The Traditional Kerala Manor: Architecture of a South Indian Catuhsala House

Abstract

[...]he wants to know the extent to which "the rules described in [the Sanskrit architectural] manuals are realized in traditional houses, and to what extent do they reflect localities and status groups" (p. 6). [...]the author refers to a number of issues relating to the ritual uses of the house and the importance of ritual diagrams to the house and its occupants (p. 6).

The Traditional Kerala Manor: Architecture of a South Indian Catuhsala House. By Henri Schildt. Institut français de Pondichéry / École française d'Extrême-Orient, Collection Indologie, no. 117. Pondicherry: INSTITUT FRANÇAIS DE PONDICHÉRY / ÉCOLE FRANÇAISE D'EXTRÊME-ORIENT, 2012. Pp. xiv + 473, 436 plates. 1400 Rs., euro60.

The "four-house" (Skt. catuhsala; Mal. nalukettu) manors of Kerala were, for centuries, the iconic abodes of the region's ruling classes. Catuhsalas are well known to greater South Asian architecture, deriving their name and basic architectural character from the placement of four halls (Skt. sala 'house') around a quadrangular courtyard (in distinction to "one-," "two-," and "three-house" types). In Kerala, catuhsala manors served historically as the residences of important Brahmana, Ksatriya, and Nayar families.

Closely tied to the cultural and economic lives of the families that inhabited them, these palatial houses have become increasingly obsolete in the face of dramatic social change in Kerala over the past century and more. Schildt (p. vi) reports that Kerala's catuhsala manors are being demolished or converted to other uses at an alarming rate. The primary goal of The Traditional Kerala Manor is, therefore, "to describe a certain palatial house type favoured by the Kerala ruling-class Hindus" (p. 1) before its "virtual disappearance" (p. vi). The author succeeds admirably in this task, and the painstakingly detailed documentation of the manors that are the heart of the text represent an academic achievement of tremendous worth to the scholarly community. As the first general study of its kind, The Traditional Kerala Manor is destined to become the primary reference for future studies on the architecture and ritual use of these important buildings.

For this study the author chose thirty-one houses from across Kerala still on their original sites (and many still inhabited by their original families). They vary by the class of the families that built them (Namputiri, Räjan/Tampurän, Näyar, and Ampalaväsi) and their region (North Malabar, South Malabar, Cochin, and former Travancore) and range in age from perhaps as much as 500 to 150 years old. Between 1997 and 2002 the author and his assistants measured and photographed these houses and interviewed informants. The results of this undertaking are presented directly in 436 plates and collated in a number of tables (in appendix 3, mislabeled "Appendix 2"). The plates present annotated multi-story floor plans of the catuhsälas and their compounds, ritual diagrams related to the floor plans, detailed elevations, cross-sections, and other drawings of the various structures, and numerous photographs of the manors, compounds, outbuildings, and their architectural details. This material, synthesized and presented in narrative form in chapter 4, provides a fascinating encounter with the Kerala catuhsäla that anyone interested in the houses is certain to find profitable.

The emphasis of the monograph is on architecture and ritual, focusing "on the plan" of the manor itself as well as its ritual production and delineation of ritualized spaces (p. 1). Within his general documentary aim, the author articulates several subsidiary goals. First, he wishes "to give an outline or preliminary survey of a virtually unstudied subject: the local and caste-related house types and their distinctive characteristics," for which "a descriptive approach is required to systematically clarify the characteristics of different house types and present them in well-illustrated tables, drawings, and photographs" (p. 6). Second, he wants to know the extent to which "the rules described in [the Sanskrit architectural] manuals are realized in traditional houses, and to what extent do they reflect localities and status groups" (p. 6). Finally, the author refers to a number of issues relating to the ritual uses of the house and the importance of ritual diagrams to the house and its occupants (p. 6).

