For the Tamils, an ethnic community in modern-day South India and Sri Lanka, a concept of physical and spiritual heat as female energy (sakti) influences their diet, their traditional medical practices, their, view of men and women and their worship of Hindu deities. Some of the striking inter-connections between 'cooling' and 'heating' foods, male and female relations, popular beliefs about sexuality and the life cycle, and 'cooling' rituals of worship for 'hot' Hindu goddesses are illustrated in this volume.