Margamkali

Margamkali (Malayalam: മാർഗ്ഗംകളി) is an ancient Indian round dance of the Saint Thomas Christian community based in the state of Kerala. The dance is mainly practised and propagated by the endogamous sub-ethnic group known as the Knanaya or Southist Christians. The Margam Kali retells the life and missionary work of Thomas the Apostle, based on the 3rd-century apocryphal Acts of Thomas. Historically different forms of the Margam Kali existed in practice among the Kerala Syrian Christians, a Saint Thomas Christian or Northist version and a Knanaya or Southist version. Historian Dr. Istvan Perczel notes that only the Knanaya version is in existence today, with its 14 stanza form written by the Knanaya priest Anjilimootil Itti Thomman in the 17th century. The prototype of Margamkali is composed of 14 stanzas (padas) which are derived from Syrian and Tamil words, and they got to be included in its composition. Until the ninth century AD., Keralam was a part of Tamilakam and the language of the Kerala region was Tamil or Middle Tamil. Gradually Malayalam came under the influence of Sanskrit and Prakrit with the spread of Aryan influence. But some scholars states that those songs are written in a language which is neither pure Malayalam of today nor the spoken Tamil of today, and this language is absolutely free of any Sanskrit terms,it might be Middle Tamil spoken in Chera Kingdom or Chentamil.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Margamkali”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

Margamkali is type of dance, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