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Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

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dands and bethaks. Each of these “traditional”<br />

features is thoroughly modern<br />

and contextualized by changing, rather<br />

than stable, priorities.<br />

Although wrestling is said to date<br />

back to antiquity in South Asia, references<br />

to the art in the Vedas, Upanishads,<br />

as well as in the Mahabharata<br />

and Ramayana epics, are cryptic and<br />

ambiguous. Two medieval texts, the<br />

Manasollasa, a treatise on royal art and<br />

culture in the Vijayanagar kingdom, and<br />

the Mallapurana, a caste purana of the<br />

Jyesthimalla Brahmans of western India,<br />

provide more detailed accounts. What is<br />

interesting about these two texts, however,<br />

is that they do not provide a very<br />

useful framework—no better or worse<br />

than accounts of the history of freestyle<br />

wrestling, that is—for understanding<br />

wrestling in contemporary India.<br />

Whereas most contemporary Hindu<br />

wrestlers emphasize the fundamental importance of a vegetarian diet, both<br />

medieval texts prescribe a diet that includes meat, even for high-caste Brahmans.<br />

Contemporary wrestlers de-emphasize the caste identity of wrestlers,<br />

saying that the sport breaks down hierarchy by producing a physiology “of<br />

one color” based on a principle of embodied power. However, both medieval<br />

texts use caste as an important, if problematic, criterion for ranked<br />

classification. <strong>The</strong> medieval texts carefully delineate and differentiate the<br />

kind of dietary regimen for different kinds of wrestlers, and recognize the<br />

value of moderation and balanced consumption, whereas contemporary<br />

wrestlers tend to single-mindedly advocate the hyperconsumption of milk,<br />

ghi (clarified butter), and almonds. Correspondingly, whereas the medieval<br />

texts seek to make a careful distinction between wrestlers on the basis of<br />

age, skill, caste background, physical development, size, and competitive<br />

preparedness, contemporary wrestlers tend to fetishize mass and musculature<br />

as developed through exercise and diet. Concerning exercise, it is noteworthy<br />

that whereas contemporary wrestlers tend to exclusively do hundreds<br />

if not thousands of fairly straightforward exercises—dands, a kind of<br />

jackknifing push-up, and bethaks, rapid deep-knee bends—to build up<br />

strength, the medieval texts catalog complex training regimens based on an<br />

array of many more different kinds of exercise.<br />

An early-twentiethcentury<br />

studio<br />

photo of the<br />

famous Indian<br />

wrestler <strong>The</strong> Great<br />

Gama (Ghulam<br />

Mohammed,<br />

1878–1960).<br />

(Courtesy of Joe<br />

Svinth)<br />

Wrestling and Grappling: India 721

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