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Mohiniyāṭṭam: An Embodiment of the Aesthetic

and the Religious

George Pati

Abstract: This essay discusses the role of Mohiniyāṭṭam by examining itstheological significance through the lens of rasa (essence) theory andexemplifies it as an embodiment of bhakti, a compelling devotional attitudein Hinduism. I propose in this essay that in Mohiniyāṭṭam the dancer embodiesbhakti bhāva (expression) and rasa, and transcends human and divinedistinctions. As a corollary, the Mohiniyāṭṭam dancer is a medium and contentof human and divine union. In other words, the essay attempts to prove thereligious efficacy and role of Mohiniyāṭṭam and augments prevalent aestheticdiscourses of Indian classical dance from a religious perspective. The essay isdivided into two sections. First, it examines the connection betweenMohiniyāṭṭam and Hindu bhakti tradition within the broad historical backdropof performative traditions of Kerala. Secondly, it explores the intertwined natureof the aesthetic and the religious in Mohiniyāṭṭam through an aesthetic lensand exemplifies it as transformative.

Introduction

This essay examines Mohiniyāṭṭam,1 a magnificent classical dance form of Kerala,south India, from a Hindu religious perspective. In a nation with multiple aesthetictraditions produced in a large variety of languages and a range of social settings, andwhere the shift towards modern forms of dances that display an increasing discon-nection between classical dancer and audience, it becomes even more urgent andrelevant to unpack the religious efficacy and role of Mohiniyāṭṭam. In recent times,more and more performances emulate modern Bollywood and Western hip-hopdance forms in Kerala, substituting these for the traditional classical and indigenousdance forms. This acceptance of the modern instead of the traditional has dilutedthe significant role of classical dance such as Mohiniyāṭṭam. To compound the issue,because they lack understanding of the religious essence of Mohiniyāṭṭam, andbecause they no longer participate in the performance with the dancer, audiencesare less appreciative and thus neglect this art form. One way to reinvigorate appre-ciation for this dance form is to change lenses: as Kapila Vatsyayan suggests ‘rasa asa theory of technique can profitably be applied to all the creative arts in India’.2 InSanskrit, the meaning of rasa includes relished, tasted, and enjoyed.3 Following thislead, the essay discusses the role of Mohiniyāṭṭam by examining its theologicalsignificance through the lens of rasa theory and shows how it embodies bhakti,

© The Author 2010. Oxford University Press and The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. All rights reserved.For permissions, please email [email protected]

The Journal of Hindu Studies 2010;3:91–113 Doi: 10.1093/jhs/hiq006Advance Access Publication 6 April 2010

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a compelling devotional attitude in Hinduism. The essay is divided into two sections.First, it examines the connection between Mohiniyāṭṭam and Hindu bhakti traditionwithin the broad historical backdrop of the performative traditions of Kerala.Secondly, it explores the intertwined nature of the aesthetic and the religious inMohiniyāṭṭam through an aesthetic lens. As in Manipuri, from the eastern stateof Manipur, and Odīssi, from the southeastern state of Orissa, dance forms of Indiaone sees the embodiment of bhakti, I propose that in Mohiniyāṭṭam too the dancerunites human and divine. As a corollary, the Mohiniyāṭṭam dancer, a medium forhuman and divine union, is an embodiment of bhakti bhāva (mood or expression)and rasa. In short, the essay attempts to prove the religious efficacy and role ofMohiniyāṭṭam and augments prevalent aesthetic discourses of Indian classical dancefrom a religious perspective.

Scholars of religion have examined aspects of bhakti from myriad perspectives –anthropology, history, hagiography, literature, aesthetics, and sociology. These stu-dies contribute significantly to the discourses of bhakti in Hinduism. In addition,recent scholarship in the history of the arts in South Asia has largely engaged withissues of culture, tradition, modernity, theory, and history of performing arts,4 butvery few scholars examine Mohiniyāṭṭam and the connection between aestheticand religious using bhakti lenses. Therefore, an examination of Mohiniyāṭṭam addsto the prevalent discourses of aesthetics and religion.

Bhakti is a path of devotional love, which leads to mokṣa or liberation from thekarma saṃsāra or cycle of rebirth.5 Bhakti in a religious sense means total submis-sion or union with the divine, parallel to mokṣa; however, in some instances bhaktiis considered nonreligious.6 Bhakti developed as a movement in Tamil Nadu, southIndia, and spread to other parts of India. For the south and north Indian bhakti tra-ditions, the body, the emotions, and the embodied forms of the divine remain sig-nificant because bhakti to the divine image liberates a devotee from the cycle ofrebirth. Karine Schomer and W. H. McLeod point towards a theological distinctionbased on how north Indian bhakti perceives God (saguṇa, God with attributes, andnirguṇa, God without attributes); however, John Hawley and Wendy Doniger clarifythese distinctions stating that the saints themselves wavered between saguṇa andnirguṇa images of deity.7 Such distinctions have never been an issue for southIndian vaiṣṇava bhakti religion because they perceive deity with attributesexpressed through anthropomorphic depiction of deities in arts, architecture,and literature. In Vaisnavism,8 expressing devotional love and worshipping Viṣṇu,a God in Hinduism, in some form which leads to human and divine union is definedprecisely in the Tamil term prapatti, total submission. According to Purāṇic (Hindulegendary texts) theism, bhakti as yoga includes choosing God as iṣṭadēvatā (one’sdeity) through worship, service at God’s feet, friendship, listening, remembrance,singing, dancing, and saluting. As John Carman states bhakti is used specificallyto describe human response to God and never to characterise God’s response tohuman beings.9 In performing texts of the vaiṣṇava tradition, a Mohiniyāṭṭam dan-cer actively participates and invites the audience to enjoy. Both of these acts are

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aspects of bhakti, as the root verb of bhakti in Sanskrit means participation andenjoyment.10 In this way, Mohiniyāṭṭam is a medium that facilitates the union ofdivine and human – an embodiment of bhakti theology. As Karen Prentiss accent-uates bhakti is a theology of embodiment embedded in the details of human life andactivity in the world.11

An Indian dance performance typically includes various types of movements:nṛtta (pure dance), nṛtya (mime or gestures based on interpretation of themes),and nāṭya (combination of dance and drama in dramatic form).12 Mohiniyāṭṭamabhinaya (acting) includes the above-mentioned bodily movements as well as emo-tions, voice, and makeup. All of these combined exhibit rasa and bhāva. In the con-text of literary and dramatic art, rasa signifies the emotional content of the art,which lead to enjoyment.13 In that case, bhakti may be equated to an experienceof enjoyment, and its performance leads to enjoyment. In aesthetic experience, rasahas three categories that lead to the sthāyi, the emotional experience itself – thepoet or artist as the creator of art; the poetry, literature, or work of art, which pre-sents only objective correlatives of emotional experience; and the experience of thereader, spectator, or connoisseur of art.14 Here, rasa transcends the boundariesbetween different aesthetic expressions because all the different arts express rasa,the emotional experience. In that way, one can perceive performance as poetry, asVisvanatha Kaviraj characterises rasa as the essence of poetry, defining it as a fun-damental emotion such as love, manifested by the representation of its occasionalcauses.15 In this regard, Vasudha Narayanan emphasises, ‘performance issometimes called a visual poem (dṛṣṭi kāvyam)’.16 As Steven Hopkins points in ŚrīVaiṣṇava literature, visionary pictures of the deity were meant as a tool for devo-tional visions, they are meant to inspire emotion, and raise a direct experience ofamorous feeling through a refined erotic language inherited from Sanskritkāvya (poem).17 Mohiniyāṭṭam performance that embodies rasa and bhāva ofamorous feeling can be equated to a poem exemplifying human relationships thatcontain respectful subordination and passionate love between the beloved and thelover.

