Phillip B.Zarrilli - Kathakali

kathakali

dance-drama

Kathakali, the distinctive dance-drama of Kerala in south-west India, is comprehensively presented and illuminated in this unique book. During these performances heroes, heroines, gods, and demons tell their stories from traditional Indian epics. The four kathakali plays included in this anthology, translated from actual performances into English, are:

• The Flower of Good Fortune
• The Killing of Kirmira
• The Progeny of Krishna
• King Rugmamgada’s Law.

One of the few books published on this genre, and based on extensive first-hand research, the book:

• explores kathakali’s reception as it reaches new audiences both in India and the west
• includes two case studies of controversial kathakali experiments
• explores the implications for kathakali of Kerala politics.

Each play has an introduction and detailed commentary, and is illustrated by stunning photographs taken during performances. A comprehensive introduction to kathakali stage conventions, make-up, mu-sic, acting, and training is also provided, making this an ideal volume for both the specialist and the non-specialist reader.

Phillip B.Zarrilli is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Surrey. He is the author of The Kathakali Complex (1984) and the editor of Acting (Re)Considered (Routledge 1995).

kathakali

dance-drama

where gods

and demons

come to play

phillip b.zarrilli

With Translations by V.R.PRABODHACHANDRAN NAGAR, M.P.SANKARAN NAMBOODIRI AND PHILLIP B.ZARRILLI

London and New York

First published 2000

by Routledge

11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

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© 2000 Phillip B Zarrilli

The right of Phillip B Zarrilli to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Designed by Chantel Latchford

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Zarrilli, Phillip B., 1947–

Kathakali dance-drama: where gods and demons come to play/

Phillip B.Zarrilli.

1. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Kathakali. 2. Kathakali plays. I. Title.

PN2884.5.K36Z38	1999
792’.0954’83–dc21	99–26482
	CIP

ISBN 0-203-19766-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-26564-5 (Adobe eReader Format)

ISBN 0-415-13109-x (hbk)

ISBN 0-415-19282-x (pbk)

for

mozie and larry

with thanks

for their love, inspiration,

and guidance

and for kor

contents

	List of illustrations	ix
	Preface xi
	Acknowledgments	xv
1	An ‘Ocean of Possibilities’ 1

part i

performance in the kerala context

2	A Social History of Kathakali Patronage, Connoisseurship, and Aesthetics 17
3	Kathakali Texts in Performance 39

1. What Does it Mean ‘To Become the Character’?: Kathakali Actor Training and Characterization 65

part ii

plays from the traditional repertory

5	The Flower of Good Fortune (Kalyanasaugandhikam) Kottayam Tampuran 101
	Introduction	101
	Commentary	113
6	The Killing of Kirmira (Kirmiravadham) Kottayam Tampuran 118
	Introduction	118
	Commentary	130

viii Contents

7	The Progeny of Krishna (Santanagopalam) Mandavappalli Ittiraricha Menon 135
	Introduction	135
	Commentary	151
8	King Rugmamgada’s Law (Rugmamgada caritam) Mandavappalli Ittiraricha Menon 159
	Introduction	159
	Commentary	169

part iii

contested narratives: new plays, discourses, and contexts

9 For Whom is the King a King? Issues of Intercultural Production, Perception, and Reception

in a Kathakali King Lear 177

10 When Marx met Imperialism on the Kathakali Stage 196

Afterword: Whose Gods, and Whose Demons Dance? 206

Appendix: Kathakali Performances on Video 209

Notes	212
Bibliography and References Cited		231
Glossary and Table of Transliteration		242
Index	253

illustrations

FIGURES

0.1	Location of Kerala within India			xiii
2.1	The Kerala caste hierarchy		21
3.1	Schematic diagram of typical kathakali structure					42
3.2	Performance of dialogue (padam), Chart 1				46
3.3	Performance of dialogue (padam), Chart 2				48
3.4	Summary: performance of a line from Prahladacaritam 49
3.5	Traditional outdoor performance			50
3.6	Theater plan of the Kuttampalam Theater				51
3.7	Traditional all-night structure of a performance					52
3.8	Kathakali drums 58
3.9	Kathakali’s rhythmic patterns		60
3.10	Cycles of repetition and elaboration in kathakali performance 64
4.1	The kathakali actor’s process: an overview				67
4.2	The kathakali actor’s process: synthesizing the ‘external’ and the ‘internal’ 69
4.3	Kathakali training at the Kerala Kalamandalam					71
4.4	Eye exercises 72
4.5	Kerala Kalamandalam syllabus			81
4.6	Bhava in performance	85
4.7	Filling out the form	90

5.1 Key to textual and performance terms 103

x Illustrations

PLATES

(Note: all photographs are by the author except as otherwise noted.)

2.1	A Kathakali performance photograph from early twentieth century 23
3.1	A make-up specialist applies rice-paste 57
4.1	One of the Southern-style kathakali jumps				71
4.2	The twenty-four root hand-gestures			74
4.3	The nine basic facial expressions, plus one				77
4.4	Colliyattam of The Killing of Lavanasura: Lava and Kusa							80
4.5	Colliyattam of The Killing of Lavanasura: Hanuman						82
5.1	Bhima and Panchali embrace		105
5.2	Ramankutty Nayar Asan in the role of Hanuman						107
5.3	Hanuman exhibits his divine form for Bhima					112
6.1	Simhika’s curtain look	120
6.2	Simhika entices Panchali to go to the Durga temple							123
6.3	Simhika reveals her ‘true’ form		124
6.4	Sahadeva intercepts Simhika		126
6.5	Simhika howls in pain through the audience					128
7.1	The Brahmin pours out his tale of woe at Krishna’s court								139
7.2	The Brahmin’s wife helped by the village Midwife						145
7.3	Brahmin dances with joy at the return of his seventh son								149
8.1	Rugmamgada in a state of disbelief			166
8.2	Rugmamgada about to cut off Dharmamgada’s head							167
8.3	Rugmamgada enters a transformative state of ‘fury’							168
9.1	Kathakali King Lear 185
9.2	Mad Tom discovered by Lear and the Fool					186
9.3	Dress rehearsal: Lear revealed to be like Mad Tom							190
9.4	The trial scene in Lear	191
9.5	Lear: ‘She’s gone forever.’ 193

preface

Kathakali dance-drama is a distinctive genre of South Asian performance which developed dur-ing the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Malayalam speaking coastal region of south-west India known today as Kerala State (Figure 0.1). Like Japanese noh and China’s jingju (Beijing Op-era), kathakali has become internationally known during the past thirty to thirty-five years as troupes regularly tour throughout the world as part of government-sponsored international cul-tural exchanges or through private initiative. The vast majority of these performances have been kathakali’s dance-drama versions of episodes from the Indian epics (Mahabharata and Ramayana) or stories from the puranas—encyclopedic collections of traditional stories and knowledge. While there is a long history of ‘experimentation’ with content and technique, recent performances of new kathakali have brought increasing attention to and arguments about the place and role of experimen-tation and change in kathakali performance today.

This book takes account of kathakali as a dis-tinctive ‘traditional’ genre of dance-drama perform-ance particular to India’s south-west coast, its en-try into the transnational flow of global cultures as it is performed for tourists within Kerala and for new audiences in India and the West, and how kathakali interacts with and responds to contempo-rary politics in Kerala where the first democrati-cally elected Communist state government came

to power in 1957. Based on extensive ethnographic research in Kerala, India, conducted between 1976– 77 and the present, this book articulates the dy-namic set of relationships between dramatic/per-formance text(s), techniques and structures of per-formance, and reception among kathakali’s multi-ple audiences. It describes and analyses how the same kathakali performance can appeal to kathakali’s highly sophisticated connoisseurs whose reception is a refined aesthetic ‘of the mind,’ as well as make

1. seven-year-old child break into tears. The book is based on observation of performances, archival research at kathakali schools and institutions, ex-tensive interviews with kathakali actors and appreciators, collaborative work on translations of the kathakali plays included in the volume, and the experience of training in kathakali techniques.

Although the theoretical and methodological backdrop for When Gods and Demons Come to Play is similar to my earlier study of kathakali, The Kathakali Complex: Actor, Performance, Structure (1984a), this book focuses on texts-in-performance by includ-ing four plays in translation with introductions and commentaries, and two case studies of kathakali experiments—none of which appeared in my first book. For the general reader, I provide an intro-duction to kathakali make-up, stage conventions, music, and acting. For those most interested in de-tails of technique, I refer the reader to The Kathakali Complex.

xii Preface

A NOTE ON TRANSLATION

Whenever possible we have attempted to keep close to the word order of the Malayalam texts; however, it has often been necessary to alter the word order of the text for clarity in translation. This is especially true of the third-person descrip-tive sloka which string together long lists of phrases which modify the subject. For example, in the first sloka of The Progeny of Krishna, the subject, Hari (Vishnu in his manifestation as lord Krishna), is not found until the fifth line. Four modifying phrases begin the sloka. In our transla-tion we often place the subject first, followed by the modifiers. For the individual watching the video performance of one of the plays-in-transla-tion, this transposition for ease of reading results in a substantial difference in word order between the text in translation and the (video) perfor-mance. An exact correlation would only be pos-sible in a literal word-by-word translation.

In Chapters 5–8, two types of notes on the plays in performance are included. Those essential for a non-specialist’s understanding of the play are given as footnotes. Technical or textual notes of interest to specialists are given as endnotes.

VIDEOGRAPHY OF KATHAKALI

Since this book and its translations focus on kathakali in performance and context, it is accom-panied by five videocassettes entitled an ‘Intro-duction to Kathakali Dance-Drama,’ and videodocuments of the four translated plays-in-performance. Taken together the translations, edi-torial notes, commentary, and videodocuments are intended to allow the reader to understand how an ‘original’ literary text is brought into per-formance today.

While working on this project in Kerala, India during 1993, J collaborated with the newly founded Centre for Documentation of Performing Arts in Killimangalam, Kerala and its organizers, Kunju Vasudevan Namboodiripad, Vasudevan Namboodiripad, M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri, and K.K.Gopalakrishnan. With the permission of all of kathakali’s senior artists, we documented as many well-known kathakali plays as we could fit into seven all-night performances staged both inside and out-side the Killimangalam village temple. All the per-formances were attended by large and apprecia-tive local audiences. It was an exciting and unprec-edented documentation event which produced a collection of videos of the top artists in their best-known roles for use in translations such as these, for research, and for educating future generations of kathakali performers. The first night of actual documentation on 13 May, 1993, began with the official inauguration of the Killimangalam Centre for Documentation of the Performing Arts. Three of the plays translated here (The Flower of Good For-tune, The Progeny of Krishna, and King Rugmamgada’s Law) were performed at Killimangalam between May and August 1993. The Centre for Documen-tation of the Performing Arts holds copyright on all videos made during this period of documenta-tion.

The fourth play included here, The Killing of Kirmira, was recorded in 1996 at a staging organ-ized by Drishyavedi in cooperation with the Uni-versity of Wisconsin-Madison Kerala Summer Per-forming Arts Program. Like the performances at Killimangalam, this one was free, open to the pub-lic, and attended by a large and enthusiastic audi-ence at Tirtapatta Mandapam located at East Fort in the heart of ‘old’ Thiruvananthapuram near the main temple. Complete information on the avail-ability of the videos, including a list of artists in-volved, is included in the Appendix.

Figure 0.1 Location of Kerala within India

Cheruthuruthy is the home of the Kerala Kalamandalam. Guruvayur is where Krishnattam is performed. Irinjalakuda is home to both kathakali and kutiyattam. Kochi is the major port city where ‘tourist’ kathakali is regularly performed. Thiruvananthapuram is the capital city where Margi is located.

acknowledgments

Beginning with my first trip to Kerala in 1976–77, kathakali actor-dancer M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri (former Principal, Kerala Kalamandalam), and

scholar/critic/connoisseur Vasudevan Namboodiripad (former Superintendent, Kerala Kalamandalam) have provided constant inspira-tion and guidance for me as I studied/sweated, en-joyed, and learned to appreciate kathakali. In 1993 I also began working with Professor Prabodhachandran Nayar of the University of Kerala, and we were able to spend countless hours together working on translations, talking about the pleasures of kathakali, and watching fa-vorite performances. I owe these three individuals in particular a great deal for the little I am able to say about kathakali.

I thank the Kerala Kalamandalam teachers and administrative staff for welcoming and assisting me over the years of my research, and for offering in-stitutional affiliation in 1976–77, 1993, and 1996. I also wish to thank Margi—a remarkable private cultural organization in Thiruvananthapuram re-sponsible for a revival of training and interest in the traditional arts in southern Kerala, especially kathakali, kutiyattam, and nangyar kuttu. In particular, I want to acknowledge the late D. Appakoothan Nair for the precious time we spent together, and for his keen and incisive intellect. Although we of-ten disagreed, it was always a disagreement with space for listening and friendly arguments. The current treasurer of Margi, Rama Iyer, and all its

members and artists deserve my continuing thanks for welcoming me over the years to their homes and performances. Ganesha Iyer’s wisdom, memory, and insights have been shared with grace and charm.

During 1993, Kunju Vasudevan Namboodiripad, along with all his family, pro-vided the logistical and organizational support to undertake video and photographic documenta-tion of a number of all-night performances—all of which were sponsored by the Centre for Docu-mentation of the Performing Arts, Killimangalam, Trissur District, Kerala. To Kunju, Vasudevan, Vimala, and their entire extended family, many thanks for all their efforts in bringing together the most senior artists to document their perform-ances for the future education of kathakali actor-dancers and appreciators. And thanks to all the artists who agreed to have their performances documented for the Centre, including among many others Kalamandalam Gopi Asan, Ramankutty Nayar Asan, Padmanabhan Nayar Asan, and Kummaran Nayar Asan.

Thanks also to the leadership and members of Drishyavedi, another important cultural organiza-tion in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, which organ-ized kathakali performances for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Summer Performing Arts Pro-gram in 1993 and 1996, and which were also docu-mented for this project.

I also wish to express my thanks to Annette

xvi Acknowledgments

Leday, David McRuvie, and Iyyamgode Sreedharan for opening their rehearsals to me, and for the hours we spent talking about their work. They have been more than generous.

K.K.Gopalakrishnan and Sharon Grady offered their advice, support, assistance, as well as still pho-tographs taken at all the performances commis-sioned in 1993. During 1993, Dr Jose George did yeoman service by assisting me with translation. I thank him for his company, patience, and keen insights into Kerala culture.

Some of the chapters in this book are revisions of previously published essays, or chapters in books. Part of Chapter 2 was originally published as ‘A Tradition of Change: The Role of Patrons and Patronage in the Kathakali Dance-drama’ in Arts Patronage in India: Methods, Motives, and Markets, ed-ited by Joan Erdman (1992). Parts of Chapters 3 and 4 are a revision of several chapters from The Kathakali Complex. The commentary on The Progeny of Krishna in Chapter 7 was first published as ‘An Ocean of Possibilities: From Lokadharmi to Natyadharmi in a Kathakali Santanagopalam’ in Com-parative Drama, Vol. 28, 1, 1994, and is published with the permission of the editors of Comparative Drama. Part of Chapter 4 was originally written for publication in By Means of Performance, and pub-lished in 1990. Part of the commentaries in Chap-ters 6 and 8 were originally published in When the Body Becomes All Eyes…and are published with the permission of Oxford University Press. Chapter 9 originally appeared in Critical Theory and Performance, edited by Janelle Reinelt and Joseph Roach, and is

published with the permission of the University of Michigan Press. Chapter 10 originally appeared as ‘Contested Narratives on and off the Kathakali Dance-Drama Stage’ in Modern Drama (35, 1992), and is published with the permission of the Uni-versity of Toronto Press.

A number of colleagues have commented on my work over the years and offered very helpful constructive criticism. Among them I wish to thank in particular Professor Joan Erdman (Columbia College and the University of Chicago), Professor Peter Claus (California State University-Hayward), and Professors V.Narayana Rao, David Knipe, and Kirin Narayan at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

I want to acknowledge with great thanks, sev-eral grants which provided opportunities to work on parts of this manuscript. During 1993 I was in Kerala for seven months on a Guggenheim Fellow-ship, a senior Fulbright research fellowship, and with supplemental support from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1995 I was able to work on the final draft of translations of the three plays through the support of the Asian Cultural Coun-cil. And in 1996 I was able to spend two months in Kerala revising the final manuscript with a short-term senior research fellowship from the Ameri-can Institute of Indian Studies.

I would especially like to thank Talia Rodgers at Routledge Press for her patience and confidence through the writing and editorial process, and Deborah Procter for her critical reading of much of the final draft.

1

an ‘ocean of

possibilities’

Kathakali dance-drama is	their fingers. Others may
like a vast and deep	come with a small vessel,
ocean. Some may come	and be able to drink that:
to a performance with	And still others may
their hands cupped and	come with a huge cook-
only be able to take away	ing pot and take away so
what doesn’t slip through	much more!

KATHAKALI AND ITS MANY AUDI-ENCES

My paraphrase of this highly reflective story about kathakali and its relationship to its audiences was told to me during my 1993 trip to Kerala, In-dia, by my friend and colleague, V.R. Prabodhachandran Nayar—a life-long appreciator of kathakali and Professor of Linguistics at the University of Kerala. Sitting on the veranda of his wife’s family home on a quiet back street in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala, he told me this story as we continued our work of translating The Progeny of Krishna (Santanagopalam)— a kathakali play text (attakatha, literally, ‘enacted story’) authored by Mandavappalli Ittiraricha Menon (c. 1747–94).

I had selected The Progeny of Krishna as the first play for us to translate for all the ‘wrong’ literary reasons. As Prabodhachandran Nayar explained when wearing his dual hats of linguist and appreciator of good Sanskrit and Malayalam po-etry, The Progeny of Krishna simply ‘isn’t great po-etry. There’s too much repetition, and the vocabu-lary is meagre. It’s just not rich!’ In fact, such ‘bad’ poetry was The Progeny of Krishna that Prabodhachandran Nayar had never read a printed version of the text before I convinced him to read it with me. As a text on the page, The Progeny of Krishna simply cannot compare to the poetic rich-

ness and beauty of the four formative kathakali

texts (Bakavadham, Kirmiravadham, Kalyanasaugandhikam, and Kalakeyavadham) by Kottayam Tampuran (c. 1645–1716), or Unnayi Variyar’s (c.1675–1716) much heralded four-part version of the Nala/Damayanti story. Variyar’s Nalacaritam in particular has been singled out as ‘the highest peak in kathakali literature’ (George 1968:102),¹ and therefore, along with the Kottayam plays, finds its way into the required syllabi of Malayalam literature courses and/or critical editions and commentaries.

Although Prabodhachandran Nayar had never read the text of The Progeny of Krishna before, he knew the text-in-performance by heart and, like some other life-long appreciators among a Malayali audience, might be heard humming the well-loved if simple language beautifully set to appropriate mu-sical modes (ragas). Quite simply, even if he did not think much of the poetry of the play, he loved attending a good performance. Moreover, he cher-ished a life-long set of memories of The Progeny of Krishna in performance—from those sponsored in family house compounds or local temples as an auspicious act by childless couples hoping to se-cure future progeny, to performances of the re-nowned actor-dancer Krishnan Nayar, whose gen-ius left its stamp, along with Kunju Nayar, on con-temporary interpretations and conventions for act-ing the main role of the Brahmin.²

2 Kathakali dance-drama

What struck me most about the performances of The Progeny of Krishna that I saw at village temples during 1993 were the many levels of appreciation and pleasure available to audiences attending this ‘vast and deep ocean’ of performance. Those who showed up with their ‘huge cooking pots’ were like 78-year-old Ganesha Iyer—life-long connoisseurs educated by years of attendance to respond with ap-preciation and/or criticism to the nuances and vir-tuosity of each performance. As Ganesha Iyer ex-plained to me:

From six years of age I was taken to see kathakali performances by my father and older brothers. I’ve read all the plays, can appreciate perfor-mances, and point out all the defects! But real appreciation requires critical study and draw-ing on knowledge of actors and other experts.

Traditionally known as being ‘kathakali mad,’ con-noisseurs like Ganesha Iyer used to travel far and wide during the ‘season’ from January through April/May to attend as many performances as pos-sible by their favorite actor-dancers. The ideal con-noisseur is knowledgeable in Sanskrit, enculturated into the finest nuances of each poetic text, and able to appreciate and criticize each performer’s style and approach to performing particular roles. To-day he is known as a rasika (‘taster of rasa’) or sahrdaya—one whose heart/mind (hrdaya) is so at-tuned and able to respond intuitively to a perfor-mance that he is able to ‘take away so much.’

But also in attendance were children and the child-like—those with little to no education in kathakali’s nuances—who came with ‘cupped hands’ only able to drink what did not ‘slip through their fingers’ or could be held in their ‘small vessels.’ This drama’s pleasures included:

1 interest in the story and its drama of a couple’s love and loss of their children;

2 empathy for the main character of the Brahmin;

3 enjoyment of the beautiful musical modes to which the text is sung;

4 raucous laughter at the Brahmin’s all too hu-man foibles;

5 a sense of devotion (bhakti) for Krishna;

6 a sense of affirmation that human suffering is subsumed within the workings of lord Vishnu’s cosmic ‘play.’

Although from a literary point of view The Progeny of Krishna was the ‘wrong’ play to translate, from a folkloristic point of view foregrounding perfor-mance context and effect,³ The Progeny of Krishna was a good candidate for translation because its pleasures are accessible and popular.

Another good candidate would have been the very popular play The Killing of Duryodhana (Duryodhanavadham) by Vayaskara Aryan Narayanan Moosad (1841–1902). This enacts that part of the Mahabharata in which the Pandavas achieve victory over their cousins, the Kauravas, when their leader, Duryodhana, is killed on the great Kurukshetra battlefield. In a discussion, Prabodhachandran Nayar vividly re-called the response two popular scenes used to elicit from their audiences. In the scene at court, the Pandavas seek to defuse the impending crisis, which will lead to a division of their property, by making an increasingly meagre set of requests of Duryodhana. The first request is for him just to give them ‘five villages’ to rule. Duryodhana refuses with a simple ‘no.’ The second request is for ‘five houses’ to which he again responds ‘no.’ And the final request is for only ‘one house’ to which he also responds ‘no.’ At this moment dur-ing some performances in the past, a member of the audience occasionally stood up to proclaim, ‘Then I will give!’

A second example of commonplace audience-performer interaction which Prabodhachandran Nayar recalls is the electrifying scene of banish-ment at Duryodhana’s court, especially when the title role of Duryodhana was played by the once popular southern actor Mankulham Vishnu Namboodiri. As the scene opens, the hand-held curtain is lowered to reveal Duryodhana at his court accompanied by his family and counselors— his brother Dussassana, as well as the strong Karna and wise Bhisma. He announces that Krishna will soon arrive, but that absolutely no one at court should show Krishna any respect at all.

When Mankulham Vishnu Namboodiri acted the role of Duryodhana, he used to make the audience part of the play! He’d just told no one in the court to stand when Krishna arrived. And then, when Krishna comes onto the stage, many in the audience would stand!

During the run-up to Indian Independence in 1947 and immediately after, for those in the audi-ence active in the nationalist movement, this simple act of defiance to the authority represented by Duryodhana symbolized their resistance to British colonial rule.

In a separate discussion of this play’s popular-ity, life-long connoisseur G.S.Warrier recalled an-other resonance that made The Killing of Duryodhana so popular in the 1930s and 1940s:

Among Nayars…the request to ‘give a portion of the kingdom’ was precisely the situation they faced at the time since Nayar extended families were deciding whether and how to divide their property!

Warrier’s reference is to the effect that changing socio-economic conditions and colonial legislation about marriage and property rights were having on large, matrilineal Nayar families. Before the development of a marketplace economy, these families lived on commonly owned property un-der the leadership of the eldest male. Changes in marriage and inheritance patterns were causing these families to divide their ‘kingdoms’ (householding) into ever smaller parcels.

Unfortunately, descriptions of such immediate responses and popular pleasures that make kathakali such a ‘vast and deep ocean’ for its indigenous au-diences have often been missing from accounts of kathakali, including my own, which have problem-atically represented kathakali either as a ‘classical’ performing art or as an art exclusively intended for its patron-connoisseurs.⁴ Where Gods and Demons Come to Play is intended to reveal some of kathakali’s numerous pleasures and ‘attractions.’ As Prabodhachandran Nayar comments:

At old feasts there were always supposed to be sixty-four items served with rice. Kathakali is like that—it’s got sixty-four attractions. If you like one thing, you can fix your attention on that!

THE HISTORY OF KATHAKALI IN KERALA: A BRIEF OVERVIEW

At the historical moment of its emergence as a dis-tinct genre of performance in the late sixteenth

An ‘ocean of possibilities’ 3

and early seventeenth centuries, kathakali was given its present name, which literally means ‘story play’ and refers to the performance of dra-mas written by playwright-composers in highly Sanskritized Malayalam. Like most traditional modes of storytelling and performance in India, kathakali plays enact one or more episodes from regional versions of the pan-Indian religious epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata) and puranas, the ‘bibles of popular Hinduism’ (De Bary 1958:23).⁵ In The God of Small Things, Kerala-born contempo-rary novelist Arundhati Roy describes in vivid prose the ‘secret’ of these ‘Great Stories’ adapted for kathakali performance, and their popular ap-peal:

the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfort-ably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again. That is their mystery and their magic.

(1997:229)

As discussed in detail in Chapter 2, kathakali was given birth, nurtured, patronized, and increas-ingly refined by its traditional patrons—those ‘non-polluting’ high-caste ruling and/or landhold-ing extended families, especially titled royal lin-eages of Nayars (Samantans) and the highest ranking Namboodiri brahmins. These castes were most directly charged with and invested in the sensibilities and socio-political order reflected in the epic and puranic literatures enacted on the kathakali stage.

By the end of the eighteenth century, most of the distinctive performance techniques and conven-tions that still characterize kathakali as a regional genre of performance had evolved. On a bare out-door stage cleared of underbrush and defined only by a temporary canopy of four poles with cloth

4 Kathakali dance-drama

hung overhead, using only a few stools and properties, three groups of performers collectively create kathakali performances: actor-dancers, percussionists, and vocalists. Traditionally an all-male⁶ company of actor-dancers drawn originally from the ranks of martial practitioners pledged to death in service to their patron-rulers, the perform-ers use a highly physical style of performance em-bodied through years of training to play its many and varied roles. Each role is easily identifiable to many in a Malayali audience since each character type has its own distinctive make-up, elaborate cos-tume, and characteristic behavior. The actor-danc-ers create their roles by using a repertory of dance steps, choreographed patterns of stage movement, an intricate and complex language of hand gestures (mudras) for literally ‘speaking’ their character’s dia-logue with their hands, and a pliable use of the face and eyes to express the internal states (bhava) of each character. The percussion orchestra con-sists of three types of drums (centa, maddalam, and itekka) each with its own distinctive sound and role in the ensemble, and brass cymbals which main-tain the basic rhythmic cycles around which the dance-drama is structured. The two on-stage vo-calists play the basic time patterns on their cym-bals and sing the entire text, including both third person narration and first person dialogue, in a vocal style characterized by elaboration and rep-etition.

A kathakali performance traditionally served as a pleasurable form of education into these well-known stories and their implicit values and mean-ings. As Wendy O’Flaherty argues

Myths are not written by gods and demons, nor for them; they are by, for, and about men. Gods and demons serve as metaphors for human situ-ations… Myth is a two-way mirror in which ritual and philosophy may regard one another. It is the moment when people normally caught up in everyday banalities are suddenly (perhaps because of some personal upheaval) confronted with problems that they have hitherto left to the bickerings of the philosophers; and it is the moment when philosophers, too, come to terms with the darker, flesh-and-blood aspects of their abstract inquiries.

(1976:8–9)

One of the major ‘macrostructural narratives’⁷ that informs kathakali’s staging of these mythic sto-ries is the notion of ‘divine play’ (lila). Norvin Hein explains the theological significance of this central notion of ‘play’ in Hindu thought:

[Lila…is] the central term in the Hindu elabo-ration of the idea that God in his creating and governing world is moved not by need or ne-cessity but by a free and joyous creativity that is integral to his own nature. He acts in a state of rapt absorption comparable to that of an art-ist possessed by his creative vision or that of a child caught up in the delight of a game played for its own sake.

(in Sax 1995:13)

In addition to God’s creative dimension, lila also refers to the various forms or incarnations the di-vine takes ‘in order to sustain and protect the world; thus, the lilas of such deities as Rama and especially as Krishna are the subject of much de-votional art and literature’ which have been adapted and ‘elaborated by various Indian reli-gious traditions’ including Vaishnava, Saiva, and Sakta (Sax 1995:4).

In Kerala, the Krishna cult and the fundamen-tal theological concept of lila grew in importance between the sixth and ninth centuries as part of the Alvar devotional (bhakti) movement through-out Tamil country. Spurred on by such early devo-tional works as the Malabar (Kerala) King Kulashekhara’s collection of hymns (Mukunda Mala), by the twelfth century the movement was ensconsed in Kerala’s Vaishnavite temples, where Jayadeva’s popular Sanskrit work Gitagovinda was introduced. It was sung and danced to allow an audience to enter a devotional as well as aesthetic experience of the amorous ‘sport’ (lila) of Krishna’s love-play with Radha (Varadpande 1982:87ff.). In 1650 the deep devotionalism of Jayadeva’s origi-nal work inspired the ruler of Kozhikode, Manaveda, to compose and stage a cycle of eight dance-dramas (Krishnagiti) in Sanskrit and based, like the Gitagovinda, on the life of Krishna. The genre eventually became known as Krishnattam (Krishna’s dance) and was performed only within the confines of the Guruvayur temple as an offer-ing to the primary deity, Lord Krishna. The eight dramatic episodes are traditionally performed on

eight consecutive nights, beginning with the birth of Krishna, continuing through Krishna’s absorption into his divine form (Mahavishnu), and concluding on the ninth night with the repetition of the drama of Krishna’s birth, symbolizing and actualizing for devotees Krishna’s eternal presence.

Unlike Krishnattam, which restricted itself to per-formances of Manaveda’s eight plays enacting the life and grace of Krishna, when kathakali was given birth it drew on a wide range of epic and puranic sources. The serious ‘sport’ of all the gods and their agents became the cosmic backdrop against which traditional kathakali performances are staged. Kathakali’s temporarily sanctified theatre space is visited by a colorful array of epic and puranic play-ers from demons, demonesses, and demon-kings to epic heroes and heroines, priests and brahmins, and even the gods themselves (Agni, Indra, Siva, Vishnu, etc.). There are also the agents of the gods such as Sudarsana Cakra (Vishnu/Krishna’s divine weapon, appearing in The Killing of Kirmira and The Progeny of Krishna), Chitragupta (agent of Yama, the god of death, appearing in The Progeny of Krishna), or Nandikeswara (the gatekeeper of Siva’s abode). All these characters are festooned in (more or less) larger-than-life costumes, head-dresses, and sym-bolic full-face make-up as they enact these cosmic scripts.

Always implicit, this notion of divine play is oc-casionally explicit, as in Kiratam by Irrattakulangara Rama Varier (1801–45). Kiratam enacts that part of the Mahabharata in which the epic hero, Arjuna, goes to the Himalayas to perform penance to lord Siva as he seeks to secure from him the divine pasupata weapon needed to help the princely Pandavas in their forthcoming battle with the Kauravas. After Arjuna’s journey to the Himala-yas, he performs a series of austere meditations (tapas). Although Siva is pleased with Arjuna, he wants to test him. He disguises himself as a Hunter (Kirata) and engages Arjuna in a dispute of wills and arms over which of them killed a wild boar. Arjuna is gradually stripped of all his weapons and subdued by Siva-in-disguise. Recovering from his defeat, Arjuna returns to his austerities, realizing that the Hunter was Siva-in-disguise. Asking Siva’s forgiveness, Arjuna is blessed by Siva and his wife, Parvati, and given the divine weapon. This and other tests are instigated by the gods as part of their cosmic ‘play.’ As Arjuna sings of Siva in Kiratam,

An ‘ocean of possibilities’ 5

‘By means of your “play,” you protect the whole universe!’

As in Kiratam, this cosmic script is sometimes enacted by the gods themselves when they come to the stage to return cosmic ‘law’ to its rightful order. This is the case in both The Progeny of Krishna and King Rugmamgada’s Law where it is lord Vishnu himself who intercedes at the end of each play to set ‘right’ an imbalance created by his own divine ‘sport.’ But more often than the gods themselves, it is their heroic agents such as Arjuna, Bhima and Rama, who are called upon to set things ‘right.’ Among the many manifestations of this cosmic play are the kathakali dance-dramas with ‘killing’ (vadham’) in their titles such as The Killing of Kirmira (Kirmiravadham), The Killing of Duryodhana and The Killing of Narakasura. It is traditionally at dawn at the end of an all-night performance that the act of killing a demon such as Kirmira, an anti-hero like Duryodhana, or a demon-king such as Narakasura in a one-on-one combat concludes these cosmic dra-mas.⁸ Even in plays without ‘killing’ in their titles⁹ some killing still takes place. For example, in the full-length version of The Flower of Good Fortune the heroic Bhima encounters two demons on his jour-ney. In order to accomplish his mission of collect-ing the ‘flowers of good fortune,’ he first dispatches Jatasura, and in the penultimate scene he kills Krodhavasa. As David R.Kinsley persuasively ar-gues, when faced with combat ‘one gets the im-pression that the gods are really never in trouble at all, that they condescend to battle the demons sim-ply because it is part of some cosmic script or be-cause they enjoy it’ (1979:49).

Another major ‘macrostructural narrative’ im-plicit in these ubiquitous ‘killings’ in kathakali is the royal obligation of the South Asian king to con-duct warfare. In India, kingship has long been un-derstood to play an essential role in the mainte-nance of political and cosmic order. In spite of the fact that the 565 kingdoms or ‘princely states’ that existed in India at the time of Independence in 1947 disappeared within a year or two of that date, as Chris Fuller asserts, kingship has retained

a central importance in Hinduism and Indian society. In the traditional Hindu worldview, as expounded most clearly in textual sources, king-ship is seen as a vital institution; a society with-out a king is unviable and anarchic… [A]ll

6 Kathakali dance-drama

sources agree that the king’s first responsibility is to protect his kingdom and subjects, by guaranteeing their safety, prosperity, and well-being… [T]he order of the kingdom is itself part of the sociocosmic order or dharma, and it is ul-timately preserved by king and deity together, rather than the king alone.¹⁰

(1992:106)

One of the major duties of the king was to con-duct warfare, which, as Chris Fuller has convinc-ingly argued, ‘is a reiteration of the idea that an ordered cosmos is created by sacrificial destruc-tion’ (1992:124–5). In medieval Kerala with its fragmentary, segmented state structure, battle was a ‘dominant metaphor for conceptualizing rela-tions of spiritual and socio-political power’ (Free-man 1991:588). The royal obligation to sacrifice oneself on the battlefield and to at least attempt to symbolically expand one’s kingdom led to an al-most constant state of warfare between and among its petty rulers (see Zarrilli 1998: Chapter 2). As we shall see in several of the plays trans-lated in this book, this royal obligation to conduct warfare as an act of sacrificial destruction is re-flected in the concerns and actions of kathakali’s epic heroes. As represented in most kathakali plays, the ‘heroic’ is an idealized state of being/do-ing dramatically marked by the necessity of the hero’s sacrificial acts of blood-letting, usually ac-complished by the end of the performance when he ‘kills’ one or other demon or demon-king. As detailed in Chapter 2, and several of the commen-taries in Chapters 5–8, the concerns, trials, and tribulations of kathakali’s epic heroes can be read as reflecting the concerns and problems of its tra-ditional patrons—those charged with upholding the ‘kingdom.’

By the time kathakali crystallized its basic per-formance structure and techniques at the end of the eighteenth century, its all-night performances of 30- to 40-page texts had become one of the most popular forms of entertainment. Performances took place at least seasonally if not more frequently spon-sored by royal households, by wealthy landhold-ing families in celebration of a wedding or a birth, and/or as part of annual temple festivals. Kathakali’s popularity derived not only from its enactment of familiar stories in the local language of Malayalam (although still heavily Sanskritized) with its recog-

nizable cast of characters, but also from its accessi-bility to large audiences when performed as a regu-lar part of annual Hindu temple festivals. G.S.Warrier described for me his memories of at-tending kathakali during his childhood:

From the tender age of six or seven, I saw kathakali. The temple across the road had a ten-day festival, and on four of those days there were kathakali. There was also a Krishna temple within fifteen miles of my village, and it was a real center for kathakali. The Ambalapuzha Raja was there, and they had a kathakali yogam (com-pany) for training. In those days there used to be crowds of 3,000 to 4,000 at a performance! So we learned to appreciate that way.¹¹

Since Kerala’s largest high-caste temples limited entry to only the ‘non-polluting’ castes, Kerala’s mode of enacting Sanskrit dramas (kutiyattam), and kathakali’s immediate precursor, Krishnattam, were only seen by the gods, for whom they were performed as visual sacrifices/offerings, and by the high castes. In contrast, kathakali has, with a few exceptions, always been performed outside the walls of temples, or in palace or family house compounds. Consequently, it was accessible to many more, if not ‘all’, people.

Accessibility is relative and context specific. Al-though kathakali’s performances outside the tem-ples were theoretically ‘accessible,’ ‘all’ were not welcome and would not have felt welcome, espe-cially in the front rows where high caste connois-seurs sit, men to the right and women to the left. As Robin Jeffrey explains,

Old Kerala was a place of boundaries and con-straints—boundaries on where particular people might go; constraints on what they might do. People lived in discrete groups which connected with others in regulated, symbolic ways.

(1992:19)

Some of the most obvious and restrictive con-straints were those placed on mingling of genders and castes. Substantive/pollution-based notions of caste were based on the concept that an individual born into a particular caste possessed, by virtue of one’s birth, a more or less polluting ‘substance.’ Exchanges of food and/or bodily based fluids,

and the amount of distance that needed to be maintained between individuals of differing castes/substances were therefore defined and re-stricted by one’s birth into a particular caste. These notions lingered into the early twentieth century.

