Decoding Myths in Indian classical Dances
by Megha Subramanian
Dance is a combination of beats, swars, bodily movement and myths or story representing an
emotion. Like each ingredient in ‘Biryani’ or ‘Dossakaya chutney’ comes together to complete
the dish, so also in dance each of the ingredients come together to give an experience of
‘Sattva’ or peace. Each of the above ingredients are codified and form a vast subject in itself.
Our focus today is on the ingredient of myth.
What is myth? – A representation of beliefs of a particular culture using various life-forms.
Indian classical dances draw upon various myths, allowing the characters to go through
various emotions and finally experience peace with the emotion, leading to sattva. What
does this mean? Most of us have heard the story of Ganesha and Muruga where the former
goes around his parents to signify his world and the other takes off on a peacock to go around
the world. At the end of this, it is Ganesha who gets the fruit and Muruga angrily leaves his
parents’ abode. It now becomes important to know what Ganesha and Muruga represent
here – Ganesha represents the personal sphere and Muruga, the outer sphere or the external
world.
If the focus is on the external world like it is of Muruga’s, the result will be anger/sorrow, but if the focus is internal, the result will be joy. The myth therefore shows the way to reach sattva and finally at the end of the myth, Muruga is forced to look within, which is what he does at ‘Pazhani’ in his self-imposed exile.
In Hindu culture, there are around 10 million gods and a lot of them are regional or localized
gods. The reason behind this is that there are as many routes to sattva, as there are gods
essentially meaning there is a place for everyone in this universe. To understand the use of
myths in dance, once must get into the jargons of ‘Lokadharmi’ and ‘Natyadharmi’. So in the
Ganesha-Muruga story lokadharmi or popular understanding is that Narada played a prank,
like he always does which resulted in friction, and that’s what we see mostly.
A lot of the essence of the episode of looking ‘within’ is lost today, very similar to the ritualization of
spirituality. We do poojas and say slokas without understanding the meaning which then
become rituals, but if we do so with understanding, it is spiritual, a mode of connecting with
the source or self. In simple terms – lokadharmi is nothing but popular culture and Natyadharmi is the spirit of literature or myth.
The sequence of expressing the myth:
1. Hastas – hand placements and gestures
2. Bhedas – head / leg/ foot placements and movements
3. Nayakas and Nayikas – the person whom the story is about (Hero/Heroine)
4. Sakhis – the world around – friends (include family)
5. Rasa – experiencing emotion
The Natya Shastra has codified each of the above into various sub-sections such as one-hand
gestures, two-hand gestures, gaits, movement and placement of feet and so on. Thus a
dancer performing ‘Indian classical’ in any part of the world will use the similar gestures as
codified, thus enabling communication.
The complication in interpretation occurs because each Indian classical dance is cultural and
the Natya Shastra is interpreted as per the culture of the state. So although all the dances
represent Krishna with a flute, but the way each of these dance forms hold the flute depends
on the cultural context of the dance form. This essentially expects the viewer to be an ‘active’
participant in the dance and demands a certain degree of scholarship from the viewer as well.
Since the goal of dance is to enable the realization of ‘sattva’, this demand from the viewer
serves its purpose.
Myths represent the cultural context of a geographical location and are formed from
experiences of various life-forms. The Vedas, the Upanishads and Puranas have preserved
myths for raising the standard of life and for giving us purpose. Since everyone cannot easily
access the philosophy of these texts, various dance forms and music have tried to help us
connect with them in different ways.
But today these too are diminishing because they demand the viewer to have basic understanding of the language while experiencing them. For a dancer itself the time span for accessing these myths is at least eight years and for understanding them is a life-time. These myths tells us a lot about our background or culture which essentially ground us in patience and ‘sadhana’. Sadhana is meditation with the form.
So our culture does not promote cursory learning of any subject and hence the demand for dedication.
Unfortunately ‘instant learning’ does not exist, what can be instant is the understanding which is a result of years of penance or sadhana. And the myth is that this process is cyclical,
hence what you do ‘sadhana’ for in this life-time may come handy in the next!
No comments:
Post a Comment