Theologically, this human relationship of passionate love between the belovedand the lover is analogous to the relationship between God and a devotee in bhaktitradition, because bhakti employs the language of human love to express lovebetween human and divine. This love includes ‘self-abnegation and self-surrender-ing’.18 In this regard, as Norman Cutler points out, bhakti is an emotionally chargedrelationship between the devotee and God as well as among devotees, for whom atypical bhakti poem functions as both a description of and a medium for such con-tact.19 The spiritual aspect of the dance explicitly reveals the dancer as a mediumor space, which reaffirms the relationship between the terrestrial and celestial asKapila Vatsyayan explicitly accentuates,

All ancient civilisations (and many contemporary societies of some parts of theworld) organised space, established a physical center, made enclosures and gave

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it a mythical and cosmic significance. This was a method of re-integration, ofreaffirmation of the relationship of the micro-macro, terrestrial and celestial.20

In Mohiniyāṭṭam, as in vaiṣṇava theology, the ‘Lord’s [Viṣṇu’s] play is manifestedand perceived at the intersection of the divine and the earthly realms’.21 The var-ious movements of the body express elements of loving devotion and movetowards union of the lover and the beloved. In that way, Mohiniyāṭṭam functionsas a medium between the human and the divine, the audience and the God, andbecomes an instrument for approaching the deity. Hence, Mohiniyāṭṭam throughits graceful movements and gestures becomes an agency or medium for the audi-ence to experience the devotion portrayed by the performer. As Philip Zarrilli, acultural anthropologist, puts it, ‘the performer is transparent, the medium forthe other’.22

Mohiniyāṭṭam: Some historical background

Mohiniyāṭṭam, reserved exclusively for women, employs the lāsya style23 and ispopularly associated with Hindu mythologies and performative traditions of southIndian temples. Among the various Mohini or enchantress myths in Hindu mythol-ogies, the famous myth of the Mohini who distracts the asuras or demons duringthe churning of the ocean is popularly associated with Mohiniyāṭṭam. According tothe story, the devas or celestial beings and asuras came together to churn the milkyocean in order to obtain the celestial ambrosia that bestows immortality and greatpower. The asuras were planning to have the ambrosia for themselves, whichwould make them immortal. However, Viṣṇu foresaw the disastrous consequenceof the asuras having power and becoming immortal. As the churning continuedand ambrosia was extracted, Viṣṇu appeared on the scene.

Viṣṇu did not appear in his usual form; rather, he appeared as Mohini, theenchantress. Viṣṇu as Mohini danced with seductive grace, swaying her bodyrhythmically in such a way that the asuras and the demons alike were charmed.The asuras, obsessed with the beauty of the Mohini, were distracted from theirobjective of obtaining the ambrosia: they failed in their plan, and the devas con-sumed the ambrosia, saving the world. In this respect, Viṣṇu in the form of Mohinidanced the dance of existence and sustenance, distributing the ambrosia among thedevas and assuring them eternal existence. Thus, Mohiniyāṭṭam is considered adance of existence. Here, Mandakranta Bose accentuates, Śiva’s dance tāṇḍava isintended for worship as an offering, while Pārvatī’s lāsya style is employed forhuman communication and to express emotions.24 Mohiniyāṭṭam follows the lāsyastyle, personifies emotions, and engages in human communication.

Yet another story narrates that Viṣṇu took the form of Mohini when Śiva slewthe demon Tripurasura and brought mokṣa to the universe. The asuras approachedViṣṇu to restrain Śiva’s anger. On the advice of Nārada, the sage, Viṣṇu meditated




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upon Devī (goddess or feminine power) and gained the power to transform himselfinto a Mohini, and as such he enchanted Śiva. When irresistible Śiva impregnatedthe temporarily female Viṣṇu with his powerful semen, this union gave birth toLord Ayyappan.25 These and other mythological stories of Mohini underlie theMohiniyāṭṭam dance form, which embodies the feminine mood through śṛṅgāra(amorous essence).

Though Mohiniyāṭṭam’s origin remains unclear, the development of dance anddance-drama substantially depended on three major castes: the Nambutirī Brah-mins, the Nāyars, and the Aṁbalavāsis or Devadāsīs. The social structures of thesethree castes differed: the Nambutirī families observed polygamy and patrilineality,the Nāyar family practised polyandry and matrilineality, and the Ambalavasis fol-lowed polygamy.26 For the development of Mohiniyāṭṭam, the Nāyar caste of Keralais most important. They practised Marumakkattāyam or matrilineality – that is, evenafter marriage, the property and other inherited rights of women remained unal-tered within the biological taṟavāṭú (household).27 These Nāyar women hadimmense freedom to cultivate their creative talents.28 Even though Betty TrueJones contends that Mohiniyāṭṭam originated in the seventeenth century andKathakaḷi, the dance-drama of Kerala from middle of the seventeenth century,29

Mohiniyāṭṭam as a performative art is deeply grounded in the indigenous folk tra-ditions performed by these three castes in Kerala temple precincts. All of thesetraditions conveyed common theological themes of devotional love of God.

Mohiniyāṭṭam’s feminine dance form reflects the ancient Kūtiyāṭṭaṃ (collectiveenactment) and Kūttu (play) performed in the kūttaṁbalaṁs (temple theaters) ofKerala from around the third and eighth centuries. Cilappatikāram, the famousTamil poem dated between the second century BC and the fifth century CE, refersto Cakkaiyan, men whose profession was to sing and dance in temples andpalaces.30 The Cākyārkūttu performed by men emphasised dramatic aspects andfacial expressions with less footwork, which Mohiniyāṭṭam, too, reflects. TheNañgyārs (women) known as devāstrīs (celestial women) performed the Nañgyār-kūttu and had dignified status in the society.31 Nañgyārs depicted the feminineroles, which became an integral aspect of the Mohiniyāṭṭam dance form.32 Bothof these dance forms aimed to elevate the devotional experience of the spectator.In addition, during the Onam festival Nāyar women performed the folk danceof Kaikoṭṭikaḷi (the hand-clapping dance) which used graceful style andrhythmical clapping of hands. All of these elements eventually became part ofthe Mohiniyāṭṭam dance form.33

Clearly, Mohiniyāṭṭam is connected to traditional Cākyārkūttu andNañgyārkūttu; in addition, Dāsiyāṭṭam, a dance form performed by Devadāsīs inthe temple, flourished in south India between the ninth and thirteenth centuriesand has undeniably cradled Mohiniyāṭṭam. A Śiva temple inscription at Cokkūrnear Calicut from 932 AD illustrates the presence of Dāsiyāṭṭam, the precursor ofMohiniyāṭṭam.34 David Smith observes that the major human presence withinthe imagery of the Cidambaram temple in Tamil Nadu, south India, consists

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of Devadāsīs.35 This prevalent portrayal of Devadāsīs asserts their significant reli-gious role in the temple. Kalyanikutty Amma, a founding teacher of Mohiniyāṭṭam,asserts that in Kerala, Devadāsīs (servant of God, Aṁbalavāsis, or Tevaticis)were instrumental in the development of Mohiniyāṭṭam as an art of religioussignificance.36