[A]t the base of these many little pyramids [of caste], families of slave castes, usually Pulayas or Parayas, did the heavy work of paddy culti-vation and were treated virtually as beasts… In the eighteenth century, Pulayas who polluted their superiors might be killed, and as late as 1904, a Nayar was reported to have killed a Pulaya with a spade after the Pulaya had ap-proached and ‘polluted’ him. All groups ruth-lessly preserved ritual purity.

(Jeffrey 1992:20)

Given the strict rules of distance pollution and bans against intermingling, exchange and cooking of food, and touch, we can be sure that audiences at kathakali performances taking place at temples or in family house compounds were governed and constrained by these rules and conventions, and did not mix across either boundaries of gen-der or the caste-based line of ‘pollution.’¹²

Although the largest number of kathakali per-formances today continue to be organized as part of temple festivals during the dry festival season from mid-December through May, the large and enthusiastic audiences it once attracted are becom-ing the exception rather than the rule. One such exception is the annual Vishwambhara Krishna Temple festival performances during March-April in Kottakkal. Kottakkal is well known to kathakali lovers because a kathakali troupe and training insti-tution has been patronized there since 1939 when the P.S.V. Natyasangham was established by Vaidyaratnam P.S.Varier—visionary philanthropist, artist, physician, businessman, and founder of one of the largest and best known Ayurvedic medical factories and clinics in India, the Kottakkal Ayurveda Sala. Like other years, when I was there in 1993 the week-long March festival boasted all-night performances every evening, featuring all the top kathakali ‘stars’, such as Gopi Asan in the title role of Karna in Karnasapatham (playing opposite the ageing but still popular Kottakkal Sivaraman in the role of his mother, Kunti); Padmanabhan

An ‘ocean of possibilities’ 7

Asan in the role of Ravana in Balivijayan. Each evening connoisseurs arrived early to get a seat on the ground just in front of the stage, to have the best view of the nuances of the performances to follow, and an eager and enthusiastic audience of well over 2,000 gradually filled and overflowed the cleared performance area immediately outside the temple compound. Many if not all of the audience stayed until dawn.

In contrast are the ever-diminishing audiences at temple festivals lesser known for sponsorship of kathakali and where no ‘stars’ are playing. At sev-eral performances I attended in 1993, such as one at the Narasimha Temple near Kottayam, by mid-night as few as twenty people remained in the au-dience, and only a handful among them were at-tentive to the performance.

In addition to temple sponsorship, kathakali is performed monthly in a few of Kerala’s major towns and cities under the sponsorship of cultural organizations such as the Trissur Kathakali Club in central Kerala, the Trivandrum Kathakali Club, Drishyavedi, and Margi in the capital city of Thiruvananthapuram.¹³ These and other private cultural organizations began to be founded in the 1960s by groups of civic-minded connoisseurs of the traditional arts to fill what was perceived as a vacuum in the regular public presentation of Kerala performing arts, especially kathakali. Most perform-ances sponsored by kathakali clubs and cultural or-ganizations are given in large, proscenium-style re-gional theatres and are attended by fifty to several hundred paying spectators—primarily kathakali afi-cionados who attend monthly to see their favorite performers in particular roles.

KATHAKALI AS CONTESTED TERRI-TORY

Although kathakali continues to hold many differ-ent pleasures and is appreciated in many different ways by its audiences in Kerala, it is one form of cultural practice which, like other modes of ex-pressive culture, is increasingly contested territory today. One arena of contestation is simply for the attention of the Malayali public. In 1993, I was waiting for the ‘Parasuram Express’ to the capital (Thiruvananthapuram) at the Shoranur Junction railway station near Cheruthuruthy, where the

8 Kathakali dance-drama

internationally-known Kerala State Arts School (Kerala Kalamandalam) is located, when a well-dressed 21-year-old college student of com-puter science, Mohan, approached me and started a conversation in English. It was raining heavily— typical during the south-west monsoon which be-gins every June and lasts until August. Mohan asked what I was doing in Kerala. I explained I had been coming to Kerala for twenty years, and that I was conducting research and writing on kathakali dance-drama.

Surprised, Mohan asked, ‘are people in the United States really interested in this art?’ I ex-plained that although very few people knew about kathakali, those interested in non-Western theatre and dance wanted to know more. I asked if he was interested in kathakali. Mohan smiled ironically,

Oh, no, I’m not interested in kathakali at all. Most people my age aren’t interested at all. We’d rather go to films or watch television.

I asked if anyone in his family attended kathakali performances. He proudly explained that his fa-ther had never been interested in kathakali and therefore never went. Almost apologetically, Mohan added:

My mother was raised in a [relatively high-caste] family that enjoys kathakali and attends perfor-mances whenever she comes here [to her fam-ily home] with my uncle and aunt, as well as my cousin who is my age. They all love kathakali and go to performances often.

Today kathakali dance-drama must compete for the attention and imagination of young Malayalis like Mohan and his cousin with an increasingly diverse set of enticing entertainments—from the numerous popular films churned out by the mas-sive Indian/Malayalam film industries, to the flood of Western films (everything from Stallone action films to X-rated movies), to television (in-troduced to Kerala in 1983), to a variety of new popular entertainments from modern drama to ‘mimics parade’—solo stand-up routines in which young men enact phenomenally accurate impres-sions of everything from animals to popular sing-ers, cinema stars, or political personalities. Unlike Mohan’s cousin, who is being ‘educated’ by his

family into appreciation of kathakali, an increasing number of young people from families that would traditionally have been likely to attend and appre-ciate kathakali, like Mohan, seldom if ever attend kathakali today. As Prabodhachandran Nayar commented in a discussion:

The trend [toward featuring popular perfor-mances] has resulted in totally forgetting the gods at many temple festivals by replacing kathakali with dramas, mimic shows, etc. The divine may still be there, but increasingly it is being buried under more and more layers. Temple festivals used to be measured by the number of nights on which kathakali was being performed!

In the late twentieth century, kathakali’s existence has become part of what South Asian anthropolo-gist Arjun Appadurai and historian, Carol Breckenridge call ‘public culture’:

a zone of cultural debate…characterized as an arena where other types, forms, and domains of culture are encountering, interrogating and contesting each other in new and unexpected ways.

(1988:6)

As a genre, kathakali is increasingly open to a vari-ety of modes of contestation over everything from its potential audiences to its content and represen-tations, performance techniques, modes of appre-ciation and reception, or performance contexts both in Kerala and abroad. Mohan and his cousin expe-rience the type of social and personal ‘realities’ de-scribed by ethnographic historian James Clifford:

the world’s societies are too systematically in-terconnected to permit any easy isolation of separate or independently functioning sys-tems… Twentieth century identities no longer presuppose continuous cultures or traditions. Everywhere individuals and groups improvise local performance from (re)collected pasts, draw-ing on foreign media, symbols, and languages.

(1988:230)

Consequently, the public culture terrain which kathakali inhabits in the late twentieth century is

contested by an increasingly diverse group of ‘producers of culture and their audiences’ (Appadurai and Breckenridge 1988:6–7) who make use of quite different discursive and critical narratives in shaping their versions of kathakali. This is as true of ‘learned’ discourses about kathakali such as this one, as of the more ‘local’ world kathakali artists and connoisseurs inhabit in Kerala, where the discourses of elite scholars of cultural studies and history around issues of gen-der, class, race, and identity are only beginning to circulate and make their impact felt.

Inhabiting a ‘world dominated by the media, by consumption, and by global cultural flows’ (Appadurai and Breckenridge 1995:3), kathakali is constantly being (re)created and (re)positioned by and/or for its many different actor-dancers, critics, scholars, sponsors, audiences, administrators, as well as politicians, thereby making available an in-creasingly heteronomous set of images, discourses, experiences, structures, knowledges, and meanings for them all. Some of these constantly shifting (re)positionings have been an inevitable and often violent result of socio-economic and/or political re-forms resulting from British colonial rule, while others are arguably less ‘benign.’

As discussed in Chapter 2, perhaps the most abrupt and radical historical shift in the history of kathakali has been the loss of traditional patronage resulting from rapidly changing socio-economic cir-cumstances brought by continuing British colonial rule in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen-turies. New institutional structures for the support of kathakali were necessarily established in 1930 when the well-loved contemporary Malayali poet Mahakavi Vallathol Narayana Menon founded the now internationally known Kerala State School of the Arts, Kerala Kalamandalam, in order to ensure that future generations of performers would receive training under the best master teachers. Institutions like the Kalamandalam have had to develop new ways of organizing training which combine indig-enous models with Western colonial ones. These changes have inevitably influenced all aspects of kathakali.

Just as kathakali patronage and institutional struc-tures have shifted and changed kathakali, it has adapted in a variety of ways to suit the changing concerns, needs, and tastes of its traditional high-caste audience of connoisseurs, including:

An ‘ocean of possibilities’ 9

1. editing all-night plays-in-performance into three-hour cameos for its ‘stars’ so that either one play is performed in an evening program ending at 9:30p.m., or three edited plays are performed in an all-night program;
2. writing and staging new plays based on tradi-tional epic/puranic sources, and in the process occasionally creating new (epic) characters based more on everyday life than most roles in the repertory;
3. restaging long ‘lost’ scenes of plays still in the repertory in order to restore the ‘original,’ and/ or reviving plays no longer in the repertory;
4. considerably expanding existing scenes to suit an aesthetic defined as a ‘non-worldly’ ‘theatre of the mind’ performed primarily if not exclu-sively for an audience of connoisseurs.

As we shall see in Chapters 2 and 3, even though some of these changes have radically altered how a full-length kathakali play was performed in the nineteenth or early twentieth century, they are not usually perceived as negative, but as accept-able changes legitimized from ‘within’ the tradi-tion. These changes test but do not break the ‘rules.’ The relative ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of such changes are debated by connoisseurs and critics in terms of the degree of ‘appropriateness’ of con-tent, music, technique, and acting. As we shall see in the commentary in Chapter 6, some forms of change are represented by their champions as ‘im-proving’ kathakali’s aesthetic and therefore are naturalized as positive.

In contrast are changes and ‘experiments’ in content and technique discussed in Chapters 9 and 10—the highly controversial productions of Kathakali King Lear performed in 1989–90 for au-diences on the international festival circuit, or the 1987 production of People’s Victory (Manavavijayam) performed primarily for non-traditional leftist au-diences in Kerala. These productions are per-ceived by many connoisseurs as transgressing the limits of what they consider ‘appropriate’ to the ‘tradition.’ To dismiss such productions as unim-portant for commentary or analysis, as do many connoisseurs, because they are not ‘traditional,’ would implicitly reify ‘traditional’ kathakali and its epic narratives as normative and uncontested, thereby failing to situate such experiments within the complex set of historical, socio-political,

10 Kathakali dance-drama

cultural, discursive, and aesthetic forces at work in contemporary Kerala history. I agree with South Asian anthropologist and performance scholar Joan Erdman’s observation that ‘the use of per-forming arts for political and social messages and value transmission create questions for scholars which arise from the performers themselves’ (1991:113, emphasis added). While still the exception rather than the rule, controversial kathakali productions like Kathakali King Lear and People’s Victory invite performance scholars to address issues beyond the stereotypical aesthetic and genre questions of-ten exclusively discussed in studies of Indian per-formance. They invite attention to the specific historical, socio-political, and contextual issues raised by all performances, whether considered ‘controversial’ or ‘normative,’ and also to the dis-cursive and socio-cultural formation of what is or is not considered normative or contested.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND OUTLINE OF THE BOOK

Folklorist Richard Bauman noted long ago that traditions of performance (like kathakali) have al-ways stood available to participants and specta-tors ‘as a set of conventional expectations and as-sociations’ which can be ‘manipulated in innova-tive ways, by fashioning novel performances out-side the conventional system, or working various transformations and adaptations which turn per-formance into something else’ (1977:34–5). As the above examples show, and as I hope to demon-strate in this book, a system of cultural perfor-mance such as Kerala’s kathakali dance-drama is, like the concept of culture itself, not a set of fixed conventions and attributes but, rather, a dynamic system of human action constantly undergoing a process of negotiation.¹⁴ Critical theorist Susan Bennett expands this notion of the interactive state of flux and contestation in the relationship between ‘culture’ and performance when she writes that

both an audience’s reaction to a text (or perfor-mance) and the text (performance) itself are bound within cultural limits. Yet, as diachronic analysis makes apparent, those limits are con-tinually tested and invariably broken. Culture

cannot be held as a fixed entity, a set of con-stant rules, but instead it must be seen as in a position of inevitable flux.

(1990:101)

Based on extensive field research in Kerala be-tween 1976 and the present, When Gods and Demons Come to Play is written as a performance ethnogra-phy of kathakali as one mode of cultural praxis through which knowledges, discourses, and meanings are repositioned through the practice of performance. I assume with performance scholar Margaret Drewal that both ‘society and human beings are performative, always already processually under construction’ (1991:4). An-thropologist Johannes Fabian similarly asserts that ‘“performance” seem[s] to be a more ad-equate description both of the ways people realize their culture and of the method by which an eth-nographer produces knowledge about that cul-ture’ (1990:18). I use the word ‘performance’ as the most appropriate metaphor for an epistemol-ogy which assumes that ‘ethnography is essen-tially, not incidentally, communicative or dialogi-cal; conversational, not observation’ (Fabian 1990:4). Therefore, I include many different per-spectives on kathakali from among its many pro-ducers, appreciators, and interpreters.

From this point of view, theater-making is a mode of socio-cultural practice. As such, it is not an innocent or naive activity separate from or above and beyond everyday reality, history, poli-tics, or economics. As theatre historian Bruce McConachie asserts, ‘theatre is not epiphenom-enal, simply reflecting and expressing determinate realities and forces’ (1989:230); rather, as a mode of socio-cultural practice, theatre is a complex net-work of specific, interactive practices—in kathakali these include the practices of authorship/composi-

tion, acting/performing, patronage/ connoisseurship, construction/maintenance of the appurtenances of performance, and (more re-cently) management and even directing. McConachie suggests that an appropriate unit of analysis in theatre history is the ‘theatrical forma-tion,’ that is, ‘the mutual elaboration over time of historically-specific audience groups and theatre practitioners participating in certain shared pat-terns of action’ (1989:232). Chapter 2 provides a social history of the ‘theatrical formation’ basic to

kathakali—the relationship between its patron/con-noisseurs and performers.

Throughout the book, I (re)situate kathakali within the historical and socio-political particulars of each production/reception context so that the variety of subject positions from which interested discourses of theatrical practice, criticism, and re-ception are constructed can be identified, and the implicit ideologies of each position discussed. In this view, cultural performances are sites of cul-tural action which either implicitly assume, or ex-plicitly assert, one or more discourses or meanings which can be propagated, contested, and/or pro-tected as part of local, state, national, and/or geo-political ‘social dramas.’¹⁵ Performances of a play, the content of the drama/narrative, the genre of performance itself (kathakali), and/or the discursive and critical constructs through which the perform-ance/drama/genre are discussed may become con-tested territory.

Although twentieth-century identities no longer necessarily presuppose continuous cultures or tra-ditions, there are many contexts within which ei-ther ‘the world’ or at least some more framed and circumscribed arenas of experience are imagined and/or assumed to be continuous.¹⁶ This is espe-cially the case in India generally and in the world of kathakali in particular, where, as we shall see (es-pecially in Chapter 2), ‘tradition’ is often cast in the normative role of maintaining and authorizing a specific form of continuity with an imagined and/ or ‘authorized’ past. As South Asian scholar A.K.Ramanujan has astutely observed, ‘in a cul-ture like the Indian, the past does not pass. It keeps on providing paradigms and ironies for the present, or at least that’s the way it seems’ (1989:133). Therefore, Parts I and II of this book provide an account of kathakali’s paradigmatic ‘past’—that ‘set of conventional expectations and associations’ (Bauman 1977:34) or aesthetic ‘rules’ constantly (re)negotiated in the present. Part I, ‘Performance in the Kerala Context’ (Chapters 2–4), provides an overview of the socio-cultural history of kathakali, and an ‘ideal-typical’ account (Marglin 1985) of the dance-drama in performance—of its texts, repertory, performance conventions, techniques of training, and ‘traditional’ aesthetic. This account is in part an ‘ideal-typical picture of the core…activities’ (Marglin 1985), techniques, conventions, and as-sumptions or ‘rules’ which constitute kathakali in

An ‘ocean of possibilities’ 11

many, but not all, ‘traditional’ contexts today. It is ‘ideal-typical’ in that it is the account of no single school or performer, but rather is constructed from fieldwork, observation, practice, and interviews with numerous performers and at numerous schools and institutions throughout Kerala solic-ited under my prompting as an ‘outsider.’ Given the processual view adopted here, cultural perform-ances like kathakali are not reducible to their obvi-ous set of performance techniques, repertory of play texts, ‘traditional’ set of conventions and/or aes-thetics, etc. Rather, kathakali ‘exists’ as a set of po-tentialities inherent in the complex set of practices, texts, discourses, representations, and constraints through which it is constantly negotiated and (re)created by means of ‘tactical improvisation’ (Jenkins 1992:51), both within the ‘tradition’ and outside it.

Part II, ‘Plays from the Traditional Repertory’ (Chapters 5–8), provides for the first time in Eng-lish a set of translations with commentaries of four plays-in-performance. Given the universal praise and respect among Malayalis for Unnayi Variyar’s poetry in his four-part series of plays enacting the story of Nala and Damayanti (Nalacaritam, Parts 1– 4 performed in four nights), the few translations which exist have understandably been of his plays.¹⁷ The first English version was V.Subramania Iyer’s 1977 translation, which includes an introduction to kathakali texts (attakatha), notes on the author, plot summary and commentary, and the perform-ance manual (attaprakaram) which actors use to guide them in performing the plays.¹⁸

Of the more than five hundred kathakali plays written, and of the approximately fifty authored by twenty major writers which still hold ‘the stage with recognizable persistence’ (Paniker 1993:21), I have selected four plays-in-performance for trans-lation which, arguably, represent a diversity of char-acters, modes of staging, and range of moods and modes of aesthetic appreciation. The first two, The Flower of Good Fortune (Kalyanasaugandhikam) and The Killing of Kirmira (Kirmiravadham) were authored by Kottayam Tampuran (c. 1675–1725) and are two of his four formative ‘Kottayam plays,’ based on the Mahabharata, which gave kathakali its name— ‘story play.’ After Variyar’s Nalacaritam, the Kottayam plays are considered to have some of the best poetry in the kathakali repertory. Moreover, the four Kottayam plays are considered

12 Kathakali dance-drama

fundamental to the technical training of today’s kathakali actor. Since technique plays such an im-portant part in structuring performance of these plays, appreciation of the actor-dancer’s technique in performance of them is a source of great pleas-ure to connoisseurs.

The other two plays, The Progeny of Krishna and King Rugmamgada ‘s Law, are the only two plays authored by Mandavappalli Ittirariccha Menon (1747–94). In contrast to the Kottayam plays, which are infamous for their tight performance structure and the virtuosic technical requirements placed on the actor-dancer, both these plays fea-ture major roles which allow great individual free-dom in enacting the ‘dramatic’ dilemmas of the major character in each play. As such they offer different challenges for the actor-dancer, and pleasures for audiences. The content of the two plays, and others authored during the same pe-riod such as Ambarishacaritam, reflect the impor-tance that devotion (bhakti) to Vishnu came to have in some kathakali plays written during this period.

Following most closely the earlier model of translation by Rajagopalan and Iyer (1975),¹⁹ the four included here provide:

1 a translation of the literary text;

2 the interpolations (ilakiyattam) added to the lit-erary text and performed by the actor-dancers to elaborate on the ‘original’ text;

3 annotations of the music and dance elements which shape and punctuate the ever-changing moods of the performance and make kathakali not simply a drama, but a dance-drama.

Written between my own reading of the plays, the extensive literature on South Asian area studies and Hinduism, and interviews and discussions with kathakali actor-dancers and appreciators, the commentaries allow the Western reader a glimpse of some of the meanings the plays make available to Malayali audiences and performers. These commentaries are by no means intended to be comprehensive, but to illuminate certain specific issues of history, interpretation, and context within a living tradition.

Read as a counterpoint to Parts I and II, Part III illustrates just how dynamic are both the ‘in-

ternal cultural debates’ within the kathakali world today (Parkin 1978: passim), and the ‘external de-bates’ in the flows of public culture. Part III pro-vides a historical overview of kathakali experi-ments with new content and form in the post World War II and Independence era, but focuses in particular on two of kathakali’s most controver-sial ‘new’ productions—the 1989–90 intercultural adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear (Chapter 9), performed primarily in Europe and the UK, and People’s Victory (Chapter 10), performed exclu-sively in Kerala. Each experimental production in its own way exemplifies the contrasting ways in which producers, performers, critics, and connois-seurs of kathakali simultaneously negotiate con-ventional rules and expectations ‘within’ the tra-dition, a variety of transnational global flows (aes-thetic, political, or institutional), and the socio-po-litical assumptions which inform both production and reception today, as each voice justifies, de-cries, or applauds the ‘new.’ My approach is in-tended to allow the reader insight into kathakali as a complex and ever-changing system of social and aesthetic practices which both shapes and is shaped by its context(s).

BETWEEN KATHAKALI TEXTS AND THE ETHNOGRAPHIC PRESENT

Kathakali plays, like those of its immediate precur-sor, kutiyattam, and earlier Sanskrit dramas, are all ‘anchored in the processes of their production, in the orbits of connection and influence that give them life and force’ (Camaroff and Camaroff 1992:34). It is to some of these ‘orbits of connec-tion and influence’ that I turn my attention in the next chapter, since the values and behaviors re-flected in kathakali dramas and their enactment are, following Sanskritist David Gitomer,

neither documentary records of the ruler war-rior (ksatriya) caste nor the fantasies of poets writing in isolation. They are texts of imagina-tion that weave together traditional epic, my-thology, and normative classical learning… [L]ike most Sanskrit texts they habitually eradi-cate their situatedness in time and place, being

rooted in patronage they are at the same time expressive, often in indirect ways, of order, an ideal, playful world. It is the pleasure of the connoisseur to enter this the anxieties and con-cerns of specific royalworld, the work of the

An ‘ocean of possibilities’ 13

scholar to political milieux. Out of these varied understand its intersection with…the… sources, the poets create the dream of an past and the present.²⁰

(1998:34)

part i

performance

in the kerala

context

2

a social history of

kathakali patronage,

connoisseurship,

and aesthetics

INTRODUCTION

As a performing art, kathakali dance-drama shares certain general characteristics with other Indian traditions (religious, literary, etc.). All such tradi-tions may be thought of as dynamic systems of action constantly undergoing a process of genera-tion and degeneration. A tradition like kathakali exists simultaneously as (1) an inherited collec-tion of established ways of feeling, thinking, and doing passed on through generations, and (2) the active and ongoing process of transmitting what has been handed down orally, through entrain-ment, enculturation, and/or written records. A performance tradition includes both the system of performance as a collection of practices and the social-structural network within which its prac-tices are carried out. A tradition, then, is created, maintained, or changed by the dynamic interplay between what is received and what is passed on by its students, performers, craftsmen, critics, au-diences, and patrons. The degree of maintenance, variation, elaboration, transformation, and de-generation within a tradition varies historically as the conventions, rules, boundaries, socio-eco-nomic realities, discursive/aesthetic principles, and the like are constantly (re)negotiated in the dynamic interplay of individual and social forma-tions.

Traditional performing arts like kathakali incor-porate patronage and connoisseurship necessarily, and their social and performative histories are di-

rectly related to their patrons and connoisseurs. Kathakali’s creation, growth, consolidation, and maintenance as a culturally distinct performance tradition have been inextricably linked to its pa-tronage. In this chapter I trace the social and per-formance history of kathakali in order to understand the ways in which patrons and connoisseurs have shaped the life of the tradition, its structure and techniques, its repertory, its evolving aesthetic and practice of connoisseurship, and therefore their pleasure(s). From the available historical and an-thropological literature, I examine the role and place of patrons and connoisseurs within Kerala’s social hierarchy, as well as within the artistic tradition in each of four phases of kathakali history:

1 The formative years from the origins of kathakali in the late seventeenth to the late eigh-teenth century, by which time the genre had evolved into what we recognize as kathakali to-day.

2 The mature years from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century, during which time there was further refining of the expressive pos-sibilities of the genre.

3 The early modern period from when a resur-gence of interest was sparked by poet Vallathol’s establishment of a new institutional form for teaching and preserving the genre beginning in the late 1920s.

4 The recent past in which some of today’s connoisseurs have defined the quintessential

18 Performance in the kerala context

experience of kathakali as a ‘nonworldly’ ‘the-ater of the mind.’

In addition to identifying how patrons and con-noisseurs have been directly and intimately in-volved in the development of many aspects of kathakali throughout its history, I am particularly concerned with understanding the ‘cultural poli-tics’ of connoisseurship as an aesthetic discourse and as a collective social practice into which indi-viduals are enculturated. As cultural theorist Graeme Turner argues,

Much of the work on pleasure so far has con-centrated on individual desires and pleasure, omitting those that derive from and create shared, collective experiences… We simply do not know how pleasure aligns with or supports us against dominant views of the world. We do not even know how texts produce all their vari-ety of pleasure.

(1992:222)

However, any discussion of the cultural politics of art-making and appreciation must be careful not to become reductionist. As historian David Mor-gan asserts,

While it would be rash to insist that… cultural politics is all that the disinterested contempla-tion of art amounts to, we should be alert to the politics of taste and suspicious of any claim for political neutrality in ranking the disinterested experience of art above…popular reception…

(1998:30)

Given the predominance of the ‘word,’ texts, and canonization of textuality, Western discussions of the cultural politics of pleasure or ‘authority’ in theater and drama have tended to be preoccupied with issues of authorship. As reflected in this and other chapters, issues of authority in kathakali are not primarily concerned with issues of authorship or authorial intent or privilege, but rather with other concerns and constellations of authority:

1 What is or is not considered permissible ‘within’ one’s lineage or style of practice (sampradaya).

2 What is or is not considered ‘appropriate’ to the dramatic context.

3 One’s social location within the lineage of practice, and/or within the hierarchy of social roles that constitute kathakali’s immediate spheres of production.

THE FORMATIVE YEARS: THE ROLE OF ROYAL PATRONS

Royal authorship and patronage are ubiquitous to the early history of kathakali. As briefly dis-cussed in Chapter 1, Krishnattam’s cycle of eight plays were authored by Manaveda, ruler of Kozhikode from 1655 to 1658. Manaveda’s cycle may have served as a model for a new cycle of eight plays known as Ramanattam, based on the Ramayana, and authored by Kottarakkara Tampuran (c. 1625–85), the ruling prince of Elayidattu Swaroopam in southern Kerala.¹ In this earliest form of kathakali the actor-dancers sang their own lines. Chitra Panikkar describes its style as ‘plain and rustic’ with ‘vigorous and fast rhythms in the dance steps’ accompanied only by the horizontal maddalam drum and gong (chenkala) keeping rhythm (1993:32). Its costum-ing and make-up must have been relatively simple and plain.

Rama and Lakshmana had their faces painted blue, and demons and monkeys wore face masks. The headgear was made of palm sheath with designs painted on it, while the torso was bare.

(ibid.)

Although Krishnattam remained a genre exclu-sively performed under the patronage of the rul-ers of Kozhikode, ‘Ramanattam spread to other parts of Kerala over a period of three decades,’ in-cluding the patronage of the Vettom Tampuran in northern Kerala (Panikkar 1993:32). The name kathakali came into popular use when yet another ruling prince, the Kottayam Tampuran (c. 1645– 1716), authored a set of four plays based on sto-ries from the Mahabharata, thereby expanding the repertory to sources other than the Ramayana.

Krishnattam, Ramanattam, and then kathakali

could never have come into existence without royal patronage. Like the Kottarakkara, Kottayam, and Vettom Tampurans, the earliest royal patrons were from the high-ranking ruling Nayar families (see Figure 2.1), although there was also support and involvement from a few Ksatriya ruling families, such as the Venttattu Raja (Jones 1984:18–19). These examples show that patronage was readily accepted as one role within the ‘role set’ assumed by royal lineages. Sociologist Robert Merton argues that any social position is characterized by a ‘complement of role-relationships’ or a ‘role set’ (1957: passim). During this period in Kerala’s history, ‘patronage’ was one multifaceted role within a series of social roles constituting the ‘role set’ identifying a ruler as a ruler, with all the privileges, rites, powers, and re-sponsibilities assumed by that position. The role of patron was not a passive, disinterested one but, rather, an active role in which the patron himself was often directly involved not only in providing the social and economic means necessary to real-ize the art, but also as author/composer of texts, ideal audience member, and, occasionally, per-former.

The political and socio-economic basis of traditional patronage

From approximately the twelfth century onward, the Malayalam-speaking region of South India known today as Kerala State was divided into nu-merous small states—each governed by its own ruler who wielded widely different degrees of in-fluence and power. The ruler of each kingdom as-pired to expansion as part of an implicit under-standing of kingship as ritual sacrifice. As Chris Fuller explains:

the ideal Hindu kingdom is coextensive with India, the world, and the universe, and every Hindu king should strive to expand his kingdom’s boundaries to the uttermost frontier. This ideal, which necessitates expansive con-quest, is evoked in the classical rite of ‘crossing the limit’ …[I]t is the king’s duty to make war to expand his kingdom, principally by forcing other rulers to submit to his suzerainty, rather than by annexing their territories as such. Be-

A social history 19

cause it brings the kingdom closer to its ideal form, military expansionism is a harbinger of prosperity for the realm, which engenders a more perfect order, not the opposite. Further-more, because war is classically conceptualized as sacrifice… military confrontation can be seen as a religiously sanctioned act necessary for the sustainment of the world. Consistent with this, to fall in battle is to die a glorious hero who is likely to be deified. Thus warfare itself is a reit-eration of the idea that an ordered cosmos is created by sacrificial destruction.

(1992:124–5)

Anthropologist John R.Freeman explains that this form of kingship does not follow the common-place ‘conception of a single individual, occupy-ing the unique structural center of a political orga-nization’ but, rather, is an example of ‘“little king-doms”’ which are ‘segmentary,’ and therefore ex-emplify a form of political authority which is ‘multiplex and contestatory’ (1991:715). In this system the

center (or centers) exhibit…an ideal sovereignty that is primarily ritual; but actual executive au-thority is distributed at many lower sites of the structure, where there are multiple, scaled down replicas of the king… [I]n Kerala, even a minor chieftain might be called the ‘Pre-eminent King’ (Rajadhiraja) in the context of his own little domain.

(ibid.)

The four most powerful among the larger king-doms during the period of kathakali’s invention were the Kolathiri of Kolathunatu and Zamorin of Calicut in the north, the ruler of Cochin in Central Kerala, and the Travancore Raja in the South. Each state was divided into a number of districts (nadu), which in turn were divided into counties (desam) within which were numerous vil-lages (amsa). Each district was governed by a nadu-vali, whose rights included criminal and civil juris-diction and ‘the right to claim military service from the Nayars under him’ (Panikkar 1919:257– 8). Next in authority were the desa-vali. They ruled the counties and were in charge of mainte-nance and training of local kalari where training in the martial arts was given. At each segmentary

20 Performance in the kerala context

level of organization, a mini-‘kingdom’ or locus of power and authority existed.

The right to hold land was only in possession of the highest ranking non-polluting castes (Puthenkalam 1977:14): Namboodiri brahmins, the royal lineages (a few Ksatriya groups and the high-est ranking title-holding Nayars, often called Samanthans), lesser ranking Nayar who were local rulers (nadu-vali), heads of villages (desavali), and temples. Those with the right to hold land did so by birth right (janmam) (see Figure 2.1). Those work-ing the land did so by tenure (kanam), in service to landholders (Moore 1983:28ff.; Gough 1961: 308–9).

The basic unit, ‘house and land,’ was a royal model ideally intended to be a self-sufficient mi-crocosm,

designed to contain a more or less complete set of the beings inhabiting the universe and the entire set of life-cycle events of persons who are its members… [T]he rest of society seems to remain solitary by means of a set of ritual rela-tionships defined relative to it.

(Moore 1982:26)

This ideal microcosm was only realized by those at the very top of the hierarchy, Namboodiri Brahmins, the aristocratic or ruling lineages, or large temples dedicated to pan-Indian puranic dei-ties. Each house and its land provided for

not merely subsistence, but the conduct of cul-tural activities (temple maintenance, festivals); and was not satisfied merely with things, but required persons of all kinds (i.e., jatis) who were either granted along with the land (e.g. the Cerumans) or encouraged to settle on it (e.g. the Ilavas and artisans).

(Moore 1982:142)

Each basic unit, house and its land, ideally sup-ported and thereby patronized all rituals and cul-tural activities associated with the necessities of maintaining both socio-economic and cosmologi-cal equilibrium, from the sponsorship of the ritual life and annual temple festival to the training of men-at-arms ready to defend the unit.²

Whether held by proprietary birth right (janmam) by a Namboodiri brahmin, Ksatriya, or one of the

Nayar lineages, or by a temple, the basic unit ‘house and its land’ supported (i.e., ‘patronized’) those cul-tural activities associated with the ritual necessities of maintaining the unit as a microcosm. Many of the performing arts of the region prior to the emer-gence of Ramanattam/kathakali were ritual arts, i.e., each was an integral part of a daily/calendrical cy-cle of ritual propitiation, or life-cycle or crisis ritual performances intended to prevent or alleviate dis-aster and disease (such as smallpox). Such arts were supported by the interdependent network of castes in service to a particular house (or temple) and its land. As this hierarchy and the rights and respon-sibilities granted those of high rank illustrates, the role of arts patron for genres like Krishnattam, Ramanattam, and kathakali was an exclusive privi-lege restricted to those at the very top of the politi-cal and socio-economic hierarchy.

Even the most aesthetic and literarily developed traditions of Kerala theater, kutiyattam, was inte-grated into the socioeconomic, jati, and ritual net-work of pan-Indian Puranic temples. Performers were drawn from the ranks of the Ambalavasis, intermediate ranking temple service castes, specifi-cally cakyars, nambyars, and nangyars. Patronage, as financial support of the network of performers and artisans necessary to put on performances, was part of the obligation of the temple as a baseunit, ‘house and its land.’ Only those temples had the right and duty to maintain performers and hold calendrical performances as ‘visual sacrifices’ for the primary deity of the temple (Richmond and Richmond 1985:54; Jones 1967; Raja 1964; Richmond and Richmond 1978).

Likewise, both the right and socio-economic means to conceive, originate and organize, and pa-tronize a performance genre such as Ramanattam/ kathakali or Krishnattam would only have been ap-propriate for those whose positions in the hierar-chy accorded them the ‘rights and duties,’ wealth, and network of service castes necessary to realize a particular type of performance. Unlike patronage of yearly temple festivals required to propitiate deities under a family’s jurisdiction, and unlike a Namboodiri or Nayar extended household (taravadu) commissioning a necessary ritual such as pampin tullal (serpent worship) to ensure fertility and prosperity (Neff 1987), there was initially no obligation to patronize Ramanattam/kathakali. At first patronage must have been taken on for a variety

A social history 21

Figure 2.1 The Kerala caste hierarchy

of reasons, such as: personal devotion (bhakti) in-spired by a general increase in Vaishnavite (Rama and Krishna) devotion (Jones 1983:15); a means of accentuating the traditional role of royal patrons as protectors of the social order; and/or engage-ment in an activity appropriate to one’s status, and therefore as a means of enhancing that status and ‘prosperity.’ Patronizing the arts was one of many ways to acquire ‘good fruits’ for both family and kingdom (Moore 1983:159–68), thereby helping to ensure general prosperity.

Prompted by such motivations, Ramanattam/ kathakali was brought to the stage within the pre-existing socio-economic network of the Kerala unit, ‘house and land.’ Among those jatis in service to royal Nayar lineages who fostered the art were middle ranking Nayars. They were ‘vassals’ (adiyar) and formed the ruler’s retinue (akampadi)—estab-lished by taking a vow to death to serve the ruler (Zarrilli 1998). The relative power and rank of royal lineages was partially based on the number of

Nayar soldiers in service to that ruler. Those Nayars forming an akampadi held land as tenants (kanakkaran) in return for service to their lords. Special titles were conferred on some Nayars, such as Panikkar (teacher of the martial art), or Kurup (martial master).⁴

These Nayars, trained in the highly energetic indigenous martial art (kalarippayattu) and expected to actualize vira (heroism) on the battlefield, be-came the first performers of Ramanattam/kathakali as well as Krishnattam (Zarrilli 1984a: 53–5). From their intensive life-long training, begun at the age of seven or eight, they already possessed an em-bodied basis from which much of the dance-drama choreography and its energetic (tandava) qualities were created. The early patrons established a new social role, ‘actor/dancer’, as an additional appro-priate role in the set of roles associated with these middle-ranking Nayar soldiers. Eventually, the role ‘actor-dancer’ was dissociated from that of Nayar martial practitioners and became a primary

22 Performance in the kerala context

jati-specific activity open to a larger group of simi-larly ranked service castes, but primarily associ-ated with middle-ranking Nayars.

Musicians and drummers were already in serv-ice to ruling families and/or their temples. Proper-ties and costumes could easily be crafted by the artisan castes in service to the rulers. The only other people needed to complete a troupe were bearers to carry accoutrements for performances outside the house/palace or temple compounds and washermen to care for the costumes—both jati-spe-cific tasks for which traditional lower sub-caste ranks already existed. The basic needs of perform-ers and artisans and their families were provided for according to the pre-existing model of tenancy and service, ritually confirmed by the offering of gifts (kayca) (Moore 1983:273ff.) and/or titles. Spe-cial ceremonial gifts were given in recognition of high achievement (Jones 1983:31). As long as this socio-economic infrastructure remained stable, the means of supporting the newly established artistic ‘tradition’ were within the rights, means, and du-ties of land-holding royal lineages.

The initial evolution of kathakali into what even-tually became a virtuosic dance-drama depended on close artistic collaboration between royal patrons and their Nayar soldiers-turned-performers. The royal patrons possessed the literary capabilities and aesthetic sensibilities which shaped the art as it developed; the performers, in service to a ruler, possessed the embodied ability to realize in per-formance what their patrons desired.

