365bet

Essay name: Hastalaksanadipika a critical edition and study

Author: E. K. Sudha
Affiliation: Government Sanskrit College (Tripunithura) / Department of Sanskrit

This is an English study on the Hastalaksanadipika—a manual depicting the Mudras (gestures) of the Kerala theatre. It is a very popular text supposedly dating to the 10th century A.D. This study also touches the subject of Krsnanattam, Kathakali and Kutiyattam—some of India's oldest theatrical traditions in Kerala.

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Page:

5 (of 32)


External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)


Download the PDF file of the original publication


Copyright (license):

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)


Warning! Page nr. 5 has not been proofread.

purposes, but in support of this latter assumption, not a single instance was met in the śrauta or gṛhya sūtras. Taking the support of Bharata R.V. Jagirdar writes, it is interesting to note that everything had connections with lower castes. Not only the art and the advocates, but even the first patron of drama was an anti Vedic if not a non-Aryan king. King Nahuṣa is spoken of as the first patron of drama in the mortal world. It can be seen that Sanskrit drama has the least to do with religion and religious rites; that it is the work of people treated as anti-Vedic, fiends and that its origin is to be sought in the interest of the castes lower to Brahmins. Jagirdar draws the conclusion that it was thus the post epic sūta and not the puppet shows, that oriented dramatic representation. He further states that it is the recitation of epic and not that of religious hymns that was used on the Bhārati stage, and the recitation of the sūta and the kuśilavas formed the Sātvati stage. On the Kaisiki stage the dansuse (naṭi) was introduced; and the Arabhati was the final mode of the ‘full body in action'. In its structure from beginning to end, Sanskrit drama took its hero from the sūta and the epics in such a way that he never recited and from the religious lore or any matter from the host of Vedic Gods. To sum up, all the above discussions point to the pertinent fact that Natya has been structured keeping in mind common man has the target audience. 6. Jagirdar R.V., Drama in Sanskrit Literature, Pub, Popular Book Depot, Bombay (1947) pp 33ff, 41. 5

Let's grow together!

I humbly request your help to keep doing what I do best: provide the world with unbiased sources, definitions and images. Your donation direclty influences the quality and quantity of knowledge, wisdom and spiritual insight the world is exposed to.

Let's make the world a better place together!

Like what you read? Help to become even better: