CATHOLIC SAINTS AND THE HINDU VILLAGE PANTHEON IN RURAL TAMIL-NADU, INDIA

This article examines the intersection between a 'global' religious tradition (Catholicism) and the 'local' (Tamil) social and cultural matrix in which it is embedded. It shows how Hindu ideas of renunciation, death, sacrifice and divine power have blended with Catholic notions in the local conception of saints. The article then describes two contrasting ritual contexts. In one, Christian saints are defined by sets of relations similar to those which structure the Hindu pantheon. Here Catholic saints and village Hindu deities exist as unequal but complementary powers. In the other context, the saints are conceived in essentialist terms; they represent the absolute truth claims of Christianity, and Hindu deities are represented as either illusory or demonic. These opposed ritual contexts, and the forms of thinking (relational versus essentialist) which correspond to them, are symbolized by the indigenous moral spaces of the 'village' and the 'forest'. These also serve as a local metaphor for the complementary relationship between the absolutes of Christian belief and social ethics and the relativistic and hierarchical values of caste society. The article concludes with observations on contemporary religious change which suggest the modification of the relationship between 'global' Catholicism and a popular religious culture.