Patron as author

The first kathakali royal patrons were also authors of the first plays. However, not all plays in the post-Kottayam Raja period were authored by royal or elite patrons. The patron could be author and/or patronize those with literary skills. What are the regional models for royal authorship, es-pecially of drama?

The precedent for kingly patronage and author-ship is found in the early examples of two South Indian kings, Saktibhadra and Kulasekhara. Saktibhadra authored the ninth to tenth-century Sanskrit play, Ascarayacudamani (Jones 1984:x, 3–4) and Kulasekhara authored three eleventh- to twelfth-century Sanskrit dramas (Unni 1977). Se-

lected acts from these plays are still performed to-day as part of the kutiyattam temple-theater tradi-tion. No further royal dramatists appear in the re-gion until the emergence of Ramanattam/kathakali and Krishnattam.

In the interim, however, from the manipravalam literature of the thirteenth to the late fifteenth cen-turies, we know that rulers wrote poetry and were patrons of court writers and scholars (K.R.Nair 1971:215–16). Kathakali plays (attakatha) were sty-listically molded from a combination of the court-supported manipravalam tradition and the ‘cantable song mold.’ As discussed in Chapter 3, from their inception the plays were characterized by a high degree of poetic conceit and the assimilation of San-skrit (Chaitanya 1971:96). The early royal drama-tists were competent in the use of Sanskrit, follow-ing a tradition of learning continued in many courts of the petty principalities from the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries.

The association of Sanskrit learning with the ruling aristocracy is in part attributable to the close relationship between ruling castes and the ritually purer and higher ranking Namboodiri brahmins of Kerala. The legacy of Nayar/ruling class author-ship as well as the eventual involvement of Namboodiris in kathakali is not surprising given the interdependency that existed between them. The Namboodiri practice of primogeniture, a method of inheritance assured by allowing only the eldest son to take one or more wives within his own caste, led to the requirement that all other males either remain celibate or form relationships with women from the ritually less pure but nevertheless high-ranking matrilineal royal castes (Mencher 1966b: 188). The years of interdependence affected the royal lineages.

Namboodiri skill in Sanskrit was fostered by the local rulers who often helped subsidize Vedic sacrifices, recitations, etc. Furthermore, it was often a Namboodiri who taught Sanskrit to the children of ruling families. It should be noted in passing that, because of the close relation-ship between the Namboodiris and the matri-lineal castes in Kerala, there was a far greater Sanskritic influence among non-Brahmins than has been noted on the east coast. Nayars, espe-cially in Central Kerala, where the Namboodiris were most concentrated, were strongly

influenced by the daily customs of Sanskrit edu-cation; in consequence the Nayars of Kerala were far more literate than their equivalents on the east coast.

(Mencher 1966b:187)

We should not imagine that Sanskrit education went beyond the highest-ranking ruling Ksatriya and Nayar families, nor would it have been con-sidered appropriate for the majority of Nayars in the mid- and lower-range service jatis to have learned Sanskrit—at least until it became impor-tant and necessary for performance.

Although this structural relationship of interde-pendence and Sanskritic influence existed from the inception of Ramanattam, at first the performance tradition had little appeal for Namboodiris. It was only after the prince of Kottayam authored his plays, richer in poetic beauty than the Ramanattam cycle, that Namboodiri interest and patronage de-veloped (Jones 1983:22). Once their interest had been aroused, Namboodiri patronage was of course possible since they possessed both the appropriate rank and the socio-economic means to provide sup-port for the art. As land-holders, the largest Namboodiri households could support new artists either by recruiting from the ranks of their own service castes, or by bringing new individuals into their service. Thus, we find early in kathakali his-tory that Namboodiri patrons often brought to their households Nayars in service to royal families who had previously trained in the art, as exemplified by the case of Nanu Menon, nephew of Vellattu Chattu Panikkar (Jones 1983:28). Namboodiri in-terest and patronage brought gradual changes to kathakali, strengthening its movement toward liter-ary, poetic, and aesthetic refinement.

A social history 23

ing the story. These interpolations primarily fill in the details of what happens in the story.

The expansion of the repertory with the addition of the Kottayam plays and concurrent changes ini-tiated in performance by the Kottayam Tampuran attracted Namboodiris because, in part, it shifted emphasis from dramatizing narrative to creating further opportunities for aesthetic realization, es-pecially with expansion of opportunities to ex-plore the erotic (srngara) and heroic (vira) senti-ments in these plays.

Given the vagaries and bellicosity of the exer-cise of power in medieval Kerala, it is not surpris-ing that one of the central anxieties and concerns for kathakali’s ruling, landholding patron-connois-seurs was that of exploring the nature of ‘the he-roic.’ As explained further in Chapter 3, the heroic state is embodied by kathakali’s ‘green’ (paccha) make-up type—a class of characters which includes divine figures like Krishna, kings such as Nala and Rugmamgada, the five Pandava princes (most im-portantly Yudhisthira, Arjuna, and Bhima) of the Mahabharata, and Rama. The predominant ‘green’ color of the make-up reflects this character’s basic moral uprightness, inner refinement, and calm in-ner poise—the ‘royal sage’ of Sanskrit drama whose

Patron as rasika/connoisseur

As mentioned earlier, the eight cycle plays in Krishnattam and Ramanattam focus on narrating the stories of their central devotional figures—Krishna and Rama. As M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri ex-plained in a discussion,

all eight of the Ramayana plays are not so con-cerned with expressing bhava. Even the inter-polations (ilakiyattam) are oriented toward tell-

Plate 2.1 A kathakali performance photograph from early in the twentieth century showing pacca (heroic/green) and minukku (radiant/shining) costumes and make-up typical of the period. The heroic character is probably being played by the famous actor/teacher Ittiraricha Menon Asan

24 Performance in the kerala context

task as a Ksatriya is to uphold dharma. Within the basic type, characters range from Arjuna, Nala, and Rugmamgada, who most ‘fit’ the ideal, to Bhima who is something of a ‘misfit.’ Kathakali plays be-come arenas for playing out and reflecting the ex-istential dilemmas that confront not only these epic heroes as they attempt to fulfill their duty, but also their everyday counterparts—the Nayars, Ksatriyas, and Namboodiris—by whom and for whom the per-formances were created.

As represented in most kathakali plays, the ‘he-roic’ is a state dramatically marked by the hero’s sacrificial act of blood-letting, usually accom-plished through one-to-one combat/warfare when one or another demon, demon-king, or flawed epic villain is dispatched before the end of the per-formance. Fuller’s assertion, noted earlier, that ‘warfare itself is a reiteration of the idea that an ordered cosmos is created by sacrificial destruc-tion’ (1992:124–5) is played out time and again on the kathakali stage, traditionally toward the end of the play at dawn when the killing takes place. The predominance of the ritual of battle with its numerous killings in the kathakali repertory is fur-ther evidence in support of Freeman’s assertion that medieval Kerala battle contained a ‘dominant metaphor for conceptualizing relations of spiritual and socio-political power’ (1991:588). During kathakali performances when stage blood is used for the disembowelment of Dussassana by Bhima, Hiranyakasipu by Narasimha, or the disfigure-ment of Simhika followed by the killing of Kirmira, kathakali can especially be seen as reflect-ing Kerala’s ‘harvest of war’ where ‘blood be-comes the central metaphor for the essential ferti-lizing fluid of life’ through ‘the cutting of heads’ or disembowelment, thereby promoting ‘the health and fertility of the kingdom’ (ibid.: 289). But as we shall see in Chapters 5–8, when we ex-plore specific plays in performance, the kathakali stage is equally a place where these great epic he-roes (often miserably) fail to fulfill both their duty and the behavioral ideals required of their station in life.

As patrons, the royal and ritual elite, including Namboodiris who became involved in the art, also played the role of ideal audience members—a role gradually defined as that of the rasika/connoisseur whose taste and appreciation had to be cultivated through education. However, we need to keep in

mind that even with this gradual shift toward aes-thetic refinement, kathakali as a ‘story theater’ con-tinued to appeal to a relatively broad spectrum of the population which would have been in attend-ance.

Patron as artistic innovator

Like Kulasekhara (Unni 1977:189, 193–4) before them, the first Ramanattam/kathakali royal patrons were not only authors but also innovators, help-ing to shape the dance-drama in its formative years. As early as the patronage of the Vettom Tampuran a number of innovations were made in Ramanattam, including changing the blue make-ups of Rama and Lakshmana to emerald green, providing gilded crowns rather than the original painted palm sheath headdresses, replacing masks with painted facial make-up for the demons and monkeys, employing two singers to deliver the text and restricting the actors to speaking through hand gestures, and introducing the cylindrical centa drum and the cymbals (ilattalam) to the music ensemble (Panikkar 1993:32).

Early in the eighteenth century Kottayam Tampuran in collaboration with his senior actor, Vellattu Chattunni Panikkar, introduced numerous other innovations. Given the increased emphasis on the expression of bhava in his four plays, they were careful to select ragas which would accentu-ate the mood of each section of the performance score; they increased the variety of rhythmic pat-terns and speeds used in performance, including slower tempos so that ‘the action itself [could be] made more subtle and stylized’; and they further refined make-up and costuming, especially by add-ing the white rice-paste border (chutti) and using bright red for the lips to contrast with the dark green face and further accentuate facial expression (Panikkar 1993:34; Jones 1983:22–4).

During the final half of the eighteenth century the efforts of three patrons helped to crystallize kathakali’s basic parameters of performance and ‘come of age.’ Patron/performer Kaplingattu Namboodiri and the senior actor in his troupe, Ittiri Panikkar, together expanded the system of hand gestures by drawing on kutiyattam, and introduced the use of the important Sanskrit manual of ges-ture language (Hastalaksanadipika) as a sourcebook

for kathakali (Jones 1983:30–1). The patronage of the princes of two of the three largest and most powerful kingdoms in Kerala—Kartika Tirunal Rama Varma Maharaja (1724–98) of Travancore and Vira Kerala Varma (1766–1828) of Kochi (Cochin)—brought their artistic and financial re-sources to kathakali. Until he became Maharaja of Kochi in 1810, Vira Kerala Varma authored nu-merous plays. Kartika Tirunal Maharaja authored seven kathakali plays, of which Rajasuyam and Narakasuravadham remain in the popular repertory today.⁵ Along with the four plays (Rugminiswayamvaram, Poothanamoksham, Ambari-shacaritam, and Paundr akavadham) written by his nephew Aswati Tirunal Rama Varma (1756–94), and other new plays of the period such as Ravanotbhavam by Kallekkulangara Raghava Pisharody (1725–93) and Balivijayan by Kalloor Nambudirippad (1797–1835), the late eighteenth-century repertory popularized such very dynamic (rajasic) ‘knife’-type anti-heroes as Ravana in Ravanotbhavam and Balivijayan, Narakasura in Narakasuravadham, Jarasanda in Rajasuyam, and Sisupala in Rugminiswayamvaram, whose ‘amorous scenes and scenes of valour became more effective in the hands of these rajasic characters’ (Panikkar 1993:35). Part of what made these anti-heroes popu-lar was the introduction and development of such specialized virtuosic interpolations as Ravana’s lengthy enactment of penance (tapassattom), Narakasura’s imaginative mimetic peacock dance (in Narakasuravadham), the playing of multiple roles, the lengthy descriptions of gardens, forests, and the heavens. No doubt such innovations and the growing emphasis on subtlety of expression in kathakali were prompted in part by Kartika Tirunal’s study and expertise in the formative encyclopedia of Sanskrit dramaturgy, the Natyasastra, and the writing of his own Sanskrit treatise on aesthetics and dramaturgy, Balaramabharatam (Namboothiry 1983).

The formative seventeenth and eighteenth cen-turies during which kathakali was born, developed, and crystallized were periods of extreme military and political conflict prompted by colonial incur-sions into Kerala, beginning with the Portuguese in the late fifteenth century and continuing with the arrival of the Dutch, French, and English. But the traditional socioeconomic infrastructure of ‘house and land’ outlined previously remained

A social history 25

basically intact. The political map of the region was most seriously affected by the Muslim invasions from Mysore in 1732 under Haydar Ali and Tippu Sultan. Their victories brought great social and political displacement and disruption as ruling fami-lies of northern Kerala fled southward (Kareem 1973; Gough 1952:78). By the time the British van-quished Tippu Sultan, evicted the Muslim invad-ers from Kerala in 1792 and established their own political supremacy, the northern rulers were be-reft of real political and temporal power since their armies were disbanded. The area became the Malabar District of Madras Presidency, governed by a British Collector. Displaced royal families who had fled the area were allowed to return to their lands. In both Kochi and Travancore, the mahara-jas continued to rule, but under the supervision of the British.

It was significant for kathakali patronage in the central (Kochi) and northern (Malabar) regions of Kerala that displaced royal lineages were allowed to return to their lands, and therefore to their place in the socio-economic order. In spite of the upheaval

all the royal lineages maintained their high rank and power as important landlords, together with most of the ritual paraphernalia of their former office. Such a state of affairs was possible be-cause the British contact had not yet radically changed the economy of Malabar.

(Gough 1952:78–9)

In Malabar, as Mencher summarized the situa-tion, the Namboodiris in particular were little af-fected:

the replacement of the traditional political struc-ture by a new one did not in any way curtail their wealth. They were supplanted, but with-out land reform or any threat to their owner-ship of property.

(1966b: 190)

The basic unit, ‘house and land,’ remained intact. Wealthy landholders could continue the patronage of traditional ritual and aesthetic performances they had heretofore supported, and even decide to take on patronage anew of kathakali by creating their own troupes (kaliyogam).

26 Performance in the kerala context

The situation in Travancore, southern Kerala, was quite different. There Martanda Varma Ma-haraja came to the Travancore throne in 1729 and reshaped the political realities of the area. During his reign (until 1758) he conquered the area from Cape Comorin to the borders of Kochi, forcing sub-mission of all Nayar chiefs in the area, and annex-ing their lands.

Their land was the principal source of their eco-nomic power, and Martanda Varma’s action more or less destroyed it. By annexation is meant the transfer of janmom rights from indi-vidual chiefs to the Travancore state, thus re-ducing them to kanamdars of the state… Martanda Varma’s policies were an entirely new phenomenon in Kerala…he laid the foundations of a modern bureaucracy.

(Fuller 1976:18)

In Travancore, Martanda Varma’s consolidation of power and wealth made it economically, so-cially, politically, and aesthetically possible for fu-ture rulers like Kartika Tirunal Maharaja and oth-ers to become model royal patrons, operating with a degree of largess hitherto impossible in smaller petty principalities.

Whether in Travancore with its concentration of wealth and power, Kochi in central Kerala, or in north Malabar where, in spite of political flux and warfare, the basic socio-economic unit of ‘house and land’ remained intact, among royal and Namboodiri households until the late nineteenth century not only was there still sufficient wealth, but also the desire to patronize and appreciate kathakali.

The development of distinctive styles

One of the hallmarks of the crystallization of a tradition or genre of performance is the develop-ment of distinctive ‘styles’ or lineages of interpre-tation, practice, and performance. Japanese noh theater eventually produced five different ‘schools’, each of which continues to follow its own unique style of performance. In kutiyattam, lineages of performers (male cakyars and female nangyars) differ in the nuances of treatment of par-

ticular texts in performance. Like kutiyattam, in kathakali lineages of transmission from teacher to disciple are known as sampradayam—defined as a ‘traditional doctrine; a family secret’ (Gundert 1872:1040); ‘a particular cultural tradition’ estab-lished ‘when a guru or set of gurus is recognized by a series of disciples…who in turn become gurus to the next generation’ (Singer 1966:108); and in kathakali as a ‘particular teacher student descent group’ (Jones 1983:31). By the early to mid-nine-teenth century, a number of distinctive kathakali sampradayam, each with their own noted actors, had developed (Kadattanadu, Takayi, Karipuya, etc.), but chief among them were the following two which provide the basis for the two major styles still practiced today:

1 Drawing on selected elements of both Ramanattam and the earlier Kalladikkotan styles of performance and under the strong influence of kutiyattam, ‘Nalanunni’ developed the distinc-tive Kidangoor style in Travancore,⁶ southern Kerala. He did so under the patronage of Utram Tirunal Maharaja (1815–1861), the next enthu-siastic patron in the line of succession to the Travancore throne after the death of Kartika Tirunal in 1798. It was during this period that kathakali in the south developed its emphasis on the expressive use of the face (rasabhinaya) in performance of bhava, exemplified in its con-centration on developing the slow tempo in per-forming love scenes.

2 A ‘new’ composite style, Kalluvayi, was devel-oped by Unniri Panikkar in 1850 under the patronage of the famous Namboodiri brahmin household at Olappamanna Mana in central Kerala. This household began patronizing its own troupe (kaliyogam) in 1843. This style syn-thesized elements of the Kallatikkotan and Kaplingadan traditions. This style continued under the patronage of Olappamanna Mana until 1905 when its troupe had to be disbanded; however, via the lineage of Ittirarissa Menon and then Pattikkantodi Ramunni Menon, this style eventually became the predominant style at the newly established Kerala Kalamandalam. It became noted for its distinctive emphasis on ‘technical virtuosity’ demanded by performance of the four Kottayam plays.

(Panikkar 1993:35–7)

THE ‘MATURE’ YEARS: THE ROLE OF THE RASIKA/SAHRDAYA/ CON-NOISSEUR AMONG PATRONS

Royal patronage and involvement remained the mainstay of kathakali throughout the mid- to late-nineteenth century where rulers and/or wealthy landholding families continued to patronize kathakali because it had become a tradition, and/ or because they took an active interest in the art. For example, the Travancore royal family contin-ued to patronize kathakali since it was considered an honor, privilege, and tradition. Utram Tirunal Maharaja (b. 1815), who ruled Travancore at mid-century, authored one kathakali play (Simhadhuvajacaritam), but is best known for the fact that he himself performed on stage, and used the treasury’s largess to provide support not just for one major troupe, but also for a minor second troupe until his death in 1861.

By the mid-nineteenth century all the identifi-able elements which still constitute kathakali today (described in Chapter 3) were fully developed. The period is looked upon by many connoisseurs as kathakali’s aesthetic ‘zenith’ and ‘most glorious phase’ (Panikkar 1993:44, 35) since performers and connoisseurs focused increasing attention on refinements of technique, make-up, costuming, etc., and subtleties of expression. Allowable changes took place within an increasingly narrow range than was the case when Ramanattam was first performed. Increased attention to the subtle-ties of performance and refinement, whether fo-cused on stylistic and technical virtuosity as in the Kalluvayi style, or on rasabhinaya in the evolving Kidangoor/Travancore style, also began to focus on how particular actors within the ‘galaxy of star performers’ approached and interpreted particu-lar roles for which they became well-known, such as Kochayyappa Panikkar’s fame in ‘knife’ and ‘black’ (female) roles, or Itichenna Panikkar’s achievements in ‘green’ heroic roles (Panikkar 1993:38). These developments meant increased attention to, as well as scrutiny of, the nuances of acting whatever the particular sampradayam, and to creating new opportunities for the actor to dem-onstrate his virtuosity for an appreciative audi-ence of connoisseurs.

Although Sanskrit is ubiquitous in the devel-opment of the Malayalam language per se, as well

A social history 27

as in the development of kathakali, there can be no doubt that this trend toward refinement was part of a gradual process of further ‘Sanskritization’ of kathakali performance and its aesthetics of recep-tion. Increased attention to the poetic beauty of textual composition first introduced by Kottayam Tampuran in his four plays, Kartika Tirunal Ma-haraja’s study of Sanskrit aesthetics (Balaramabharatam), the engagement of more Namboodiris in patronage of the genre, the per-formative elaboration of plays like Unnayi Varryar’s Nalacaritam with its focus on the lead character (Nala’s) interior state, and the increas-ing influence of kutiyattam in the further refine-ment and development of kathakali, all contrib-uted to this process of ‘Sanskritization.’ The result was a social and aesthetic process which gradually created mutually interdependent, idealized mod-els and practices of virtuosic performance and connoisseurship based on the fundamental San-skrit concepts of actualizing a rasa/bhava aesthetic through auchityam-bodham, or a ‘sense of appropri-ateness.’⁷

Although stories from the epics and puranas have always provided the basis for the composition of kathakali plays, as Chapters 3 and 4 illustrate in detail, what gradually gained precedence were the increasingly numerous opportunities for virtuosic modes of performative elaboration of the text, such as the late eighteenth-century development of plays focused on ‘energetic’ ‘knife’ characters such as Ravana and Narakasura. Kathakali’s various modes of elaboration expand the dramatic text and allow the various artists to display their virtuosic artistry within the prescribed limits of the form. The pur-pose of these elaborations is to challenge the ex-pressive capabilities of the performers, and simul-taneously to allow its patrons-as-connoisseurs to savor and relish rasa—the sap, juice, flavor, color, or residual essence appropriate to the character’s situation in the context of the drama. The actor embodies each state of being/doing (bhava) through his cultivated ability to ‘become’ the character (see Chapter 4), and the music ensemble helps create and support each state through rhythm and musi-cal modes, thereby serving as the vehicle to carry forward (abhinaya) the audience’s pleasure as they taste and savor each rasa. As explained in more detail below, precisely how kathakali shapes and structures this experience is unique, and therefore

28 Performance in the kerala context

the particular pleasures afforded the kathakali con-noisseur are different from those of kutiyattam, or any earlier version of Sanskrit drama in perform-ance.

It may be helpful at this point to provide one recent historical example of this process of elabo-ration on the dramatic text. Pattiyakkantoti Ramunni Menon (1881–1949) is considered one of the consummate kathakali actors and teachers of the twentieth century in the Kalluvayi style. One of his hallmark performances was the introduction of a new interpolation (ilakiyattam) into his perform-ance of the role of Bhima in Kottayam Tampuran’s The Killing of Baka. The play enacts the story of the Kauravas’ attempt to have the exiled Pandava brothers killed in a fire. Ramunni Menon himself composed the ‘text’ which was inserted into his performance of Scene 4 of the play. The immedi-ate dramatic context into which he set his interpo-lation is the moment when Dharmaputra (eldest of the Pandavas, also known as Yudhisthira) tells his brother Bhima of the trap that has been set for them. Given Bhima’s character, he responds with rage (krodha bhava) to Dharmaputra’s news. In Kottayam Tampuran’s text, Dharmaputra begs Bhima to be patient. Bhima begins to recall all the cruel deeds of the Kauravas, and his fury begins to mount. It is at precisely this moment that Ramunni Menon introduced his interpolation in order to ex-pand performatively on Bhima’s internal mental struggle over their situation. The relatively one-dimensional nature of Bhima’s mental state of fury in the dramatic text is expanded and further com-plicated. At the beginning of the interpolation Bhima asks himself, ‘Why should I be patient?’ The specific mood of the first line is despair over their situation. But with the enactment of each line, Bhima’s fury begins to abate, and is replaced by forlornness. Seemingly pacified, Dharmaputra leaves Bhima alone. In his solitude, as Bhima re-flects on their condition, his fury once again be-gins to grow until he reaches a point where he de-cides that the Kauravas must be completely de-stroyed.

Ramunni Menon’s interpretation exemplifies the increasing focus in kathakali on virtuosic elaboration of the complexities of the ‘internal’ state of being of its major characters. When per-forming this interpolation, the actor’s challenge is

to subtly expand on Bhima’s overt fury by pass-ing through a stage of reflective despondency. He momentarily resigns himself to his fate and to fol-lowing his elder brother’s orders; however, for Bhima-as-Bhima, this state does not last too long since it is characteristic for him to allow his (de-monic-like) state of fury to erupt, as it eventually does in this context.

This and other interpolations discussed in Chap-ters 3 and 4 illustrate kathakali’s openness to change within the limits of what is judged ‘appropriate’ to the performance tradition and context of the drama, as well as the process by which such innovations become part of a text’s performance history within a particular lineage (sampradayam) of practice. When Ramunni Menon first introduced this interpolation in performance, he did so as a recognized senior master playing a major role (adyavasanan) in the pro-duction; however, there was no guarantee that his interpretation would have been applauded by the connoisseurs in attendance at the first performance. When the interpolation was greeted with enthusi-asm, it became part of how Rammuni Menon taught the role to his students. When he became lead teacher at the Kerala Kalamandalam, his in-terpolation became an essential part of how he taught such great actors as Kalamandalam Krishnan Nayar and Ramankutty Nayar to perform the role of Baka in The Killing of Baka, and it also became part of what an audience of connoisseurs expect to see and experience when attending a performance today.

As distinct lineages of practice and styles de-veloped, the ‘sense of appropriateness’ guiding kathakali actors was imbibed first and foremost from one’s teacher(s) and the traditional method of playing each role taught in training, as well as from observing senior actors playing a role on stage and one’s own understanding of what is ap-propriate in the dramatic context. The degree to which performers feel constrained by, and respon-sible for, creating only what they consider appro-priate to the context is well illustrated in the great kutiyattam actor Guru Ammannur Madhava Chakyar’s recent account of how and why he ‘modified slightly’ his enactment of Bali’s death scene in The Killing of Bali (Balivadham).⁸ After re-counting his family’s traditional right to perform the play, he recalls how

Of all the actors I saw in my childhood, Kitangur Rama Chakyar, who took the role of Bali [mon-key-king of Kishkindha killed by Rama’s arrow in a fight with his brother, Sugriva], remains indelibly engraved in my memory. His Bali was unrivalled indeed.

(Venu 1989:iv)

Eventually, as he grew older and matured as an actor, ‘the rare fortune of acting Bali descended on me,’ and he was

emboldened to [make the slight modification] by the training I received from Bhagavatar Kunjunni Tampuran of the royal family of Kodungalloor. I went to Tampuran, who had done deep research in the art of drama, to learn the art strictly according to the principles laid down by Bharata [author of the authoritative Natyasastra]. I was his student for two years. He taught me also the minute details of climacteric breathing. This particular training took about forty days. The various Svasas [breaths or in-ternal winds]…are controlled, one after another, appropriately to make [Bali’s] death-throes re-alistic. This is the essence of my modification.

(Venu 1989:v)

The paradigmatic (aesthetic) past is always present for the kutiyattam as well as the kathakali actor each time he approaches any important role on stage.⁹

THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD: THE ROLE OF PATRONS AND PATRON-AGE IN A TIME OF CRISIS

If the period until the mid-nineteenth century was kathakali’s heyday, then the run up to the turn of the century from approximately 1860 was a trou-bling period of transition—an almost schizo-phrenic set of ups and downs during which the seeds for the demise of the basic unit, ‘house and land,’ and therefore of kathakali patronage were sown. The growth of English education preparing a new generation for places in the shifting socio-economic order of British colonial India intro-duced many in the younger generation, especially among Nayar families (Fuller 1976), to changing

A social history 29

sensibilities, often to the disparagement of indig-enous Indian social, cultural, and artistic tradi-tions such as kathakali, which was represented by some as a ‘dumb show.’

After the death of Utram Tirunal Maharaja in 1861 and nearly a century of lavish royal patron-age and involvement in kathakali at the Travancore court, a string of successors took little interest in the art. Chitra Panikkar reports that Utram Tirunal’s immediate successor

Ayilyam Tirunal was more interested in Carnatic music and dances by women… [and therefore] disbanded the palace kaliyogam and restricted its function to staging twenty perfor-mances a year in the Padmanabhaswami Temple at Thiruvananthapuram… His succes-sor Visakhom Tirunal, who ruled for a short period, considered Western civilization superior to Indian. His successors, in turn, Sree Moolam Tirunal and Sree Chitra Tirunal, were indiffer-ent to kathakali but continued with it because they did not want to discontinue a tradition.

(1993:38)

Even though patronage at the Travancore court was on the wane, there was a general proliferation of new plays and troupes. More than fifty new plays were authored, although only four continue to be considered noteworthy by today’s connois-seurs (Panikkar 1993:38). The largest number of troupes ever founded during one period (twenty-five) were established and patronized by land-holding families; however, many of these were short-lived, some only surviving a year or two. Both these developments reflect the fact that kathakali continued to be just as important, if not even more important, to its potential patrons and connoisseurs who struggled to support it even as their households were undergoing the traumatic fluctuations of significant socio-economic change during this period.

More indirect but important was how chang-ing attitudes toward social customs such as mar-riage and the absolute authority of the eldest male (karanavan), who ruled extended family house-holds, combined with socio-economic, political, and legal reforms at the turn of the century to un-dermine the fundamental unit, ‘house and land,’ and thereby lead to a rapid decline in kathakali

30 Performance in the kerala context

patronage in the early twentieth century. Caste-based social reform movements such as the estab-lishment of the Nayar Service Society in 1914, new forms of Malayalam popular literature such as short stories and novels addressing issues of so-cial reform, and political movements began to question many traditional practices such as ar-ranged or child marriages, and the disparities and injustices of Kerala’s feudal, hierarchical caste-based social order. Specific changes included Brit-ish-influenced reforms of marital and inheritance laws, and the attendant parcelling and partition of property between family members, both of which directly undermined the concentration of wealth in many extended upper-caste families. By the 1920s, legislative and social reform brought the virtual if not yet absolute demise of the old socio-economic order based on the unit, ‘house and land.’ Many if not all royal and landholding households could no longer afford to patronize troupes. There is no doubt that with a few nota-ble exceptions such as the kaliyogams at Poomooli Mana, Manjeri, Kadathanad,

By 1923 kathakali yogams, performers, and per-formances were in distress… [T]he art was badly in need of money, patronage, and revival.

(Panikkar 1993:38–41;

see also Nedungadi 1990)¹⁰

New forms of institutional patronage and management

Into this increasing vacuum stepped the great Malayali poet, Mahakavia Vallathol Narayana Menon.¹¹ Steeped equally in the distinctiveness of his Kerala cultural heritage and pride as a staunch member of the swelling nationalist movement, Vallathol recognized the urgent need to find new means of support for kathakali before it would lan-guish further from lack of patronage and/or inter-est. Expressing his concerns over the future of kathakali as the ‘“greatest treasure of the Keralites” culture trove’ to the head of the Manakulam royal household near Trissur and his nephew Sri Mukunda Raja, they launched a plan to establish a new organization for the future of kathakali, the Kerala Kalamandalam. Their efforts began with a series of very successful ticketed fund-raising per-

formances in 1923, 1924, and 1925 in Alleppey, Trissur, and Kozhikode, Kerala. In 1928, they continued their fund-raising efforts with a na-tional lottery, which eventually raised Rs. 75,000. This amount was (barely) sufficient for an official opening of their new institution, the Kerala Kalamandalam, on 9 November 1930 at its first site in a private building belonging to Sri Mukunda Raja’s uncle.

The Kerala Kalamandalam was initially organ-ized and administered by a society registered un-der the Cochin Registration of Literary and Scien-tific and Charitable Societies, Act II. Vallathol served as President, and M. Mukunda Raja as Sec-retary. Although plagued during these early years by an ongoing acute shortage of funds and several relocations, Vallathol nevertheless managed to at-tract some of the best teachers and performers of the art, including the great Guru Kunju Kurup, Sri Ambu Panikkar, Koppan Nayar, Pattikkamthodi Rammunni Menon, Kavalppara Narayanan Nayar, and Kadambur Gopalan Nayar—all teachers of act-ing. Equally outstanding members were selected in music and drumming.

By founding the Kerala Kalamandalam, Vallathol sought to establish a new institutional and patronage framework to support traditional kathakali teaching and performance, and to bridge the gap created by a decline in patronage by wealthy landholding families. The gap that the Kalamandalam filled is evident in the story that one of today’s best known senior actors Vadakke Manalath Govindan (Gopi Asan) tells of his own training:

Before I started kathakali training I studied ottantullal for a short period. This was [in 1944] at age 8 under Parameswaran Nambeesan, the elder brother of the famous kathakali singer (late) Neelakandhan Nambeesan. Due to certain per-sonal reasons, I had to discontinue ottantullal after one year. Later on I was taken to Koodallur Mana—a prestigious, rich Namboodiri family in my village. At that time a kathakali kalari was conducted by one Thekkinkattil Ravunni Nayar—a very famous kathakali actor and the first disciple of Pattikkamthodi Ramunni Menon. I joined that kalari. All my expenses were met by the Namboodiri family. After one year I performed my arannettam (inaugural

performance) as Kusa, son of Sita, in Lavanasuravadham. Again, due to my bad luck, my kathakali training had to be terminated. Then I went to a formal academic education in a nearby school. After one year, on the advice of the above Kalamandalam Neelakandhan Nambeesan, I was asked to come for an inter-view at the Kalamandalam (in 1951) where I was selected at a student. Thus I began my train-ing at Kalamandalam.

(joint interview conducted by M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri in 1993)

Vallathol knew intuitively that his goal of pre-serving kathakali could only be realized by rekin-dling interest in and appreciation of the art at a local level among Malayalis as a marker of their identity, at a ‘national’ level as a marker of a dis-tinctively Indian national identity, and at an in-ternational level by gaining recognition for kathakali as one ‘classical’ art among the world’s great classical arts. Faced with a continual short-age of funds, Vallathol took the Kalamandalam troupe on tour to other parts of India with a 1932 performance at the Mysore palace (Menon 1978:79–80) as well as abroad—a step which was both bold and fraught with difficulties.¹² From meagre savings made while touring, and on a permanent site acquired from the then Govern-ment of Kochi on the banks of the Bharathapurzha River in the village of Cheruthuruthy, Trissur District, in 1936 classes opened in a set of new buildings.

In spite of the recognition brought by national and international tours, and its initial success in teaching kathakali to a new generation of young per-formers, with no permanent financial subsidy, a meagre income, and paltry public donations, the Kalamandalam simply could not meet operating costs. In 1941 the Kerala Kalamandalam was offi-cially handed over to the Government of Kochi; however, poet Vallathol remained in control as President, Art Director, and head of a governing committee.

It was not until the visit of then Prime Minis-ter, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, to the Kalamandalam in 1955 for the Silver Jubilee Cel-ebrations that more substantive financial assist-ance and national recognition came to the eco-nomically troubled Kalamandalam. Nehru do-nated one lakh of rupees toward the institution’s

A social history 31

further development. At the same time the Cen-tral Sangeet Natak Akademi in New Delhi also made grants to the institution. In 1957, on Vallathol’s special request, the Kalamandalam was placed under Kerala State government man-agement, and under the direct control of the Dis-trict Collector, Trissur. An advisory committee was established, an executive officer was ap-pointed to administer the institution on a day-to-day basis, the student body and teaching staff were expanded, and Kerala State subsidies for the institution were substantially raised. Riding the initial wave of heady enthusiasm which was part of Kerala State’s initial formation as a distinctive socio-linguistic and political entity, this decision of state government sponsorship seemed not only necessary at the time, but also right.

Since then the Kalamandalam has existed as a grant-in-aid institution under the management of the Kerala State government. Each year the gov-ernment makes a lump sum grant, with supple-mental income made from performances. In 1963, the Kalamandalam was reconstituted as an Academy of Arts and began to offer training in other arts, including ottantullal, Mohiniattam (al-ready on offer at this time), bharatanatyam, and classical music. Kutiyattam training was added later as a course of study. In 1973, a new, expanded campus known as ‘Vallathol Nagar,’ was opened on thirty-two acres east of the village of Cheruthuruthy. The student body expanded, as did the campus, from four students studying kathakali at its inception to today’s student body of well over one hundred.

Today the administration of the Kalamandalam is in the hands of a General Council with members drawn from other state academies, as well as members of the Lok Sabha (parliament) and Kerala State legislative assembly. An executive committee carries out the actual ad-ministration under the leadership of a chairman. The secretary and the main executive officer and treasurer are appointed directly by the current state government in office.

Since the founding of the Academy in the 1960s, the governing bodies have ensured that students receive a fundamental general education in addi-tion to their training in a traditional performing art, and in the 1990s this took the form of gaining a pass in VII Standard, or a high school certificate.

32 Performance in the kerala context

The introduction of general education was moti-vated by a desire to provide a sufficient level of education so that Kalamandalam graduates not finding employment as performing artists would nevertheless improve their chances of other means of employment. However, this has also meant a reduction in hours and energy available for study of kathakali and other performing arts (Gopalakrishnan 1992b: 24–5). Most recently, the Kalamandalam is on the verge of undergoing fur-ther institutional rebirth as a ‘university,’ a move which has been widely debated in the local Malayalam press.

Although at the time of the founding of the Kalamandalam new forms of patronage and insti-tutional organization were necessary to fill a vacuum, state government patronage per se has be-come a doubled-edged sword. From its founding and through the early 1980s, there is no doubt that the Kalamandalam continued to be the crown-jewel among the various new institutional forms of patronage founded to maintain and de-velop kathakali; however, as the Kalamandalam has grown in size, scope, bureaucratic complexity, and as certain changes in its goals were insti-tuted—from strict ‘traditional’ training in a tradi-tional art to multiple educational functions (de-gree certification as well as training)—different problems began to emerge. Some of these prob-lems have been ‘educational,’ such as the shift from the more traditional mode of training under one (or perhaps two) master teacher(s), so that the student gradually embodied the distinctive style (sampradayam) of his teacher’s lineage, to a graded curriculum where the kathakali student trains each year in a six year curriculum with a different teacher.

Just as vexing has been the increasing politicization of the Kalamandalam as an institu-tion. As K.K.Gopalakrishnan explained in a recent retrospective on the Kalamandalam and its prob-lems,

As a State institution, Kalamandalam derives benefit, especially financial support, but it also suffers from political interference, especially when the Government changes… Some of the Committee members are purely and simply politicians. Regrettably, not seldom the criti-cisms they offer smack of politics rather than

reflect a constructive approach; and, in the last decade especially, they have often revealed a streak of malice as well.

