| Sumario: | When Sri Lanka entered a lockdown at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a frustrated public was forbidden from engaging in customary pilgrimages and temple visits, with access reserved only for political elites. In the process, the government created a large religious subaltern class in need of divine intervention. In late 2020, this void was filled by a Buddhist priest to the goddess Kali who concocted a miraculous elixir that purportedly prevented and cured COVID-19. Although elites initially supported the indigenous medicine, they denounced it once Kali began speaking through the medium and challenging authority. But the agency of the goddess could not be put back in the bottle. Crowds continuously amassed outside the Kali shrine in a rejection of lockdown orders to seek aid outside the foundering efforts of their government. The goddess thereby became a vehicle for speech by subalterns whom elites scolded for their stubbornness.
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