The Hindu’s Thiruvempaavai and Islam’s Bakeerbaith in strengthening the society - a performance comparative study

Abstract

Despite several ethnic communities living in areas extending from Verugal to Veeramunai, the Tamil and the Muslim communities of Batticaloa live intertwined by geographical and physical landscape and cultural interchanges resulting from them. Religious and social beniefs that the Hindu and Muslim communities have structured for themselves have blossomed into performances of Thiruvempaavai to Hindus and Bakkir baith to Muslims which link their respective communities with their respective religions. The intrinsic cultured performance of a culture is an important internal factor. Performance produces cultural contents. And as stated by Bronislaw Malinowsky (Anthropology Researcher), performance completes the activity that fulfills man’s biological, psychological and social needs. (Mozhithal 2018. Page1). Thus, through this research it is found that Thiruvempaavai of Batticaloa Hindus and Bakkir baith of Muslims are religious and social performances that fulfill the biological, psychological and social needs of the respective communities. Despite Thiruvempaavai and bakkir baith blossoming as two different religious and social cultural entities, Thiruvempaavai of the Hindus living in Batticaloa and the Bakkir baith of Muslims have many resembling multiplicity of characteristics such as the performance method, performance objectives, season and time of performance, social interaction, social benefits, music instruments used, songs sung, themes of those songs, history of their origin, etc. When resemblances contained in this performance are revealed through researches, it is certain that mutual understanding and ethnic integration will strengthen in the communities where these performances are rooted.