In Kerala, Devadāsīs danced and performed temple duties.37 It is customary inthe Devadāsī system for a maiden to undergo a symbolic marriage with the deitytermed Peṇṇkeṯu (the girl’s marriage) as an initiation process. As early as in theninth century, Kulaśekhara Perumāl, the ruler of Kerala, dedicated his own daugh-ter to the Śrīrangam temple.38 Parallel to this Kerala tradition, in Orissa, a south-eastern state in India, the Devadāsīs were married to the resident deity of thetemple at an early age. They, too, served their Lord through various ways, oneof the most prestigious being singing and dancing before the image.39 Malayalamliterature of the mediaeval period records the privileged status of the Devadāsīsof Kerala and mentions about Mohiniyāṭṭam.40 Importantly, Mahārāja KārtikaTirunāl (1733–98) in Bālarāmabhāratam refers to Mohiniyāṭṭam as Mohini Natana,41

elevating its position among classical dances. Thus, P. K. Gopalakrishnan assertsthat Mohiniyāṭṭam crystallises within this tradition.42

During the nineteenth century, Mohiniyāṭṭam received fresh impetus as adistinctive dance form of Kerala in style and application under the tutelage ofMahārāja Swāti Tirunāl (1813–46), then Prince of Travancore.43 An ardent lover ofthe arts, he invited the Tanjore quartet from Tamil Nadu, who were famousBharatanāṭyam naṭṭuvanārs (teachers). They brought other dancers with them andinfluenced the local dance forms. Following these influences, Mohiniyāṭṭam imitatesBharatanāṭyam, the classical dance of Tamil Nadu, and incorporates styles of Katha-kaḷi. In this light, G. Ramakrishna Pillai claims that Mohiniyāṭṭam was an ancientdance form in Kerala, and that the main ingredients were lāsya and abhinaya.44

The Devadāsī system flourished until the influx of foreign powers, when thetemples lost their influence and kings lost their authority. As a result, Dāsiyāṭṭambecame unpopular and declined as an art because of the mistaken belief thatDevadāsī dancers were a medium of erotic enjoyment.45 Social imaginations inter-preted the dancer’s role as enticing humans rather than deities, contrary to theideals of the Devadāsī as religious performers. Too, during colonial rule in Kerala,many reforms took place, ridiculing some of the traditional institutions and sys-tems, such as annihilating the Marumakkattāyam and the taṟavāṭú system, all ofwhich impacted the position of women in the society, including Devadāsīs.46 YoungNāyar men called for family reform, and, in the late nineteenth century, some ofthem took legislative steps to reform the matrilineal system.47 By the 1890s, theNāyars had adopted the ‘respectable’ practices of monogamy, patrilineality, patri-locality, and greater patriarchy.48 As a result, Nāyar women, who had been integralin the development of this art form, had less freedom in the society. In such amilieu, the role and position of women were questioned, let alone that of theDevadāsīs, who were thought only to exude erotic appeal. As they struggled for




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their livelihood and even survival, some Devadāsīs resorted to promiscuity, andDāsiyāṭṭam shifted from the temple courts to a new home in the inner chambersof feudal landowners. This change compounded the decline of the dance formand raised serious questions about its religious efficacy. Mohiniyāṭṭam dancers,who had enjoyed privileged status in the society, came to be derogatorily addressedas Mohiniyāṭṭakāri, the seducing shaker.49

A similar example of Devadāsī tradition’s decline is observed in the Odīssi tradi-tion. Here, Ananya Chatterjee shows that Devadāsīs, married to a divine partner,found themselves in a paradoxical situation: both at the centre and at the marginsof sociocultural nexus.50 She observes that Devadāsīs were at the centre because notemple ceremony was ever complete without them, and in the margins as they hadto serve the Lord’s representatives on earth – kings, rulers, and high priest – hencebecoming sexual agents.51 These societal perceptions contributed to the decline ofthe Devadāsī dance traditions during British colonial rule. Aesthetic controversies,too, compounded the problem. During the rule of Mahārāja Uthram Tirunāl (1815–61), he was a patron of Kathakaḷi and did not promote Mohiniyāṭṭam as an art.Hence, in order to survive, Mohiniyāṭṭam dancers incorporated some folk elementssuch as Eśal, Mūkkuthi, Candanam, and Polikaḷi into Mohiniyāṭṭam.52 By the turn ofthe century, a literary text, Mīnākṣi (1890) perceives Mohiniyāṭṭam as a false danceform and Kathakaḷi as a true one.53

Despite the stigma attached to Mohiniyāṭṭam as a dance form exclusively forseduction, one of the great poets of the colonial period, Vallathol Narayana Menon(1878–1958), established the Kerala Kalāmantalam (centre for the arts) at Cher-uthuruthy in 1930 and revived Mohiniyāṭṭam and other performative traditionsof Kerala.54 Amidst much cynicism and despite the stigma attached to the Devadāsītradition, in 1931, Orikiledath Kalyanikutty Amma from Peringottukurissi acceptedthe position as the first teacher of Mohiniyāṭṭam. She was followed by KalyanikuttyAmma in 1933, under whose guidance Mohiniyāṭṭam regained popularity as anexquisite dance form that includes folk elements as well as classical styles.

Mohiniyāṭṭam, like Bharatanāṭyam and Odīssi, has evolved from the Devadāsītradition. These three dance forms are indeed distinctive; however, the motif ofbhakti unites all three of them. Historically grounded in the Hindu temple perfor-mative traditions, indigenous and classical, the central motive of the dancerremains to unite with the divine, conceiving herself as the beloved of the divinelover. This task forms the substratum of Mohiniyāṭṭam and demonstrates its con-nection to the bhakti tradition where the performer becomes the agent for imagi-nation and transformation of the human and divine. In other words, Mohiniyāṭṭamtranscends boundaries between the divine and human, dancer and spectator.

Mohiniyāṭṭam: The aesthetic and the religious

Though Mohiniyāṭṭam adheres to the rules of dance-drama explained in theseclassical texts, like all regional dances, it has its own individuality and identity.

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Mohiniyāṭṭam aesthetics includes a combination of classical Indian dance-drama aswell as indigenous folk traditions and techniques. The classical Indian texts describ-ing rules of dance-drama include Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra, dated from 200 BCE to 200CE, Nandikesvara’s Abhinayadarpaṇa, written around the second century CE, andBhoja’s Sṛṅgāraprakāśa, composed around the eleventh century CE.55

To further explicate, Bharata, a Hindu aesthetician, whose primary concern wasaesthetics, explains that rasa arises from the bhāva and encompasses the cumulativeresult of vibhāva (stimulus), anubhāva (involuntary response), and vyabhicārī bhāvas(voluntary reaction). He describes two aspects of rasa, the transcendental experi-ence and the object of presentation, which gives rise to two separate discussionsin the critical texts of Indian aesthetics: inquiry into the nature of experience andthe form and techniques of presentation through different mediums.56 Both theseaspects remain significant to understand the confluence of aesthetics and the reli-gious in Mohiniyāṭṭam. According to Bharata’s categorisation of body movements,in Mohiniyāṭṭam abhinaya the entire body is involved in expressing rasa. ThoughBharata’s emphasis was aesthetics and not metaphysics, Indian philosophers haveapproached Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra from different philosophical viewpoints. Forexample, Abhinavagupta, a Saiva philosopher who comments on Nāṭyaśāstra in histext, Abhinavabhārati, around tenth to eleventh century CE, emphasises rasa as amystical experience that negates the self, an experience he terms camatkāra (won-der), which leads to a new dimension of reality.57 For Abhinavagupta, the duality ofsubject and object disappears and the aesthetic experience includes the states ofalaukika (transcendental), ānanda (bliss), and rasikatva (taste). Both Bharata andAbhinavagupta through their treatises on dance suggest a relationship betweenaesthetics and the religious. Bhatta Lollata, an Indian philosopher, interprets therasa-sūtra to mean that vibhāva, anubhāva, and vyabhicārī bhāvas expressed at the per-ceptive level and combined with sthāyi bhāva produce rasa.58 Lollata argues anubhā-vas produce a fully developed character.59 A contemporary of Abhinavagupta,Dhanañjaya in his text Dāśarūpaka states that the delicate lāsya movement arousesśṛṅgāra rasa.60 Here it becomes evident that by around the tenth century, the aes-thetic pleasure of erotic, śṛṅgāra rasa, and lāsya styles were combined, both of whichare exemplified in Mohiniyāṭṭam. Bhoja, King of Malwa around the eleventh cen-tury, in his text, Sṛṅgāraprakāśa, discusses in detail śṛṅgāra rasa – including ahamkāra,abhimāna, and rati (love) and emphasises lāsya inherent in śṛṅgāra rasa.61 Further,Rupa Gosvamin, the sixteenth century Gaudiya Vaiṣṇava bhakti theologian, deline-ates bhakti as rasa. Gosvamin in Bhakti-rasāmṛtasindhu argues that the emotionalattachment of Kṛṣṇa is bhakti rasa and the remaining rasas all are subordinate tobhakti rasa.62 In addition, Jayadeva’s Aṣṭapadī, in Gītagovinda, written around thetwelfth to thirteenth century, which abounds with bhakti rasa, had great influencein Kerala, especially among the Vaiṣṇava community.63 In this sense, bhakti as rasarefers to bhakti as prema (love) and the purpose of the dancer is to create rasa in theaudience through abhinaya. Here, the aspect of bhakti as rasa concretises inMohiniyāṭṭam performances because it epitomises śṛṅgāra rasa.




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To understand how it does so, let us recognise items and gestures included in atypical Mohiniyāṭṭam repertoire. Mohiniyāṭṭam repertoires usually contain sevendistinctive elements: colkkeṭṭu, jatisvaram, varnam, padam, tillāna, ślokam, and sap-tam.64 Colkkeṭṭu, the oldest and unique item of Mohiniyāṭṭam, demands special men-tion. Every performance commences with a colkkeṭṭu (tied syllables in rhythmicpatterns) that accompany dance movements. Mohiniyāṭṭam colkkeṭṭu consists ofaṭavus (pure dance units) produced by body movements, footwork, gaits, and ges-tures.65 Colkkeṭṭu is followed by (1) jatisvaram, pure dance in which the same subjectrecurs numerous times; (2) varnam, which expresses the essence of amorous lovethrough a long and complex composition comprising sequences of abhinaya (facialexpressions) and hasta mudrā (hand gestures) and sequences of pure dance alongwith the singing of the svaras (scales); (3) padam in which abhinaya receives promi-nence and is accompanied with poetical texts; (4) tillāna, a pure dance form usingintricate footwork, stylised body movements, and poses performed in quick succes-sion; (5) ślokam or praise of deity, in which abhinaya is important; and (6) saptam, ablend of pure dance and mimes according to the poetical text.

The use of sopānam music in Mohiniyāṭṭam establishes its religious content.Sopānam as a term means the steps that lead to the garbhagṛha, the womb chamberwhere the deity resides in a temple; in sopānam the singer sings in close proximityto the deity.66 Based on tauryatṛkam style, sopānam music is a fusion of gītam (vocalmusic), vādyam (instrumental music), and nṛtyam (dramatic dance). Its uniquenesscomes from the usage of āndolitam gamakas, or the free swinging of musical notes,and līnam, or the melting of one svara, or note, into the other. Sopānam musicaccompanied with edakka, a percussion instrument that existed from the time ofNañgyārkūttu, integrates well with the flowing movements of the dance. Thismusic style serves an integral function in Mohiniyāṭṭam.67 Thus, the musictogether with Mohiniyāṭṭam serves as a medium for the embodiment of bhakti inMohiniyāṭṭam and leads the audience to deity.

Kanak Rele maintains that Mohiniyāṭṭam employs the technique of lokadharmīstaging, that is, an authentic representation of human behaviour.68 Nāṭyaśāstrademarks two vṛttis (styles) – the sāttvati vṛtti that uses gestures and spoken wordsto depict ideas and the kaiśikī vṛtti that employs charming costumes and slow sway-ing movements to depict the amorous vṛtti.69 Mohiniyāṭṭam repertoires primarilyemploy the kaiśikī vṛtti, which consists of gentle feminine graceful movements ofthe lāsya style to invoke the śṛṅgāra rasa. As mentioned earlier, these two elementswere combined as early as around the tenth century.

Apart from the bodily movements, the position of the feet is of prime impor-tance in Mohiniyāṭṭam. Although the footwork in Mohiniyāṭṭam resembles thedescription in Nāṭyaśāstra, the bending of the knee in five stages is unique to Mohi-niyāṭṭam. Movement of the feet in Mohiniyāṭṭam, termed cāri, follows the kuñcita(or the toe touching the floor and foot slightly curling) technique, whereas Bhar-atanatyam employs the añcita (or heel touching the floor and the front part of

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the foot slightly lifted up) technique, thereby drawing a conspicuous distinctionbetween the two dance forms.70

Mohiniyāṭṭam gestures are part of its inheritance from Kūttus, Dāsiyāṭṭam, andthe lāsya aspect of Kathakaḷi. Dāsiyāṭṭam became popular in Kerala temples in alater period in another form of Mohiniyāṭṭam. Although the nātya or dramatic ele-ment has many elements common to Dāsiyāṭṭam, Kathakaḷi has also had greatinfluence. Mohiniyāṭṭam includes nṛtta, nṛtya, and abhinaya, which besides the sātt-vika abhinaya or pure, passionate, and dark manifestations of emotional expres-sions, include the āṅgikābhinaya, which are three: āṅgika (gestures of the body),vācika (of mouth), and āhārya (ornaments).71 ‘Abhinaya invokes flavour or rasa’, asAnand Coomaraswamy succinctly describes it.72 As in Kathakaḷi, both mudrās andhastas employed in Mohiniyāṭṭam refer to the twenty-four root gestures performedin the asaṁyuta (single hand) and saṁyuta (combined hands) styles, which take onsignificance within the context of the dance.73 These mudrās convey themes ofheroism, anger, cruelty, relationships, qualities, eros, and pathos.74 Zarrilli, in dis-cussing Kathakaḷi, claims that the hand gestures are used to ‘literally speak the textand therefore in delivery follow the word order or Sanskritized Malayalam. Whenserving this purpose they range from literal, mimetic representation of an easilyrecognizable object, such as deer or lotus, to signs of grammatical construction,tense, case ending’.75 The face plays an equally significant role in expressing thevarious rasas. In order to achieve its primary function, Mohiniyāṭṭam employs ninebasic facial expressions or bhāvas. Zarrilli’s observation of Kathakaḷi notes the man-ner in which the face, as a flexible medium of communicating the changing man-ifestation of a character’s inner being, implies bhāvas.76 In this description,Mohiniyāṭṭam performs text. In other words, Mohiniyāṭṭam performance is a dṛṣṭikāvyam (visual poem).

Besides the movements of the major and minor limbs, the eyes that perform thedṛṣṭi (gaze) play an important role in the expression of the essence of the perfor-mance. Even though the dancer’s cardinal function is to perform in such a way as toplease the aesthetic senses of the audience, she engages in inward and outwardgazes. In this regard, Diana Eck emphasises ‘seeing’ as an act of worship, an auspi-cious sight, or visual perception of the sacred.77 The inward look is to understandthe text for performance, correlate the senses and moods, and visualise the danceas a whole. The outward look includes the manifestation of the inward imagination.In other words, the dancer fixes the sthāyi bhāvas and vyabhicārī bhāvas, selects thesituations per mythology or poetic conventions and symbolism, creates a visualrepresentation, and embellishes it with movements of the body.78 These acts of see-ing facilitate the dancer to perceive the sacred.

To juxtapose these theories to praxis, I will analyse a composition entitled NṛtyaPrabandam (author unknown). This dance in praise of Viṣṇu is performed by DeeptiOmchery Bhalla, an exponent of Mohiniyāṭṭam. The poem reads:




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Matchless, faultless, beautiful bodied,My beloved, who is pure

Oh my friend, why delayingto arrive beside me?

Until today, nothing against your will,I am unaware of committing any discontent

Lord of universe, Lord of Lakṣmī, to leave me and say goodbyeSeconds appear and progress as ages,

My body weakened, mind unsteady, increasing griefExciting music and song, and entrancing danceAll further enhances my misery and anguish

Look, beautiful maidens!Rainy clouds pouring devastating rain

Even the dance of the peacocks with widespread wingsheightens my mental grief,

My beloved has not arrived riding the beautiful chariot,Nor opened my door and arrived beside me

Oh! what to do?79

This love poem resonates with love of Viṣṇu, and a Mohiniyāṭṭam dancer depict-ing it would epitomise śṛṅgāra rasa or the sthāyi bhāva of rati. The movements ofvarious parts of the body, the gestures and glances all embody passionate lovein the longing for union with Viṣṇu. The sthāyi bhāva incorporates vyabhicari bhāvasto express devotion towards Viṣṇu. Śṛṅgāra rasa includes vyabhicārī bhāvas of day-anīya (depression), cintā (anxiety), smṛti (recollection), autsukya (impatience), andviṣāda (despair). Mohiniyāṭṭam personifies śṛṅgāra rasa through its repertoires,which include two types: sambhoga śṛṅgāra (union of man and woman in love)and vipralambha śṛṅgāra (separation of man and woman in love).80 The variousstages of vipralambha śṛṅgāra rasa include emotions of indifference, languor, fear,jealousy, fatigue, anxiety, yearnings, drowsiness, sleep, dream, restlessness, awa-kening, illness, and insanity.

The above-mentioned poem abounds in vipralambha śṛṅgāra. Friedhelm Hardyemphasises the amorous relationship between the gopīs and Kṛṣṇa around Mathurapresents the two most important themes of emotional bhakti, viz. ‘union’ and‘separation’.81 Such emotional bhakti remains quintessential for the Gosvamins ofthe Gaudiya Vaiṣṇava tradition, as Rupa systematically and pointedly argues, main-taining that the aesthetic experience of bhakti demands active participation of theactor that leads to imagination of the union with Kṛṣṇa,82 or in the case of NṛtyaPrabhandam, with Viṣṇu. In this respect, the repertoire depicts the bhāvas of vipra-lambha śṛṅgāra rasa, where the dancer depicts the scene of longing for the match-less, flawless, beautiful bodied Viṣṇu’s arrival.

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The delay of the lover’s arrival is portrayed through gestures that embody herimpatience, anxiety, and grief. Everything seems to compound her sorrow. In par-ticular, the sthāyi bhāva of rati-viṣāda or love and despair demonstrates vipralambhaśṛṅgāra rasa, which adheres to Rupa’s affirmation that the aim of bhakti is the trans-formation of identity, where the dancer is ultimately a character in the Vṛaja-līla – aservant, friend, and lover of Kṛṣṇa in an eternal emotional relationship with Kṛṣṇa.In the enactment of the particular poem under consideration, the dancer imaginesthe arrival of Viṣṇu, abounds in harṣa (joy), gazes in the direction of his arrival, asexpressed in the sthāyi bhāva of hāsya (humour), portrayed by the anubhāva ofexpanded nose, cheeks, and wide staring contracted eyes and the vyabhicārī bhāvaof awakening from sleep. The dancer demonstrates her devotion through imagina-tion of Him or smaraṇa (which for Purāṇic theism is one of the aspects of devotion).Simultaneously, she exhibits sthāyi bhāvas of rati through the anubhāvas of anxiety,impatience, and weariness, when she does not see her lover because, in thisinstance, Viṣṇu has delayed his arrival. In fact, these bhāvas depict hopefulnessand interestedness that vipralambha embraces. The separation from the belovedis depicted through the sthāyi bhāva of grief, of karuṇā rasa or pathos representedby the anubhāvas of drooping limbs, sighs, and vyabhicārī bhāvas of helplessness,impatience, anxiety, and collapsing in despair.

Besides bodily movements, in this Mohiniyāṭṭam performance, the movementsof head, eyes, and eyebrows present the bhāvas. Bhalla personifies the emotionsof the text through various movements of the head: dhuta (movement of the headslowly and regularly back and forth) to convey dismay and indifference; parivāhita(turning the head in a circle) to express beloved, astonishment, joy, and reflection;and adhomukha (the head is bent) depicts sorrow.83 She fixes her gaze in level(sama) to the image of the divine and her eyes are replete with desire and joy oflove that illustrates vipralambha śṛṅgāra rasa. In this state, the eyes remain clearand wide open with pupils that look out, signifying the influence of the Kāmadevā(God of love). Even more, in anxiety and impatience she half closes her eyes(nimīlitā) in prayerful gesture, requesting him to arrive hastily. Simultaneously,with downcast eyes (karuṇā) she expresses grief. In anticipation of the Lord’s arri-val, she raises her eyebrows and gazes far away (utkṣipta), in a manner identical tothe adbhuta (wonder) gaze. Moreover, through catura, or the brows meeting andfaintly quivering as they touch one another, is embodied the imaginative excite-ment of the arrival and presence of the Lord. In addition to the above-mentionedeye and eyebrow movements, the dancer personifies anxiety and nervousness withvibrānta dṛṣṭi or tremulous eyeballs moving round and raised eyebrows. Her neckexhibits the parivartita (or neck that moves to right and left like a half moon,embodying śṛṅgāra). In this particular poem, the cārīs expressed are calana (advancemotion from its original position) and the cankarāma (walking with both feet liftedone after the other). Intermittently, the dancer stands in the cross-legged position,which depicts rati and symbolises the idea of separation and yearning for unionwith the divine: the vital essence of vipralambha śṛṅgāra rasa. Here, Mohiniyāṭṭam




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embodies separation and union, inherent in vaiṣṇava bhakti. As Lee Seigel contends,‘the religious experience of communion of supreme joy and ineffable ecstasy ofthe two merging into one, without duality, finds expression in terms of sexualexperience’.84

These aspects of the love poem demonstrate aspects of Vaiṣṇava theology thatreveal how the deity can bring earthly blessings and salvation from rebirth. Theintimate relationship between the devotee and deity underlies the emotionalbhakti, which vaiṣṇava bhakti poets classified into five types: vātsalya bhāva (lovebetween parent and child or disciple and guru), mādhurya bhāva (love betweenthe sexes), dāsya bhāva (love between servant and master), sakhya bhāva (lovebetween friends), and śānta bhāva (calmness or peace).85 The śānta bhāva is thehighest form of love between lover and beloved, and the beloved seeks to engagewith the lover, depicted through the impatience of the dancer. Although śāntabhāva remains the ideal, June McDaniel contends that this state remains undesir-able among vaiṣṇavites, particularly in the case of Śakta tradition of Bengal,because of its lack of sweetness and emotional intensity.86 McDaniel’s observationappears correct for Mohiniyāṭṭam performances because most of the repertoirespresent vipralambha śṛṅgāra rasa as against sambhoga śṛṅgāra rasa. In addition, onemay observe a movement from nonreligious meanings of bhakti to the religiousmeaning of prapatti, total submission exhibited through the union between humanand divine.

