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 2 - Bharata’s Dramaturgy
43 (of 56)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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paint, or presented on a stage. They would be a case of Lokadharmi. But when a character leaps over a distance of five feet and pretends that he has leapt across the Indian Ocean to Laṅkā or pretends through gestures that he has uprooted a tree or lifted up a whole montain, or pretends that he is an elephant or serpent, the impact experienced by the rasikas is made possible only through the laws of Natyadharmi. When these unmanifested concepts or ideas, such as Brahmakapa, are given a material form in poetry (through Abstract Personification-YULA), they come under Lökadharmi, because they can yet be translated into metaphorical terms (through lakṣaṇa) and the discourse about them accepted. But when they appear on the stage as visuals, they come under Nāṭyadharmi, because a physical presence cannot be interpreted even through lakṣaṇa it cannot, in fact be interpreted at all. It can only be perceived as pratyaksa. Therefore, to conclude, under Natyadharmi of certain literary devices, such as modifying a well known plot or character type (such as the vidūṣaka), : a, etc. become unacceptable to, and inconsistent with, the criteria laid down by Bharata himself. A literary or compositional device cannot be called a theatrical convention. Another important condition for something to become Nāṭyadharmi is the stage context, by which it means the assumption that the stage represents or reflects the world of common expereice. We expect everything generally to happen on the stage in the way it happens 75