(1992b: 23; see also Olappamanna Subrahmanian Nambudirippad in Nair andPanikar 1993:48)

The fractiousness of Kerala’s contemporary po-litical scene is reflected in the anomie that has sometimes gripped the Kalamandalam in recent years—an anomie which has all too often become commonplace not just at the Kalamandalam, but also at many other government institutions. Many students, faculty, and staff are organized along political lines reflecting Kerala major politi-cal parties/factions, and classes have often been disrupted by strikes, protests, and/or boycotts. The rash of social, economic, and political prob-lems accumulating during the 1980s have con-tributed to a lack of a clear and distinct vision for today’s Kalamandalam and for its future, and it is difficult for even strong leaders dedicated to re-form to solve what appear to be intractable prob-lems.¹³ It remains to be seen whether in today’s political climate, any such state supported institu-tion can clearly and fully accomplish the type of nascent goals that Vallathol envisioned for the Kalamandalam at its founding.

Whatever the recent problems at the Kalamandalam, there is no doubt that Vallathol’s visionary founding of this institution in 1930 pro-vided a completely new model of non-traditional patronage which inspired others.¹⁴ The Sri Muthappan Kathakali Yogam was founded in 1938 by P.M.Kunhi Raman, a trustee of the Sri Muthappan Temple in Parassinikkadavu, Kannur District, and historically patronized a very small troupe and local training in the ‘northern’ style of kathakali. In 1939, philanthropist, physician, artist, and businessman Vaidyaratnam P.S.Varier founded a small but important kathakali perform-ing company and training institution, the P.S.V.Natyasangham. Along with his other chari-table enterprises, the Natyasangham is well subsi-dized from the profits of the Arya Vaidya Sala— Kerala’s most profitable and well-known Ayurvedic medical factory and hospital. Two schools/companies drawing their inspiration and teaching style from the early Kalamandalam model were the Unnayi Warrier Smaraka

Kalanilayam (1955) and F.A.C.T. Kathakali School, Udyogmandal (1965). Each has a quite different form of organization and patronage: the first as an independent non-profit cultural organi-zation run by an administrative committee of fif-teen; the second as a ‘Cooperative Society’ at Udyogmandal set up under the inspiration of the then managing director of Fertilisers and Chemi-cals, Travancore, Ltd. (F.A.C.T.).

Arguably today’s most visible, well organized and funded, and important kathakali training and performance company is Margi¹⁵—the distin-guished private non-profit cultural organization originally founded in 1969 under the leadership of D.Appukuttan Nair. At first Margi limited its activities to preparing selected publications on Kerala’s classical arts, and to presenting regularly scheduled stage performances of kathakali and other traditional Kerala performing arts in the capital city, Thiruvananthapuram, since the or-ganizers perceived that ‘there was a vacuum’ and need for such performances. In 1974, Margi mod-estly began to expand its program from sponsor-ship of kathakali and other traditional perform-ances to the establishment of its own teaching and performance company in the ‘southern Kerala style.’ Some assistance came in part from Kerala government subsidies, and instruction began when Mankulam Vishnu Namboodiri was hired as the first regular teacher, bringing with him two students of acting. By 1976 the school/troupe con-sisted of the artistic director who taught four stu-dents of acting several times each month, a junior actor/teacher who took full responsibility for the day-to-day training of the students, and teachers of centa, maddalam, vocal music, and a part-time make-up artist. Training and housing for students and teachers were provided in quarters managed by the Devaswam (temple) Board of Travancore in the old East Fort area of the city near the main and quite grand Vishnu temple, the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

As more and more financial and political prob-lems began to plague the state-supported Kalamandalam during the 1980s and as its vision and collective energy seemed to dissipate in inter-nal disputes and struggles, Margi, quite in contrast, flourished. It was something of an artistic ‘coup’ when Margi hired the extraordinary actor Kalamandalam Krishnan Nayar in 1980 to teach

A social history 33

Margi’s students as a master-teacher in residence once per month. Noted for his expertise in roles requiring an understanding and embodiment of the nuances of facial expression and depth of psycho-logical interpretation of roles, Krishnan Nayar’s teaching until his death in 1990 helped solidify and legitimize Margi’s role as a teaching and perform-ance institution specializing in the southern style. Furthermore, the predominantly male and most ac-tive members of Margi are aged over fifty-five, re-tired, and living on pensions; therefore, they are able to devote their free time to their interest in kathakali and other traditional arts. Since its mem-bers and leaders were all volunteers motivated by their knowledge and/or love for kathakali, their col-lective energy can be focused solely on artistic goals free from the (overt) political pressures faced by the Kalamandalam with its political appointees, paid staff, etc.

THE RECENT PAST: CONTEMPO-RARY CONNOISSEURSHIP AND A ‘THEATER OF THE MIND’

In this final section of the social history of kathakali, I analyse Margi’s institutional, discur-sive, and performative construction of kathakali aesthetics, reception, and connoisseurship in or-der to understand how these formations both construct and are constructed by contemporary ‘cultural politics’ of Kerala.

Perhaps the most important long-term result of the breakdown of traditional patronage has been the disruption of the process of artistic and crea-tive interaction which developed between learned, high-caste patron/connoisseurs and the kathakali artists in their service. However inconsistent the process may have been, and however dependent on the idiosyncratic interest of individual rulers/ landholders, the development and refinement of kathakali artistry within particular lineages of prac-tice through the end of the nineteenth century owed much if not all to this process of interaction. The founding of the Kalamandalam temporarily sutured this rupture as long as those in administrative po-sitions at the Kalamandalam remained learned lit-erary figures like Vallathol himself, or individuals like Vasudevan Namboodiripad (long-term super-intendent) whose knowledge of both Sanskrit

34 Performance in the kerala context

aesthetics and kathakali meant that there was mu-tual respect between senior artists and institutional leaders.

Sensing that kathakali was becoming artistically moribund and unable to explore its creative po-tential due to the breakdown in this relationship, Margi has modelled its most recent creative proc-ess on the interaction between patron-author/con-noisseurs and artists of the past. It brings together learned scholar/connoisseurs like Ganesha Iyer with the performance skills and imagination of its artists in order to ‘restore the arts to their former glory by enabling revivals, creative elaborations through a poetic treatment, etc.’ and to do so by providing ‘a constant challenge to the creative tal-ents of the artistes in every production and per-formance’ (Damodaran 1996:5). When Margi re-ceived a major grant from the central government of 5 lakhs rupees in 1991, it redefined itself as op-erating as a kaliyogam, and has been able to sup-port full-time kathakali and kutiyattam troupes in which

continuous training and performance go on side by side throughout the lifetime of the artistes [who remain] together as a well knit cohesive unit, which leads to high level production values.

(Damodaran 1996:5)

More than any other contemporary kathakali or-ganization, Margi self-consciously and assidu-ously attempts to reproduce as closely as possible the kind of creative stimulation and interaction which fostered new developments in the history of kathakali and kutiyattam, and therefore repre-sents itself as restoring ‘the standard of kathakali performances to its days of glory’ (see Warrier in Nair and Paniker 1993:49).

Margi views and represents itself as counteract-ing the ‘general decline in the popularity of classi-cal arts’ through its self-conscious program of re-viving complete kathakali and kutiyattam plays or scenes of plays no longer performed (Damodaran 1996:1). To counteract the editing and shortening of plays in performance (see Chapters 3 and 4), Margi has returned to the original dramatic texts, and in 1995 presented two of the original four Kottayam plays in their entirety: The Flower of Good Fortune lasted for six nights, and The Killing of Baka

for eight.¹⁶ Margi’s versions not only ‘restored’ the scenes seldom if ever performed today, but also added new opportunities for elaboration, thus making them even longer than usual.

Another of Margi’s major goals has been to elaborate further on Unnayi Varryar’s four-part series of plays, King Nala’s Law (Nalacaritam), by conducting detailed research on the play and its sources guided by life-long Sanskrit scholar Ganesha Iyer. Based on this research and working rehearsals, they drew on ‘related literature’ to de-velop and/or expand upon interpolations in each of the four plays (Damodaran 1996:2). The re-sults have included publication of performance manuals for the new, expanded versions, and public performances in which the four parts of the play have been extended to twelve nights of per-formance each.

Also during 1995, Margi revived three of the original eight Ramanattam plays no longer in the active repertory, including Vichinnabhishekom, Kharavadham, and Sethubandhanam. For some scenes detailed performance scores (attaprakaram) were pre-pared. The results were twelve nights of perform-ance for Vichinnabhishekom, ten for Kharavadham, and ten for Sethubandhanam. All of these revivals and further elaborations are accomplished through a two-part process. Ganesha Iyer and Appukutthan Nair study the dramatic text, refer to any/all rel-evant puranic source material which might be elabo-rated, and prepare new texts for interpolation into the dramatic text. At daily rehearsals the scholar/ connoisseurs work with the actors as they go through each section of the text and/or a new in-terpolation, and work out the details for its perfor-mative elaboration, always guided by the funda-mental principle of what is considered ‘appropri-ate’ to the context. The increasingly well-known actor of female roles Margi Vijayakumar said with great admiration of his interactions with the learned Ganesha Iyer: ‘Swami. If you were an actor on stage knowing as much as you do, you would never leave the stage!’

Margi’s 1990s vision has increasingly focused on providing ongoing, life-long training for a small company of performers, and informed exploration of kathakali’s aesthetic potential by catering ‘not to the interest of the masses, but to rare discerning rasikas possessed of an aesthetic clairvoyance in judging histrionics’ (Warrier, in Nair and Paniker

1993:52). Most of Margi’s ‘experimental’ revivals or performative elaborations are staged either in their intimate indoor performance area, or in their small outdoor theater with perhaps twenty to a maximum of forty members and the odd occasional visiting dignitary or foreigner in attendance. In ei-ther of these intimate spaces,

The audience can closely observe the subtle expressions of a performer’s eyes and face, and the very slow movements of the body, for which Margi has earned a reputation,

(see Warrier in Nair and Paniker 1993:52)

Margi’s self-conscious attempt to resurrect what it interprets as the aesthetic and artistic essence of kathakali’s past in the present is very much a part of a general post-colonial South Asian search for and reclamation of its own distinctive indigenous aesthetic and heritage over the West which began in the 1970s, and is reflected in the pan-Indian search for a ‘theater of roots’ (Awasthi 1989). Margi is an organization whose philosophy and institutional practice epitomize this trend, and its garnering of difficult to secure grants, both gov-ernment and private, exemplify the success of their endeavor. There should be no doubt that Margi has been rejuvenating kathakali with a re-newed sense of the possibilities for the imagina-tive engagement of its actors and connoisseurs alike in issues of interpretation and reconstruc-tion. As Marlene Pitkow points out, this is no-where more in evidence than in Margi’s ‘enlight-ened view’ of the importance of further develop-ing the potential in female roles in the repertory (1998:112). As Margi Vijayan enthusiastically ex-plained to me in a 1993 interview about Margi’s further elaboration and reconstruction of tradi-tional texts such as Nalacaritam, ‘Before I simply performed what was in the written text. Usually incidents happen one after another. We have to show hand-gesture after hand-gesture, rushing through! But now, here, there is no rush, no time limitation. We have time to think!’ It is clear that the actors involved with Margi are relishing the new opportunities and creative challenges offered them.

Expanding on the concept of appropriateness, and drawing on other traditional aesthetic concepts

A social history 35

in order to define itself, G.S.Warrier clearly articu-lates Margi’s aesthetic and legitimizes it when he writes:

The concepts of margi and desi styles as applied to arts such as music and dance have been enun-ciated in India from ancient times. While the desi style is bounded by space and time, with consequent limitations in aesthetics, margi tran-scends space and time to provide lasting and boundless rapture. Margi at Tiruvanantha-puram, was an institute conceived to comply with the latter.

(quoted in Nair and Paniker 1993:49)

As announced in the title, the 1993 publication of the extraordinarily beautiful book Kathakali: The Art of the Non-Worldly, edited by D. Appukuttan Nair and K.Ayappa Paniker, articulates Margi’s view of kathakali’s aesthetic as epitomized in the concept of the ‘non-worldly.’ Appukuttan Nair and Paniker assert that

Among the various performing arts in India, and perhaps, even the world, kathakali is unique in so far as it is one of the farthest from earthly reality and humanism. There is no attempt at representing the mundane world in any man-ner—whether by imitation or otherwise. Only epic, non-human beings are chosen for the re-creation of a story for presentation on the stage. And that presentation, whether in form, colour, behaviour, or sound, is deliberately made con-tra-human, to exist in another world: that of the imagination of the connoisseur …Kathakali takes the connoisseur away from the transient worldly experience of pleasure to one of tran-scendental entrancement.

(1993:x)

Appukuttan Nair further defines this ‘non-worldly’ aesthetic and how only the connoisseur can

experience bliss which is non-dual, at which level there is no difference between beauty and ugliness; it is the realm where art and anti-art co-exist… This point of bliss is also the level of divine art—that is, art beyond art… The dualistic realm of art is not pleasing to a

36 Performance in the kerala context

philosopher- appreciator. The supreme sahrdayan seeks the non-dualistic variety of art, where the artiste, the art-form, and the connoisseur be-come one.

(ibid.: 4)

Appukuttan Nair argues that any discussion of kathakali must take into account ‘the difference be-tween the experience of the real world and the ex-perience of art performed on the stage’ where the connoisseur can experience this transcendental, non-dualistic world ‘through its performance alone’ (ibid.: 3). In one of our many lengthy dis-cussions, Ganesha Iyer explained to me how this aesthetic operates:

When the actor enacts certain rasas, they are able to create a sympathetic motion in my heart. When he enacts a sorrowful aspect, I do not experience [the emotion of] sorrow but appre-ciate his [artistic] expression of sorrow… I ex-perience sympathetic vibration. But in some people, they may experience this as a real emo-tion …When a very sorrowful scene is enacted, some may weep… This difference may be due to having a more intellectual appreciation, and not emotional.

The aesthetic experience described here is part of a cultural paradigm which is implicitly under-stood, over time, to ‘discipline’ the practitioner’s sensibilities, whether through yoga, practising a martial or performance discipline, or practising connoisseurship by attending performances. Ac-cording to this paradigm, one’s sensibilities begin at the grossest, physical/emotional, most external level, and through a gradual process of education and/or disciplined training one moves toward a subtler, more refined internal mode of appreciation and/or action. Appukuttan Nair concludes his own lengthy discussion of kathakali as a ‘three-dimen-sional poetic art’ by making the following claims:

only a tattwabhinivesi (philosophically-oriented person) will be able to fully appreciate a kathakali performance… Only a select few can bring themselves to imbibe the essence of…[kathakali’s most aesthetically subtle and challenging roles] …While the actor puts to conscious use his in-nate skill which is enhanced by constant prac-

tice, the connoisseur engages in the super-con-scious act of receiving and appreciating every single aspect of the performance. He is there-fore to be considered superior to the perform-ing artiste. It is the innate poetic sensibility of the connoisseur which enables him to under-stand the relevance of the eklochana (expression of two different emotions in two eyes which is made to appear simultaneous) in kathakali, where two contradictory rasas are expressed with each eye, alternatingly and continually. The artiste, with conscious movements and regular practice, makes such an action possible, but it requires the supreme imagination of the specta-tor to visualize these eye movements as simul-taneous. The kathakali eklochana is thus mean-ingful only when its reach extends to the learned connoisseur.

(Nair and Paniker 1993:16–17)

Like other privileged aesthetic discourses, the dis-cursive constructs of ‘appropriateness’ and ‘the-ater of the mind’ cloak themselves in the guise of what is ‘natural,’ ‘right,’ and in this case ‘tradi-tional.’ There is no doubt that Margi is doing yeo-man service today preserving, and I would argue even regenerating, a sense of creativity and imagi-nation in kathakali interpretation and perfor-mance. Having acknowledged this, from a critical perspective, it is crucial to remember that the principles of ‘appropriateness’ and developing a ‘theater of mind’ guiding Margi reflect the ideal experience and spectatorial practices of today’s educated connoisseur, and that they are therefore not ‘disinterested’ or ‘natural’ since they hide their historical construction (or reconstruction) and implicit privilege behind their elegant elabo-ration of a non-dualistic, transcendental mode of reception/appreciation. Part of what is left unsaid in these discursive formations is how a connois-seur/rasika/sahrdayan attains the optimal state of ‘aesthetic clairvoyance,’ who is left out of ‘legiti-mate’ appreciation, and what forms of experimen-tation are rejected out of hand and/or excluded from serious consideration.

Aesthetic appreciation is not of course inborn, but enculturated and/or learned. This is nowhere better exemplified than in the story of Rama Iyer, current Treasurer of Margi. Unlike Ganesha Iyer, Prabodhadhanran Nayar, or G.S. Warrier, who

were all born into families of kathakali appreciators and attended performances from childhood, Rama Iyer did not really take much of an interest in kathakali until after he got involved in the adminis-tration of Margi on its founding in 1970.

In 1970 I knew only the skeleton of kathakali. Before that I may have only occasionally glanced at kathakali and had found it boring. I was chief financial officer for Appukuttan Nayar at the government engineering office. He knew how much I loved karnatic music, and he envied my knowledge of the music modes (ragas). So he asked me to help out administratively with his new organization, Margi. Since at first I didn’t understand what was happening during much of the kathakali performances, I found it boring; however, since I had an ear for music, especially when Nambisan sang, I would love the music. I also liked the dance because of the accent on rhythm. So very imperceptibly over the years, I slowly started going through the [Malayalam text of] the padams.

(personal interview)

Rama Iyer’s lack of an initial understanding and appreciation of kathakali also stemmed from his lack of formal education in both Malayalam and Sanskrit language, literature, and poetry. Indeed, he had never read or listened closely to kathakali’s play texts prior to becoming involved in Margi. He has evolved into a fairly knowledgeable con-noisseur through his years of ‘education’ and as-sociation with Margi, and has gradually come to a point where his level of appreciation can begin to approach that of the ideal rasika.

One of the ways in which Margi educates its members and guests toward the ideal practices of connoisseurship outlined above is by providing an ongoing translation of either the new interpo-lations or the expanded ways of performing lines of the text developed during company rehearsals and overseen by Appukuttan Nayar and Ganesha Iyer. At many performances I attended during 1993, Appukuttan Nayar vividly and energeti-cally performed his knowledge of the new seg-ments of a performance by explaining each poetic image and its meaning as it was performed to three or four less knowledgeable members or spe-cial guests. For some in the Margi audience, the

A social history 37

pleasure of a performance is not simply the indi-vidual pleasure of experiencing/tasting rasa and appreciating the actor’s performance, but also the collective social pleasure of openly displaying and/or being educated into a state of knowledge and understanding. One of the ideal pleasures performed by Appukuttan Nayar and others is the connoisseur’s ability to simultaneously recog-nize, understand, and therefore be able to explain to the less initiated the nuances of kathakali’s com-plex poetic images and references, especially in its interpolations.

As an individual with much less knowledge than that of Appukuttan Nayar or Rama Iyer, I too have always needed such translation and explanation, whether during or after a performance, so there is no question that education and enculturation into the nuances of kathakali regularly takes places through such translations and is welcome to whose who seek it out. What is not at first evident in the benign representation of this interaction as ‘educa-tion’ or ‘enculturation’ is the location of expertise from the actor to the connoisseur/patron, where ul-timately the connoisseur is considered ‘superior to the performing artiste’ (Nair and Paniker 1993:17).

A second aspect of the ‘unsaid’ of these aes-thetic discourses is their historical development. Al-though their roots certainly are in the bhava-rasa aesthetic first articulated in the Natyasastra and long associated with and developed in conjunction with Sanskrit poetics, a transcendental interpretation of this aesthetic and its reception was not developed until Abhinavagupta wrote his commentary in the twelfth century. This transcendental interpretation has been further (re)elaborated in today’s discur-sive articulation of an indigenous aesthetic of the ‘theater of the mind’ appealing to the ideal rasikal/ sahrdayan; however, it should be remembered that there could have been no ‘ideal’ connoisseurs as defined by a ‘theater of the mind’ when Ramanattam and then kathakali were first given birth since, in their nascent form, they were still in formation to-ward the kind of refinements not crystallized until the mid-nineteenth century. The radical non-dual-istic transcendentalism explicit in Margi’s discourse is a contemporary historical (re) definition and crys-tallization of this fundamental aesthetic concept and mode of reception.

As clearly expressed by Ganesha Iyer above, the development of today’s ‘theater of the mind’ is

38 Performance in the kerala context

similar to the development in the West of an ‘aes-thetic of disinterestedness’ (Morgan 1998:26–9) which garners to itself exclusive power to define what that experience can and should be, where judgements of taste and acceptability are based on a cultivated consciousness and competence, and which therefore rejects the overt sentimentality of ‘real tears.’ When kathakali is discussed as a ‘classi-cal’ art (most often by Westerners), it is suggested that this form is an art of the elite and educated connoisseurs to the exclusion of the everyday and mundane, and that it could be of little interest to non-connoisseurs. When kathakali is exclusively dis-cussed as a ‘theater of the mind’ requiring a ‘higher’ consciousness and aesthetic sensibility, it clearly dis-parages the ‘lower,’ ‘sensual,’ ‘worldly,’ ‘unedu-cated,’ or ‘everyday’ modes of appreciation encom-passed by the folk expression discussed in Chap-ter 1, which welcomes all to the ‘ocean’ of possi-bilities of reception. It clearly leaves out or dispar-

ages many of the plays that women in particular enjoy and appreciate, such as The Progeny of Krishna.

Finally, for Appukuttan Nayar, some of the entailments of his definition of a ‘theater of the mind’ are clearly delineated in opposition to some of the recent experiments and developments in kathakali production that he, and Margi, vocifer-ously oppose. In Olappamanna Subrahmanian Nambudirippad’s contribution to Kathakali: The Art of the Non-Worldly on the Kerala Kalamandalam, he criticizes the Kalamandalam for its ‘adoption of un-suitable themes for kathakali,’ a clear reference to the Kalamandalam’s involvement in the 1989 highly controversial production of Kathakali King Lear (Nair and Paniker 1993:48). A complex web of political history and current cultural politics are reflected in this criticism, and are fully analysed in Chapters 9 and 10 of this book where the details of two experiments and reactions against them are delineated.

3

kathakali

texts in

performance

INTRODUCTION

Performance systems like kathakali are organized around the production of its ‘score’ for the aes-thetic engagement of its publics. A performance score consists of all the units which structure the performance, as well as the conventions and tech-niques used to bring that structure to realization through enactment, embodiment, etc. A perfor-mance is structured by its various compositional units, including dramatic texts, choreography, composed music, scenarios which structure im-provisation, etc. Performance scores vary widely in the degree to which they are ‘set.’ In contrast to modern, contemporary, or post-modern per-formance, genres like Western ballet, Japanese noh, or kathakali are often identified as ‘tradi-tional’ because they have relatively ‘set’ scores. As discussed in Chapter 2, for aesthetic, histori-cal, as well as socio-cultural reasons, their perfor-mance structure, conventions, and techniques change only slightly from performance to perfor-mance through elaboration, refinement, and the relatively slow process of innovation through changes in nuances of technique, adaptations in costume, etc.¹

For genres like kathakali and Japanese noh, which construct their performances around a dramatic text, the play assumes central, but not sole, impor-tance in the historical development of the perform-

ance score and its structure. Both kathakali and noh dramas are highly regarded poetic works composed according to specific literary conventions. Each play is recognized as a discrete, individually authored work capable of judgement as a dramatic work on the basis of the quality, beauty, and originality of its poetic language; therefore, some kathakali plays like Nalacaritam or the four Kottayam plays (includ-ing The Flower of Good Fortune and The Killing of Kirmira) are occasionally read in their entirety and appreciated for their literary and poetic qualities. The literary and poetic conventions which guide composition of a play are one set of constraints which shape the structure of the text in perform-ance.

But when a kathakali drama is brought to the stage, the literary text is only the beginning point in the construction of the performance score for the performers; therefore, a kathakali drama is best thought of as a ‘base’ text that has been added to and subtracted from over the years since its first production. Since elaboration is such a fundamen-tal aesthetic principle, every aspect of a kathakali performance is shaped by a variety of modes and styles of performative and/or narrative elaboration.

In this chapter and in Chapter 4 I examine the processes by which kathakali texts and their ‘tradi-tional’ performance scores are elaborated and brought into performance on the stage today. In this chapter I describe performance and literary

40 Performance in the kerala context

conventions, techniques, and structural units, as well as the processes of editing and adaptation which guide, constrain, and affect how an ‘origi-nal’ play is expanded or contracted when per-formed. In Chapter 4 I describe the actor’s process of training, embodiment, and characterization through which he elaborates the text and its basic moods, and actualizes kathakali’s aesthetic.

TEXTUAL CONVENTIONS AND THE PERFORMANCE SCORE

The play-text and the performance score

If you were to read a complete translation of all fourteen scenes of Kottayam Tampuran’s The Flower of Good Fortune, and then attend a perfor-mance, you might become confused when the performance begins not with Scene 1 and the ap-pearance of the angry Bhima before his elder brother, Dharmaputra but, rather, with Scene 9 where Bhima and Draupadi appear ‘ripe for amo-rous games’ in the forest (see Chapter 5). You might also be surprised that the performance ends at the conclusion of Scene 10 with the humbling of Bhima’s pride before the wise and valorous chief of the monkeys, Hanuman, rather than con-tinue through Scene 14 when Bhima finally re-turns home to deliver the ‘Flower of Good For-tune’ to Draupadi. You might wonder what hap-pened to scenes 1–8 and 11–14. Although we can assume that when Kottayam Tampuran oversaw the first performance of his play sometime during the early eighteenth century it included all four-teen scenes, today you are likely to see a perfor-mance which includes between two and five of the play’s scenes—either Scenes 9 and 10, or at the most Scenes 1, 9, 10, 13, and 14.

By the same token, you might be equally sur-prised when Scene 9 does not end as does the ‘origi-nal’ literary text with Bhima’s declaration to Panchali:

O beautiful deer-eyed one,

without hesitation I shall fetch the graceful Saugandhika flowers which you desire…

Rather, the scene continues for another thirty to sixty minutes as the senior actor playing the role of Bhima holds center stage for a tour de force

setpiece of ‘mono-acting’ in which he elaborates what Bhima sees on his trip through the forest, in-cluding a fight between an elephant, python, and lion. Added to the original literary text, interpola-tions (ilakiyattam) like this are so much a part of the popular ‘tradition’ of performing the play that it would be unthinkable not to include them; in-deed, connoisseurs go to performances to watch their favorite actors performing these ‘star turns.’ Maintained by performers within their lineages of transmission (sampradaya), the interpolations are as much a part of a text’s performance score as the original literary text.

Like the plays of Aeschylus or Shakespeare, texts at first performed fully in their ‘original’ context are often adapted and/or edited to meet the desires and needs of historically variable audiences in ever-changing contexts. In the Hellenistic period the emphasis of performance shifted from the fifth cen-tury BC Athenian festival context, where a unified program of three tragedies and a satyr play were authored and presented by competing playwright/ producers, to an emphasis upon individual ‘star’ performers, for whose benefit the earlier Greek trag-edies were adapted and modified in performance. A similar phenomenon occurred when Shake-speare’s plays became vehicles for ‘star’ perform-ers during the Restoration and eighteenth century theaters of England. The result was that Shake-speare’s plays were not played in their ‘entirety’ again until the nineteenth century. Many kathakali plays, including the four translated here, are usu-ally ‘edited’ for performance today, shortening them from all-night performances to three- or four-hour performances featuring ‘star’ performers in favorite roles such as Bhima and Hanuman in The Flower of Good Fortune. Although there are still all-night per-formances of single kathakali plays, it is more typi-cal to attend all-night performances of three short-ened plays, each focusing on scenes of interest to connoisseurs, or performance of a single shortened play that allows the audience to reach home at a reasonable time rather than staying for an all-night performance.

Kathakali’s ‘typical’ performance structure and score

To summarize, the performance score for each kathakali play is structured not only by the sub units

of the dramatic composition to be performed, but also by the other compositional units of perfor-mance (interpolations and set pieces of choreogra-phy), which elaborate upon specific moments in the dramatic narrative. Figure 3.1 is a schematic figure of kathakali’s structure based on a ‘typical’ love scene between a hero and heroine in a play— Scene 9 in The Flower of Good Fortune. Included in the figure and briefly explained below are the tex-tual subunits, units of dance composition, and the interpolations which together constitute the basic structure of a kathakali performance score.

Textual sub-units

Kathakali plays interweave two major types of po-etic composition:

1 The narrative sections of the text set in third-person, usually composed in Sanskrit metrical verses known as sloka (or the slightly different form known as dandaka), and sung by the onstage vocalists.

1. The first-person dialogue and/or soliloquy passages (padam) composed in a mixture of San-skrit and Malayalam as dance music for deliv-ery and interpretation by the actors.

The descriptive, third-person narrative passages link together sets of poetic images that modify and elaborate upon the main subject. For ex-ample, at the beginning of Scene 10 in The Flower of Good Fortune, the first two of the three sloka that begin the scene poetically elaborate on Bhima’s ‘lustre’ and ‘strength,’ and also the ‘terror’ which he instills in all those who encounter him.

Both narrative and dialogue are set to specific musical modes (raga) appropriate to the mood and dramatic context; however, only the dialogue/so-liloquy parts of the texts are set to specific rhyth-mic patterns (tala) and tempos (kala). Composers of kathakali plays set each scene in the musical mode and/or rhythm they consider most appropriate for capturing the mood they want to evoke in the au-dience. Since sloka are sung by the vocalists with-out percussion background, they allow the vocal-ists great freedom of interpretation outside the con-straints of rhythmic pattern and speed. Unfettered by rhythm and speed, the vocalists elaborate their vocal interpretation of the poetry on the long syl-

Kathakali texts in performance 41

lables of any word within the limits of what is ap-propriate to the context and musical mode. Roughly 80 percent of the sloka are sung without actors onstage and set the mood and narrate the context for the scene which follows. When the ac-tors perform during the singing of a sloka, they enact the essence of what the singers are narrating.

All padam are performed by the actor-dancers, constitute the ‘dialogue’ of the play, and occupy a majority of a performance’s duration. When padam are performed, the entire ensemble is involved as the lines are sung by the vocalists, the actor-danc-ers ‘speak’ each line with hand gestures as well as enact the narrative, and the percussionists set and keep the basic rhythmic structures and times within which the lines are sung/spoken/enacted. Each padam usually has three parts: the pallavi (refrain), anupallavi (subrefrain), and caranam (literally ‘foot’). While the anupallavi may be omitted from a padam, there are usually several caranam. As we shall see in detail later, it is in the performance of the padam that we encounter kathakali’s characteristic form of repetitious double-acting of each line of the text. As a general rule, each line of a padam is enacted at least twice by the actor-dancer while the line is sung repeatedly by the vocalists.

Units of dance composition

Other basic compositional units which contribute to kathakali’s basic performance structure are the two major types of choreography described earlier:

1 The ‘accentuating/linking’ dances (kalasam, etc.), which accentuate the mood of a scene and link sections of a performance.

2 The longer pieces of set choreography like battles, which push the narrative forward, or the ‘peacock’ dance, which, like interpolations, takes a temporary ‘time out’ from the narrative to elaborate a mood in dance.

One important example of a lengthy piece of ‘set choreography’ is Kirmira’s preparation for battle at the end of Scene 13 in The Killing of Kirmira. Typically performed by demon-kings, such as Kirmira or Narakasura in ‘knife’ make-up, this extensive piece of choreography allows the actor to enact mimetically the lengthy preparations the combatant makes before setting off to fight.

42 Performance in the kerala context

Figure 3.1 Schematic diagram of typical kathakali structure

This is a schematic diagram of Scene 9 between Bhima and Panchali from The Flower of Good Fortune (Chapter 5 pp.

Interpolations

The third major compositional units are interpola-tions (ilakiyattam, also known as ‘attam’) into the dramatic text. Interpolations are of many types, and many are modelled on kutiyattam’s tradition of elaboration. One is a set form of soliloquy (tante tattam) acted by specific character types (‘knife,’ ‘beard,’ and ‘black’) after their entrances, such as Simhika’s elaborate enactment of her ‘beautifica-tion’ and dressing at the beginning of The Killing of Kirmira. Simhika’s interpolation elaborates her character’s basic nature as a demoness, and there-

fore her process of ‘beautification’ is a parody of the idealized feminine represented in the ‘shining’ female type. As explained further in Chapter 4, this interpolation allows the actor to explore the fine line between humor and disgust.

Another example of tante tattam is a soliloquy or form of mono-acting in which the character as-sesses the situation facing him by asking questions like, ‘what does this mean?’ or ‘how did this hap-pen?’ One example is Hanuman’s interpolation at the beginning of Scene 10 in The Flower of Good For-tune. With the curtain raised, the final sloka at the opening of the scene describes Hanuman as ‘in

Kathakali texts in performance 43

101–17). It illustrates the typical linkage among textual and acting/dance sub-units which comprise the performance score.

meditation on Rama and performing peaceful as-cetic techniques (tapas)’ in the forest. This interpo-lation elaborates on the basic question Hanuman asks himself within the context of the drama, i.e., ‘Why is it that my meditation is being disturbed?’ A similar type of interpolation is Kirmira’s mimetic enactment of his worship of and meditation on Shiva at the beginning of Scene 13 in The Killing of Kirmira (see p. 127).

A second general type of interpolation is ‘de-scriptive set-pieces’ of mono-acting such as Bhima’s infamous mimetic tour de force at the conclusion of Scene 9 in The Flower of Good Fortune (see p. 107), or

Arjuna’s technical and choreographic tour de force in The Killing of Kalakeya in which he describes the sights of the heavenly abode (Devaloka). Yet a third general type is the (melo)dramatic histrionic dis-plays of inner emotional turmoil of scenes like Nala’s wrenching decision to leave his beloved wife, Damayanti, at the mercy of the wild forest in Nala’s Law, or King Rugmamgada’s inner struggle over the conflict between the competing demands of duty, love for his son, and anger at the enchantress Mohini played out in King Rugmamgada’s Law (see

1. 168–71). All these interpolations are like solo arias in an opera where the focus is on the ‘star’

44 Performance in the kerala context

who steps forward to command the audience’s com-plete attention, and can last an hour or more.

Yet another form of ilakiyattam are those rela-tively unstructured improvisations involving two or three characters which explore the humorous mood through the mimetic physicalization of ac-tion. One example, discussed in detail in Chapter 7, is the interpolation in Scene 5 of The Progeny of Krishna in which the heroic Arjuna builds a house of arrows to protect the Brahman’s wife as she pre-pares to deliver a child (see p. 146).

Other forms of interpolation include brief re-flections or dialogues that bridge one scene to the next, especially to cover gaps created by cutting major sections of a play. For example, at the con-clusion of Scene 8 in The Progeny of Krishna, Arjuna performs a brief interpolation that covers the gap created by cutting Scenes 9–11 (see p. 149). Simi-larly, the lengthy interpolation introduced into Scene 8 of King Rugmamgada’s Law (pp. 164–5) sum-marizes much of the content/action of the first seven scenes of the original play which are not usually performed today.

All interpolations share the following charac-teristics:

1 Each is ‘textualized’ in the sense that the ac-tor ‘speaks’ lines in gesture-language unaccom-panied by the vocalists.

2 The lines he speaks may be based on and/or improvised from a previously authored text se-lected or composed by a patron/connoisseur, a senior actor, or improvised in the moment.

3 Interpolations have been added to the perfor-mance score because they are thought appro-priate for elaborating the dramatic context, or the state of mind/being/doing of a character.

4 The ‘texts’ which are the basis of the interpo-lations are never sung by the vocalists like the literary text, but are only enacted and spoken, without repetition, in gesture-language by the actors.

5 Unlike the performative repetition of the po-etry of the literary texts, the interpolations are much more ‘conversational’ and more like col-loquial Malayalam.

As the total performance flows from one structural or compositional unit to the next, each includes opportunities for elaboration by one or more of

the artists. These elaborations, performed as solo insets by a vocalist elaborating on a poetically de-scriptive passage of narrative, collectively during dialogue and its enactment, or with the focus on a single performer during an interpolation, are some of the reasons for kathakali’s complex structure and lengthy all-night duration. Over the years an author’s ‘original’ play-text has been modified and shaped into the specific performance score now associated with the acting of that text within a particular lineage or style of performance.

A microanalysis of kathakali’s performance structure and score in performance

Having identified each of the basic structural units of kathakali’s performance score, I provide here a detailed annotation or ‘microanalysis’ of one example of third person narrative (sloka), and one example of dialogue (padam) in performance so that the reader can gain a more detailed under-standing of the nature of the kathakali actor’s tasks in performance, and how different these are from those of the Western actor.

The sloka in performance

When sloka are enacted the general purpose of the enactment is for the actor to embody the essence of the mood/situation being described in the nar-rative. Unlike the dialogue portions of the play (padam), which are always acted in two parts as the actor ‘speaks’ the text, the acting of sloka is relatively straightforward, i.e., the actor performs only selected hand gestures as he embodies and conveys the state or mood being described in the narrative.

I have chosen for description the third sloka in performance from King Nala’s Law (First Day). The full story of Nala follows the budding love between Nala and Damayanti from the first time they hear of each other’s perfection and beauty, through Damayanti’s selection of Nala as her husband, and the many trials which they confront through sepa-ration and eventual reunion. The opening sloka con-vey Nala’s heroism, prowess, and beauty. In the first scene between Nala and the sage Narada (son of Brahman), Narada suggests that Nala should ‘waste not your birthright,’ i.e., should begin to consider marriage. Having implanted the idea of

marriage in Nala’s mind, Narada then describes

Damayanti:

In Kandinapur there lives a beauty, a gem among women, Damayanti by name. Even the gods have fallen in love with her. But mark me. Jewels rightfully belong to kings. The gods may only claim sacrifices offered in their honor.

Perfect one, paragon among kings, strive to win this jewel as your wife.

There follows an interpolation in which Nala asks Narada whether he should even attempt to win Damayanti. Narada replies that certainly Nala will win her since Damayanti already knows him, and has set her heart on him and him alone. Giv-ing a final blessing, Narada departs.

After Narada’s exit Nala stays on stage to enact the following (third) sloka as the vocalists sing the lines through once:

Having heard Narada’s words, and the words of other travellers, Nala’s mind, already im-mersed in thinking about Damayanti, became pained by his longing for her.

