Author: Phillip B zarrilli
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 310
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195655389
Description
This is the first in-depth study of Kalarippayattu, one of India's traditional martial arts, dating from at least the twelfth century AD.
Based on twenty years of research and practice in Kerala, this profusely-illustrated interdisciplinary performance ethnography traces how Kalaippayattu is a mode of cultural practice through which bodies, knowledge, power, agency, selves and identities are constantly repositioned. The book will be a rewarding one for al those interested in he martial arts, general readers, anthropologists and culture theory scholars.
COMMENT:
We are indeed grateful to the author for providing a historical outline of the martial art, its ritual setting and the various dimensions of the physical disciplining besides the centrality about its notion of the attainment of psycho-physical perfection. . Filling the whole body with eyes.. A delightfully informative volume. - The Book Review