The dancer, then, in her grief of separation, imagines and conveys throughgestures her union with her Lord and elevates the audience to experience similarunion with the divine. These gestures embody the Upaniṣadic concept of thehuman self or ātman as the feminine that yearns for union with the universalself or Parā Brahman. The unity between the dancer and the divine inMohiniyāṭṭam reiterates union with the life source, Brahman, the transcendentalsource of all consciousness and action. In this respect, the dancer presents her-self as a medium of transformation. As Frederique Apffel Marglin asserts, ‘thedivinizing of the Devadāsī’s body, her transformation, is the starting point forthe transformation of the spectators’.87 Here, dance is the medium of divineand human transformation, which enables the audience to enjoy the essenceof the text. In this vein, the dancer becomes a medium for dancer and spectatorunion, and human and divine union that leads to prapatti. In this light, aMohiniyāṭṭam dancer becomes an embodiment of the divine and an instrumentto propel the essence of bhakti.

This embodiment of bhakti and the dance as a medium for bhakti can also be seenin other Indian dance forms and Kerala ritual performances. For example, Manipuriand Odīssi, deeply embedded in the ritualistic tradition of Vaiṣṇavism, is an embo-diment of bhakti. As such, Vatsyayan observes, Manipuri dance symbolises thepangs of separation from the Godhead, the reunion with the divine, and the everseeing, ever seeking God, who gives the illusion of being personal to each humanbeing and is yet above them all; and the Odīssi dance depicts man’s yearning for

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God.88 This is true of Mohiniyāṭṭam as it also, yearns for union and grace: essentialelements of vaiṣṇava bhakti.

To further explicate, such embodiment of bhakti in Mohiniyāṭṭam involves firstperson participation as Prentiss argues that the core of devotion requires first per-son involvement.89 This first person involvement in Mohiniyāṭṭam is similar toKerala ritual performances. The graceful lāsya motif associated with Devī (goddess),the source of śṛṅgāra rasa, then establishes an association between Mohiniyāṭṭamand Muṭiyēṯṯu, a folk ritual performance of Kerala intertwining ritual and aestheticelements.90 As Bharati Shivaji contends, ‘Devi is shringara personified’.91 InMuṭiyēṯṯu, the primary function of the performer is to lead its audience to ecstasyand the performance serves as a proof of divine immanence for devotees of theDevi or Bhagavatī.92 The performer as the anthropomorphic representation ofthe divine Bhagavatī or goddess becomes the nexus of the divine and human unionas well as performer and spectator. In the Muṭiyēṯṯu performance, the velicchapāṭṭu(oracle) embodies the goddess before her devotees in daily worship, whichendorses the importance of the enacted and felt bodily presence of the deity asan essential form of contact with the divine.93 Similarly, in Mohiniyāṭṭam, the dan-cer actively participates in the embodiment process and invites the spectator toparticipate, parallel to the Araiyar Sevai performance in Tamil Nadu. Hence, it isa nexus of the divine and human, the aesthetic and the religious.

We may note another instance of performance as embodiment of bhakti thatincludes active involvement. In the dance procession festival for the worship ofthe goddess in Tēyyam shrines, the dancer is actively involved as Rich Freemandescribes, the divinisation process culminates when the tēyyam dancer in the ritualact looks into the mirror and a new understanding arises, ‘This is not my [perfor-mer’s] form – this is the actual form of the goddess that I am seeing’.94 Here, intēyyam, the dancer actively possesses the deity and, as Freeman further maintains,the songs and ritual that bring on the possession (positive) state are the same forthe initial reverence of the goddess as for the full tēyyam form.95 The dancer bothbecomes the goddess and relates her myth.96 Just as in the tēyyam rite, the danceris actively involved in embodying the goddess and becoming a medium for humanand divine union, Mohiniyāṭṭam also processes towards such embodiment andunion.

The Mohiniyāṭṭam dancer embodies the immanence and transcendence of thedivine and achieves the goal of bhakti. Mohiniyāṭṭam, then, is transformative andtranscends divine and human boundaries. The dancer is the medium for the enjoy-ment as well as the embodiment of bhakti. Here the dancer and the audience enjoyand partake of the divine and the human, and, in effect, make sacred theMohiniyāṭṭam performance. Heinrich Zimmer asserts, ‘The dancer becomes ampli-fied into a being endowed with supra-natural powers. His [her] personality is trans-formed … finally, mergence into the divine essence’.97 Mohiniyāṭṭam is a mediumas well as a content of bhakti, divine embodiment. William Deadwyler emphasises,in ‘the stage of bhāva the devotee realizes that the God, and his name, his image,




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or his description are nondifferent’ and ‘the gap between the name and the named,the representation and the represented object, is transcended’.98 In this way,Mohiniyāṭṭam possesses and processes the divine and human relationship personi-fied in vaiṣṇava bhakti.

This possession and procession of the divine and human relationship transcendsdistinctions between the divine and human and between the dancer and spectator.The dancer negates herself and surrenders herself to the divine and to the audi-ence: to the divine as an offering and to the audience as a medium. This mergingof oneself with the divine includes self-abnegation and self-surrender, the goals ofvaiṣṇava bhakti. Through performance, the dancer enables the audience to imaginea union between the divine and the human transcending all distinctions, includingthat between the different perceptions of the divine: viśiṣṭadvaita (qualified nondu-alism) philosophy of Rāmānujā, the tenth century vaiṣṇava philosopher, andadvaita (monism) philosophy of Śaṅkara, the eighth century śaiva philosopher.Mohiniyāṭṭam impels a movement from the qualified nondualism concept of thedivine to monism. The dancer begins the dance by visualising the divine in saguṇa(God with attributes) terms and ends by characterising the union, where there is nodistinction between the dancer and divine (nirguṇa, God without attributes), that is,the dancer begins with nonreligious meanings of bhakti and ends by depicting thereligious meaning of bhakti, prapatti. This progression from the qualified nondual-ism concept to nondualism concept transcends the boundary between the Vaiṣṇavaand Śaiva communities in south India established during medieval period. All themore, the use of sopānam music leads to the garbhagṛha and fuses theoretical dis-tinctions between the different perceptions of the divine as well as between humanand divine. In other words, Mohiniyāṭṭam as an embodiment of bhakti may be seenas a ritual; and, as a ritual mechanism, it ‘fuses theoretical distinctions’ and the‘bifurcation finds integration’, as Stanley Tambiah contends.99

Mohiniyāṭṭam succeeds in the transformative function; that is, the dancer as anembodiment of bhakti bhāva and rasa embodies divine and human union and trans-cends the distinctions between them. Through the expressions of various emotionsof śṛṅgāra, the dancer presents herself as a medium for enjoyment and transforma-tion. In this way, then, Mohiniyāṭṭam dancers challenge the notion of Mohiniyāṭṭa-kāri, the seducing shaker. As Susan Schwartz asserts, śṛṅgāra rasa ‘cannot be theprojection of individual, personal sexuality’, yet, it is ‘in the eroticism that thetransformative, creative, generative power’, the spiritual efficacy, dwells.100 Wit-ness the paradox of Śiva, the erotic and ascetic, or Śakti’s ferocious and graciouscharacters, all of whom embody a union of opposites. Like these, the Mohiniyāṭṭamdance form embodies both the aesthetic and the religious, the imaginative and thetransformative.