It takes the vocalists approximately one minute fifteen seconds to one minute forty-five seconds to sing through the sloka, depending on the amount of time the vocalist takes to elaborate freely each end syllable of a word. As the vocalist sings, the actor embodies Nala’s state rather sim-ply, employing his skills in ‘interior acting’ as he subtly embodies cinta bhava—a state of being best translated as ‘reflecting.’ Nala’s active state of ‘re-flection’ is about his love for the beautiful hero-ine, Damayanti—an act which causes him ‘pain’ because he is unsure whether his budding love will be assuaged.

Since acting this sloka is not as ‘set’ or fixed as enacting padam, the actor works within the ‘sense of appropriateness’ (aucitya bodham) for a refined heroic character such as Nala, and assumes a physi-cal attitude of thoughtful reflection. Nala’s state is subtly conveyed through the actor’s almost exclu-sive use of his eyes and facial expressions, both of which must be infused with Nala’s response to what Narada has just communicated to him. For exam-ple, while the vocalist elaborates a long end sylla-ble, such as ‘having heard’ (srutva), the actor may

Kathakali texts in performance 45

reflect in his own mind on Narada’s advice, ‘waste not your birth-right,’ by thinking, ‘Narada said, waste not your birth-right; therefore, it is time to think of my own marriage.’

At the culminating point in the Malayalam verse, and as the on-stage vocalist slowly sings, ‘it hap-pened, his mind was pained by sorrow,’ on a quick catch breath the actor moves his right hand to his chest as his eyes look up at the sky, and then, slowly following the trajectory of the gradual exhalation of his breath, his eyes trace a line downward toward the ground as he heaves a deep sigh, and his facial expression assumes a pained sorrow (soka bhava). The actor playing Nala then lingers thoughtfully on his beloved, taking sufficient time to allow this perfor-mative elaboration of the sloka and Nala’s inner men-tal state to be relished by connoisseurs.

While the performance of this particular enacted sloka is relatively ‘free’ and depends on the actor’s interpretation of the inner state of the character, other enacted sloka are by degree more ‘set’ and do not take as long to perform.²

Dialogue (padam) in performance

The line of dialogue selected for description and analysis is taken from the opening love scene of Prahlada’s Law (Prahladacaritam) between the de-mon-king Hiranyakasipu (in katti make-up) and his wife, Kayati (minukku). I have selected this line for analysis because it is typical of opening love scenes for katti characters, is set in the slowest rhythmic pattern (patinna kala), and therefore takes a relatively long time to perform. So slow are such scenes that they are referred to as patinnattam, or ‘performing in a slow tempo.’

The line to be analysed is the first line of the first padam. Hiranyakasipu is speaking to Kayati. The Malayalam line and translation follow (Figure 3.2).

In order to understand how this line of text is performed, we will assume that the text per se is the ‘baseline’ for performative interpretations and elaborations of the entire ensemble of performers. Like all lines in a padam, there are two parts to its delivery: in the first delivery of the line, as the vo-calists sing the line through, the actor enacts what might be called the ‘subtext’ of the line; in the second delivery of the line, as the actor ‘speaks’ each word of the line in gesture-language, the vo-calists sing the line over and over again through a

46 Performance in the kerala context

Figure 3.2 Performance of dialogue (padam), Chart 1: first delivery of a line from Prahladacaritam, Parts A and B

Part A: Immediately below is the text of the line in both Malayalam and English. Below each Malayalam word or syllable is a literal translation. Following the literal rendering of the line is a more readable translation of the poetry.

Part B: The second part of the figure provides an annotation of the actor’s performance of the line via notation of the rythemic cycles performed by the percussion ensemble, apprioximate elasped time, and a description of the actor’s performance.

set number of rhythmic cycles. In performance of course these two parts of the performance of one line flow one into the other.

Part I: first delivery of a line

During the first delivery of the line the vocalists sing the entire line in four cycles of tala. In the Kerala Kalamandalam style of acting this scene, during the first delivery of the line the actor play-ing Hiranyakasipu allows his gaze to pass over his wife, the heroine, moving from her head to her feet, and back again. Figure 3.2 shows each rhyth-mic cycle, the vocalists’ words sung within each cycle, the approximate elapsed time, and the actor’s enactment of the line.

This first delivery of the line of a padam might best be described as a ‘pre-acting’ of the line. It establishes the general mood. Usually the actor em-bodies the primary state or mood (bhava) which is assumed for the entire line, i.e., what we often call ‘subtext’ in Western acting. For this particular line from Prahlada’s Law there is an interesting varia-tion. Although the line itself is rather straightfor-ward as Hiranyakasipu addresses his wife, ‘Oh jewel among beautiful ladies; oh, noble mannered one, please listen,’ in the Kerala Kalamandalam tra-dition of performing this line the actor responds with passion as he sees his wife’s beauty. Because this example is not as straightforward as most other lines, it illustrates the significance of the nuances of interpretation involved in delivering each line of a text.

Part II: second delivery of the line

After setting the overall mood for performance of the line, during the second delivery of the line a general principle guides the vocalists—they repeat as often as necessary each cycle of tala, and the accompanying segment of the line of the text set to that tala, until the actor/dancer has had suffi-cient time to complete ‘speaking’ each word of the line. Since the performance of any particular hand gesture varies in the amount of time and space used for its performance, more complex hand ges-tures set in slower tempos, like this line, literally take longer to perform. When performing this line set in a very slow tempo, the slow action ac-centuates the mood of the erotic, the absorption of each image, and the creation of an erotic ambi-ance for the amorous exchange between husband and wife.

Kathakali texts in performance 47

As annotated in Figure 3.2, the first delivery of this line takes one complete cycle of tala to per-form, ‘maninimar,’ another cycle for ‘mauliratname,’ etc. During the second delivery the text temporar-ily does not move forward, but is simply repeated while the actor performs each hand gesture. For this line, a second repetition of each cycle of tala allows the actor enough time to ‘catch up’ to the singing. In performance, then, there is a constant, dynamic interplay between the musicians and ac-tor/dancers as they move toward each moment of congruence which marks the completion of each segment of a line’s performance.

In Figure 3.3, the tala cycle, vocalist’s words, approximate elapsed time, and a description of the actor’s performance are annotated.

The total elapsed time for performance of this one line is approximately six minutes (Figure 3.4). During these six minutes the musicians, vocalists, and actors collectively create a series of elaborations on the ‘base line’ of the text. As noted earlier, the primary mood/state (bhava) for this entire line is the erotic, and not passion, as was embodied in the first delivery of the line. But in the second de-livery of the line, the actor playing Hiranyakasipu shifts his mood from an emphasis on passion to an embodiment of Hiranyakasipu’s appreciation of Kayati’s character and beauty.³

The double-performance of each line of a padam illustrates kathakali’s most complex and densely packed mode of performative and aesthetic elabo-ration. For tightly structured plays, each line of a padam is not simply ‘said’ once, but delivered as a series of cyclical waves of sound/vocal and acted/ embodied expressions repeated at least twice. The performative strands of each phrase of a padam are woven around one another, and the audience ex-periences the combined efforts of the percussion-ists keeping and/or elaborating the basic rhythm, the vocalists singing the text, and the actor/danc-ers embodying the text. The moments of final con-gruence of all these performative strands come to-gether at the completion of the pre-acting of Part I and the full ‘speaking’ of Part II of each section of

1. padam.

In Chapter 4 I provide an analysis of how the actor interprets, embodies, and enacts these tex-tual sub-units and interpolations which are the es-sence of kathakali as a dance-drama, and provide kathakali’s actors with their greatest challenges as performers.

48 Performance in the kerala context

Figure 3.3 Performance of dialogue (padam), Chart 2: second delivery of a line from Prahladacaritam

Kathakali texts in performance 49

Figure 3.4 Summary: performance of a line from Prahladacaritam

PERFORMANCE CONVENTIONS

Performance space and context

The kathakali actor performs in many different spaces and contexts today. The earliest kathakali performances took place outdoors within the compounds of family houses, or just outside the walls of temples. A simple rectangular space is cleared on the ground (Figure 3.5) for the stage measuring approximately 20 to 30 square feet (1.8 to 2.7 square metres) 4–5 feet (1.2–1.5 metres) in width and 5–6 feet (1.5–1.8 metres) in length). Poles are erected at each corner of the rectangle, and cloths are spread over and behind the poles, to create a defined acting area. The audience gathers on three sides, with the largest concentra-tion in front; women sit to the left, and men to the right, with a passageway between to separate them. Patrons, guests of honor, and connoisseurs sit closest to the stage. Around the outer perim-eter vendors set up tea or food stalls.

City and town performances sponsored by cul-tural organizations are usually performed on pro-scenium stages such as Sri Kartika Tirunal Theater, Thiruvananthapuram, which serve multiple pur-

poses from the staging of modern dramas, to mu-sic or dance concerts, to political speeches and ral-lies. The playing space is large compared to the traditional outdoor space. With a raised stage and fixed seating, proscenium theaters lack the intimacy of the traditional audience-actor relationship.

One theater especially designed to preserve the intimacy of the traditional audience-actor relation-ship is the Kuttampalam Theater (Figure 3.6) located on the campus of the Kerala Kalamandalam (the Kerala State Arts School). Designed by D.Appukuttan Nair, this graceful and unique theater combines elements drawn from the Natyasastra (the encyclopedic collection of informa-tion on Sanskrit drama and theater), Kerala’s spe-cially constructed theaters (kuttampalam) in which acts of Sanskrit drama are staged within temple compounds in the kutiyattam style, and traditional Kerala temple architecture (Jones 1967; Panchal 1984). By keeping the theater open to cross-breezes with its temple-like lath walls, and only slightly rais-ing the polished wood stage from the main audi-ence seating where the audience sits on the floor, it captures both the traditional audience-actor rela-tionship and keeps the space open to cooling breezes.

50 Performance in the kerala context

Figure 3.5 Traditional outdoor performance

Performances were tradi-tionally held outdoors at local temples, or in the courtyards of high-rank-ing, land-holding family house compounds. This diagram shows the ar-rangement for outdoor performances at a temple in Palakkad District, Kerala. The stage and green room are set up just outside the walls of the main temple compound in the clearing surround-ing the large sacred ban-yan tree.

Before the introduction of electricity, outdoor performances were held all night under the stars, lit solely by the large oil lamp (kalivilakku) at center stage. With its multiple, flickering wicks, the lamp emits a yellow-hued light which dances across the faces and hands of the actors casting shadows. The actor-dancers necessarily concentrated their acting and dancing near the downstage lamp since this was the only source of illumination. The focus of attention was usually on the actor’s faces and hands since little light fell on their feet and legs. The vo-calists stand upstage center facing the audience where they keep rhythm on their cymbals and sing the entire text, while the drummers stand stage right of the actors.

Simple conventions govern entrances and ex-its. Direct entrances or exits are made either from upstage right or left. A number of entrances in-volve various uses of kathakali’s hand-held curtain (tirassila). The simplest method is when the curtain is lowered by the two stage attendants revealing the characters onstage, as when Bhima and Draupadi are revealed at the opening of Scene 9 of The Flower of Good Fortune (see p. 105). A more deco-rative use of the curtain is when it is partially low-ered to give the audience an initial glimpse (nokku) of a character about to make his entrance—most often an heroic character (pacca). The most com-plex and exciting use of the curtain is the ‘curtain

look’ (tiranokku) used by the non-heroic characters such as the demon-king Ravana (a ‘knife’, katti char-acter), bearded characters (whether the valorous ‘white beard’ Hanuman or the ‘evil’ ‘red beard’ Dussassana), hunters, demonesses such as Simhika, or animals. For these entrances a set piece of cho-reography is performed as the curtain is manipu-lated to accentuate the character’s inner-nature before he is finally revealed.

Highly theatrical entrances are also made through the middle of the audience, such as the demoness Simhika’s entrance in The Killing of Kirmira after her breasts and nose have been cut off (see p. 105), or Narasimha’s entrance in Prahlada’s Law before he kills the demon-king Hiranyakasipu. Reminiscent of the elaborate pyrotechnics that ac-company a deity’s dynamic and powerful entrance when possessing his human vehicle during tradi-tional ritual performances such as teyyam or mudiyettu, stage attendants light the character’s way with torches onto which they throw resins creating jumping flames, sparks, and smoke.

With the introduction of electricity, almost all performances today are lit with neon tubes and/or larger electric lights. The oil lamp is still lit at center stage for the ritual inauguration of the perform-ance and to sanctify the stage space; however, the general illumination of the entire stage area means that both musicians and actor-dancers are

Kathakali texts in performance 51

Figure 3.6 Theater plan of the Kuttampalam Theater located in Cheruthuruthy at the Kerala Kalamandalam, Kerala State Academy of the Arts

constantly lit, and many of the entrances once made from the dark are fully visible today.

Use of the stage is governed by several conven-tions. When two characters are onstage, the socially accepted pre-eminence and ‘cleanliness’ of the right side over the left is reflected on the kathakali stage where the stage right (audience left) side of the stage is always the side of respect. The character of higher status is normally stage right, and the character of lower status to his left. For example, when Bhima and Pancali are revealed at the opening of Scene 9 in The Flower of Good Fortune, as husband Bhima is stage right, and Panchali to his left (see p. 105).

Exceptions occur. In The Flower of Good Fortune, since Hanuman is Bhima’s elder brother and there-fore of higher status, he would normally be stage right with Bhima to his left (see p. 109). However,

when Hanuman transforms himself into an old monkey and therefore assumes a lower status in disguise, he blocks Bhima’s path through the for-est by lying stage left. Bhima’s powerful entrance from upstage right emphasizes Bhima’s overween-ing pride—humbled by the end of the scene. Until Hanuman reveals his true identity as the son of Vayu and Bhima’s elder brother, Hanuman remains stage left; however, at the very moment of Hanuman’s revelation of his true form, Bhima immediately moves stage left, and Hanuman takes stage right. When the two characters exit at the end of their scene, Hanuman exits upstage right, and Bhima upstage left.

Another exception to the conventional rule that social hierarchy governs use of the stage is when a theatrical role that is of ‘lower’ social status is a

52 Performance in the kerala context

Figure 3.7 Traditional all-night structure of a performance

‘major’ role played by a high ranking senior actor. In The Killing of Narakasura the demon-king Narakasura challenges the god Indra to a fight. Although Indra is of higher status than the demon-king, he enters stage left, and the entire scene is played with Narakasura stage right and Indra stage left. Since Narakasura is considered one of the major ‘knife’ (katti) roles in the repertory, and Indra is a somewhat minor role played by a junior actor, the actor’s seniority and ‘real life’ social/theatrical rank take precedence over the rank of the charac-ters in the drama.

Time and order of performance

Kathakali performances traditionally lasted all night, from dusk when the opening drum call (keli) announced a performance to dawn when the closing verses and dance brought the perfor-

mance to its ritual conclusion (Figure 3.7). The percussion announcement and performance pre-liminaries would take two to three hours, and the all-night performance of the play would not begin until approximately 10.00 p.m. The early an-nouncement at dusk gave villagers ample notice of the forthcoming performance.

The opening and closing rituals frame and mark the performance from everyday life. The lighting of the oil lamp, as well as the singing of the invoca-tory verses, sanctify the space for the performance which follows. The closing rituals—singing of final verses and dance (dhanasi)—and not the ending of the drama per se, bring the performance to its ulti-mate conclusion.

The two preliminary dances (totayam and purappatu) allow young students to gain necessary experience as they perform the two major set pieces of choreography essential to their training in dance technique and choreography. The long vocal/

percussion composition (melappadam) provides vo-calists and percussionists ample opportunity to dis-play their consummate musical skills for the enjoy-ment of the audience. The lengthy time it takes to perform a single kathakali drama illustrates the com-plexity of the performance score.

Both the order and the time of performance have been substantially altered over the last thirty to forty years. While there are still occasional per-formances where all the preliminaries are in-cluded, the majority of today’s performances shorten the preliminaries to as little as fifteen min-utes by including only the lighting of the lamp, the singing of the opening verses, and a very brief percussion composition. Especially at monthly performances in Kerala’s towns for its kathakali club programs, with preliminaries shortened and a play edited so that only the favorite scenes fea-turing the top actors are performed, the evening can begin at 6.00 p.m. and the audience can catch a bus home by 9.00 or 9.30 p.m. for dinner and a full night’s sleep.

Basic make-up types

In your natural form enter the stage circle. Cover your own identity with colours and trinkets. (Kale 1974:58; Ghosh, vol. II 1962:15)

Kathakali’s highly colorful costuming and makeup are part of the process which ‘transforms’ the ac-tor into a wide variety of idealized and archetypal character types, each of which is individualized by the specific dramatic context, as well as the specific choices individual actors make in playing each role. The stylized costumes and make-ups have evolved into their present forms from sev-eral sources including kutiyattam, ritual perfor-mances (mudiyettu or teyyam), artistic conventions, the martial tradition (kalarippayattu), and tradi-tional daily dress. From the first entrance of each character, audiences educated to the conventional make-up types know what general type of charac-ter and behavior to expect.

There are seven basic make-up types:

1. ‘green’ (pacca);
2. ‘ripe’ (payuppu);
3. ‘knife’ (katti);

Kathakali texts in performance 53

1. ‘beard’ (tati);
2. ‘black’ (kari);
3. ‘radiant’ (minukku);
4. ‘special’ (teppu),

and the occasional use of masks for selected char-acters. White usually frames either the entire face, or sets off intricate designs applied to part of the face when using white rice-paste. The thick white border framing the entire face for ‘green’ and ‘knife’ types is the cutti, whose size and width have gradually changed during the twentieth century from a relatively narrow 38mm (1.5 inch) frame to today’s wide frames cut from thick white paper. Today’s wider white frames and bulbous skirts give the characters a rounder, fuller appearance than at the turn of the last century.

‘Green’ (pacca)

This class of characters includes divine figures like Krishna and Vishnu in The Progeny of Krishna, kings like Rugmamgada in King Rugmamgada’s Law, and epic heroes such as Rama, Bhima, Dharmaputra (Yudhisthira), Arjuna, etc. They are the most refined among the male characters, be-ing upright, moral, and ideally full of a calm inner poise—‘royal sages’ modelled on the hero (nayaka) of Sanskrit drama whose task as a kshatriya is to uphold sacred law. As Barbara Stoller Miller ex-plains, kings are ‘royal sages’ because ‘the king’s spiritual power is equal to his martial strength and moral superiority. He is a sage (rsi) by virtue of his discipline (yoga), austerity (tapas), and knowledge of sacred law (dharma)… The ideal royal sage is a figure of enormous physical strength and energy who also has the power to control his senses’ (1984:8–9). Within this idealized type, characters like Arjuna, Nala, Rama, and Rugmamgada most ‘fit’ the ideal, while Bhima is something of a ‘mis-fit’ since when onstage he nearly always behavior-ally and temperamentally tests the limits of the ideal, especially when he becomes ‘furious.’

The white outer frame (cutti) sets off the green base, reflecting this type’s basic inner refinement. The stylized mark of Vishnu is painted on the fore-head with a yellow base and markings of red and black. The soft curving black of the eyebrows and black underlining of the lower lids extend to the side of the face, framing the eyes. The lips are

54 Performance in the kerala context

brilliant coral red. The most characteristic colors of the outer garments are the upper red and lower white skirt, with orange and black stripes. Two side panels accentuate the red motif for the lower body. The entire picture of the ‘green’ type is dignified with elaborate use of decorative upper-body acces-sories. Below the skirt the actor-dancer wears a set of bells strapped to each leg just below the knee.

While the majority of characters in this class wear the highly jewelled medium size crown (kiritam), a few wear a special vase-shaped crown with a short tuft of peacock feathers on top, and have costumes with different colors. Decorated with silver, this spe-cial crown (muti) is worn by Krishna, Rama, and Lakshmana. Given the traditional association of Krishna with the color blue, Krishna wears a blue upper garment and a skirt of bright mustard-yellow.

‘Ripe’ (payuppu)

The same basic facial design of the ‘green’ makeup is used for four divine characters in a spe-cial category known as ‘ripe’: Balarama, Brahma, Shiva, and Surya. The base color of green is re-placed by orange-red. In place of Vishnu’s mark-ings on the forehead, Shiva’s make-up also in-cludes his third eye in the center of his forehead. The colors of the costumes are usually red and blue, while accessories and ornaments, including crowns, are like the regular ‘green’ characters.

‘Knife’ (katti)

‘Knife’ refers to this type’s distinctive stylized mustache. Like the ten-headed demon-king Ravana, and Kirmira in The Killing of Kirmira, these characters are arrogant and evil, yet have some redeeming qualities—usually a streak of no-bility. They wear the same facial-frame as the ‘green’ characters, as well as the same shape and size crown. The make-up base is green and the costume identical to that of the heroic ‘green’ type, indicating that they too are high-born, but their arrogance and evil is illustrated through the upturned red mustache framed by white rice-paste. This same motif is carried through by the red pattern above the eyes and eyebrows, again sharply set off by white rice-paste. The final indi-cations of their evil nature are the two white, bul-bous protrusions of the nose and forehead.

‘Beard’ (tati)

All characters in this set of types wear stylized ‘beards’ with a special color that indicates their underlying nature and behavior.

‘White beard’ (vella tati)

White beards represent a higher, divine type of being. Hanuman, the wise and valorous chief of the monkeys who appears in The Flower of Good Fortune, is the main character in this group. His monkey face is suggested by the red, white, and black patterns of the delicate design. The facial mask is extremely expressive since the slightest gesture is accentuated, especially of the cheeks and eyes. The small patch of green on Hanuman’s nose illustrates his pious and virtuous nature. His most identifiable features are his white beard, furry white coat, and distinctive wide-brimmed head-dress. Hanuman’s lower costume and accessories are simi-lar to those of the ‘green’ characters, but with the addition of the ‘gold’ chest plate.

‘Red beard’ (cuvanna tati)

Red beards are generally evil, vicious, and vile. Characters included in this type are epic charac-ters like Dussassana of the Mahabharata whose evil is manifest in the act of disrobing Draupadi at court, and demons such as Krodhavasa who ap-pears in the full version of The Flower of Good For-tune. The eyes are encased in black, and framed by a white mustache which extends up to the ears. The black lips set off the ferocious mouth, while the nose and forehead knobs are even larger than those of the ‘knife’ characters. Perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of the red beards is their huge crown. Although the same basic shape and style as the crowns of ‘green’ and ‘knife’ types, the red beard crown is much larger and framed with red on its border. While the ac-cessories and colors are similar to the ‘green’ type, the upper garment is a heavier, furrier material, suggesting the gross and unrefined nature of the type.

Exceptions to the general type are Bali and Sugriva, the two great monkey chiefs of the Ramayana. Although costumed as red beards since they are part animal, part human, they are basi-cally good and serve Rama’s just cause.

‘Black beard’ (karutta tati)

Black beards are as evil as red beards but, like the character Kattalan (Shiva as the hunter in disguise in Kiratam), they are also by nature schemers. Their make-up is very close to that of the red beards ex-cept that the lower part of the face is black rather than red, and the face is framed by the black beard. The upper skirt is black, while the lower skirt is a dark blue. The head-dress is an unusual bucket shape, and a distinctive stylized ‘flower’ appears on the nose. As primitive beings, like the hunter Kattalan, they are associated with the forest.

‘Black’ (kari)

Here are included the demonesses such as Simhika in The Killing of Kirmira. Very close to the black beard, the demonesses are also dressed in black, wear the bucket-shaped head-dress, and also add oversized comic false breasts. Their jet black faces are offset by patches of red, outlined in white rice-paste, with the addition of dotted pat-terns of white rice-paste suggesting the make-up of the village goddess Bhagavati, traditionally as-sociated with small-pox. The demonesses are shape-changers capable of transforming them-selves into beautiful maidens in order to deceive and trick their prey. They are therefore often con-sidered the most grotesque of the kathakali charac-ters, and are a vivid and direct contrast to the ide-alized females in the ‘radiant’ category.

‘Radiant’ or ‘shining’ (minukku)

This class includes both idealized female hero-ines, such as Sita in the Ramayana, Panchali in The Flower of Good Fortune, the Brahman’s wife in The Progeny of Krishna, or Mohini in King Rugmamgada’s Law, and the purest and most spiri-tually perfected males, including brahmans, holy men, and sages. The base make-up for this class is a warm yellow-orange, hence the term ‘radiant’ or ‘shining.’ Costumes for this class are close to tra-ditional everyday dress. Since men play female roles, they don a long-sleeved upper garment, wear a white lower cloth, and then suggest the tra-ditional female hair by wrapping a colorful cloth around a false top-knot worn slightly to the left on the actor’s head. Holy men wear the typical saf-fron yellow and a special crown, while brahmans,

Kathakali texts in performance 55

like the main role in The Progeny of Krishna, wear a simple lower cloth as well as an upper cloth tied over the head. When demonesses such as Simhika in The Killing of Kirmira appear in disguise, they appear as idealized beautiful maidens in the female version of ‘radiant’ make-up and costume.

‘Special’ (teppu)

The final category is a catch-all class which in-cludes approximately eighteen characters from the active repertory of plays that do not fit any of the above types. Included here are the special bird-style make-ups and costumes of such famous characters as Garuda, Jatayu, and Hamsa (the goose in Nalacaritam); the goddess Bhadrakali who appears in Daksa ‘s Sacrifice with a pock-marked face (white rice-paste spots), an ingeniously painted red tongue, and row of upper teeth which makes it appear that her upper lip is missing; the fantastic man-lion incarnation of Lord Vishnu ap-pearing in King Prahlada’s Law, and such comic vil-lage female stereotypes as Vriddha, the midwife character in The Progeny of Krishna, and Manthara, the comic old woman character added to the P.S.V.Natyasangham company’s version of The Complete Ramayana. Since each of these characters and their make-ups are unique and do not ‘fit’ the normative categories, they exemplify kathakali’s flexibility.

Masks

A few kathakali animal characters wear masks, or appear in a mask after being transformed. A mon-key mask is used for Bali’s son, Angada, who ap-pears at the conclusion of The Killing of Bali as his father, Bali, lies on the verge of death in the arms of his brother, Sugriva. In Daksa’s Sacrifice, after treating Siva with contempt, Brahma’s son, Daksa, is beheaded by Siva’s emissaries, Virabhadra and Bhadrakali. When Brahma prays to Siva for Daksa’s forgiveness, Daksa is restored to life, but his own head is replaced with that of a goat—here in the form of a goat mask.

The meaning of types

Kathakali’s basic make-up types reflect South Asian assumptions about the substantive nature

56 Performance in the kerala context

of the person. It is traditionally assumed that one’s fundamental nature and behavior are deter-mined by one’s gunam—the material substance, property or quality with which one is born, in-cluding goodness or truth (sattva), passion (rajasa), and darkness (tamasa). As Marvin Davis observes, they are the

‘Stuff of which the universe is made. Together they are the constituent elements of all matter; not the attributes of matter, but the three modes in which matter itself is constituted.

Physical nature and behavioral codes are not…distinct and separate features… Hindus regard the natural and the cultural as cognitively non-dualistic features.

(1976:6–8)

Although one’s fundamental gunam is determined at birth according to the substances mixed by the couple, the specific time of birth, and the influ-ence of the stars and the gods (Marriott 1980:5), within each basic type the predominance of good-ness, the energetic, or the dark substance will vary according to the individual.

Similar to the categories and typifications of role-types outlined in the Natyasastra, kathakali’s make-up types and characters range across the three ba-sic substantive (gunam) categories, each with its ‘stereotypical’ behaviors and/or qualities associated with the social rank of a role. For example, the Natyasastra identifies/ classifies its four types of he-roes (nayaka) by ‘conduct’ as follows:

the self-controlled and vehement (dhiroddhata), the self-controlled and light-hearted (dhiralalita), the self-controlled and exalted (dhirodatta) and self-controlled and calm (dhiraprasanta).

(Ghosh, Vol. II, 1962:203)

Clearly the Natyasastra expected all heroes to be ‘self-controlled,’ but there was considerable room for individuation in the quality through which such self-control was manifest in a character’s be-havior. What is theatrically and dramatically in-teresting is how a (Sanskrit or kathakali) play-wright has created each individual character within a type by negotiating his or her inhering ‘nature’ in the context of a specific set of dramatic circumstances. Kathakali playwrights have always

created their characters between two general sets of sources—the characters as they appear in the Kerala versions of Sanskrit epic and puranic litera-tures influenced more or less by such prescriptive treatises as the Natyasastra, and particular local models of behavior and characterization. For too long Western scholars, following anthropologists like Louis Dumont, have problematically failed to differentiate ‘individuality from individualism’—a failure which denies to non-Western cultures and societies like India ‘concepts and values of indi-viduality’ (Cohen 1994:14). Too often categories such as kathakali’s makeup ‘types’ are assumed to subsume the character. Too much emphasis is placed on the category or structure per se so that the category/type seems to ‘erase’ the individual-ity either of the dramatic character as written by the author, and/or as creatively played by the ac-tor—a subject explored more fully in Chapter 4.

In kathakali, male characters range from the most substantively refined (sattvika) and pure brahmans in their ‘shining’ make-up; to the naturally ener-getic (rajasik), vigorous, and heroic princes/kshatriyas, who with their ‘green’ makeup reveal their ‘sattvika’ side; to the ‘mixed’ category demon-kings in their ‘knife’ make-up who are energetic, vigorous, but also ‘dark’ in their use of their vigor and power; to the primarily ‘dark’ (tamasa) red-beards and black-beards—either those who are unredeemably evil and/or associated with the dark, ‘uncivilized’ na-ture of the forest. As we shall see in the commen-taries on particular plays and characters in Chap-ters 5–8, characters like the Brahmin in The Progeny of Krishna or Rugmamgada in King Rugmamgada’s Law each embody and display behaviors and/or states of being/doing which reflect the socio-cul-tural realities and concerns of kathakali’s patrons— Namboodiri brahmins and royal Nayar lineages.

Since females are by ‘nature’ considered impure and unrefined compared to males, females can only be compared with other females. In kathakali they fall within two contrasting basic types—the ideal-ized females who conform to standardized notions of female behavior and purity as dutiful wives and heroines modelled on Sita and/or Draupadi, and therefore are as ‘pure’ (sattvika) as possible for a woman, and their opposites—the ‘dark’ (kari) demonesses who by nature are lustful, sexually charged, ugly, hysterical, and are ‘dangerous’ shape-changers able to transform themselves, and

therefore are tamasa in nature. Kathakali’s demonesses clearly reflect the basic characteristics of the fearsome goddess Kali/Bhagavati so central to Nayar identity and worship (Caldwell 1995, pas-sim). As Marlene Pitkow explains, between these two extremes on a continuum is the lalita who ap-pears in minukku make-up but is a celestial enchant-ress (such as Mohini) and seductress (1998:15–16), who, in combining elements of ‘two primary iden-tities’ (the minukku and the kari), becomes ‘the most realistically human figure in kathakali.’ Pitkow de-scribes the lalita as

maya…the embodiment of dread, the confusion between what someone appears to be and is in reality. The lalita type is also linked to the yaksi. Familiar to Kerala’s folk tradition, yaksis are con-sidered to be special types of female ghosts of unhappy women who die before having had sex or before marriage or giving birth. As yaksis, they return to earth in the form of seductive women to trap men and devour them…

When she appears, the spectator knows that an appearance prescribed for one character type is being borne by a character of diametrically op-posite traits. This awareness of a purely dra-matic imposture reflects the lalita’s greater psy-chic complexity. She alone of kathakali charac-ters shows the common human experience of the disparity between appearance and percep-tion.

(1998:16, 245)

Kathakali texts in performance 57

which give many of the characters their bulbous shape.

Once the make-up is finished, and they are outfitted in their full costumes and accessories, the actors go through several steps to complete the proc-ess. Important for all actors is the placing of a tiny crushed seed (cuntappuvu) under each of his eye-lids. The placing of this harmless seed is a process not unlike putting in a contact lens since it causes the actor no discomfort. The crushed seed allows the whites of the actor’s eyes to become reddish as the veins are exposed, thereby accentuating a char-acter’s states of being/doing (bhava) as revealed in his facial expressions. For actors playing either an evil ‘red-beard’ or ‘black’ character, they also place a set of fangs inside their mouths, which are re-vealed when the character displays his fearsome nature. But the most important final step of prepa-ration is when the actor places the crown and/or head-covering on his head. At the moment before covering his head, the actor always remembers his

The make-up process

The make-up and costuming process is lengthy, and takes from two to four hours depending on the complexity of the particular make-up. Spe-cialist make-up artists apply the complex rice-paste patterns layer by layer, and the actors com-plete their own make-up by filling in the neces-sary colors. While lying before the specialist ap-plying rice-paste, actors may use this quiet time to meditate, take in mind the character they will be playing in the evening’s performance, and/or sleep (see Plate 3.1). Assistants help the actors dress and wrap the yards of starched under-cloth

Plate 3.1 A make-up specialist applies rice-paste to Padmanabhan Asan’s face as the make-up for Hanuman is created. Hanuman appears in The Flower of Good Fortune

58 Performance in the kerala context

teacher or teachers—an act of devotion and respect for his lineage of performance. Finally, just before entering the stage, the actor places the set of long silver nails on his left hand—nails which accentu-ate the visibility and beauty of kathakali’s elaborate gesture-language (mudra).

Properties

Kathakali’s simple stage can become a palace or a forest at a moment’s notice. The actor’s physicalization of dramatic action and of the text’s rich poetic images, supplemented by his dancing of set pieces of choreography, provoke the audience’s imaginative engagement in the cre-ation of the ‘world’ of the play. The only ‘set piece’ the actor uses is a small square wooden stool. Here the king can sit on his ‘throne,’ hold-ing audience and receiving guests. For Hanuman, in The Flower of Good Fortune, the stool can become an extension of his physical presence as he sud-denly reveals his ‘divine’ superhuman form to Bhima. Hanuman simply hops onto the stool, physicalizing his superhuman transformation.

Properties per se are few. A chariot is created through the mimetic action and dance of the per-former as he simultaneously physicalizes the chariot, horse, and driver, rhythmically moving around the stage, an imaginary ‘whip’ in hand,

Figure 3.8 Kathakali drums

driving the ‘horses’ to battle. If the character mounts a divine chariot taking him into the heavens, he simply steps onto the stool for the swaying, wind-driven ride heaven-ward.

Among the few properties which are not mimed are Bhima’s ladle when disguised as a cook, and weapons. Stage weapons include the large mace (gada), bows and arrows, double-edged sword, small club (pondi), and sword and shield. The large mace is not actually wielded onstage, but carried on oc-casion by a character like Bhima to signify his su-perhuman strength. The sword and shield is only used by the character Yavana. Stage duels and bat-tles are enacted through the use of swords, bow and arrow, small club, or fists. All weapons are made of wood and painted, usually red and gold.

Perhaps the most important piece of stage ap-paratus is the overhead canopy. Usually very colorful, it is held over the heads of some charac-ters such as Ravana during their initial revelation to the audience behind the curtain, especially scenes emphasizing the erotic sentiment, and/or for dra-matic tableaus.

Kathakali music

When composing each play the playwright/ composer selects a specific melody (raga) and

rhythmic pattern (tala) to enhance the sentiment or mood of each section of the text. Changes of raga or tala often occur when there is a shift in the basic mood. Raga may be defined as a series of melodic modes built on a specific set of notes in the scale, and elaborated to bring together the musicians, performers, and audience in the mood the raga is intended to evoke. The melodic line in kathakali is created by the vocalists who sing the text (including sloka, dandaka, and padam) since there are no melodic instruments per se in kathakali.⁴ The lead singer (ponnani) sets the mood and tempo of the entire performance, and along with the second singer creates the dynamic waves of melodic sound as their voices overlap, reinforming the emotional content and moods of the dramatic text.

Talas are the rhythmic patterns arranged in set formulas which mark time and guide the kathakali orchestra and actor-dancers through the perform-ance. The percussion orchestra keeps the basic rhythmic patterns, and also elaborates on, around, and within the basic pattern. It also creates a dra-matic sound environment in order to accentuate the nuances of the actor’s performance, as well as developing and enhancing the overall mood of a scene. The percussion orchestra consists of the lead singer (ponnani) who also holds and plays the gong (cenkila), the second singer who assists in keeping the basic rhythmic patterns on the bell metal hand cymbals (ilattalam), and the three kathakali drums: maddalam, centa, and itaykka (see Figure 3.8). The lead singer serves as a kind of onstage ‘stage man-ager’ since he controls the rhythm of the entire performance on his hand-held gong.

There are six different tala in kathakali music (Figure 3.9). Each tala has a specific number of time units (matras or beats) which identify that particu-lar tala as unique. Of the total number of beats in any given tala, only certain specific units are ac-cented, with the remainder being unaccented. Each tala is arranged so that cycles of the basic pattern of accented and unaccented beats are linked one after another. For example, when performed in the ‘first’ or basic tempo, cempata tala has eight beats of which three are accented and five are unaccented. Each dance pattern (such as a kalasam) and each phrase of the sung dialogue portions (padam) of the text are set within a specific number of cycles (talavattam).

Kathakali texts in performance 59

Each pattern or set of cycles may be played in one of three different basic speeds (kala):

1 slow (vilamba or ‘first speed’ onnam kala);

2 medium (madya or ‘second speed’ randam kala);

3 fast (druta or ‘third speed’ munnam kala).

Medium speed is a doubling of slow speed, and fast is a doubling again of medium speed. In addi-tion, there is the very slow pattern (patinnakalam) used only for love scenes.

