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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 7 - Vacikabhinaya according to Bharata’s Natyasastra

Page:

9 (of 29)


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. 9 has not been proofread.

the rasika. The first two of these are concerned with both the singer and 217 स्वमेव राजत�
[svameva rājate
]
Now the definition of svara may be revised that
which reigns (or satisfies or looks beautiful) by itself. The name that we
give to a svara, or its grammatical identity is based on a relation. A svara
is madhyama, if it is at the right interval from ga and pa; it is kōmaḷa as
against suddha; and vice-versa. So in all such talk we do not really speak
of the svara by itself or alone. And yet where a svara is well sung it
alone may seem to sway the listener's attention. In other words, our ac-
knowledged definition of svara relates to the note's own (aesthetic) look,
not to the way we identify it for the sake of understanding. It is not its
being a ṛṣabha or gāndhāra but its appearing or as an accent of intrin-
sic beauty that our definition is about .The aesthetic and the merely gram-
matical approaches to svara are truly indifferent.
of
Many are the factors on which the 'look' of a single svara
depends. A svara's relation to its setting is however not merely a source
of charm. If we reflect to it, it can also be made to heighten two ways
looking at a svara, from the viewpoint of grammar and from that of
aesthetic experience. Take the case of a vivādisvara, grammatically its
relation to other notes in a raga is more or less negative. It is a svara,
which is not ordinarily taken in a particular rāga, though its use here is
not expressly forbidden either. In the singing of maestro, on the other

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