Chanting destiny: the commercialisation of a ‘traditional’ divinatory art

International audienceSome Tamil astrologers, belonging to the Valluvar community, are well known throughout the Tamil country, and beyond, for their “art of foretelling”. Indeed, during the divinatory séances these soothsayers produce and perform horoscopic sung narratives, which are real codified ritual performances. If, nowadays, this manner of practising seems to fall into disuse among traditional Valluvar specialists, it is spectacularly reinvented by the “Nadi readers”, who established a very lucrative business of astrology in the small city of Vaitheeswaran Koil. Thus, in this paper, I will focus on the way this new divinatory practice reinvents the older one