Although an oversimplification, it is generally true that certain major moods are associated with particular speeds, and that a sudden change in the basic speed of a rhythmic pattern, or a change from one pattern to another, marks a change of mood. As already noted, the slowest of the slow (patinnakalam) is only used for love scenes. The first or slowest of the basic three speeds is also associ-ated with the erotic sentiment (srngara) or compas-sion (karuna). Medium speed is generally used to create the heroic (vira) or wonder (adbhuta). Fast speed is for the expression of fury (raudra) or fear (bhayanaka). As Leela Omchery notes, unlike South Indian concert music,

kathakali musicians and instrumentalists are ex-pected to perform—not according to their own will or pleasure, but according to the demand of the (dramatic) situation. Their aim, therefore, will be to search the various musical ways by which they can effectively express the different moods and situations in their variety and di-versity. So naturally, here the musician has to elaborate those parts of the song which the char-acter chooses for elaboration. He has to stop where the dancer concludes. Moreover his sing-ing should be in such a way that it conveys the idea of the song and situation in their best. In short he has to cry, laugh, quarrel etc. through his music in order to encourage the actor and strengthen the situation…

But in creating…a mood, the musician has to take into consideration not only the situation but also the characterization. Panchali and Surpanakha narrate the story of their molesta-tion to others. But their expression may not be and should not be similar. Nala and Kirata express their love

60 Performance in the kerala context

Figure 3.9 Kathakali rhythmic patterns (tala) (Designed by M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri)

for Damayanti. But the expression of their love should not be similar even if the songs are set in the same raga, tala, etc. While singing for the noble characters the musician has to safeguard their nobility by making his expression con-trolled and dignified and vice versa.

(1969:7–16)

Kathakali music is central to the creation and ex-pression of kathakali’s full and wide range of dra-matic moods through its melodic lines, basic rhythmic patterns, speeds of performance, and percussive accentuations. Clifford and Betty Jones have isolated some of the dominant sentiments usually associated with each basic tala:

cempata: the most common tala covering a full range of moods, and also used for concluding scenes, especially violent battles and fights.

campa: most often used for ‘scenes of ten-sion, agitated dispute, or battle.’

atanta: for scenes with ‘dignity and maj-esty.’

pancari: for the comic, horrific, and odious, or for accompanying such specific actions as sharpening a sword.

triputa: for scenes with sages or Brahmins, and for scenes with tension.

muri atanta: also for comic, light-hearted, hor-rific, odious, as well as fast-mov-ing scenes ‘in which anger or hero-ism is predominant’ (Jones and Jones 1970:82).

The vocalists help create and reinforce the emo-tional content and moods of the text. Since he is the ‘voice of the character,’ the vocalist must

attack somebody at the top of his voice in wrath or…appeal to somebody in a tired tone of agony. Sometimes it so happens that the musi-cian has to give expression to these different emotions through the same raga. He ably car-ries out his job not only by restricting his music to the higher or lower octaves but also by chang-ing the tonal qualities of the same notes and phrases of the raga.

(Omchery 1969:14)

Kathakali texts in performance 61

Although each raga and tala was originally set by the author/composer of each play, over the years changes have occasionally been made in raga or tala for specific sections of a performance when an actor-dancer or musician thinks that a change may enhance the dramatic mood of the scene. Consequently, today’s performances usually fol-low the raga and tala set by a particular lineage of performance and do not necessarily perform the raga or tala indicated in the literary text.

Members of the music ensemble are onstage throughout a performance. Performances mini-mally include two vocalists, centa, and maddalam players join and/or relieve each other during all night performances. The vocalists stand upstage center left, and the drummers upstage center right. At least one vocalist is always onstage keeping the basic rhythmic patterns with his gong or cymbals, and is accompanied by at least one, and usually two, drummers (always the maddalam, plus either the centa or idaykka). Especially for fast-paced scenes in which fury and fighting predominate or for Simhika’s entry through the audience in The Kill-ing of Kirmira, additional centa, maddalam, and cym-bal/gong players may be added to create thunder-ous waves of sound which cascade through the cycles of tala bringing scenes to their climax, and often bringing performances to their conclusions. A final instrument is the conch shell—used to cre-ate auspicious moments in performance, such as Lord Vishnu’s dramatic entrance at the climactic moment of King Rugmamgada’s Law (see p. 170).

Kathakali choreography

As a dance-drama, all kathakali dance has been created to elaborate upon and/or accentuate the drama and its ever-changing moods; however, some dances are intended to enhance directly the immediate mood or action of the dramatic narra-tive, and others are ‘pure’ dance, especially appre-ciated for their stylistic elaboration. Kathakali dance ranges from the very strong and vigorous (tandava) to the soft, fluid, or languid (lasya). The languid is most evident in the choreography of idealized ‘shining’ female characters. Dramatic dances such as choreographed battles illustrate the ‘strong’ vigorous style of kathakali dance as

62 Performance in the kerala context

they push forward the narrative action of the drama. Other set pieces of choreography such as kalasam, which punctuate the performance of the dramatic text, help create, sustain, and/or elabo-rate on the dramatic mood of a scene. Longer pieces of ‘set’ choreography such as the ‘peacock dance’ in The Killing of Narakasura enhance the overall mood of a scene, but are also something of

1. ‘time-out’ from the dramatic narrative, since they are appreciated for their choreographic/sty-listic beauty per se. Kathakali dances may be roughly categorized into the following four gen-eral types of choreography:

1 Preliminary ‘pure’ dances: the totayam and purappatu are the two preliminary pure dances traditionally performed as part of the prelimi-naries before an all-night performance, and an essential part of the training of the actor-dancer. The totayam is a lengthy piece of choreography taught during the student’s first year of train-ing. It includes all the basic non-interpretive el-ements of performance techniques, including foot patterns, body movement, use of the hands, and keeping time to basic rhythmic cycles. The choreography takes the student through all the basic rhythmic patterns in the basic speeds. Tra-ditionally performed behind the hand-held cur-tain during the preliminaries, it served as an opportunity for young students to practise their basic dance technique.

The second preliminary dance, purappatu, is also a sequence of pure dance traditionally taught during the first year of training. Performed in full costume and make-up, the choreography is technically more difficult than the totayam, es-pecially in combining more complex use of hand gestures with dance.

2 Accentuating/linking dances: as noted above, four types of choreography are closely knit into the fabric of performance of the dramatic text, serve to accentuate the dramatic mood, and link one part of the performance of the text to the next. The most important and numerous are kalasam— the primary dance compositions that punctu-ate the stanzas of the ‘dialogue’ passages (padam) of the text. These pieces of set choreography are danced according to the appropriate mood of the scene, and are accompanied only by the percussionists and not the singers. For example,

at the conclusion of a passage in which the main state of being/doing is the heroic, a kalasam will probably be in a fast enough tempo to accentu-ate the character’s heroic nature. If demanded by the dramatic context, occasionally a kalasam is only performed by the percussionists, and not the actor-dancer. M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri provides a clear explanation of the relationship between dancing a kalasam and the dramatic context:

Kalasams acquire their emotional import from the different rhythms, tempi, and qualities of movements. In scenes of battles and wordy challenges exchanged between oppo-nents, the mudra interpretation of the dia-logue lines takes a secondary place, giving all prominence to the kalasams which are char-acterized by larger and faster movements. The action is percussive and collapsing ac-companied by sudden explosive release of energy. All these qualities continue to give a total impression of heroism, anger, fighting, moods, etc.

In contrast to the above, in the slow-paced scenes of gentler bhavas like love, pathos, pity, devotion, etc. associated with major roles in kathakali, kalasams are woven out of slow, sus-tained, softly curving movements. There is no abrupt eruption of energy, nor are there any unexpected twists or turns. The energy flows evenly. There is a swaying but con-trolled quality about it. The kalasams reflect the tender bhavas in a dignified form.

(1983:197).

In addition to kalasam, three other types of cho-

reography are used to elaborate upon the dra-

matic mood or to link elements of the perfor-

mance. Iratti serve the same function as, and

are choreographically similar to, kalasam; how-

ever, they are specifically set in one rhythmic

pattern (cempata tala), and are accompanied by

the vocalists as they sing the refrain in a poetic

passage while the dance is performed. Tonkaram

are like the iratti with a slightly different chore-

ography. Nalamiratti are set in ekatala to a series

of single beats, and used either for exits or as a

dance linking part of the performance to the

next.

3 Set pieces of choreography: some pieces of ‘set’ choreography like that for battles, entrances,

and entrances behind the curtain are adapted to the specific dramatic context, while others are specific to one or more plays. The latter in-clude the well-known ‘sari dance’ for the en-trance of female characters, and the ‘peacock dance’ in The Killing of Narakasura. The ‘sari dance’ emphasizes the ‘erotic’ mood with its languid, graceful curves and circularity. The ‘peacock dance’ is a choreographed, mimetic, tour de force elaboration (vistarikuka) of the de-mon-king Narakasura’s description of the peacock’s beauty as it cleans and preens itself in a garden.

4 Improvised dances: dance improvisations occur when senior performers elaborate on the text.

A structure and aesthetic of elaboration

To summarize, kathakali performances are collec-tive and collaborative realizations of the aesthetic potential of the performance score. As the vocal-ists sing the entire performance text, the music ensemble provides the basic rhythmic framework accompanying each element of the performance, and each actor-dancer realizes his role by em-bodying/enacting the character, ‘speaking’ his dialogue through use of the highly codified sys-tem of hand-gestures (mudra), and dancing both pure and interpretive choreography as part of the role.

Kathakali’s complex performance score could be described as a series of elaborations and embel-lishments—elaborations and embellishments on and within elaborations. The elaboration characteris-tic of the double performance of padam, the elabo-ration of sloka when performed, the vocalists’ modes of elaborating while singing, and the percussion-ists’ modes of rhythmic elaboration have all been designed and refined over the years as self-conscious challenges to the artists’ collective skills. It is pre-cisely these modes of elaboration which are savored by connoisseurs. Along with aesthetic elaboration, kathakali’s cyclical performance structure and all-night duration reflect South Asian assumptions about the nature of time. Mircea Eliade has noted that in India

Kathakali texts in performance 63

time is cyclic, the world is periodically created and destroyed, and the lunar symbolism of ‘birth-death-rebirth’ is manifested in a great number of myths and rites. It was on the basis of such an immemorial heritage that the pan-Indian doctrine of the ages of the world and of the cosmic cycles developed.

(1957:185)

I would argue that this cyclical notion of time is reflected in kathakali’s narrative and performance structure. The dusk-to-dawn duration is the most obvious reflection of a cyclical notion of time and cosmos, as is the underlying sacrificial/ritual no-tion of renewal assumed in many kathakali plays where ‘killings’ of evil demons and demon-kings are necessary to set right the cosmos by the con-clusion of the ‘play’ (lila) of the gods within these plays.⁵

Lest these arguments seem tendentious, I would argue that kathakali’s repetitive, internal structure of performance reflects (see Figure 3.10), fundamen-tally, this cyclical notion of time. The most obvi-ous structural features which are cyclical are the structure of tala, the rhythmic cycles which struc-ture much of a performance, with the exception of performance of sloka, and the double-acting of the padam which necessarily employs the vocalists’ rep-etition of the vocal text. Part of the attraction of kathakali is precisely the pleasure taken in the pre-dictable waves/cycles of rhythm which lead (at best) to moments of congruence between all the perform-ers—that space between the end of one cycle of rhythm and the beginning of the next. In these moments there can be an experiential sense of com-pletion, consummation, return, and then continu-ance as the performance score progresses onward to its next phase. When lengthy interpolations are part of the performance score, there is a sense in which these are a ‘time out’ from the ‘through line’ or ‘base line’ of the narrative; but they always bring the connoisseur back to where he was left off, sus-pended momentarily in the ongoing progress of the drama—a repetition which marks a return to the character in the story.

It is to the actor’s training and creative process in creating and bringing this complex structure to ‘life’ that we turn our attention in Chapter 4.

64 Performance in the kerala context

Figure 3.10 Cycles of repetition and elaboration in kathakali performance

4

what does it mean ‘to become the character’? kathakali actor training and characterization

INTRODUCTION

I always used to be in the green room watch-ing. It was so colorful—the costumes and the make-up…that was in my village where they would have occasional kathakali performances. I was fascinated by this even from an early age… I thought it was something great. I was content just to sit there and watch, even though I couldn’t really understand anything. Then I knew I wanted to become a kathakali actor.

(M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri 1976, personal interview)

For many children the fascination of kathakali is first and foremost its synesthetic combination of movement, light, color, and sound which creates an epic ‘larger than life’ world. At most kathakali performances children continue to crowd around the green room, peeking inside to watch the intri-cate make-up process. On stage, the exciting battles, or characters like Hanuman the monkey-king in The Flower of Good Fortune, continue to fas-cinate children when, startled from his meditation by a thunderous sound, with his mimetic ‘true-to-life’ antics, the actor playing Hanuman tries to fig-ure out what it is that has disturbed him. When a consummate actor like Ramankutty Nayar plays Hanuman, his interaction with the audience and the children in it never fails to bring laughter and

smiles of immediate engagement as he mimeti-cally enacts his monkey-nature by feeling an itch, scratching it, discovering and picking lice out of his hairy coat, and then throwing them into the audience.

For children, of course, the simple but rich pleas-ures and delights of kathakali’s easily accessible mi-metic moments belie the years of arduous training it takes to reach a level of mastery in kathakali’s basic techniques and structures of performance, or the maturity of interpretation and subtlety of taste that an artist like Ramankutty Nayar brings to a role like Hanuman, which may be ‘played to the gallery’ by less mature actors. When I ask seasoned kathakali actors like Ramankutty Nayar ‘What makes for the best acting?’ they usually respond with one of two similar expressions—‘the actor be-comes one with the character’ (natan kathapatravumayi tadatmyam prapikkanam) or ‘the ac-tor becomes absorbed in the character’ (natan kathapatravumayi alinnu cerunnu). In translation these statements sound quite similar to how some Stanislavskian-trained Western actors describe act-ing. In the analysis which follows I ask, ‘What is the process of training and interiority which ex-plains a kathakali actor’s understanding of “becom-ing”?’ I argue that the training, structure of per-formance, and assumptions about the body, bodymind, and character or role which inform what it means ‘to become’ reveal a process and set

66 Performance in the kerala context

of assumptions with some similarities to, but also many differences from, that of most contemporary Western actors.

KATHAKALI ACTING: A GENERAL INTRODUCTION

It is generally agreed among both performers and connoisseurs that kathakali actors, with rare excep-tion, do not reach ‘maturity’ until at least the age of forty. The path to becoming a ‘mature’ actor is long and arduous, and traditionally began at the age of seven or eight. Today’s student may be ten or older when he begins training, but formal in-struction in basic techniques and repertory still lasts six to ten years, and the years immediately following are spent playing smaller roles as ap-prentice, junior actors.

The anecdotal forty-year age of ‘maturity’ for the full-time male kathakali actor reflects the assump-tion that it takes a ‘lifetime’ to reach a level where one’s technique has become second nature, and where one’s artistry in playing important roles is recognized as one’s own and is appreciated as such. To become a well-known kathakali actor whose per-formances are in demand means undergoing a gradual, long-term process of (re)shaping the bodymind, perfecting basic techniques of perform-ance, growing and maturing as an individual, en-gaging in study and reflection, developing one’s imagination, and integrating all the above into the shaping and playing of characters in the repertory each night of performance. This process is sum-marized (Figure 4.1) as a three-fold, including:

1 the pre-performance processes of formal train-ing and informal enculturation prior to the day of a performance;

2 the actor’s creative process as he approaches playing a role on any given night;

3 the performance per se.

The first phase of this process is the most obvious and includes both the formal process of lengthy training—the actor’s initial onstage experience while a neophyte, his life-long study of India’s epic and puranic literature in order to steep himself in the stories, mythology, and lore on which tradi-tional plays are based—and the gradual

enculturation into the aesthetics, conventions, and social world of performance.

The second phase is the actor’s creative proc-ess on the night of each performance. This crea-tive process begins before or during the make-up process when the actor has time to reflect on the role he is to play. His process is a synthesis of training, reflection, study, maturity, and the en-gagement of the actor’s individual imagination and creativity. Actors reflect on both the style and the nuances of past performances by great mas-ters playing a particular role, on information and stories from the epics and puranas that give him a richer understanding of the character he is to play, or which provide him with new ideas and insights into how to perform imaginatively a particular in-terpolation.

Finally, there is the actual performance per se where the actor’s relative ‘success’ depends on how well his own performance fits with the artistry and skill of the make-up artists and costumers, the mu-sicians, the performances of his fellow actors, and the experience and knowledge an audience brings to the performance.

Kathakali training is a rigorous and arduous proc-ess of transmission of embodied performance knowledge achieved through constant, daily rep-etition of basic exercises which provide the psy-chophysiological foundation for developing both superb technique and individual artistic creativity when ‘becoming a character.’ At least in its initial stages, the process of transmission of performance knowledge in kathakali is more similar to dance or martial arts training than most Western actor train-ing since, as kathakali actor M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri explains, ‘First, perfection of the body is most important’ (1978, interview). Perfection of the body is necessary to gain the flexibility, bal-ance, control, and strength to shape the body to kathakali’s unique and difficult style of movement, and to acquire the ability to perform vigorous roles and dances for periods of up to two hours or more during all-night performances. Only when the fun-damental techniques have been so well embedded into the neophyte’s bodymind that such techniques are part of his performative body-consciousness, ready-at-hand to be used in the performative mo-ment, can the maturing student eventually create characters, and be ready to give his individual ar-tistic signature to a role.

Actor training and characterization 67

Figure 4.1 The kathakali actor’s process: an overview

68 Performance in the kerala context

Without romanticizing the daily drudgery in-volved in repetition of basic exercises, it is assumed that only if a student follows the rigorous path of training before him can he eventually reshape his bodymind so that the actor can fully embody, in-terpret, and create characters with any degree of mastery. As kathakali actor Gopi Asan explains, ‘only those who have thoroughly mastered the tech-niques for which a systematic and rigid training is available can successfully portray major roles… A kind of awareness of one’s body, added to confi-dence, is gained through such training’ (1993, in-terview).

Kathakali actors seek to actualize an ‘ideal’ char-acterization in each performance of a role. On the best night this ideal means that the actor has had sufficient time to prepare and reflect on the role, gives the role his full concentration, and is able to ‘absorb’ or ‘become’ the character. Achieving this ideal is a synthesis of the ‘external,’ psychophysi-ological score, and the ‘internal’ dimensions of play-ing a role. In terms drawn from the Natyasastra, the audience’s experience is ‘carried toward or forward’ (abhinaya) through four elements:

1. aharya—the costumes, make-up, and proper-ties;
2. vacika—the vocal element (carried primarily in kathakali by the onstage vocalists);
3. sattvika—the expressive, ‘internal’ element of acting;
4. angika—the embodied, ‘expressive’ element of acting.

The majority of the kathakali actor’s time in for-mal training is spent in repetitiously learning the skills needed to perform the overtly expressive modes of creating and performing roles. The sattvika element is the subtler, more ‘hidden’ ele-ment of the actor’s art.

Figure 4.2 is a summary of the kathakali actor’s process synthesizing the ‘external,’ expressive/em-bodied process, with the more individual, ‘inter-nal’ process.¹ Kathakali’s formalized external tech-niques—facial expression, hand-gestures, etc.—are used to create the nine basic ‘enduring’ states (stayibhava), eight of which were identified in the Natyasastra, including love, laughter, the heroic, sor-row, anger, fear, disgust, and astonishment. The ninth basic state in kathakali, at-onement, was iden-

tified by the commentator Abhinavagupta in the twelfth century. There are also secondary or sub-ordinate states of being/doing (sancaribhava), such as pride, which provide an even greater range of expression than the basic states. All of these states can be observed in everyday life, and the relatively stylized modes of codification which they assume in kathakali reflect the basic physiological signs through which these states are normally read; for example, when an individual is frightened, the eyes usually open wide. In kathakali such basic physi-ological traits have been codified, stylized, and taught as stereotypical expressions of these ‘endur-ing states’; however, in performance of a specific character, the particular nuances of expression of each state are made specific to both the character type, and the dramatic circumstances.

In training, the complex modes of facial expres-sion have been broken down into their most basic physiological/muscular components so that the ac-tor independently exercises all the specific muscles needed to embody each state fully—his eyebrows, eyelids, lips, cheeks, etc. The meticulous and pains-taking years of training in the independent use of each set of muscles, and each expressive state, even-tually allows the actor to perform the codes intui-tively as interpreted in the dramatic moment. It is to these fully embodied, psychophysiological states that the mature actor brings his individuality, his own life experience and maturity, and the subtler ‘internal’ elements of inhabiting these states with his mind/consciousness. It is the actor’s full and dramatically ‘appropriate’ embodiment and actu-alization of these states that allow him to ‘carry forward’ his performance to the audience, and thereby makes available to the audience their ex-perience of rasa—tasting aesthetic delight.

THE PROCESS AND STRUCTURE OF TRAINING

Embodied disciplines like kathakali were tradition-ally taught through the gurukkula system. A stu-dent, once accepted by a teacher, would reside in his teacher’s home and, while undergoing train-ing, serve the teacher. The intimacy, sharing, dis-cipline, and embodiment of the teacher’s unique artistic stamp are the ideal hallmarks of this model. It remains an ideal

Actor training and characterization 69

Figure 4.2 The kathakali actor’s process: synthesizing the ‘external’ and the ‘internal’

today, even in its increasing absence in the midst of modern institutional and political structures which make its realization increasingly difficult.

Since the founding of modern institutions, such as the Kerala Kalamandalam, full-time stu-dents usually live at the school where they are training, and receive a meagre subsistence sti-pend.² Conditions are spartan, but life generally is still lived quite simply for the majority of Malayalis. As I have previously pointed out, the spartan conditions of training should not be ro-manticized (Zarrilli 1977).

Admission to training at institutions is by a for-mal interview/audition process. Major criteria in selecting students include:

1 A boy’s physical features. Is his body flexible and healthy? Has he had any previous injuries? What is the basic structure of his facial features, i.e., does his face lend itself to a basic type of character?

2 Sense of rhythm. Does the student have a basic ‘natural’ sense of rhythm? At an interview/au-dition prospective students may be asked to beat out basic rhythmic patterns to see if they are able to keep a basic rhythm.

3 Sincerity. Does the student have a sincere in-terest in kathakali, and would he be able to with-stand the rigors of training?

Noted senior actor Gopi Asan explains how he was selected as a student at the Kalamandalam in 1951:

70 Performance in the kerala context

Every applicant in acting was asked to put on make-up and costume in order to know whether their physical features, especially the face, was suitable for an actor. In my case, it so happened that at first sight, Mahakavi Vallathol com-mented that this boy’s physical features befit-ted an actor, and hence there was no need for me to audition!

(1993, interview)

Although the optimal age for beginning training is ten to twelve, since the young boy’s body is still relatively flexible, an increasing number of stu-dents do not begin until the age of sixteen to eigh-teen. Admission to formal, full-time kathakali training today remains an exclusively male privi-lege and opportunity with the exception of for-eign women, or their north Indian cosmopolitan counterparts. Malayali girls interested in kathakali train privately part-time, usually after school (see Pitkow 1998:79; Zarrilli 1984a: 91–4). Kathakali actors, administrators, and connoisseurs alike share a common set of negative assumptions and arguments garnered against admitting (Malayali) girls to full-time kathakali training and perfor-mance. One actor explained,

I don’t think women will make good perform-ers because they have some limitations age-wise and so on. If they reach a certain age they will not be able to concentrate on this, especially when they get married. They may do it all right before their marriage. The physical capabilities also differ from that of a man. In kathakali men can do all the difficult things, but not women.

(1976, interview)

Women are generally perceived as not having a strong enough constitution to undergo the rigors of full-time kathakali training and performance with its vigorous, strong, and energetic (tandava) dance, its difficult body-exercise training and painful, deep full-body massage derived from Kerala martial tradition (kalarippayattu).³ Marlene Pitkow relates the story about a member of the all-female ‘traditional’ kathakali troupe (Tripunithura Kathakali Kendra) who tried to gain admission to the Kerala Kalamandalam but

she was refused admission because she was a

woman. The presence of Indian women in the classroom would be too disruptive to the learn-ing process, a member of the Kalamandalam’s governing board told us. He also noted that because women would quit once they married, training them was not worth the investment.

(Pitkow 1998:80)

Formal yearly training begins with the onset of the monsoon season in early June—the season considered suitable for vigorous exercise because it is relatively cool. A first-year student begins training by giving dakshina (offering/gifts) to his teacher, and then bowing at his master’s feet as he receives the master’s blessing. Dakshina tradition-ally consists of betel leaves, areca nut, and a few coins, symbolizing and actualizing the student’s initiation into the rigorous training process. The master in turn gives the student his first kacca (loin cloth), which, as in martial training, is wrapped around the lower abdominal region to provide firm support for vigorous exercise.

In his explanation of his own rigorous training at the Kerala Kalamandalam between 1951 and 1957, master actor Gopi Asan describes all the ba-sic elements of kathakali training:

[At that time], there were only seven students in acting. The gurus were very particular about giving personal attention to the students. The first session began at 2.30 a.m. with an hour-long eye-practice. This was followed by vari-ous exercises and oil massage [given by the teacher’s feet]. After a short break for morning bath and breakfast, the classes resumed from 8.30–11.30 a.m. During this session the pre-liminary dances (todayam, purappatu) and re-hearsal of stories were done. Again, there was a break for lunch and a short rest. Acting stu-dents were not allowed to sleep while resting. This third session lasted from 3.30 to 5.30 p.m. This was also used for rehearsing stories (colliyattam). The fourth and final session started at 7.15 p.m. and lasted for an hour and fifteen minutes. Here we practised the nine ba-sic facial expressions (navarasas), memorized texts, and learned appropriate hand-gestures. It was in this class that the guru gave lessons on character study, the meaning of the text, etc. Soon after dinner

Actor training and characterization 71

Figure 4.3 Kathakali training at the Kerala Kalamandalam: the overall pattern

Plate 4.1 One of the South-ern-style kathakali jumps (cattam) learned as part of preliminary training to make the actor’s body flexible and controlled

72 Performance in the kerala context

at 9.00 p.m., all students went to bed, and were asleep before 10.00 p.m.

(1993, interview)

Although there is variability of the precise time for each element from school to school and teacher to teacher, the training process today cov-ers all the basic elements that Gopi Asan de-scribes, and is organized progressively according to the following overall pattern (Figure 4.3):

1 yearly body preparation and exercise;

2 basic training in techniques (first year of study);

3 intermediate training (second and third years);

4 advanced training (fourth through sixth years and beyond—‘post-graduate’ training).

Figure 4.4 Eye exercises (kannusadhakam)

Students sit cross-legged on mats with a lengthened spine and gaze directed ahead. The instructor sits in front of the students. The student places the thumb of each hand gently on the lower lid, and the index finger lifts the upper lid. The teacher traces patterns with his index finger in nine patterns as the student keeps his focus on the teacher’s fin-ger. The geometrical designs include straight lines up and down and horizontal, circles, diagonals, and figure-eights. In making each pattern the student’s eyes pass through the nine different points illustrated below. Point 5 represents neutral or center—eyes straight ahead. Circles are traced through points 2, 6, 8, and 4. Horizontals pass through 4, 5, 6, etc. Each pattern is taught in three speeds—slow, me-dium, and fast—to help develop the eyes’ basic rhythmic patterns.

PRELIMINARY BODY PREPARATION AND EXERCISE⁴

With the onset of the cool monsoonal rains, all students, beginning to advanced, start their year of training by undergoing the same process of ‘body preparation.’ Based on Kerala’s martial tra-dition, kalarippayattu, and assumptions about the body and bodymind relationship drawn from Ayurveda and yoga, the preliminary training is a rigorous physical regime of body-control exer-cises (meyyarappatavu) and oil massage (uyiccil) given with the teacher’s feet which gradually ren-ders the body flexible, balanced, controlled, and reshaped to suit kathakali’s aesthetic style and ba-sic stance—grounded, wide stance, with splayed knees and full turn-out, arched back, use of the outsides of the feet, and the upturned big toe. Af-ter applying oil to his entire body, the student pays respects (namaskaram) with his body to Lord Ganesha—the elephant-headed incarnation of Lord Vishnu who is prayed to before any new undertaking—by prostrating himself on the floor, performing a series of jumps (cattam) and jumping steps (ketticattam), and then progressing through a series of body-control exercises (codified at the Kerala Kalamandalam as sixteen in number).

Early morning training also includes a series of

gymnastic exercises performed either before or im-

mediately following the massage—the splits (suci, lit-

erally, ‘needles’), circling the body and body flips,

footwork patterns (kalsadhakam), and eye exercises (kannusadhakam) performed in nine different patterns each in three different speeds (Figure 4.4).

This part of the daily training takes place early each morning for two and a half to three months during the main south-west monsoon (June-Au-gust), and again at some schools in October-No-vember during the shorter north-east monsoon. During these periods of intense exercise and mas-sage, a special diet is prescribed which includes milk and ghee. The student must not sleep during the day nor stay awake at night, and takes a laxative during the course of massage to purge and cleanse his system.

The need for intensive exercise and massage was outlined as early as the Natyasastra. In the elev-enth chapter, a ‘method of exercise’ is described which, in its overall plan and effect, is similar to kathakali:

One should perform exercise…on the floor as well as (high up) in the air, and should have beforehand one’s body massaged with the (seasamum) oil or with barley gruel. The floor is the proper place (lit. Mother) for exercise. Hence one should resort to the floor, and stretch-ing oneself over it one should take exercise.

(Ghosh 1967:209)

In addition to vigorous exercise, the Natyasastra prescribes specific guidelines for maintaining health derived from Ayurveda, and reflected in kathakali’s regime as well:

For strength of body one should take (proper) nasal medicine and get oneself purged… For, vitality is dependent on one’s nourishment, and the exercise is dependent on vitality. Hence one should be careful about one’s nourishment. When bowels are not cleansed and one is very very tired, hungry, thirsty, has drunk too much (water), eaten too much, one should not take exercise.

(Ghosh 1967:209)

Like the assumptions regarding healing and main-tenance of health in Ayurveda and yoga, the actor’s psychophysiological development is un-derstood to be a long-term one. Change does not happen overnight, but ‘in due course’ both his

Actor training and characterization 73

body and his bodymind relationship are ideally altered.

Basic training (first year)

During his first year of training the student con-centrates on body-preparation and the rudiments of technique which provide the foundation for acting and dancing. After the early morning mas-sage and body-preparation class, the remainder of his day is devoted to learning the basic exercises and techniques which constitute kathakali’s expres-sive vocabulary. Broken down from their compos-ite forms into their most basic units for initial training, these techniques include the twenty-four basic hand-gestures (mudra), eight different ways of performing hand-gestures while acting, nine ba-sic facial expressions (navarasas), rhythmic pat-terns, choreography and movement patterns, in-cluding preliminary dances (totayam and purappatu), circling patterns (cuyippu), which com-bine basic hand-gestures, rhythmic patterns, and specific focus of the eyes, and the dance patterns (kalasam and iratti), which punctuate delivery of the texts.

Since hand-gestures and facial expressions are the expressive means through which the actor con-veys a character’s states of being/doing (bhava) within the dramatic context of each story, the young actor must technically master each gesture and expression. This means exercising his fingers, wrists, hands, as well as each set of facial muscles (cheeks, lips, etc.) required to embody each expres-sive state fully.

Kathakali’s language of gesture is part of its in-heritance from the Natyasastra via kutiyattam. Both kathakali and kutiyattam base their gesture language with twenty-four root mudras (Plate 4.2) on a re-gional text, the Hastalaksanadipika—a catalogue of basic hand poses with lists of words which each pose represents (see Premakumar 1948; Venu 1984; Richmond 1999). While a common heritage and set of root mudras exist, many variations between the two have developed over the years.

Both mudra and hasta refer to the twenty-four root gestures performed with a single hand (asamyukta), combined hands (samyukta), or mixed hands (misra). Meanings are only created when the actor uses the basic alphabet to ‘speak with his

74 Performance in the kerala context

Plate 4.2 The twenty-four root hand-gestures (mudras)

Actor training and characterization 75

76 Performance in the kerala context

hands’ in a dramatic context. The student’s train-ing in hand-gestures begins by learning each of the twenty-four root gestures, and then quickly mov-ing on to learning ‘combined hands,’ usually be-ginning with the names of various Hindu gods such as Vishnu:

Beginning with both hands above the head in anjali, the hands move out at forehead level where they open into hamsapaksa. As the hands extend to elbow-length apart, each forms kataka (Plate 4.2:11,8, 3).

In performance of hand-gestures, the eyes must follow the hands, i.e., they trace the same pattern as the hands.

Hand-gestures serve a number of purposes. They are used to literally speak the text, and there-fore in delivery follow the word order of Sanskritized Malayalam. When serving this pur-pose they range from literal, mimetic representa-tion of an easily recognizable object, such as a ‘deer’ or ‘lotus,’ to signs for grammatical construction, tense, case ending, etc., such as the plural ending for a noun, or saying, ‘etc.’ When dancing, hand-gestures are often purely decorative, accentuate the beauty and quality of the movement in the dra-matic context, and have no literal or symbolic meaning.

As the student learns the immense vocabulary of hand-gestures, he must also learn how to per-form the gestures while playing a character. Kathakali training in central Kerala at the Kalamandalam has evolved eight basic ways of performing hand-ges-

Actor training and characterization 77

tures which are adapted to the particular dramatic context of a scene. The categories and qualities of mudras clustered in each group include:

1 heroic gestures;

2 gestures for something or someone away from the body of the speaker such as ‘chariot,’ giving an order, refusing a request;

3 powerful gestures such as ‘enemy,’ ‘destruc-tion,’ or ‘obstruction’;

4 gestures associated with the furious state such as ‘demon,’ ‘cruel,’ ‘anger’;

5 gestures for personal relationships such as ‘brother,’ ‘sister,’ ‘elder brother’;

6 gestures which describe the qualities of what is seen, such as ‘mountain,’ ‘brightness,’ ‘black,’ ‘red,’ ‘clouds’;

7 gestures performed in the neutral, stationary position such as ‘lotus,’ ‘moon,’ ‘sun’;

8 gestures associated with the erotic and pathos in which the hands move from the left to the right as the leg is closed such as ‘beautiful lady,’ ‘face,’ ‘lips,’ ‘eyes.’

Some patterns, like descriptive mudras, involve considerable movement through space. The ac-tor usually begins by taking two steps forward, then a ‘slap’ step to the side, and with large, sweeping movements of the hands and arms he delivers a mudra like ‘mountain’ while stepping backward. Although all hand-gestures have ‘set’ forms through which their meanings are con-veyed, since actors do not vocalize their lines but speak with their hands, in performance each

Plate 4.3 The nine basic facial expressions (navarasas) plus one

78 Performance in the kerala context

Bhava		Corresponding rasa	Basic state
1	rati bhava	srn gara rasa	the erotic, love or
			pleasure
2	hasa bhava	hasya rasa	the comic, mirthful, or
			derision
3	soka bhava	karuna rasa	pathos, sadness
4	krodha bhava	raudra rasa	fury, anger, wrath
5	utsaha bhava	vira rasa	the heroic, vigorous
6	bhaya bhava	bhayanaka rasa	fear, the terrible
7	jugupsa bhava	bhayanaka rasa	fear, the terrible
8	vismaya bhava	adbhuta rasa	wondrous, marvellous
9	sama bhava	santa rasa	peace, at-onement
10	lajja (one of three special female expressions) shyness

hand gesture is always interpreted by the actor as he adapts what he is saying to the specific state or mood appropriate to the character and scene.

In kathakali acting the face is a pliant vehicle for displaying the constantly shifting manifestations of the character’s inner states of being/doing (bhava). The nine basic states (Plate 4.3) include: the erotic, love, or pleasure; the comic, mirthful, or derision; the pathetic/sadness; fury, anger, or wrath; the he-roic/vigorous; the fearful or terrible; repulsive or disgust; the wondrous or marvellous; and peace or atonement. At first, each expression is learned technically through continuous repetition and cor-rection. Beginning instruction in how to assume the basic facial expression for the erotic, love, or pleasure (rati bhava; srn gara rasa) is usually very technical, much like the following:

Open the upper lids as wide as possible. Keep the lower lids slightly closed. With the lips make a soft, relaxed smile, but do not show the teeth. Keep the gaze focused straight ahead. Having assumed this position, begin to flutter the eye-brows. Keeping the shoulders still, and using the neck, move the head first to the right, and then the left—back and forth. While keeping the external focus fixed ahead on one point, move the head to a 45 degree angle to the right, con-tinuing to flutter the eyebrows. Repeat to the left. [The focus sometimes moves to the right, and then the left.]

Similarly, instructions for assuming the comic or mirthful (hasa bhava; hasya rasa) are as follows:

Slightly raise the upper bridge of the nose be-tween the eyebrows and slightly turn down the outsides of the eyebrows. Keep the eyelids slightly closed, and the lips drawn down on each side. Indent the upper lip muscles on the outsides.

In addition to the nine basic states, kathakali stu-dents also learn three other codified facial expres-sions associated with the playing of female roles, or for roles in which a male character imitates a woman, such as when Bhima impersonates Draupadi in The Killing of Kichaka. These include feminine shyness (lajja), and special forms of con-tempt and anger.

Actor training and characterization 79

After initiating the students technically in the performance of each expression, instructors some-times prompt the student to engage his imagina-tion:

I ask the student to imagine something. Like for the heroic state, ‘imagine an elephant.’ For the erotic state, a ‘lotus.’ For the furious, imag-ine a ‘lion.’ For wonder, imagine a sudden ac-tion. I even do this with first-year students. I then ask them later in training if they are, for instance, performing wonder, ‘imagine being in a big city.’ Or ‘imagine being in a forest, seeing elephants, snakes,’ etc.

(K.Kannan Nayar 1976, interview)

Vasu Pisharody asks his students to ‘show the feelings of an experience he can understand.’ Vembayam Appukoothan Pillai explains the actor’s expression of bhava as

how we feel toward a person or thing. For ex-ample, srngara is the emotion we feel towards a thing or a person we like. When we see this person or thing, our mind is enlarged. Similarly, for hasya, it is the feeling we get when we see a funny thing. Sorrow is the feeling we have when we experience difficulties, etc.

(1993 interview)

Gradually, over six to ten years of training, the student gains a ‘fuller understanding of the states of expression’ through reading and personal expe-rience so that eventually he ‘realizes what he had done at first by [technically] moving his facial muscles isn’t enough’ (Vasu Pisarody 1993, inter-view).

