Caste and Conceptual Kaleidoscope of Traditional Toxicological Treatises from Kerala

Abstract

The paper introduces and interprets three traditional toxicological treatises from Kerala as verbal manifestations of the entrenched and ascriptive institution of caste. Without questioning their therapeutic powers and efficacy in any manner, it seeks to show that the works under consideration reflect and reproduce all the structural and thematic currents that have shaped intellectual projects all over India. With a view to demonstrating how seemingly disparate works partake of the same epistemic restraints, a medieval manual of sexuality is brought in and analyzed in terms of taxonomical methods dictated by a heightened sense of varna.