Lakshmi Amman of Sri Ranganatha

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Introduction

Mistress Lakshmi Amman of Sri Ranganatha has been participating in the SCA since 1999. Her first event was a local Schola in Thescore (now Aethelmarc) in 1996. After a few years here, there and everywhere, Lakshmi landed in the Barony of Carolingia in the East Kingdom.

Lakshmi's specialty is Indian cultural research. Her particular passion is in the areas of dance, music, theater, textiles, clothing, Hinduism, and temple culture. She studies modern Bharata Natyam, Carnatic vocal music, and Kalari Payattu (a martial art) and researches the medieval antecedents in historic treatises. She also experiments with various forms of textile decoration and clothing construction.

Persona

Lakshmi Amman of Sri Ranganatha is a 16th century temple dancer in a temple near the modern city of Mysore, India. Ranganatha is the incarnation of Vishnu reclining. When Vishnu fully reclines, the world will end and be recreated when a flower grows from Vishnu's navel and Brahma emerges from the flower's bloom. In the meantime, Sri Ranganatha is a temple devoted to Vishnu's worship which is currently undergoing renovations during the Vijayanara era.

Lakshmi works in the temple as one of the "temple women". While her role is not entirely clear, Lakshmi is independently wealthy and is able to fund social projects, and has some status within the temple precincts. As Lakshmi has risen in esteem in the East Kingdom, so has she gained notoriety in her local area.

Lakshmi is a citizen of the Vijayanagara Empire - the last Hindu empire to thrive before domination by Muslims and later the British Raj. Temple culture and the women affiliated with temples are thriving as the rulers support religion and the arts.

Things She Does

Lakshmi's main contribution to the SCA is research and teaching. You'll find her regularly teaching dance classes and performing classical Indian dance in SCA venues. She also contributes to the SCA_India yahoo group, runs her own website (www.generalism.net/~lakshmi) and writes the occasional blog post on LiveJournal.

Lakshmi has also:

• retained for Darius and Roxanae I and II
• worked as webminister for the Barony of Carolingia

Lakshmi thinks one of the best forms of service is dish washing -- if you want to meet the cool kids, stick around for cleanup!

Awards

She has more honors and awards than any sane person needs - Order of the Laurel, Order of the Maunche, King's Order of Excellence, Terpsichore, AOA, Seamstress to the Crown, Order of the Moons (Carolingia) and Order of the DayStar (Carolingia). After all is said and done, the highest award Lakshmi has ever received has been the love of her friends, and the esteem of her superiors. Not much else really matters.