First-year students begin to apply their basic training in expressive states by learning some of the simpler minor roles in the repertory. As the student-actor learns more roles, he is gradually able to embody and manifest the nuances of each ex-pressive state for different characters within differ-ent dramatic contexts. For example, ‘pathos (karuna) may be expressed as a state of unfulfilled desire, loss over the death of a person, etc.’ (ibid.). The student realizes that there are differences in how each character expresses the same basic state—the Brahmin’s expression of pathos in The Progeny of Krishna is different from that of Dharmaputra.

80 Performance in the kerala context

Panchali’s sorrow is different from that of Damayanti. Kathakali’s, initially, technical and codi-fied expressions are gradually individualized in playing particular characters.

Another important part of training today is pro-viding students with the necessary linguistic tools to understand fully the nuances of kathakali’s highly Sanskritized poetic texts. Today some schools have followed the Kalamandalam’s lead by teaching San-skrit to first-year students in order to give them a working knowledge of grammar and vocabulary relevant to performance. In addition, students also read Malayalam versions of the major epics and puranas to provide them with background informa-tion necessary to bring a full knowledge of their characters to the creation of a role. Without such knowledge, as student actors mature they would be unable to bring a subtler understanding of the characters they play to the stage.

By the end of their first year of training, stu-dents usually perform one or both of kathakali’s preliminary dances (purappatu and totayam) on the stage in full costume and makeup. Since students do not rehearse in costume and make-up before

their first performance, it is both a rite of passage, as the student receives his teacher’s blessing, and a ‘trial by fire’, where he hopes for little more than simply making it through the entire choreography without losing his balance, getting distracted and forgetting what comes next, having his crown fall to one side of his head, or having his facial make-up (especially the paper frame) tear loose or fall off!

Intermediate and advanced training:

colliyattam—learning and rehearsing stories

During their six to ten years of training, students are expected to learn every role in each play taught from the official school syllabus. From an active repertory of around forty to fifty plays, the syllabus at the Kerala Kalamandalam consists of eighteen plays covered in the regular six-year course of study, with two plays included in the post-graduate course of training (Figure 4.5).⁵ The plays in a school’s syllabus are selected to ensure that students receive training in all

Plate 4.4 Colliyattam of The Killing of Lavanasura: Lava and Kusa string their bows as they prepare to fight

Actor training and characterization 81

Figure 4.5 Kerala Kalamandalam syllabus

82 Performance in the kerala context

Plate 4.5 Colliyattam of The Killing of Lavanasura: Hanuman. Note: The triangle illustrates the dynamic, op-positional triangulation created between the lower abdomi-nal region and the floor, through the feet

role-types and choreography so that by the end of his training, with additional study and prepa-ration, a young actor would be able to play any role even if it has not been taught, or a new role in a new play.

During his second and third years, the student builds on the foundation laid during the first year. The first few months review and perfect the body-preparation exercises and basic performance tech-niques. At rehearsals, students learn to play some-what more complex minor roles.

The process of rehearsing plays ‘in the class-room’ is known as colliyattam, literally meaning ‘to recite’ (colli) and ‘to dance’ (attam) the text. Since performers originally sang the text, colliyattam re-fers to the process of both vocalizing/learning the lines of the play and dancing/performing each role. Today it is the process by which the student re-hearses the performance of each role of a text in all

its specific details, and then ‘sets’ or fixes those details according to the performance tradition of his teacher(s). The first days of rehearsal of any particular role begin as mimetic, repetitious techni-cal rehearsals where the teacher demonstrates for the students all the specific hand-gestures, expres-sive states, and choreography necessary to perform a role. Once students have learned the basic tech-niques for performing a role, the teacher simulta-neously keeps the basic rhythmic pattern, beaten out by a stick with his right hand on top of a stool or table-top, sings the lines of each role, and cor-rects students in the proper performance of each hand-gesture and expressive state as they perform each line of the text.

By the end of the third year of training, stu-dents have learned all the minor roles of the sylla-bus, and in the fourth and fifth years of training students move on to roles of intermediate diffi-culty and length. The most difficult major roles in the regular syllabus are taught in the fifth and sixth years. This process of teaching roles based on size and degree of difficulty means that the stu-dents do not learn all the roles within a particular play at one time but, rather, learn them incremen-tally over several years. For the four scenes of The Flower of Good Fortune translated here (Chapter 5), students learn the role of Panchali during their first three years of training, the roles of Bhima and Dharmaputra (Scene 1) during their fourth year, and the major roles of Bhima and Hanuman during their fifth and sixth years. It is with such roles as Bhima in The Killing of Baka (see Chapter 2, p. 28), or Bhima and Hanuman in The Flower of Good Fortune, that students begin to learn the per-formance of interpolations in the original literary text—arguably the most creative and demanding parts of an actor’s performance. Since the interpo-lations taught in the classroom have become rela-tively ‘set’ within lineages of actors and are not part of the original play text, when learned, stu-dents write out the text of each interpolation in their notebook, and take extensive notes on how they are to be performed. A student’s notebook becomes his guidebook and reference when he prepares for a full performance of each role in the future.

For The Killing of Kirmira (Chapter 6) students

learn the role of Panchali during their first three years, then the intermediate roles of Lalita and Simhika during their fourth year, and the roles of Sahadeva and Kirmira during their fifth year. Like the roles of Bhima and Hanuman, the major roles of Sahadeva and Kirmira are taught last since they involve Kirmira’s interpolation known as ‘description of the sound’ (sabdavarnana), and Sahadeva’s complex, struc-tured choreography known as ‘preparing for bat-tle’ (padapurappatu).

Advanced classes become full rehearsals with a complete set of musicians present. Attending a colliyattam class for fifth- and sixth-year students at the Kerala Kalamandalam in 1976 when The Kill-ing of Kirmira was being taught, I recorded the fol-lowing description of the process:

This is the fourth day during which students have been working on this scene. The teacher of acting leading the rehearsal sits facing the students in his chair, stick in his right hand, and stool in front. The class begins with a long musical interlude played by two young drum-ming students, coached by their own teachers. Soon the master drummers take over as the performance of the text is about to begin. The four acting students in the class come forward and perform a salutation (namaskaram), paying respects to Lord Ganesha and to their teacher. They take their positions in pairs—two of the sixth-year students are rehearsing Lalita (Simhika in disguise), and two of the fifth-year students are rehearsing Draupadi (Panchali). The teacher leads the students through the re-hearsal, showing a hand-gesture when necessary, following the patterns with his eyes. The stu-dents struggle to remember the gestures. Occa-sionally the teacher gets up to illustrate a par-ticular dance pattern. A mistake is made, and the teacher shouts angrily.

For the first thirty-five minutes while the two sixth-year students perform the Lalita role with-out a break, the two fifth-year students playing Draupadi must stay perfectly still, remain ‘in character,’ and register occasional responses to what the Lalita says with their eyes. It is clear that the students are still somewhat unsure of certain parts of their roles. There is as yet no attempt at interpretation—they constantly

Actor training and characterization 83

struggle to simply remember their lines, and what comes next.

Another bad mistake, and the teacher threat-ens to beat one of the students. The climax of the scene comes as Draupadi is carried away by the demoness.

It is the precise details of the complex perfor-mance score that teachers so severely correct, and ‘fix’ during colliyattam classes.

REPERTORY, TRAINING, AND RECEPTION

The plays in today’s kathakali repertory can be described as falling along a continuum ranging from those which are narratively driven and fo-cus on the events in the stories such as the origi-nal Ramayana plays, to the four plays authored by Kottayam Tampuran where virtuosic tech-nique and structure are most important in elabo-rating narrative incidents, to those plays such as Unnayi Variyar’s King Nala’s Law, Mandavappalli Ittiraricha Menon’s King Rugmamgada’s Law, or the very recent play Karna’s Oath (1967) by Mali Madhavan Nayar which provide the maximum opportunity for individual actors to explore an individual character’s interior, mental state(s) of being. Of all these plays, the four plays authored by Kottayam Tampuran, including The Flower of Good Fortune and The Killing of Kirmira, are consid-ered the most important in the training of the ac-tor since correct performance of each role de-pends on mastery of kathakali’s basic techniques. When Kottayam Tampuran authored the plays, since he himself was also an actor, he specifically set the performance pattern of each element of a play. Each dialogue section (padam) of each play follows specific essential conventions (cittapradanam) to be precisely followed in perfor-mance. The singer is expected to sing the pre-scribed number of cycles of repetitions of the text, and each punctuating dance pattern (kalasam) must fit precisely into the performance score. Each hand-gesture is choreographed to have a specific relationship to time and space, es-pecially when the text is set in a slow rhythm. Here, even the interpolations are specifically set. Therefore, all four of the Kottayam plays allow

84 Performance in the kerala context

the actor little if any ‘freedom’ from their struc-tured, set scoring. Actors and connoisseurs alike describe the Kottayam plays as ‘rigidly struc-tured’ (cittapetta), or having a structure in perfor-mance which is ‘inviolable.’ Kathakali actor Balasubramaniam described the plays as having a ‘mathematical accuracy’ which ‘only allows the actor to do what has been taught in the class-room and nothing more. There is nothing to add to or subtract from [what has been taught]’ (1993, interview). Vembayam Appukoothan Pillai described the structure of the plays as re-quiring the actor to ‘make his performance fit within the music and rhythms’ to which each sec-tion of a text is set (1993, interview). Gopi Asan explained how learning these rigidly structured plays allows the actor to ‘understand the basic grammar of kathakali from its application in these stories’ (1993, interview). So important are the Kottayam plays in training that some scenes from the four plays that are no longer typically per-formed at public performances are still taught in the classroom. By learning these rigidly struc-tured plays ‘correctly,’ the kathakali actor is under-stood to be able ‘to perform anything else’ in the repertory (Vembayam Appukoothan Pillai 1993, interview), including plays with a much looser structure which are not taught in the formal syllabus.

In contrast to the four Kottayam plays, Unnayi Variyar’s King Nala’s Law, and the two plays by Mandavapalli Ittiraricha Menon translated here, The Progeny of Krishna and King Rugmamgada’s Law, are much more loosely structured. Unlike the Kottayam plays, where even the major roles are ‘set’ within distinctive rhythmic patterns and cho-reographic structures, plays like these depend upon the histrionic abilities of the actor playing such major roles as Nala or Rugmamgada to achieve their aesthetic impact through creative interpreta-tion of all aspects of the role, including its impor-tant interpolations.

As Gopi Asan explains, in the Kottayam plays, the dramatic conflict comes from the interplay be-tween events within the stories, whereas in plays like Nala’s Law, King Rugmamgada’s Law, or The Progeny of Krishna ‘the characters are more con-cerned with mental conflicts’ of the major charac-ter. Given their quite different demands and the degree to which the structure is or is not ‘set,’ both

types of plays ‘have theatrical impact, but in dif-ferent ways’ (1993, interview). The foremost pleasures afforded an audience of connoisseurs experiencing the more technically oriented Kottayam plays are virtuosic congruence of tech-nique and score, and masterly interpretation within a relatively narrow range of variability. But at a performance of Rugmamgada in King Rugmamgada’s Law, or the Brahmin in The Progeny of Krishna, the audience experiences a greater range of internal/mental state(s) more freely inter-preted by the actor.⁶

Even though these less structured plays are in great demand at public performances and part of the official ‘school syllabus,’ since they are so de-pendent on the individual talent and interpretive abilities of the actor playing its major roles, they are not taught as part of the regular six-year sylla-bus of plays, but only in the post-graduate course of training.

To be more precise about the differences in structure and the demand for precision they place on the actor/dancer, I will focus on differences in rhythmic structures between ‘set’ plays like The Flower of Good Fortune and The Killing of Kirmira and more loosely structured plays like King Rugmamgada’s Law and The Progeny of Krishna. Both of the latter are for the most part set in the sim-plest of kathakali’s rhythmic patterns (tala)—cempata and tripata (see Figure 3.9). Neither play makes use of the most difficult and complex rhythmic patterns such as campa or atanta. For example, in cempata the accented beats are always an unvariable three within the total of eight. When a dialogue passage (padam) is set in cempata, in per-formance it can always be performed somewhat more ‘freely’ because of the regularity of the three accented beats within eight, i.e., if the actor-dancer does not complete the performance of his hand-gestures in delivering a phrase within the usual number of cycles set for performance, he can easily extend his performance to ‘fit’ the regu-larity of cempata’s three accented beats.

In contrast, for a dialogue passage set in the much more complex campa, with its structure of four, two, and then one accented beats in a total of ten, there is much less allowance for variation be-cause the structure is irregular. Consequently, when learning these much more difficult patterns, the stu-dent must be attentive to finding the beginning and

Actor training and characterization 85

Figure 4.6 Bhava in performance: acting a line from The Flower of Good Fortune

86 Performance in the kerala context

conclusion of each phrase of the text, and each set of hand-gestures necessary to ‘speak’ the text as it is to be delivered within a typical number of rhyth-mic cycles. We should remember that hand-ges-tures are not simply gestures of the hands per se, but are also delivered with the entire body, and therefore the actor-dancer is taking a certain amount of time to move through space as he delivers each gesture. The creation of the appropriate state of being/doing (bhava) comes from the appropriate synchronization of the vocalist’s repetition of the cycles of the text, the actor-dancer’s delivery of the hand-gestures, and the drummers’ accentuation and/or elaboration on the rhythmic cycle. The ex-act modes of synchronization are variable, depend-ing on how passages of the text have historically been ‘set.’

I will illustrate the performative demands of the ‘set’ structures of the Kottayam plays with several examples from The Killing of Kirmira. One unique performance structure is Lalita’s dialogue passage (padam) in Scene 9 (see p. 122). Set in atanta tala and in the slowest of slow tempos [patinnakalam at fifty-six beats], this is the only passage in the four Kottayam plays performed by a female character in the slowest of slow tempo. Learning this unique passage provides the foundation for a student’s ability to perform similar passages set in atanta tala, and in the slowest tempo. It requires a great deal of precision on the actor’s part.

A second example of unique structure is Lalita’s caranam set in cempata tala in second speed with six-teen beats:

Clusters of clouds and darkness contend with your long curly hair.

O one with beautiful hair like the dark Valisneria, swarms of bees come here one after another to see your hair again and again.

Alas! With grief they fly away!

In the first phrase of the Malayalam there are seven syllables, which take two rhythmic cycles (tala) to perform, set in sixteen beats. The much lengthier remainder of the passage is compressed so that it too is performed within two cycles of tala. The actor-dancer must ensure that he has learned this tricky and unusual shift in the num-ber of syllables, and therefore in the number of

hand-gestures he must perform within the set number of cycles in order to achieve the intended dramatic effect. This linguistic ‘compression’ gives the impression or feel of speeding up the tempo which ‘fits’ the swarming of the bees. When this passage is performed, what makes a rasika (con-noisseur) a rasika is his intuitive knowledge of the ‘correct’ way to perform this passage, and strict expectation that the passage be performed within this set structure. Learning ‘set’ passages like these is crucial for the student’s training since the performance structures are distinctive, complex, and serve as a ‘model’ for performance of com-plex passages in other plays.

A third example from The Killing of Kirmira is in the dialogue passage (padam) performed between Sahadeva and Simhika in Scene 11 (see p. 125). A common structure guides the actor-dancers per-forming both roles, beginning with Simhika’s caranam. The first phrase of each caranam is followed by the performance of a punctuating dance-ending (kalasam). Immediately after the dance-ending, the vocalist repeats the original phrase. Then, at the conclusion of each caranam, the pallavi is repeated to accompany the dancing of a tonkaram. This rig-idly ‘set’ pattern dramatically serves to underscore the mutual hurling of sarcastic insults typical of scenes which are the prelude to a fight-to-the-death. In this particular scene, Sahadeva hurls the initial insult in his pallavi as follows:

Stop, demoness, stop!

Eti, eti, eti, demoness!

Eti is the feminine addressive form of a common marketplace insult that is literally untranslatable. When punctuated by the percussive rhythm set in cempata tala, the insult is literally hurled with Sahadeva’s entire body. Not to be outdone, Simhika scornfully retorts in her own pallavi with the male addressive, eta, returning the ‘favor’ in kind. As students learn this structure, they absorb a performance pattern typically found in the dy-namic build-up of scenes ending in combat, and concluding with the ‘killing’ of demons like Kirmira.

These examples of the set structures of the Kottayam plays illustrate how the entire training of the kathakali actor might be thought of as a proc-ess of intuitive familiarization with enough of the

unique synchronic structures of text, hand-gestures, and rhythmic patterns that will enable him to both co-produce those structures, and bring a virtuosic performative acumen and expressivity to them when a mature performer. It is the Kottayam plays which provide the actor with his initial performa-tive experience of these ‘external’ structures and their rules.

THE ‘INNER’ ART OF KATHAKALI ACTING: TASK/ACTION, CHARAC-TER, AND ROLE

As should be evident from the earlier microanaly-sis of kathakali’s score in Chapter 3 as well as the discussion of the demands of the highly struc-tured Kottayam plays, a kathakali performance constructs characters in part through a non-linear sequencing of ‘actions’; indeed, what constitutes an ‘action’ (in the Western acting sense of the term) simply does not exist in kathakali. To analyse the specific tasks of the kathakali actor, I will examine the specific requirements for the per-formance of the states/moods for Bhima during a few lines of Scene 9 in The Flower of Good Fortune (Figure 4.6). In this example I provide the transla-tion, a transliteration, a word-by-word translation (what the actor ‘says’ with his hand-gestures), the number of rhythmic cycles it normally takes for the actor-dancer to deliver the text in gesture lan-guage, and the state of being/doing (bhava) the ac-tor embodies while delivering each phrase or word. Although the overall mood of the scene with Panchali is srngara, or the ‘erotic’ sentiment prompted by their pleasures in the garden, the bhava for each word or phrase must be appropri-ate to the meaning of the word or phrase as it is embodied in performance, and therefore it shifts appropriately.

Although the overall state of being/mood and that required in the first two parts of the first caranam, is the pleasurable sense of the erotic, it is clear from this brief example that the actor play-ing Bhima must shift his state of being/mood even within this caranam. In the final section of the caranam ‘[a little] delay without will bring,’ the ac-tor’s bhava momentarily shifts from the erotic to the mirthful as the actor jokingly qualifies his statement of heroic prowess ‘will bring without

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delay,’ with the tongue-in-cheek qualifier, ‘a little’— as if he, the mighty Bhima, might ever encounter such difficulties! This shift to the heroic at the end of the first caranam is continued in the second. Here Bhima embodies and enacts this prowess, touting his ability to conquer whatever is in the way of achieving the fulfillment of Panchali’s de-sire for the Saugandhika flowers. The heroic mood of this caranam is further elaborated as the actor playing Bhima enacts his ‘wonder’ when de-livering the hand-gesture for Indra’s ‘heaven,’ and the ‘pathos’ Panchali might feel if her desire were not fulfilled. The second caranam appropriately concludes with Bhima’s heroic prowess and demeanor in full display since it is precisely Bhima’s bursting pride that will be lanced in the scene to follow with Hanuman.

Although there is an overall dramatic arc to this elaboration of Bhima’s interior state, the actor’s task is first and foremost to embody completely each of the sequential hand-gestures in the enactment of each word of the text, and while embodying each ges-ture, to endow it psychophysiologically with the ap-propriate state of being/doing (bhava), i.e., ‘seeing’ a mountain is enacted through time with a certain qual-ity of seeing. The actor’s eyes/body/hands embody the psychophysiological act of seeing the mountain and Indra’s heaven, and along with that comes the appropriate bhava, i.e., a certain degree of wonder or awe at Indra’s heaven and/or the ‘size’ and im-mensity of the mountain. When the actor’s task is to ‘become’ the image, there is often no bhava regis-tered during that particular period of enactment of the character’s bhava per se, i.e., the actor momen-tarily ‘steps out’ of the character, and is (becomes) what is being seen by the audience—the mountain.

The requirement that the kathakali actor ‘step out’ of his character is vividly exemplified in Bhima’s well-known interpolation in Scene 9 of The Flower of Good Fortune (see pp. 106–7). This interpo-lation enacts the fight between an elephant, a py-thon, and a lion that Bhima witnesses while tra-versing the forest on his way to find the Saugandhika flowers for Panchali. In enacting the interpolation Bhima narrates what he sees, and in quick succession plays the role of each animal he observes in the fight, embodying and playing in turn the elephant, python, and lion.⁸

When considered structurally, these examples suggest that the actor’s performance score is

88 Performance in the kerala context

two-fold: first are the task-specific set of embodied actions performed sequentially, in time, each task embodied on its own terms; and second is the over-all dramatic arc of the character. When the mature kathakali actor says he ‘becomes’ or ‘absorbs’ the character, it is clear that he assumes that his act of ‘becoming’ operates at both these levels, and that there is a constant dialectic between them—of gen-eral ‘identification’ or absorption of the character-as-character, and in terms of ‘becoming’ embodied in each specific task of his score. The structure of the kathakali actor’s set of tasks/actions is not an apparently ‘seamless,’ psychologically integrated set of behaviors as in much Western Stanislavskian-based realistic acting. The ‘character’ is always there but, simultaneously, can also be temporarily put in ‘parentheses’ in the sense that the character is ‘set aside’ from time to time. The shifts in state of be-ing/mood are openly displayed and depend not just on the character’s mood within the context of the drama per se, but also on the mood required to perform each image he embodies in delivering hand-gestures, or what is demanded by the struc-ture of the score. The actor in this sense is not al-ways simply playing what the character requires— he is also embodying and playing what the text-in-performance requires.

In this structural sense, a kathakali perform-ance is not attempting to create the ‘illusion of re-ality’ happening in ‘real time,’ but rather creates opportunities for elaboration of states of mind/be-ing/doing appropriate to the dramatic circum-stances of a particular narrative, thereby making available a richly textured aesthetic experience for its audiences, especially connoisseurs. Because of this, the kathakali actor’s relationship to time in structuring performance and character are quite different from performances of modern Western drama, whose performance structures are ulti-mately derived from an Aristotelian concept of mimesis.

My observations and analysis of the structure of the kathakali actor’s tasks should not obscure the fundamental importance of ‘character’ to the ac-tor’s approach to any role on the kathakali stage.⁹ Implicit in a kathakali actor’s approach to acting is the assumption that he ‘becomes one’ with the role or character he plays, which thus guides each spe-cific task or action he embodies in his score. Such

statements are paralleled in the Natyasastra. In one passage the Natyasastra explains how

In theatrical performance, after proper consid-eration of age and dress, he who has the suit-able form should resemble the role in nature too. Just as a man’s soul, discarding its nature along with the body, enters a different body with its different nature, in the same way, a wise man, exercising his mental faculties, makes other’s nature his own, holding, ‘I am he’ and along with his dress, speech and body, follows his ac-tions too.

(Kale 1974:58–9, translation of Natyasastra XXIV, 15–18)

The notion of the transmigration of a soul from one body to another is commonplace, paralleled in the assumption that it is even possible to attain a state of superior spiritual accomplishment (siddha) through which one might literally inhabit another body.¹⁰

Implicit in both the Natyasastra and kathakali ac-tors’ statements about ‘becoming’ the character is the assumption that it is possible to attain a non-dualistic state of actualization between the actor and the character. This understanding is reflected in discussions I have had over the years with many kathakali actors. Just beginning to reach the stride of his career at the age of 49 in 1993, Kalamandalam Vasu Pisharody explained to me his interpretation of kathakali’s roles:

There are many ‘green’ (heroic) roles includ-ing Nala, Bhima, Bahuka, Pushkara, etc. Their movements are basically alike, but each char-acter is different. We perceive each character from our reading and understanding, and then play that role according to our understanding and perception. For characters of this type, there is no single or special state of being/do-ing (bhava). Rather, it’s better to think of them as ‘unique in their differences and different in their uniqueness’… The core state (stayibhava) for Bhima is the heroic (vira), and for him the erotic (rati) is secondary. But for Nala his core state is the erotic, and the heroic is only sec-ondary… Therefore, Bhima’s expression of the erotic will be different from that of Nala… When Nala shows the hand-gestures for ‘lotus’

it is different from Bhima. Likewise when Nala or Bhima speak to Panchali. In order to assimi-late these differences, the actor has to absorb each character. The actor has to have his mind enculturated into this process. He creates [this state of mind] by his reading. After achieving [this state of mind], the audience will sense it.

(1993, interview)

The crucial notion is that the actor himself must both understand each character, and achieve a particular ‘state of mind’, thereby ‘absorbing each character.’

Kalamandalam Bala Subramaniyan explains the subtle difference in playing two pacca charac-ters, Dharmaputra and Nala, both of whom have suffered greatly in their lives. As eldest of the Pandavas, Dharmaputra carries the weight of re-sponsibility for the fate of his brothers and their wife. As he appears in the Kottayam plays, Dharmaputra ‘cannot act out his feelings as can Nala’ (Balasubramaniyan 1993, interview). In the opening scene of The Killing of Kirmira, for exam-ple, when Dharmaputra expresses his great sym-pathy to Draupadi for their plight and the hard-ships they have suffered while in exile in the forest,

the actor should feel [the suffering they have experienced] inside, and the audience should feel it by looking into his face; however, the ac-tor playing Dharmaputra should not overtly show any bhava in his face. He should only use his eyes to reveal the bhava. The inhering (stayi-) expression is enough. No overt outside display of bhava is required.

(Balasubramaniyan 1993, interview)

All senior kathakali actors stress how their own creativity is influenced by their study of the char-acters they play, and their constant reading of and reflection upon epic and puranic sources through which they can locate further insights into the character, and find potentially relevant passages from which an interpolation might be further elaborated. Gopi Asan, one of kathakali’s most dis-tinguished and heralded actors today, explains his own process as he approaches each specific role he plays as follows:

Actor training and characterization 89

I usually refresh my mind and my understand-ing of the character. Sometimes I make refer-ence to resource books. Every time I view a performance as a challenge, and thus an ex-periment. But I am never satisfied even when an audience applauds and cheers my perfor-mance. I always think about the form and its structure, which is most important for a tradi-tional art like kathakali. Sometimes I fix what will be improvised in advance. But often it happens spontaneously. In this context, I want to quote the following lines: A disciple gets one fourth [of what he learns] from his teacher; the second quarter from himself; the third part from his classmates; and the last quarter in the long run of one’s life.’ The matu-rity of an actor is expected only in the last stage.

(1993, interview)

Best known for his playing of roles like Nala and Rugmamgada, which are overtly ‘dramatic’ and less structured than many, Gopi Asan’s emphasis on the mastery of form and structure reflects the fact that kathakali’s performance score, conventions, and technique always define the framework within which the actor exercises his creative imagination when creating a role.

In more (melo)dramatic, interior forms of act-ing used to enact sloka (see the example from King Nala’s Law in Chapter 8, p. 167) or interpolations like those of Nala or Rugmamgada, the ‘character’ is literally and temporally ‘more’ present through time because the structure of performance allows for continuous focus on the internal states of the character. Margi Vijayakumar explained the nu-ances of interpretation he brings to playing the role of the demoness Putana in Putanamoksham—a char-acter conflicted by the competing demands placed on her as the servant of Kamsa sent to kill the baby Krishna, and her maternal desire to feed and pro-tect the child:

Within the demoness there is the woman’s at-traction to the baby. The pleasure and affection she feels come from feeding the child. Then there is the sense of duty to Kamsa who must kill even against her wishes.

(1993, interview)

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But even the process of training toward the per-formance of such ‘internal’ moments is structured quite differently in kathakali. As we have seen this process begins not with the personal, the behav-ioral, or the motivational aspect of playing an ac-tion, but with the psychophysiological forms through which the ‘emotional’ is eventually ex-pressed. The student actor’s personal feelings are not the point of origin for the creation of a facial or hand-gesture. One’s experience in life gradu-ally informs the outer form as the student is asked to use his imagination as he enters the process of embodiment, becoming a lotus as he sees its beauty, and smells its fragrance. Through the actor’s process of complete engagement in the act of embodying an expressive state, his imagina-tion, perceiving consciousness, or ‘mind’ enters and ‘fills out’ the ‘outer’ form, as outlined in Fig-ure 4.7.

The characters the kathakali actor creates are al-ways shaped by what is considered ‘appropriate to the action,’ and the actor’s engagement in this proc-ess is clearly one of acting. As one actor explained:

It is not right to have real tears on stage: it does not fit our stylized type of theater. But the emo-tion of crying must be there and it will effect the audience. As an actor you must always use your emotions, knowing that you are onstage. There must be balance. After the long period of training, the gestures, the technique become automatic. You don’t have to concentrate on them; then you can really fill in the role, add the emotion, and so on.

Enacting a bhava in kathakali is a fully physicalized and embodied psychophysiological

task which ideally engages the actor’s bodymind completely. When Gopi Asan plays the role of Rugmamgada in King Rugmamgada’s Law, and em-bodies his full surprise at Mohini’s demand that he kills his son, at that moment of ‘high (melo) drama’ every sinew of the actor’s bodymind is ‘filled’ with that bhava. Part of the difference be-tween the subtle ‘naturalistic’ acting of the West and kathakali is that in kathakali, as in Japanese kabuki, this ‘filling’ of the body is openly dis-played and indulged, while in naturalism it is usu-ally hidden and not obvious. The act of physicalization of the state of being/feeling of the character is intentionally ‘excessive’ in the sense that the stage is the place to display openly the full or ‘pure’ emotion/bhava, i.e., nothing need be held back to inflect or nuance its expression. These are, after all, gods, epic heroes, heroines, and personalities at play on this cosmic stage, whose predicaments and responses to them are bound to be ‘larger’ than everyday life.

‘WHERE THE HAND [is]…’: THE KATHAKALI PERFORMER’S IDEAL STATE OF BEING/DOING

One way of understanding the optimal state of ac-tualization toward which the kathakali actor’s years of training ideally leads him is to revisit the now often clichéd, and all too often quoted, statement (sloka 36) embedded in Nandikesvara’s Abhinayadarpanam (usually dated between the tenth and thirteenth centuries), rightfully cited as an en-capsulation of the rasa/bhava aesthetic.¹¹ The pas-sage has been ‘immortalized’ in Coomaraswamy’s translation, The Mirror of Gesture:

Figure 4.7 Filling out the form

For wherever the hand moves, there the glances flows; where the glances go, the mind follows; where the mind goes, the mood follows; where the mood goes, there is the flavour.

(1957:17)

Manomohan Ghosh provides a similar transla-tion:

Where the hand goes eyes also should go there. Whither the mind goes Psychological State (bhava) should turn thither, and where there is the Psychological State, there the Sentiment (rasa) arises.

(Ghosh 1975:42)

Although constantly cited, the sloka has seldom re-ceived commentary which analyzes the assump-tions that inform this optimal state-of-being/actu-alization. It is my purpose here to provide a re-reading and analysis, not from the point of view of a Sanskrit expert, but rather from the perspec-tive of the performer/performance scholar by giv-ing an alternative, more literal translation of the passage, and then conducting an exegesis using the specific example of the psychophysiological process of the kathakali actor.

As Kapila Vatsyayan has indicated, the critical texts on Indian aesthetics are primarily of two quite distinct types: on the one hand are discussions of the nature of the aesthetic experience itself pursued by various schools of philosophical thought; on the other are manuals which focus on form and tech-nique (1968a: 7). While Nandikesvara’s Abhinayadarpanam is of the second type—primarily a technical manual for the performer—this passage is important because it links the technical treatise to underlying philosophical assumptions which inform performance per se.

Returning to the Coomaraswamy and Ghosh translations of the passage above, the general im-pression of both is that of sequential movement— going from here to there. Implied is a stimulus (wherever) and a response (follow). The primary verb chosen in the two translations is the active ‘to go.’ While it is certainly possible to read ‘goes’— and the succeeding verb ‘follows’—as simultaneous rather than sequential, the directional indicators ‘wherever,’ ‘there,’ ‘where,’ ‘whither,’ and ‘thither’ certainly imply sequentiality.

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But a literal word-by-word translation of this passage would be:

where hand there eye

(yato hasta tato drishtir)

where eye there mind

(Yato drishtistato manah)

where eye there bhava¹²

(yato mana tato bhavo)

where bhava there rasa¹³

(yato bhavastato rasah) [sloka 36]

The Coomaraswamy and Ghosh translations de-scribe a process seen by outsiders. I wish to con-sider the description from the inside—from the point of view of the performer. I argue that the fundamental psychophysiological process of the performer and the assumed ideal of simultaneous realization in the moment of traditional Indian performances like kathakali fit the literal meaning.

One of the major reasons why the sloka is so important is that it makes use of the state-of-being verb (tato) and is therefore a summary of what in Indian theater is considered an optimal, non-con-ditional state of accomplishment or being/doing-in-performance for both spectators and actors—the bhava of the actor and the rasa of the audience are ideally non-conditional states-of-being. I contend there is no suggestion of sequentiality or conditionality in the original, and to introduce even a hint of movement or conditionality is to skew the meaning. Coomaraswamy does introduce ‘is’ in the final clause; however, the clear impression is that the rasa is ‘there’ as the result of a sequential process of movement. Certainly Ghosh’s use of ‘to be’ coupled with ‘arises’ in the final two clauses of his translation is an improvement over Coomaraswamy, however slight, since again a con-ditional state is suggested by ‘arises.’ In sum, the passage might simply and literally be translated as:

Where the hand [is], there [is] the eye; where the eye [is], there [is] the mind; where the mind [is], there [is] the bhava; where the bhava [is], there is the rasa.

Is the choice of the English verb in translation of this passage important? It is. From the performer’s point of view, the non-conditional

92 Performance in the kerala context

state-of-being is possible only for an accomplished master, while the conditional is typical of the neo-phyte. An example from kathakali training will il-lustrate the difference.

As discussed earlier in this chapter, in the first stages of kathakali training the teacher supplies the initial stimulus as the student learns basic ‘exter-nal’ forms. For example, when training in basic eye exercises, the student sits in front of the teacher and is instructed to focus his eyes on the teacher’s finger and follow the pattern it traces. Next he learns to focus his eyes where the hand moves, at first self-consciously tracking the move-ments of his hands. The eyes follow in response to the initial stimulus of directional hand move-ment. The beginner must also self-consciously trigger the mind to follow where the eyes have gone. The neophyte is easily distracted and must be deliberately re-minded to keep his mind on/in what he is doing.

Similarly, the student must master his facial mus-culature so that it can serve as a conduit for the embodiment of the various states of being/doing (bhava) demanded by the dramatic context. At first, the student is only able to perform sequential, con-ditional repetition and is reminded by his teacher to bring even a hint of bhava into his performance. In summary, then, sequentiality and conditionality are the conditions of the neophyte’s earliest at-tempts at performance. Even when at the technical level, the eyes are going where the hands are mov-ing, seldom is the student’s mind yet ‘there’ nor has bhava yet filled out the forms learned through repetition.

My objection to the use of an active rather than state-of-being verb in translating this passage is that it implies the performance of neophyte rather than master. And clearly the Abhinayadarpanam is describ-ing the optimal condition of a master. The sloka summarizes that state in which there is no sequen-tial intentionality or conditionality. Only as the stu-dent moves toward mastery is he able to actualize that state. The master and his technique are ide-ally ‘one’—he is what he does at each moment. The state-of-being verb establishes this condition as one in which four elements (hand, eye, mind, bhava) are simultaneously present within the performer. The fifth element, rasa, applies to the audience’s state of engagement, and at an ideal performance is simultaneously present.

This describes the performer’s accomplished state (siddhi) of being and mastery. The external ‘forms’ of training have been gradually encoded into the neophyte’s bodymind through repetition and drill to a point where they become part of his performative ‘body-consciousness’ and as such are ready-at-hand to be used ‘unthinkingly.’ Just as the accomplished yogi attains a state of actualization where he is able to transcend habitualized in-body processes to attain higher stages of meditations (dhyana, etc.), likewise the master performer is even-tually freed from the flux of the normative, every-day psychomental stream of consciousness for the performative moment. He is freed from ‘conscious-ness about’ for a state of ‘concentratedness’ in and for the task at hand—fully embodying and engag-ing himself in psychophysiological actions through which his character is created in time. While the neophyte moves toward, the master ‘is.’

THE PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY OF ‘FORM’: THE ASSUMPTIONS THAT INFORM ‘BECOMING THE CHARAC-TER’

What is believed, but usually unarticulated, in dis-ciplines of embodied practice like yoga, the mar-tial arts, or performing arts like kathakali are the fundamental assumptions about the bodymind which inform the achievement of such an actual-ized state of being/doing. Continuing my exegesis of this passage, let me return to the literal transla-tion and provide commentary on some of the performative assumptions about the bodymind relationship and the interior ‘subtle’ dimensions of embodiment which inform the four lines of the sloka from the perspective of kathakali actors today.

Where the hand [is], there [is] the eye…

The hands are central to most Indian genres of performance, and especially kathakali and kutiyattam where mudra are used for decorative ef-fect as well as a complete grammar for delivery of the dramatic text. When learning hand-gestures the student moves from mimicry of externals to a state where he is psychophysiologically ‘con-nected’ to each mudra from the region of the navel (nabhi). Derived from assumptions about the body

and bodymind relationship of both the traditional Indian system of health and medicine (Ayurveda, literally, the ‘science of life’), and from the under-standing of the ‘subtle’ body associated with yoga practice and philosophy, this connection is under-stood to be provided by the interior coursing of the breath, wind, or ‘life force’ (prana-vayu).¹⁴ As kathakali actor M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri ex-plained in an interview, ‘the vayu is spread all over the body. It is how to control that that is [an im-plicit] part of the training.’ Over time, the practice of vigorous psychophysiological exercises such as yoga postures (asana), martial arts (kalarippayattu), kathakali’s preliminary exercises derived from the martial arts, and/or undergoing vigorous massage is understood to control as well as stimulate the breath/life-force, and to clear the (often clogged) channels of the subtle body, thereby promoting good health and allowing ease of circulation of the vital-energy through both the physical and the subtle bodies.

In both kalarippayattu (martial arts) and kathakali training, students from the first day of training are instructed to breathe through the nose, and not the mouth—a simple instruction which, when adhered to in conjunction with correct spinal alignment while exercising, develops breathing which natu-rally originates at the ‘root of the navel’ (nabhi mula). Most important is the activation of this region (nabhi mula) to which and from which the breath/life-force is understood to circulate via the subtle body’s chan-nels (nadi) along the line of the spine and out through the limbs, as well as into the head/face. Correct instruction also comes from hands-on ma-nipulation of the student’s body by the teacher. As one teacher explained,

Without a verbal word of instruction the teacher may, by pointing to or pressing certain parts of the body, make the student understand where the breath-energy should be held or released.