The work proceeds in six chapters. The first ("Introduction") outlines the methods, sources, and goals of the work as well as its relation to previous scholarship. The second ("The Concept of the Kerala House") provides necessary background on Kerala culture as it relates to the houses studied. This is mostly a summary from other scholarly sources. The third ("áastric Principles and the Kerala Four-House Mansion") is a highly technical and useful discussion of the Sanskrit architectural tradition that pays particular attention to two architectural texts from Kerala, the Västuvidyä (VV) and Manusyälayacandrikä (MC). (Excerpts of both and passages on architecture from a few other Sanskrit sources are given without translation as Appendices la and lb, respectively.) The non-specialist is apt to find parts of this chapter obscure, as the author seems to assume familiarity with some relatively esoteric concepts. A generous glossary of architectural terms (Appendix 2c) ameliorates this difficulty somewhat, but not entirely. The fourth chapter ("Architecture of the Actual Kerala Houses") is the highlight of the book. Here the author presents the data from his field research. He describes the houses in detail with helpful reference to the many plates and tables at the end of the book, discussing regional variations and noting points of contact between the houses and the plans described in the VV and MC. This chapter is also highly technical, and the reader will be rewarded for having paid careful attention to earlier chapters. The fifth ("Social and Ritual Aspects of the Kerala High-Caste House") outlines rules governing access to the catuhsälas and data on the performance of daily, calendrical, and life rituals in the houses. Here Schildt has taken data from his informants and applied it to anthropological studies, primarily Iyer's (1909-12) The Tribes and Castes of Cochin I-III. The final chapter ("Conclusion") presents the general results of the study, which are discussed next.

In the course of the work Schildt admirably achieves his primary goal: the description of the catuhsäla in both architectural and ritual terms. His careful selection and meticulous study of the manors indeed allows for an intimate and archetypal encounter with the houses. The student of South Asian architectural history will find a trove of fine-grained, technical observations about the tradition with reference to texts, built structures, and ritual practice. Schildt also succeeds, even if only with "preliminary" results, in sketching out "Pan-Kerala" (p. 157-60), regional (pp. 81-87), and caste-based (pp. 160-63) characteristics among the houses. And from this comparative study, further conclusions emerge: the "directional reference line [of the houses] could be [the] south-west, north-east diagonal instead" of the more typical "west-east axis ... of the Vedic agnicayana sacrificial area, or even from an ordinary temple compound" (p. 158); variations observed in house plans might be based on the option to place the underlying anthropomorphic ritual diagram (västupurusamandala) either "on his back" or "face down" (pp. 169); the eastern orientation of the catuhsäla refers not to the location of the main entrance but to a numerical value assigned to the eastern direction that is encoded in the plan of the house (p. 164); "the västu ['site'] is the representation of. .. the institution of householdership and membership of the household . .. understood as a representation of the human body-or a microcosm in human form" (p. 170).

Schildt also succeeds at illustrating in detail the various ways in which the houses appear to agree with the instructions of the Sanskrit manuals (pp. 89-92, 163-65) and the dimensions of traditional South Asian geomancy (pp. 165-73). He stops short, however, of exploring the significance of these agreements, either by contextualizing them against areas of disagreement or by examining what they might say, for example, about the relationship between Sastra (technical manuals) and practice in the history of Kerala architecture more generally.

In general, the text would have benefited from the more explicit articulation of a unifying problematic. Chapters and sections frequently begin with no introduction and end with no conclusion. In these cases the reader is not told how the author sees the various parts of the text relating to the whole, to the detriment of the study generally. Schildt, moreover, identifies many agreements between field data from the houses and various, heterogeneous textual sources (e.g., the Éatapatha Brähmana, the Grhyasutras, medieval architecture texts, early-twentieth-century gazetteers, and contemporary anthropology), but there is little in the way of critical engagement with the sources that might help draw out the relative significance of the agreements or disagreements documented by the author. As such, documented points of contact remain ambiguous with regard to the historical relationship between textual sources and practice.

Following the text itself are three appendices. The first gives excerpts from Sanskrit architectural texts without translation, mainly the VV and MC. The second appendix has three glossaries: of names, of ritual terms, and of architectural terms. All of these include both Sanskrit and Mälayalam vocabulary, and the last is of particular value, making reference to the VV and MC as well as the figures, tables, and plates of the text. The third appendix is a series of tables, the first five of which collate information on ritual diagrams from the Sanskrit texts and the remaining thirty of which collate data on the catuhsälas themselves. Greater editorial care would have helped the book, as errors are not infrequent and the writing is sometimes obscure, particularly as the content becomes more abstract and complex.

In all, Schildt's work is a scholarly achievement that will exert great influence for a long time to come. The text fruitfully analyzes much of the primary and secondary textual material bearing on our understanding of the catuhsäla and presents invaluable data from the author's fieldwork. It is highly recommended to all who have an interest in traditional South Asian architecture, geomancy, and domestic ritual and provides much useful data to those interested in the relationship between Sastra and practice.