many lower castes got a new

fillip .The colonial census records gave them a chance to change their

tainted caste names and social attributes and thereby move up the social

hierarchy symbolically. The Tamil Kammalans utilised this chance

opportunely; they who had already changed their caste name to ‘Visvakarma

Brahmins’, entered the British records in this new name [Srinivas

1962:69].

5 According to Thengamom Balakrishnan, a prominent communist leader

from the community, the service of the community is ‘basic’ since it

is bound up with the life cycle of human beings. “ The scissors that

cut the umbilical cord with which the human life begins to the coffin

in which one is interred after death are made by the Visvakarma artisans”.

According to Padmalochanan, a trade union leader from Kollam, “the

traditional artisan’s craft is like the mother’s milk since it is very basic.

The mechanised improvisations are just like the artificial milk powder

produced when the mother’s milk is in short supply”.

6 Another popular interpretation of ‘Kannalar’ is that the artisans make

things so pleasing that it ‘opens the eyes’ of people who are thereby

persuaded to buy them. Yet another one is that ‘Kammalan’ derived from

‘Karmmalan’ meaning ‘one who rules over the Karma’ or ‘the practitioner

selfless acts’

7 The distance pollution with its precise orbital positions for other castes

vis-à-vis the Namboodiri Brahmin becomes an ultra mundane gloss to

the ideological hierarchy of Dumont [Dumont 1998]. The physical space

itself was charged with the sacred on the touch of the Brahmin and

reverted to the non-sacred with his withdrawal

8 Though the caste system theoretically differentiates all other castes from

one’s own it is only certain castes that are more or less in closer

propinquity in the pollution- purity scale that become the perceived

‘Other’ to one’s own caste. In Kerala this is evidently at work. The famous

opposition in this case is between nairs and ezhavas who consider each

other as the archetypal ‘Other’ to each other. A nair or ezhava might

not feel the gut opposition to other castes as they feel towards each other.

In the case of visvakarmas they never mention any other castes as their

‘Other’ other than the brahmins whom they believe have usurped their glory.

9 The concept is borrowed from Mikhail Bakhtin who uses it to analyse

literary narratives, especially the novel. ‘Chronotope’ means ‘space-time’

and he uses both time and space in the Kantian sense as absolute aprioris

of perception. His argument is that in narratives also there is a specific

way in which time and space are integrated which facilitates a specific

kind of reading of the texts [Bakhtin 1981:84]. Like the literary narratives

historical narratives also can be enframed within specific Chronotopes,

especially if they contain fictional elements as in the case of visvakarma

historicising.

10 Edava Somanathan is one of the organic intellectuals of the community

in the Gramscian sense. His histories of the community are written from

a pro-community perspective. Therefore, there are lot of exaggerations

and anti-brahmin tirades in them. They are noteworthy for phantasms

and the way Visvakarma community is portrayed as a global community.

He is heavily relied upon in this analysis since there are no other histories

written of the community.

11 The visvakarmas of Tamil Nadu still follow this pattern of community

administration according to G S Ghurye [Ghurye 1994:392].

12 For Prabhati Mukherjee ‘pancha’ was a source of ‘irritation, conjecture

and speculation’ in the early ideology especially in the case of Rigveda

[Mukherjee 1981:19]. For Georges Dumezil ‘five’ was very important

for Vedic world; it was Vedic formula itself. Divisions by certain preferred

numbers occur in many cultures as a sort of motif. Seven was a preferred

number in the early Indo-Iranian culture while Irish preferred to divide

their encompassing reality with five like the Vedic India [Dumezil

1973:9-15].

13 It was Benjamin Walker who observed somewhere that the celestial world

with its 33 crore gods and celestial beings is much more populated than

the earth over which it rules. So as a characteristic substructure of the

Indian ideology the heavenly world also should have its caste hierarchy

with gods occupying different asymmetric stations.

14 But as usual there are so many interpolations and false interpretations

about his status. One is regarding his abode. According to Payyannor

N.Kesavanachari his abode is the Mount Meru the cosmic centre of the

Hindu universe [Malayala Manorama, September 17, 2002, p 8).

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