Worship, Work, and Ethical Life at the Shrines of Kodungallur Bhagavathy

This paper presentation will examine ritual practice as a form of labor by tracing Kamala's claim, an oracle of Kodungallur Bhagavathy in the southern Indian state of Kerala, that ritual possession is a toḻil (an occupation). Using a recurring weekly ritual at her personal shrine as an analytic thread, the paper studies how ritual possession, livelihood, and ethical life are co-constitutive. By situating her claim within the social and political histories of Izhava caste assertions of dignity, the presentation examines how work becomes an operative category for oracles both through its assertion and refusal. It analyzes the choreography and improvisation of this ritual across shrines, foregrounding ritual possession as a form of embodied labor co-authored with the Goddess.