The Debauchery of the Art of Dance

The mind and the intellect (manas and buddhi) are the two-primary means by which a man perceives the world and lets himself be perceived.

The eyes, the ears and other senses, and the parts of the body that shelter them become the instruments for the above two.

Training in arts strengthens the mind through refinement and the intellect acquires a refined strengthening through the knowledge of śāstras (roughly translated as ‘sciences’).  

Most parts of the Vedas are allegorical and metaphorical in style. Knowledge of this symbolism is the only avenue through which the meaning of the hymns can be accessed. It was necessary for the ancient sages to employ symbolism because of the esoteric content and also because it predates the evolution of systematized language as we now know it. For the same reason everyday words were made to perform multiple tasks: allusions to natural phenomena were mythologized.

Nature and Art

Books written and institutions established by Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam for the promotion of Art and National Integration

1.Śiva’s form as Naṭarāja

This article is an adapted version of the talk presented by Arjun Bharadwaj at the Swadeshi Indology Conference in December 2017

The following sections describe how Padma Subrahmanyam’s art presentations and research suggest the inclusive nature of sanātana-dharma and all regional variations as an integral part of the classical mārga tradition.

This article is an adapted version of the talk presented by Arjun Bharadwaj at the Swadeshi Indology Conference in December 2017

Abstract

The current paper attempts to explore the contributions of Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam, an artist and scholar, in the context of the Dravidian movement and her artistic rebuttal of the same.

Several people have the tendency to find parallels between Bhūtārādhana and Yakṣagāna. They classify Bhūtārādhana as ‘folk’ (Jānapadīya) and as a corollary, conclude that Yakṣagāna is ‘folk’ as well. However, Yakṣagāna’s allied forms of art such as Terukkūttu, Kūcupuḍi, Bhāgavatameḻa, Dūḍālapāya, Doḍḍāṭa and Keḻike are not influenced by Bhūtārādhana at all. Among these, one can say that only Kathakali has faint reflections of Bhūtakola in it. When this is the case, how can the argument that Yakṣagāna is also ‘folk’ be substantiated?

In his insightful essay titled ‘Uparūpakas and Nāṭyaprabandhas’, Dr. V Raghavan classifies these (i.e., the lyrics/ scripts used for different theatrical/ Yakṣagāna-like presentations) as ‘Kāvya’ or ‘Citrakāvya’, a kind of Uparūpaka. (Refer –

[caption id="attachment_13946" align="alignleft" width="166"] Dr. V. Raghavan[/caption]