Believed to have originated in the third century BCE, kalaripayattu is an armed martial art used for self-defence and is indigenous to the state of Kerala. Kalaripayattu is composed of two words, kalari means “place of combat” and payattu means “fighting” in Malayalam. Practitioners of the art form credit the Hindu saint Parashurama with founding the art form and consider him to be its first teacher or gurukkal. 

Broadly, the art-form is divided into four stages with each stage including a technique, and the form does not follow a grading system that ranks students on the basis of seniority. The first stage, the meipayattu, involves various stretching exercises and jumping movements. The next stage is kolthari, where students are taught fighting techniques with the use of sticks. The wooden sticks, known as kettukari, are usually thin bamboo poles measuring six feet long. Other wooden weapons used in this stage include the viada (two-headed club), cheruvati (short, heavy stick) and lastly the ottakol (curved wooden weapon, with a club at one end). In the angathari stage, weapons made of unbending metal are used including the kattaram (dagger for duels at short range), sword and shield. The last stage, verumkaiprayoga, involves instruction in fighting without tools or weapons. Several of these movements are modelled on animals such as the horse, serpent, rooster or tiger, amongst several others, inspired by the forests of Kerala that form a vast part of the state’s landscape. Additionally, there are mainly two main styles of kalaripayattu: vadakkan or the northern style predominant in the Malabar region which emphasises graceful body movements and the weaponry and the thekken or the southern style, practised mainly in the Travancore region, involving free armed techniques and movements.