COVID-Curing Kali Syrup and the Stubborn Subaltern: Resisting Elite Restrictions with a Popular Goddess

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Catalogue identifier: kali-klm000030
Alternate titles and import identifiers: KLM000030
Author or attribution: Alexander McKinley
Record type: Article
Language: English
Date / edition: PDF states published 2025-12-25; journal issue listing additionally describes online publication in 2026. Bibliographic year 2025.
Source / repository: Asian Ethnology
Access: Open access
Subjects: Kali Website Research Catalogue; Academic Research and Peer-Reviewed Articles; Contemporary Worship and Living Traditions; Temples, Sacred Places, and Historical Worship

Description and curator notes

McKinley examines the public controversy surrounding a Kali-associated tonic promoted during Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 pandemic. The article interprets the popularity of the goddess and her medium through political exclusion, unequal access to religious places, and subaltern agency. Rather than treating the episode simply as an isolated superstition, it connects contemporary media events with older Sinhala narratives of Kali as a protector against disease and a challenger of authority. The discussion draws on nineteenth-century manuscript traditions, ritual poetry, and earlier anthropological scholarship while explicitly avoiding a claim of uninterrupted historical transmission. The study is valuable for tracing Buddhist engagements with Kali and the changing political uses of her religious authority. Its pandemic research was conducted remotely through news reporting, television footage, and social-media materials; these methods should remain visible when assessing its conclusions. Descriptions of an alleged cure document religious and political claims, not evidence that the tonic was medically effective.

KLM000030 — Kali Website Research Catalogue.
Access, completeness and evidence assessments below are attributed to the supplied curator document, not a new independent verification by this library.

COVID-Curing Kali Syrup and the Stubborn Subaltern: Resisting Elite Restrictions with a Popular Goddess
English title: COVID-Curing Kali Syrup and the Stubborn Subaltern: Resisting Elite Restrictions with a Popular Goddess
Author / attribution: Alexander McKinley
Publication: PDF states published 2025-12-25; journal issue listing additionally describes online publication in 2026. Bibliographic year 2025.
Publisher / repository: Asian Ethnology
Edition details: 84(2) (2025): 335–357
Language: English
Type: Peer-reviewed journal article
Subjects: Academic Research and Peer-Reviewed Articles; Contemporary Worship and Living Traditions; Temples, Sacred Places, and Historical Worship
McKinley examines the public controversy surrounding a Kali-associated tonic promoted during Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 pandemic. The article interprets the popularity of the goddess and her medium through political exclusion, unequal access to religious places, and subaltern agency. Rather than treating the episode simply as an isolated superstition, it connects contemporary media events with older Sinhala narratives of Kali as a protector against disease and a challenger of authority. The discussion draws on nineteenth-century manuscript traditions, ritual poetry, and earlier anthropological scholarship while explicitly avoiding a claim of uninterrupted historical transmission. The study is valuable for tracing Buddhist engagements with Kali and the changing political uses of her religious authority. Its pandemic research was conducted remotely through news reporting, television footage, and social-media materials; these methods should remain visible when assessing its conclusions. Descriptions of an alleged cure document religious and political claims, not evidence that the tonic was medically effective.
Kali relevance: Entire article examines Kali devotion, mediumship, Sinhala historical narratives and political agency in Sri Lanka.
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Source / repository record
Rights: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International explicitly printed on PDF page index18, printed p353. Attribution required if reproduced; linking permitted.
Evidence class: Scholarly secondary interpretation; article acknowledges anonymous reviewers. Claims of healing and possession are reported religious claims, not medical findings.
Reading limits: Beginning, representative central sections, conclusion, license and final references inspected; not a sentence-by-sentence critical reading. Linked manuscript sources not independently verified as complete documents.
Composition date: Modern study; submitted 2024-05-22, accepted 2024-09-21
Witness date: Not applicable to article; nineteenth-century Sinhala manuscript witnesses discussed, not independently verified here

Source and repository links:
Read complete source text: https://asianethnology.org/article/154477.pdf
Source / repository record: https://asianethnology.org/article/154477-covid-curing-kali-syrup-and-the-stubborn-subaltern-resisting-elite-restrictions-with-a-popular-goddess

Source access

Read or locate the original source at Asian Ethnology

Rights and reading conditions

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International explicitly printed on PDF page index18, printed p353. Attribution required if reproduced; linking permitted. This library links to the host; no full text is reproduced.

Citation

Alexander McKinley. COVID-Curing Kali Syrup and the Stubborn Subaltern: Resisting Elite Restrictions with a Popular Goddess. Asian Ethnology. 84(2) (2025): 335–357. PDF states published 2025-12-25; journal issue listing additionally describes online publication in 2026. Bibliographic year 2025.

This page supplies catalogue metadata and links. It does not reproduce the underlying source text. Historical, religious, healing and interpretive claims belong to the cited sources, not to an independent verification by this catalogue.