Thai Pusam in Malaysia

This paper will explore the festival of Thai Pusam as practiced in Kuala Lumpur and Penang, Malaysia, and outline the unificatory themes of Murukan worship and kavati rituals in Mayalsian Hinduism.

The waves of Indian migration which began in the wake of British acquisition of the Straits Settlements and continued until the eve of World War II re-created Hinduism as a significant minority religion within Malaya/Malaysia. In 1980 ethnic Indians comprised 10.2% of the population, and Hindus accounted for about 80% of this figure.

Maylasian Hinduism has been dominated by Dravidian folk religions (so-called "village" or popular Hinduism). However, while Hinduism in Malaysia is often perceived as a loosely integrated system of variegated and often conflicting beliefs, certain unificatory impulses may be discerned. These include the emergence of reform movements which aim at the promotion of an orver-arching model of agamic "great tradition" Hinduism, a process of sanskritization which has transformed many non-agamic communities, a conscious discouragement of local beliefs and practices based on caste, class, sects and regional loyalties, the tamilization of Malaysian Hinduism, and syncretization of village/agamic Hinduism as well as Saivite/Vaishnavite motifs. These trends - often uneven and unpredictable - have developed in the absence of the traditional authoritative sources which have shaped Hindu structures, belief systems, mythologies and patterns of worship in India.

Since World War II, Thai Pusam has emerged as the most visible and powerful assertion of Hindu identity in Malaysia. The negotiation of Hindu identity has been conducted against a backdrop of ethnic/communal pressures which permeates and politicizes all aspects of Malaysian life.

While Thai Pusam in Malayasia is consciously formulated upon the mythology, traditions, and modes of worship celebrated at Palani, Tamil Nadu, the processes of relocationand adaptation have endowed the festival with a significance and centrality which it lacks in India.

At the heart of Thai Pusam lies the kavati ritual, incorporating Saivite Hindu perceptions of asceticism, renunciation and pilgrimage. Kavati worship is intimately associated with the diety Murukan , and is legitimated and shaped by the mythology surrounding the asura-turned-devotee Itampan. Within Malaysia, however, kavatis are borne for deities representing the entire spectrum of Malaysian Hindu belief, including those considered to belong to the sphere of what Sunthar Visvualingam terms "transgressive sacrality".

Thai Pusam's accommodation of a range of beliefs and practices inspires barely controlled tensions as well asa tenuous concept of Hindu solidarity. This paper will argue that despite these unresolved contradictions, the festival has become the major - perhaps the sole - forum for the articulation and continued negotiation of broader Malayasian Hindu identity. Thai Pusam both encapsulates and gives expression to deeper unificatory tendencies as well as creating impulses and a momentum of its own.

This paper will argue that the centrality of Thai Pusam to Malaysian Hinduism has been underscored and propelled by the increasing popularity of Murukan worship. Professor Fred Clothey has convincingly demonstrated that within India Murukan has by a process of syncretization absorbed a wide variety of motifs, attributes and belief structures which make him both highly accessible and relevant to all segments of Tamil society. This paper will show that a similar process is underway in Malaysia. In a nation dominated by ethnicity, Murukan has become a potent and catalytic symbol of Tamil/Dravidian identity. His wide and evolving appeal will continue to play a integral role in the formulation of a broad and distinctive Malaysian Hindu tradition.

Carl Vadivella Belle is the author of Towards Truth: An Australian Spiritual Journey (Sydney: Pacific Press, 1992). He is also the editor of Bhakti! newsletter published in Canberra, Australia.

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