A mistaken perception of the Mohiniyāṭṭam dance form as exclusively eroticdenies the religious essence and significance of the dance form. In recent times,the popular use of Bollywood and Western dance forms to substitute for traditionaldance forms endorses the need to restore religious importance to such dance.

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Popular use leads only to a disconnect between the spectator and the dancerbecause the audience cannot actively participate in the essential process of the per-formance. Therefore, ‘religious seeing’ of Mohiniyāṭṭam becomes an imperative notonly for the union between the dancer and the divine, it becomes equally signifi-cant for the union between the dancer and spectator. Misapplication of traditionaldance forms only adds to the disturbing lack of bhakti today.

Conclusion

Mohiniyāṭṭam, the dance of the enchantress, although once considered exclusivelya dance of seduction, actually accomplishes two significant objectives: theologi-cally, it concretely embodies bhakti; and as narrative, it recounts and enacts the tra-dition of performance in Kerala. The graceful body movements and gesturespersonify union and separation in the loving relationship between the devoteeand the deity, and characterise the sublime love promoted by the ancient and med-ieval bhakti poets through the centuries. In this respect, Mohiniyāṭṭam not onlyembodies devotional elements but also mediates the essence of love between thedivine and humans.

Mohiniyāṭṭam repertoires steeped in the performative traditions of Kerala andsouth Indian temples promote a new identity, one identity that embodies thetranscendent and the immanent divine. The transformed dancer as a mediumthen projects a further union, that between the divine and human, the divineand the spectator. Dance and devotion forge a movement towards transcendingboundaries between the human and the divine: a self-transformation where boththe transcendence and immanence of God become conspicuous. Therefore, Mohi-niyāṭṭam, an embodiment of bhakti bhāva and rasa, is a nexus of the aesthetic andthe religious.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all who commented on this piece in its various writtenand oral forms. An earlier version of this paper was read at the Conference onthe Study of Religions of India and the DANAM conference, 2007. I wish to thankmy co-panelists as well as members of the audience for a thoughtful discussion.

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Schomer, K., McLeod, W.H., (Eds.), 1987. The Sants: Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India.Berkeley, California: Berkeley Religious Studies Series.

Schwartz, S.L., 2004. Rasa: Performing the Divine in India. New York: Columbia University Press.Seigel, L., 1983. Sacred and Profane Dimension of Love in Indian Tradition: The Gita Govinda of

Jayadeva. New York: Oxford University Press.Smith, D., 1996. The Dance of Śiva: Religion, Art and Poetry in South India. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.Sharma, K., 1987. Bhakti and the Bhakti Movement: A New Perspective. New Delhi: Munshiram

Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd.Shivaji, B., 1986. The Art of Mohiniyāṭṭam. New Delhi: Lancer International.Shivaji, B., 2004. Mohiniyāṭṭam. New Delhi: Wisdom Tree.Singha, R., Massey, R., 1967. Indian Dances: Their History and Growth. New York: George

Braziller.Singer, M., 1972. When a Great Tradition Modernizes: An Anthropological Approach to Indian

Civilization. New York: Praeger Publishers.Staal, F., 1975. Exploring Mysticism. Berkeley: University of California Press.Tambiah, S.J., 1979. ‘A Performative Approach to Ritual’. Proceedings of the British Academy 65,

113–69.van Buitenen, J.A.B., 1981. The Bhagavadgītā in the Mahābhārata. Chicago: The University of

Chicago Press.Vatsyayan, K., 1968. Classical Indian Dance in Literature and the Arts. New Delhi: Sangeet Natak

Akademi.Vatsyayan, K., 1974. Indian Classical Dance. New Delhi: Director Publications Division Ministry

of Information and Broadcasting Government of India.Vatsyayan, K., 1980. Traditional Indian Theatre: Multiple Streams. New Delhi: National Book

Trust.Vatsyayan, K., (Ed.), 1991. Concepts of Space, Ancient and Modern. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi

National Centre for the Arts.Venu, G., Paniker, N., 1983. Mohiniyāṭṭam: Āṭṭaprakāraṃ with Notations of Mudras and Postures

(Malayalam). Trivandrum: Natanakairali and G. Venu.Venu, G., Paniker, N., 1995. Mohiniyāṭṭam: The Lāsya Dance. Trichur: Natana Kairali.Waterhouse, D., (Ed.) 1998. Dance of India. Mumbai: Popular Prakashan.Zarrilli, P.B., 1990. ‘What does it mean to “Become the Character”: power, presence and

transcendence in Asian in-body disciplines of practice’. In: Schechner, R., Appel, W. (Eds.),By Means of Performance: Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual. New York: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Zarrilli, P.B., 2000. Kathakali Dance-Drama: Where Gods and Demons Come to Play. London:Routledge.

Zimmer, H., 1972. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization (Joseph, C., Ed.). Princeton:Princeton University Press.

Notes1 In Malayalam, Mohiniyāṭṭam is a compound term using ‘y’ to augment, Mohini +

Āṭṭam. Therefore, I will use this form for the essay.2 Vatsyayan (1968:8).3 Monier Williams (1988:871).4 Cf. Blackburn (1996, 1998, 2004), Zarrilli (2000), and Peterson and Soneji (2008).

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5 Mokṣa is one among the four puruṣārtha, the goals of human life; the others being,dharma or duty; artha or wealth; and kāma or pleasure.

6 van Buitenen (1981:24–5). ‘Bhakti as a form of religiosity specifically Hindu in thatit allows a religious man to create out of a social polytheism a personalmonotheism. While he becomes ever more firmly a monotheist, the surroundingpolytheism will continue to provide the believer, by the old process ofhenotheism, with metaphors for the supremacy of his god’ (25); in some instance,bhakti does not necessarily propose religious meaning, in such instances the basicmeaning is loyalty (24).

7 Cf. Schomer and McLeod (1987), Hawley (1995:160–80), O’Flaherty (1987:47–52), andSharma (1987).

8 Those who adhere to the bhakti tradition are broadly classified among three groupsbased on which God they worship: Śaivism (those who worship Śiva), Vaiṣṇavism(those who worship Viṣṇu), and Śakta (those who worship the Goddess/Devī).However, there is very little difference between these sects when it comes topractice bhakti. Cf. Klostermaier (2000).

