The āṅgikābhinaya of Yakṣagāna can be sub-divided into that of nāṭya and of nṛtya, which are nibaddha and anibaddha, respectively. We will limit our discussion to the aspect of nṛtta. Āṅgikābhinaya that caters for nāṭya is performed through the mode of loka-dharmī and it should have sāttvikābhinaya as its undercurrent.
Sir K. Seshadri Iyer was a native of Madras. He hailed from the region of Palghat (Palakkad). He wasn’t, in fact, someone the British authorities had summoned. I have heard that it was Rungacharlu who brought Seshadri Iyer into government service. When Rungacharlu was in the government service of the Madras Presidency, there were occasions when he had to visit places such as Coimbatore, Wayanad, and Palghat on government duty. On one such official trip, he got introduced to the family of Seshadri Iyer and came to realize that young Seshadri was a brilliant intellectual.
Krishnamoorthy joined the Sharada Vilas College in 1949 and worked there until 1952. During this time, at the behest of A R Krishna Shastri, he wrote an elaborate introduction to Ānandavardhana’s aesthetic method and translated Dhvanyāloka into Kannada. In the introduction, he outlined the concepts of kindred subjects that are essential to understand Dhvanyāloka, summarized the contents of the text and explained them with apt examples chosen from Kannada poems, both ancient and modern.
The following night Gomukha narrated this story to entertain Naravāhanadatta–
A great muni resided in Dhāreśvara. He addressed his disciples, ‘If any of you have seen or heard something extraordinary tell me!’ One of his disciple narrated this story:--
The word abhinaya means to take things closer[1]. The word can also mean good character and making things one’s own. Abhinaya can be divided into four kinds, namely āṅgika, āhārya, vācika, and sāttvika. As the very name suggests, āṅgikābhinaya is to do with the movement of the major and minor parts of the body including hands, legs, waist, neck and head.
Human nature is composed of the triad of guṇas – sattva, rajas, and tamas. It is true of the universe also. A man’s inner nature influences his outward behaviour and vice-versa. The essence of graha-atigraha mentioned in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka-upaniṣad is this mutual impulse.
tattvavit-tu mahābāho guṇa-karma-vibhāgayoḥ ।
guṇā guṇeṣu vartanta iti mattvā na sajjate ॥ (BG 3.28)
After introducing the major characters, Śūdraka has gone on to describe the nucleus of his story in all its complex shades. Keeping this in mind, let us try to understand the extent of scope that a social play offers to various rasas. According to Indian dramaturgy, a prakaraṇa involving commonfolk is not the best type of play to delineate the heroic mood, vīra-rasa. Vīra is typically the forte of nāṭaka, the ‘prototype play’ that involves deities and humans.
Early next morning, the three men began their journey. After travelling for several hours, they came by a pond and rested there until the sun went down. At night, as the stars began to dot the night sky, they climbed up a tree on the shore and sat down on one of the branches. After a little while, they witnessed something miraculous. From the depths of the pond arose a man. From his mouth, he pulled out a woman and then a bed. As the three men perched atop the tree watched incredulously, the strange man went to sleep with his woman on that bed.