9 Carman (1987, 2:130).10 Monier Williams, p. 743. In Sanskrit bhakti has its root in the verb bhaj, which

means ‘to divide, to share with, to grant, to partake of, and to enjoy’.11 Prentiss (1999, 6:27).12 Vatsyayan (1974:8–13), Bose (2000:289–312, 2001:9–25), Richmond et al. (1990:5–6),

and Schwartz (2004:34–5).13 Vatsyayan (1968:6–8) and Bhat (1984:18).14 Bhat, p. 19.15 Kaviraj (1977, III:33).16 Vatsyayan (1968:161–301) and Narayanan (1994:125).17 Hopkins (2002:138).18 Dasgupta (2002:117–19). Dasgupta claims that self-abnegation and self-surrender

are the crux of devotional mysticism.19 Cutler (1987:11).20 Kapila Vatsyayan, 1991. ‘Performance: The process, manifestation and experience’.

In: Kapila Vatsyayan (Ed.), Concepts of Space Ancient and Modern, p. 381. New Delhi:Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts.

21 Narayanan, p. 134.22 Zarrilli (1990:144) and Schwartz, pp. 59–60.23 Richmond et al., p. 6. Lāsya is the fluid, graceful, and lyrical movements associated

with the feminine gender as against tāṇḍava, which is the vigorous, strongmovement associated with the masculine gender.

24 Bose (1991:120–1). Lāsya is the fluid, graceful and lyrical movements associatedwith the feminine gender as against tāṇḍava, which is the vigorous, strongmovement associated with the masculine gender. Cf. Vatsyayan (1968:3) and Smith(1996). These works describe the dance of Siva, the Natarājā (Lord of Dance).

25 Cf. O’Flaherty (1973).26 Jones (1973:12).27 Arunima (2003:13); Cf. Fuller (1976:123–49); Jones, pp. 11–13. Marumakkattāyam is

the system whereby the head of the household divided the ancestral property and




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wealth among his daughter’s children instead of his own sons and their children.Later, the younger generations filed a petition against the household system, andin 1933, the Marumakkattāyam Act stated ancestral property be equally dividedamong every member of the family.

28 Omchery and Bhalla (2001:20–7).29 Jones, p. 13.30 Aṭikaḷ (2004, 28:69), Lal (2004:228), Shivaji (2004:19), and Vatsyayan (1980:15–31).31 Shivaji (1986:22).32 Shivaji (2004:20–2). (Nañgyārkūttu was performed around eighth century during

the reign of Kulaśekhara Perumāl, which sought to reform the theatre of Kerala.)33 Jones, pp. 17–18.34 Shivaji (1986:42–3) and Venu and Paniker (1983:7).35 Smith, pp. 207–22.36 Amma (1992:19–40). These pages enumerate the development and decline of

Mohiniyāṭṭam. Cf. Singer (1972:180–2).37 Menon (1997:33), Cf. Kersenboom (1992:134–8).38 Menon, p. 34.39 Chatterjee (2004:145–6); Cf. David Smith, pp. 218–22; and Marglin (1985:48–50).40 These works include, campus entitled, Uṇṇiyāchi-Caritam (eleventh century) and

Uṇṇiyāti Caritam (fourteenth century) and sandeśa kavyams entitled UṇṇunīliSandeśaṃ (fourteenth century). Apart from these Kuñjan Nambyār’s Gōśayātra(sixteenth century) mentions Mohiniyāṭṭam along with other performingtraditions of Kerala.

41 Natanam in Malayalam means abhinayam (acting) or nṛttam (pure dance), whereasāṭṭaṃ means ulyal (shaking) or iḷḷakkam (motion) referred to voluptuous movement.

42 Gopalakrishnan (2000:495).43 Jones, p. 27.44 Pillai, Kathakali – Series No. 38 (Trivandrum: University of Travancore, ?); Menon,

p. 39.45 Roxanne Kamayani Gupta, 1998. ‘Tantric dimension of Indian classical dance’. In:

David Waterhouse (Ed.), Dance of India, pp. 179–90. Mumbai: Popular Prakashan.Gupta clearly argues how Devadasi were medium for achieving liberation and ofenjoyment.

46 Gangadharan (2003:282) and Pati (2006).47 Jeffery (1976:253).48 Kurien (2002:53).49 Menon, p. 47.50 Chatterjee, p. 145.51 Ibid.52 Venu and Paniker (1995:35). Venu distinctly delineates the folk practices. Eśal

includes two dancers dressed up as Kurathis (fisher women) and assuming thepart of the consort of Śiva and Viṣṇu; who made fun of their husband of theopposite number and have a row. Mūkkuthi involved the retrieving of the nosering from the turban of one in audience. Candanaṃ consists of the dancer applyingsandal paste to the spectators who offer money. Finally, Polikaḷi comprises ofcollecting money from the audience during performance.

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53 Nair (1988:106–14).54 Devika (2005:483). Devika observes since mid-20th century was the possibility to

imagine dance as a source of aesthetic pleasure and not necessarily as aninstrument of sexual seduction.

55 To give an exact date for Nāṭyaśāstra is impossible and remains an issue ofcontestation among scholars. The problem of aesthetic remains pertinent in thetext and the author addresses techniques of dance-drama. I use Bharata’s (1956,1961); Coomaraswamy (1936) and Man Mohan Ghosh, (Ed.), 1954. Abhinayadarpaṇa.Calcutta: Sanskrit Series; Venkatarama Raghavan, (Ed.), 1998. Sṛṅgāraprakāśa ofBhoja. Cambridge: Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University.

56 Vatsyayan (1968:7).57 Gnoli (1968) and Haberman (1988:21). Haberman distinctly discusses the theories of

Bharata, Abhinavagupta, and Gosvamin.58 Bhat, p. 24.59 Bhat, pp. 24–5.60 Dhanañjaya (1969); Cf. Bose, pp. 37–40.61 Bose, Movement and Mimesis, p. 141.62 Sharma (1987:283–4).63 Menon, p. 61.64 Venu and Paniker (1983:31–3).65 Venu, pp. 31–3 and Singha and Massey (1967:39–43).66 Shivaji (2004:79–80).67 Omchery (1999:159–64).68 Rele (1996:13).69 Venu, Mohiniyāṭṭam: The Lasya Dance, p. 39. The feminine graceful style should

imitate the swaying of the paddy plants in the field with the breeze or like thecoconut tree.

70 Shivaji (1986:59).71 Coomaraswamy (1936:36) and Vatsyayan (1974:31).72 Coomaraswamy, p. 36.73 Coomaraswamy, 45ff and Zarrilli (2000:73-7).74 Zarrilli, p. 77.75 Ibid.76 Zarrilli, p. 79.77 Eck (1996:3ff).78 Rele, p. 57.79 Omchery and Bhalla (2001:191–2) (My translation).80 Rele, p. 76.81 Hardy (1983:52).82 Haberman, p. 36.83 Coomaraswamy, pp. 38–9.84 Seigel (1983:55).85 Staal (1975:146), Cutler, p. 1, Lynch (1990:18), and Carman, 2:131.86 McDaniel (2004:158).87 Marglin (1990:212–13).88 Vatsyayan (1974) 39; 40–7.




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89 Prentiss, p. 23.90 A.K. Nambiar, 1999. ‘Surviving folk arts and the social analysis of their origin and

development’. In: P.J. Cherian (Ed.), Essays on the Cultural Formation of Kerala, p. 51.Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala State Gazetteers Department.

91 Shivaji (2004:62) and Shivaji (1986:70–1).92 Caldwell (1999:253).93 Caldwell, p. 11.94 Freeman (2003:315); Cf. Kurup (1973, 2000).95 Freeman, p. 317.96 Flood (1996:194–5).97 Zimmer (1972:151).98 Deadwyler (1985:87).99 Tambiah (1979) 113–69. 139.100 Schwartz, p. 52.

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