When taking kathakali’s basic position (Plate 4.5) with the feet parallel to each other and the toes ‘gripping’ the earth via a solid triangle of energy created between the soles of the feet and the re-gion of the lower navel, the actor-dancer creates a dynamic set of oppositional forces with his inter-nal energy—a force directed simultaneously up to-ward the navel and down into the earth. It is this

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‘gripping’ which gives kathakali, like its martial precursor, its strong, dynamic, (tandava) grounded quality of strength, as well as the literal force manifest when one’s breath or ‘energy’ is directed in its most concentrated form along the outside of the dancer’s foot as it hits the ground. Gradually the practitioner is able to control and manipulate his vital-energy as the ‘enlivening’ force which is circulated and directed to and from the navel re-gion through his embodied practice so that, for the master as least, what could be ‘empty’ lifeless technique becomes ‘enlivened’ artistry.

This centered ‘groundedness’ is part of perform-ing kathakali’s gesture language ‘correctly.’ Each ar-ticulation of the hands/arms is ‘energized’ from the region of the lower navel by the circulation of the breath through the hands. The breath/energy mani-fest in each gesture must of course be shaped by the qualitative dramatic and narrative context of the moment.

Intuitive release, circulation, and control of the breath and therefore of ‘energy’ through the entire body, including the face and eyes, is necessary for the accomplished realization of the ‘emotional’ di-mension of kathakali performance—the full embodi-ment of the nine basic facial expressions. While in performance it is literally true that where the hands are there the eyes are, the eyes suggest much more than external focus. The eyes are a predominant medium for gaining ‘knowledge’ or affecting some-thing or someone (Eck 1981:6–7). When a devo-tee takes even a momentary glimpse (darsan) of a divine image, there is contact and an exchange, not a simple ‘looking at.’ The eyes are the window to one’s internal condition. They are a conduit and zone of modulation between forces outside (such as the ‘evil eye’) or inside (using one’s mental power, manasakti). When in a state of possession the ritual performer’s eyes manifest the deity’s power (sakti) and presence through the performer. In kathakali performance the eyes reveal the states of being/do-ing of the character through its more or less styl-ized, yet fully embodied form. The correct manipu-lation and control of the breath assumed when performing facial expressions and/or using the eyes is not taught systematically, but is developed through the pedagogical process of demonstration, imitation, and gradual correction by the teacher. For example, performing the erotic sentiment (rati bhava, Plate 4.3, 1) the external manipulation of

94 Performance in the kerala context

the facial mask executes the following basic moves, which are closely coordinated with the breath as follows:

Beginning with a long, slow and sustained in-breath, the eyebrows move slowly up and down. The eyelids are held open half-way on a quick catch breath, and when the object of pleasure or love is seen (a lotus flower; one’s lover, etc.), the eyelids quickly open on an in-breath, as the corners of the mouth are pulled up and back, responding to the object of pleasure.

The breathing is deep, and connected to the re-gion of the lower navel; it is never shallow chest breathing. The characteristic pattern associated with the erotic sentiment is slow, long, sustained in-breaths with which the object of love or plea-sure is literally ‘taken in,’ i.e., breathing in the aroma, sight, etc. of the lotus, or the beloved.

For the furious sentiment (krodha bhava, Plate 4.3, 4), on seeing the object of fury

the eyes are wide open, the nostrils flare and the internal wind is literally pushed from the root of the navel out into the lower eyelids, and through the nose, causing the nostrils to flare, and the lower lids to flutter, ‘furiously.’

Occasionally, a teacher might tell a student to ‘push the wind (vayu) from the navel into the face.’ After gripping in the region of the navel, the breath/energy is literally pushed into the face, as the muscles of the diaphragm region contract. Af-ter holding the grip for a while, there may be a quick ‘catch breath,’ with a slight exhalation through the nose. In this act of internal psycho-physiological actualization, the performer might be said to be ‘seeing’ (furiously) from within— from the navel. ‘Where the eye [is]’ is where there is simultaneously an outer and inner seeing.

G.S.Warrier tells the story of how Thottam Sankaran Namboodiri from Ambalapuzha was ‘noted for his raudra (“furious”) Bhima. There was no one to match him when he did this role. The terrible wrath on his face would be felt by the ac-tors playing Dussassana so much that they could not even look at his face!’ Warrier explained how and why Thottam Sankaran Namboodiri learned and achieved this effect:

In the Natyasastra they call this sattvik—you get the entire emotion on your face. Then you prac-tise what is called ‘concentrating the thought’ there, and ‘give it wind.’ It’s one of the great secrets of acting. The Ambalapuzha kutiyattam cakyar [who taught Thottam Sankaran Namboodiri] says you ‘give vayu (wind/energy) like in karate—giving ‘nervous’ control [i.e., con-trol via the channels of the subtle body]. So, Thottam Sankaran Namboodiri was able to ‘push the wind’ into this intense rage. Bhima here becomes a half-beast as Draupadi had pre-dicted to avenge this dishonor. The great ex-perts teach this!

(1993, interview)

The kathakali actor’s score demands his engage-ment of a series of fully embodied states—realized as the actor focuses externally on specific points while delivering hand and facial gestures, and en-gages his ‘inner eyes’ (attention, or perceiving consciousness in the moment) as well as breath-energy in what he is doing. For the actor, his own ‘concentration of thought’ is the psychophysi-ological concentration of his breath and field of visual/mental focus in what he is doing in each moment of his score. In the example of King Nala’s Law cited in Chapter 3 (pp. 44–5), as the actor moves his right hand to his chest and his external focus goes upward, he is not ‘thinking about’ or ‘reflecting upon’ either his own (actor’s) state or condition of sorrow or that of the character; rather, ‘sorrow’ is his active engagement through time of his inner breath/energy in the embodied act of focusing his gaze and placing his hand. In this particular example, ‘nervous control’ is the virtuosic actor’s ability to modulate his breath and focus through time so that the audience might have their own (aesthetic) experience of the character’s ‘emotional’ state of sorrow.

…where the eye [is], there [is] the mind…

Implied in inner vision is engagement of the performer’s entire bodymind. Movement of the master performer’s hands or eyes is not simply physical movement separate from mental engage-ment. The inner psychophysiological coursing of the prana-vayu assumes cognitive/mental engage-ment. Kathakali actor M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri

explained to me how the student-actor must learn to ‘take time to concentrate the mind in the hand-gestures,’ i.e., gradually gain an intuitive ability to have his ‘mind’ focused in each gesture as it is per-formed. As June McDaniel explains, the Sanskrit

mana means both mind and heart, as well as mood, feeling, mental state, memory, desire, attachment, interest, attention, devotion, and decision. These terms do not have a single ref-erent in English, and must be understood through clusters of explicit and implicit meanings.

(1995:43)

The ‘structuring of structure’ is the actor’s psycho-

physiological score, and the specificity of the

kathakali actor’s task of constantly directing his fo-

cus and breath reflects the engagement of the actor’s

mind/attention/heart in the act of performing each

‘emotional’ state in turn. In this sense, the actor

trained through a corporeal discipline learns to ‘di-

rect’ his ‘passions’ as he learns to control the breath/

energy. This suggests an experience-rich cluster of

associations involving the simultaneous engage-

ment of intellect, understanding, perception, feel-

ing in the act of performing. No Cartesian mind/

body split is assumed. Rather, ‘where the mind

(mana) [is]’ implies the engagement of the

performer’s entire being/bodymind in a state of

psychophysiological connectedness and

concentratedness through the internal coursing of

the prana-vayu, and therefore engaging life itself

(jivan).

…where the mind [is], there [is] the bhava…

The dramatic context determines the external sty-listic and interpretive forms which shape and channel the performer’s bodymind. Bhava is opti-mally the enlivened and energized inner states of being/doing expressiveness (sattvik abhinaya) which fills out those exterior forms through the inner psychophysiological process described above. The actor ideally enters an embodied state, thereby ‘becoming the character,’

…where the bhava [is], there [is] the rasa…

Assuming an audience educated and prepared to ‘taste,’ the performer’s embodied psychophysi-

Actor training and characterization 95

ological state-of-being (bhava) simultaneously es-tablishes the possibility for the actualization of rasa—there is a ‘tasting.’ At least after Abhinavagupta’s composition of his treatise on aesthetics, that state of tasting is often interpreted by connoisseurs like those at Margi as a further resonance—a glimpse, touching, and ‘knowing’ of a state of bliss itself (ananda).

Reflecting its psychophysiological/embodied roots in kalarippayattu, kathakali’s manipulation of breath and release of energy is manifest in the strength and facility of its footwork, use of gesture language, and facial expression. The ‘drama’ of kathakali performance is as much in the actor’s psychophysiological engagement in each perfor-mative act of his score, and in the relationship be-tween each specific task, its resonances and rela-tionship to the shaping, form, and ‘feeling tone’ of the next moment. In each precise psychophysi-ological moment the ‘character’ is being created as an embodied and projected/energized/living form between actor and audience. In such mo-ments of performance the actor becomes trans-parent, the medium for the ‘carrying forward’ of the states of being/doing of the character to the audience.

THE ACTOR’S CREATIVE PROCESS: DEVELOPING AND PERFORMING INTERPOLATIONS

The distinctive mark of the kathakali actor today is when connoisseurs take note of the mature actor’s individual signature when playing particular roles, and especially in the actor’s unique contributions to the relatively flexible interpolations in the per-formance score. Margi Vijayakumar explained his view of the creative process in the further elabora-tion of the role of Damayanti in Nala’s Law for performances at Margi:

The dominant state/mood (stayi bhava) in this role is sorrow, and all the other secondary modes of expressing elaborate sorrow. By extending this scene in performance to two hours, there is enough time to elaborate [both predominant and secondary] states fully… We can make the ex-pression of each state perfect by adding inter-polations and enacting what we imagine

96 Performance in the kerala context

happens to the character in this situation…[When enacting this role] it used to be that I simply performed what was written in the text. One incident happens after another. Typically, we show one hand-gesture after an-other, rushing through. But [when we elaborate], there is no rush; no time limitation. We have time to think.

(1993, interview)

To understand further the kathakali actor’s cre-ative process of developing a role and its interpo-lations, I will focus on how Nelliyode Vasudevan Namboodiri has developed and become widely noted for his acting of the role of Simhika in The Killing of Kirmira. An early graduate of the Kerala Kalamandalam now residing in Thiruvana-nthapuram where he recently inaugurated his own private training school, Nelliyode has be-come one of the most heralded and sought after senior actors of three types of roles: brahmin characters such the Brahmin in The Progeny of Krishna, ‘red beard’ roles, and forest dwelling ‘black’ female roles like Simhika. My description focuses on Nelliyode’s performance of Simhika’s lengthy two-part interpolation at the beginning of Chapter 8 in The Killing of Kirmira in which Simhika first elaborates her character’s basic na-ture as a demoness, and then elaborates her an-guished cry of ‘Alas!’ In performances edited to last approximately three hours, like the text trans-lated in this volume (Chapter 6), this scene opens the performance.

Like most interpolations, the basic framework for performing this one is set by tradition (citta), and was taught to Nelliyode by his own teacher. Since beginning to perform the role about fifteen years ago, Nelliyode has gradually added his own interpretation and elaboration of specific moments.

The opening sloka of the scene describes Simhika’s state of mind when she hears of her hus-band’s death:

Hearing over and again about the killing of her dear one,

in her anger the demoness’ eyes vomited blazing light like the flames of fire emitted by (the third eye) of Siva’s forehead,

(and her) row of fangs emitted spiraling sparks—

this demoness, the infamous Simhika, (whose) speech has unbearably hard syllables, revealed herself.

The interpolation begins immediately after Simhika’s curtain look as she begins to clean, adorn, and ‘beautify’ herself—this elaborates her basic nature as a demoness. Her process of ‘beau-tification’ mimetically copies, but comically paro-dies that of kathakali’s idealized female characters. As a demoness she embodies and represents the evil, hysterical, dark, untamed, uncivilized, sexu-ally active, and ugly opposite of the idealized well-mannered, tame, fair, and beautiful heroine. Mimetic acts like cleaning and dressing her hair, placing a tilaka mark on her forehead, acting shyly and playing games to while away the time until her husband returns to her, all stylistically exaggerate and thereby comically subvert and in-vert the processes of beautification and behavior appropriate to ‘proper’ heroines. She ‘fancies’ herself beautiful as she ‘walks proudly with her long hair,’ believing that those watching her have become ‘envious of her.’ Once she has decorated herself, she decides ‘I’ll pretend I’m shy when he comes to embrace me,’ i.e., she acts as if she’s not the lustful, sexually active female that, as a demoness, she ‘by nature’ must be. Since she is ‘naturally’ ‘black’ (kari) and therefore ‘dark’ (tamasa), no matter how much she works at ‘changing’ her appearance or behavior by ‘acting shy,’ as a ‘shape-changer’ her substantive nature as ‘dark’ cannot be altered.

In creating his own version of Simhika’s adornment, Nelliyode has taken into considera-tion the similar role of Nakratundi, the demoness servant of the demon-king Narakasura, who was sent to the abode of the gods to capture women for his enjoyment in The Killing of Narakasura by Kartika Tirunal (c. 1724–98). Nakratundi also performs an interpolation in which she ‘beautifies’ herself; however, there is a major difference be-tween their circumstances. Nelliyode explained in a 1993 interview that he has constructed his ver-sion of Simhika’s adornment around the fact that she lives in the forest, and not at court like Nakratundi. Consequently, when she needs oil for cleaning her hair, rather than taking it from a bottle ‘ready made’ on a shelf, Nelliyode’s Simhika looks around the forest for ‘natural’ oil.

Seeing a tree laden with fruit, she goes to the tree, shakes it vigorously so that the fruit falls onto the ground, gathers the fruit, and proceeds to crush it, pressing out its oil. It is with this oil that she cleans her hair! Nelliyode’s addition of the details of se-curing oil for her hair from her ‘natural’ environ-ment in the forest is widely appreciated by con-noisseurs since his choice has been read as appro-priate to her fundamental nature as a forest-dwell-ing demoness, and because the vibrant accuracy of his detailed mime literalizes and magnifies her exaggerated process of beautification, thereby ac-centuating the comic parody which the first part of the interpolation elaborates.

Perhaps the most striking and dramatic of Nelliyode’s additions to the traditional interpola-tion is at its abrupt conclusion where there is a sud-den shift of mood from comic parody to her reali-zation that the anguished cries she hears from some-one about to die are those of her husband. At this moment of realization, Nelliyode’s Simhika vio-lently rips a chain (tali) from her neck, throws it away, and begins to hit her head and chest as she cries out in anger and sorrow, ‘Who has done this!’ The tali was traditionally given when a woman formed an arranged relationship with a man as ap-proved by the eldest male of her household—signi-fying the traditional form of ‘marriage.’ In this state of sorrow and anger, Nelliyode’s Simhika begins the performance of the first line of dialogue,

Alas! O my dear handsome husband! Forsaking me, have you gone to the abode of

death?

As V.R.Prabodhachandran Nayar noted in our discussion of Nelliyode’s addition of this detail af-ter a performance we both attended, the interpo-lation graphically answers the question, ‘What

Actor training and characterization 97

does her cry of “Alas!” mean?’ Simhika’s dramatic response to the news of her husband’s death elic-its both her sorrow and anger, prompting all her ensuing actions against Panchali—the subject of the remainder of this part of the play. Nelliyode’s interpolation captures the deep pathos of a woman’s loss of her husband, and her reduction to a state of widowhood. It also provides a clear reason for her to seek revenge against Panchali. For all these reasons, Nelliyode’s addition of this dramatic bit of stage business to his performance of Simhika’s sorrow and rage over the loss of her husband has been widely praised for its appropri-ateness.

As a concluding note to this explanation of the actor’s creative process, it is important to recog-nize the limitations within which the actor is working. We should remember that what is con-sidered ‘appropriate’ in this scene, for this Simhika, is shaped entirely by male perceptions of the female. Nelliyode has developed this quite dramatic portrayal of a woman’s rage and sorrow at the loss of her husband while playing a Kari demoness, and not in a refined (minukku) female role. Marlene Pitkow quotes noted kathakali actor Padmanabhan Nayar as saying that the ‘heroine should show “full restraint of emotions and movement…and not be vulgar”… By definition, then, the minukku actor must be understated in his acting style, like the character he impersonates’ (1998:160). As the antithesis of the self-controlled minukku, and as a reflection of high-caste Nayar/ Namboodiri views of low caste Kerala women [and/or the black/dark indigenous Dravidian tribals ‘scheduled castes’], who are loud, demon-strative, engage in overt displays of their emo-tions, and are anything but quiet and reserved, the kari (‘black’) is not just allowed, but expected to display openly such emotions.¹⁵

part ii

plays from

the

traditional

repertory

5

the flower of

good fortune^a Kottayam Tampuran

(kalyanasaugandhikam) (c.1645–1716)

Translated by

INTRODUCTION

Kottayam Tampuran is to kathakali what Zeami was to the Japanese noh theater—that multi-tal-ented creative genius who as playwright, actor, and patron shaped the basic form and structure of the dance-drama. Although the seminal figure in the early history of kathakali, we know very little about this royal ruler. Whether legend or fact, what we do know has been summarized in Aymanam Krishnakaimal’s brief notes on the au-thor (1986:349–62). As a young boy, growing up in the royal family at Kottayam, Kottayam Tampuran was considered a slow learner. On a visit to the ruler (Zamorin) of the nearby king-dom of Kozhikode in Northern Kerala he made a grammatical mistake when asking, ‘What may I do for you?’ Because of this embarrassment to his family, he was sent to undergo a test at a nearby waterfall where he was made to stand under the waterfall for a full day to see if he would survive. The premise of the test was that if he survived he would become great in some way; and if not, he would die from the test.

To his mother’s wonder, he survived the test, and was therefore sent to the Mukambika Temple to un-dergo a year of intensive schooling. Thereafter, his mother brought a tutor, Govind Dikshitar, back to

V.R.PRABODHACHANDRAN NAYAR, M.P.SANKARAN NAMBOODIRI AND PHILLIP B.ZARRILLI

court. Gradually, the young boy grew in his intel-lectual and literary abilities. Eventually, he composed the four kathakali plays which, as we have seen, re-main central to both the training of the actor and the repertory. In order of authorship, his guru re-sponded to each of the four plays as it was written:

When he showed his teacher The Killing of Baka, he commented that it would be good for kaikottakali [central Kerala’s folk dance per-formed as women sing poetic verses]. To his second play, The Killing of Kirmira, his teacher said that a commentary would be necessary to understand its difficult grammar. To his third play, The Flower of Good Fortune, his guru said that the author seemed to be one who likes to win the mind of women. And to his fourth and final play, The Killing of Kalakeya, his teacher com-mented that it was the best of the four and fit to be performed.

(Krishnakaimal 1986:351)

Whether legend or fact, this story reflects the in-creasing beauty and complexity of Kottayam Tampuran’s language, polished and honed as he authored the four plays. By the time he completed The Killing of Kalakeya every word came to have a rich set of double meanings hich could be applied

1. Kalyanam means fine, luck, happiness, or good fortune, and, therefore, marriage.

102 Plays from the traditional repertory

either to each poetic image, and/or to the play’s narrative.

As composed by Kottayam Tampuran, The Flower of Good Fortune has fourteen scenes. Today, however, the vast majority of performances only include two to five of the fourteen scenes. This translation in-cludes the three scenes of The Flower of Good Fortune usually performed: Scenes 1, 9, and 10. Scene 1 be-tween Dharmaputra (Yudhisthira) and Bhima is oc-casionally performed today, and remains extremely important in the training of actors.¹

SYNOPSIS OF THE PLAY

While Arjuna was in the Himalayas in search of the divine arrow, his brothers and Panchali (Draupadi) spent their time visiting holy sites. Eventually they arrived in Kulinda, kingdom of Subahu in the Himalayas. There they visited and stayed in a beautiful forest known as Narayanasrama. In the first scene, when Arjuna leaves in search of the infamous Pasupata arrow, Bhima can no longer suppress his impatience with Dharmaputra’s inaction. In Scenes 2–8 (not usu-ally performed), the sage Romasa and Krishna ar-rive at the forest retreat. Bhima eventually inter-cepts the demon Jatasura and kills him.

In Scene 9, one day the wind brought a beauti-ful flower near Panchali. She was so enchanted by its fragrance that she asked Bhima to find some more of the same flower for her.

All that Bhima knew was that the flower came from the north since the wind had been blowing from that direction. Even though he had no idea of his ultimate destination, Bhima set off to find this special flower, the Saugandhika. Along the way in the forest he met many difficulties. Eventually (in Scene 10) he arrived at the place where his step-brother, Hanuman, was living. Hanuman, not knowing that his brother is coming, is disturbed in the midst of his meditations. He eventually recog-nizes that the one who is disturbing the forest as well as his meditations is his brother, Bhima. He wants to help him along his way, but decides that he must first be humbled; therefore, he transforms himself into a decrepit old monkey, and lies in Bhima’s path. When Bhima discovers him along the way, he orders him to move. Hanuman toys with him, ‘unable’ to move, and requests that Bhima

move his tail if necessary. Bhima tries to move his tail, but is unable. He realizes this can be no ordi-nary monkey, and requests him to reveal his true nature. When Hanuman reveals his divine form and identity, Bhima is humbled and bows before him. After teasing Bhima for losing his club (mace), he assists Bhima in finding his way to the Kubera garden where he can collect the flowers and return with them to Panchali.

Following Scenes 9 and 10, Bhima approaches the Kubera garden. There he meets the demon Krodhavasa who is guarding the lake where the Saugandhika flowers grow. They fight, and Bhima kills the demon and collects the flowers. Scene 14 enacts Bhima’s return to Panchali with the Saugandhika flowers, fulfilling her desire.

THE TRANSLATED TEXT

This performance text/translation has been pre-pared from K.P.S.Menon’s acting edition of Kalyanasaugandhikam in Kathakali attaprakaram (Menon 1979) and from a performance of Scenes 9 and 10 of the play on 13 May 1993 at Killimangalam, Trissur District, Kerala, India, commissioned by the Killimangalam Center for Documentation of the Performing Arts. The role of Bhima was played by Gopi Asan and the role of Hanuman by Ramankutty Nayar Asan. The interpolations (ilakiyattam) for Scenes 9 and 10 are from this performance, and those for Scene 1 are the basic interpolations taught at the Kerala Kalamandalam, and were provided by M.P. Sankaran Namboodiri.

CAST

DHARMAPUTRA (Yudhisthira): eldest of the Pandavas in pacca (‘green’) make-up

BHIMA: second of the Pandavas in pacca

PANCHALI: wife of the Pandavas in minukku (‘ra-diant’) make-up

HANUMAN: the wise and valorous chief of the monkeys in vella tati ‘white beard’ make-up

Note: As an aid for the reading of the four transla-tions which follow, Figure 5.1 provides a conven-ient ‘key’ to the technical terms and annotations included in the translations.

Figure 5.1 Key to textual and performance terms

purappatu

[sankarabharanam (raga); cempata (tala—32 beats)]

sloka:

When Arjuna left to obtain the Pasupata arrow^a through the grace of Siva,

Dharmaputra—whose past is graceful like Rama; holding his bow; intent on killing their ferocious enemies;

and continuously listening to devotional stories sweet to his ears as narrated by pious (bards)— along with his brothers, rejoiced in the forest with

(their) wife.

The flower of good fortune 103

(Behind the curtain and unseen by the audience, the actor playing Bhima performs a series of four salutations—three toward the curtain and one to the musicians. All four are set in a special rhythmic pattern, patinna kitatakadhimtam. The following padam with four caranam is sung to ac-company the dancing of the purappatu which describes the current state of the hero.)²

caranam:

Those (Pandavas) who are graceful jewels in the ocean of the moon’s clan;

whose great fame from birth is like the white moon-light,

1. The root of pasupata is pasupati, meaning protector. Siva is the protector of all beings. The Pasupata is an extremely powerful arrow blessed by Pasupati, or Siva.

104 Plays from the traditional repertory

caranam:

whose reputation gracefully deflects the accumula-tion of sins among those who simply think of them;

caranam:

who became forest ascetics because of the arro-gant Duryodhana’s misguided actions

when Arjuna went to worship Siva,

caranam:

Dharmaputra and the others threw off their leth-argy and travelled to many places of pilgrim-age.

(The curtain is raised as the purappatu concludes.)

Scene 1

[Dharmaputra and Bhima]

[saramgam (raga); campa (tala—20 beats)]

sloka: [After the initial singing of the raga, a kalasam is played with Bhima still behind the curtain. Then the curtain is lowered to reveal Bhima as he enacts this sloka.]

When Arjuna left for the weapon,

mulling over Sakuni’s deceitful action, Bhima—the one whose mind was heated (with anger) and sorrowful, with the fierce corners of his eyes focused on his mace as it rotated from his in-tense anger, and with that gluttonous heat di-rected against the vast array of (their) enemies

—said to Dharmaputra:

(In the transition to the padam, Bhima dances a very short choreography known as kitatakadhimtam.)

BHIMA:

pallavi: O ocean of valor and justice, I bow with my hands at your feet, O respected one. [K]

anupallavi:

With (our) wife here, deprived of our valor, and assuming an ascetic lifestyle,

is it right for you to find comfort in this (way of life)? [K]

caranam:

O son of Dharma with a pure mind, (please) look at the path of our Karma, O King—

Wrapped in bark like woodsmen, abandoning our duty and losing (our) bravery,

(we) wander aimlessly! [K]³

caranam:

Why have you sent Arjuna in vain for weapons now? [K] (The speed doubles to 10 beats.)

(Please) realize, O bold one, right now I am able to swiftly vanquish all our enemies! [K]

caranam: (The speed returns to 20 beats.)

Have no doubt that once our enemies are subju-gated in battle

and with relief [K] (The speed doubles to 10 beats.) I have drunk over and again Dussassana’s blood with the palm of my hand,

I will immediately decorate our wife’s hair. [K]

caranam: (The speed returns to 20 beats.)

Should you sympathize with (my point of view), then please order me to do this (i.e., to kill Dussassana)! [K] (The speed doubles to 10 beats.)

Challenging (our enemies) with the sound of ‘Hum!’ and taking away their pride, please do not prevent me from giving them to Yama’s at-tendant. [K] (The speed returns to 20 beats for the final part of the kalasam.)

pallavi: O ocean of valor…[K]⁴

[bhairavi (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

sloka: (The sloka is enacted.)

The great hearted Dharmaputra—the one with unblemished heart, whose soft speech is prin-cipled by Dharma and good thought—

said with delight to his younger brother who was blind with anger:

1. The period of exile in the forest.

DHARMAPUTRA:

pallavi: O brother, son of Vayu, one with good qualities, please control your anger. [K]

anupallavi:

Do not take this path until the appointed time is over.^a

(Then) without delay you can achieve this. [K]+[I]⁵

[ilakiyattam]

BHIMA:

Alas! Even though those rogues have done all this,

your mind remains undisturbed.

Alas! Itself!

With just a single, small, kind command, all those deceivers will be destroyed. Just one command!

DHARMAPUTRA:

Don’t! You must be patient a little longer.

BHIMA:

Oh! Oh! It is written (‘on the forehead’). As you command.

(Dharmaputra exits with Bhima, who immediately turns and re-enters from upstage.)

(To their enemies.) O deceivers! You only have a short time to keep your pride! Later I shall destroy all of you! You will see! [N]

(Curtain.)

Scene 9

[Bhima and Panchali]

[sankarabharanam (raga); cempata (tala—32 beats)]

(The two actors enter behind the hand-held curtain as the raga is elaborated.)

sloka:⁶

Later, when the season was felicitous for lovers, as a breeze from Mount Malaya^a lightly jostled the jasmins,

The flower of good fortune 105

the son of Vayu (Bhima), while walking in the for-est intent on love play,

said to his consort (Panchali), who likewise was ripe for (amorous) games:

(The curtain is lowered to reveal BHIMA and PANCHALI in a special entrance known as ‘patinna kitatakadhimtam’. The extraor-dinarily slow rhythm helps to establish the erotic mood.)

BHIMA:

pallavi: O daughter of King Panchala! O lotus-eyed! O abode of Kama!^b [K]

anupallavi:

Do not feel anguish in your heart from our relent-less travels in the forest. [K]

Plate 5.1 Bhima and Panchali embrace during their lengthy entrance, establishing the erotic mood for their love play in the forest

Photo credit: Sharon Grady.

1. These breezes are understood to carry the scent of the sandal trees that abound in this range.
2. Kama, ‘the five-arrowed one,’ is the god of love.

106 Plays from the traditional repertory

caranam:

Having roamed among the graceful rivulets, and gently tasted the sweet smell of the flowers swinging with delight,

a graceful, pleasant breeze blows. [K]+[I]

caranam:⁷

O Devi,^a prosperous parrot-voiced one,

please come to this flat rock for a little loveplay—an undisturbed spot where the good cuckoos sound ‘pancama,’^b

and from which the beautiful deer have scattered, frightened by the sweetness exuded by your flickering eyes. [K]

[mukhari (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

sloka: (This sloka is enacted as it is sung. PANCHALI at first senses the flower’s fragrance. Seeing the bees at-tracted to the flower, she then sees the Saugandhika flower. Picking it up, she admires its beauty and fragrance.)

Draupadi, gathering a supremely beautiful and di-vine flower borne to her by the wind as if out of affection,

and followed by swarms of bees due to its sweet smell, approached Bhima, the son of Vayu, and told him with delight:

PANCHALI:

pallavi: My Lord, please see this flower I possess. [K]

caranam:

If you feel sympathy (for me), certainly there will be occasion to obtain more of these graceful Saugandhika flowers. [K]+[I]

pallavi: My Lord, please see…

caranam:

No one can imagine a place on this earth with such exceedingly beautiful flowers!

My delight overflows,

O lotus-petal-eyed! [K]+[I]

pallavi: My Lord, please see… caranam:

Whatever it be, young women of excellent reputa-tion never reveal their desires to anyone except their husbands. [K]+[I]

pallavi: My Lord, please see…

[danyasi (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

BHIMA:

caranam:

O beautiful deer-eyed one,

without hesitation I shall fetch the graceful Saugandhika flowers which you desire. [K]+[I]

pallavi: O crown jewel among beautiful women with flickering eyes!

caranam:

Whether on top of a mountain, or in Indra’s heaven,

with my prowess I will easily fulfill your desire. [K]+[I]

pallavi: O crown jewel among…

[ilakiyattam]

BHIMA: So, should I go to get the flowers you desire?

PANCHALI: On your way, who will help you vanquish your enemies?

BHIMA: The mace which I always keep in my hand!

PANCHALI: On your way, how will you quench your thirst and hunger?

BHIMA: Your beautiful flickering glance itself is enough. Therefore, have a pleasant stay with my elder and younger brothers. I will return soon.

(DRAUPADI exits. After seeing her offstage, BHIMA turns and immediately re-enters. The following section of the ilakiyattam is known as the ‘description of the forest.’ Kodungallor Koccunnittampuran composed the sloka that forms the basis of this interpolation. What follows is a selective summary of BHIMA s thoughts and observations, spoken in gesture, and his enactment of what he sees.)

1. As in many Sanskrit dramas, the hero calls his beloved queen ‘Devi’—‘the Goddess.’
2. ‘Pancama,’ the fifth note of the Indian musical scale, is said to be produced by the cuckoo.

When Panchali expressed her wish, I immediately began my journey, not thinking about where and how to find the flower. It is the duty of a husband to fulfill his wife’s desires. Who else would do this?

Anyway, my brother, the son of Vayu, will be kind enough to show the way.

Here is the mountain, Gandhamadana. I should approach it. On the top of the mountain, I see a lot of minerals. The clouds are like the smoke that emerges from the trees which have caught fire in the valley below.

Here is a thick forest. I hear a sound. What is it? Oh! Here is an elephant caught by a python. (The actor enacts the struggle, taking first the part of the elephant and then the python.) Oh, and here is a lion! (The actor now enacts the lion’s entry on the scene. The lion sees the elephant and python, then jumps onto the elephant’s forehead. He claws the elephant’s forehead and, holding it, sucks the elephant’s blood through the wound.) Unable to sustain the attack, the elephant falls down. The python gradually opens his mouth and swallows the elephant. What a remarkable incident!

Oh, here are two lion cubs about to attack me! (He holds the two lions, smashes them together, and throws them aside.)

Here I see grass, large rocks, big trees entan-gled with creepers. Because of its density, even the sunshine can’t touch the ground. The forest is like solid darkness.

How should I proceed? Well, with my mace I shall cut a path through the forest. (He enacts cutting his path through the forest.) [N]

(BHIMA exits. Curtain.)

Scene 10

[madhyamavati (raga); campa (tala—20 beats)]

(The curtain remains raised during the singing of all three of the following verses.)

sloka:

Thus, as requested by his consort, he whose lustre is undiminished and carries a mace,

The flower of good fortune 107

jumped and alighted in the great mountain forest. Because of his overwhelming strength and speed, when he landed everything was dispersed,

and a sound was emitted as if the mountain itself had cried out in fear.

sloka:

The son of Vayu, Bhima, who enjoys adventures, whose sole provision for the journey was the tremulous and gracefully falling glances of the slender-bellied Panchali,

reached the plantain forest where all its inhabit-ants were terrified by his forceful footsteps.

sloka:

Hanuman, in meditation on Rama and perform-ing peaceful tapas there,^a

1. Tapas literally means ‘warmth, ardor.’ It refers to any ascetic technique such as fasting or special breath control exercises which warm or burn.

108 Plays from the traditional repertory

seeing Bhima effortlessly approaching with only the help of his most terrible mace,

thought thus:

(The curtain is lowered to reveal HANUMAN in medi-tation. A lengthy interpolation featuring the actor playing HANUMAN begins the scene. Behind the raised curtain, and therefore unseen by most of the audience, the actor playing Hanuman performs only the first part of the cur-tain look, which includes a series of choreographed steps. The second part of Hanuman’s traditional curtain look is not performed in this play.)

HANUMAN:

[ilakiyattam]

(As the curtain is lowered, there is a short [N] performed on the drums. At the end of the [N], the drumming be-comes very quiet as Hanuman is revealed in meditation. In the near-quiet the centa drum sounds with the first indica-tion of a disturbance to Hanuman’s meditation. Hanuman at first shows this disturbance only with his eyes, and not with hand-gestures or his body. He reflects. Again he re-turns to his meditation. The second disturbance is indicated more strongly by the drums. This time Hanuman looks around and with small hand-gestures speaks):

Why is it that my meditation is being disturbed? I’ll just focus my mind. (He focuses on his meditation, but again he is disturbed.) What is that ear-shattering sound? I should find out immediately. Is it the sound of the wings of mountains crashing to-gether? No. Long ago Indra cut the mountains’ wings and put them in different places. Therefore, it is not the sound of mountains.

Then what? (Thinking) Fixing my mind at the feet of Sree Rama, the Lord of the Three Worlds, while meditating thus, why is my mind still disturbed? Long ago Sree Rama with Lakshmana and the mon-keys like me crossed the ocean, reached Lanka, and annihilated all the demons. Then mounting the Pushpaka,^a Sree Rama with Sita and Lakshmana reached Ayodhya. We also accompanied them. Sree Rama’s coronation took place. We collected sacred water from various places and sprinkled the crown which he wore. Then he called us one by one and

gave us gifts and blessings. The monkeys were over-joyed. Later, Sree Rama gave a golden garland to Sita and told her, ‘O Devi, please give this to the one you consider most dear to you.’ Sita called me, ‘Hanuman, come.’ (He enacts bowing before her.) She gave me the garland. I said, ‘Of what use is a gar-land of golden pearls to a monkey? Well, I humbly accept.’ I received the garland and put it around my neck. Then Lord called me, ‘Hanuman, what is your wish?’ I said, ‘I have no wish except to remain fo-cused in meditation at your feet.’ Sree Rama said, ‘Let it be so.’ And he blessed me.

Having accomplished such deep meditation at Sree Rama’s feet, why is my mind shaken? (He sees BHIMA coming) Here someone approaches hitting the trees with a big mace in his hand. Who is this? Well, I will think properly and find out. [N]

pallavi: Who comes here? Is there no one in the forest to rival him with his everincreasing pride? [K]

anupallavi:

It is as if the heroic rasa itself has suddenly assumed human form and come near! [K]⁸

caranam:

The elephant herd, abandoning their mental peace, with trepidation helplessly run amok. [K]

caranam:

The lions, now afraid and sorrowful, hide inside a large cave. [K]

caranam:

Oh! In my mind, the feeling that he is my [brother] increases…⁹

Vayu’s son—he is my younger brother!

caranam: (The speed doubles to 10 beats, and a kalasam is danced in the middle of this caranam.)

I should affectionately allow him to display his strength, and then make him understand my truth. [K]

1. The Pushpaka is an ‘airplane’ or conveyance for riding through the cosmos.

caranam: (The speed returns to 20 beats.)

Hail Rama! Hail Rama! Oh, one who is attractive to all, Hail!

Ravana’s killer! Oh Rama, master of Sita! [K]+[N]

(HANUMAN performs a lengthy mimetic process of trans-formation as he literally becomes an old, decrepit mon-key lying helplessly on the ground in BHIMA’s path.)

[kamodari (raga); cempata (tala—8 beats)]

sloka:

Having thus decided, that steady-hearted one lay down, as if exhausted from old age, placing his tail in the path.

That Bhima, felling a grove of plantains by strik-ing his mace and pushing forward,

said angrily to the one lying there comfortably:

(BHIMA enters directly to the stage.)

[ilakiyattam]

BHIMA: I should proceed along this path. Here are the banana groves. See. Now I must enter and continue my travels from here. (Seeing HANUMAN.) Who is lying here obstructing the path? I think it’s a monkey. Well, I’ll tell him to get out of the way. [N]

pallavi: Lowest among the monkeys, get off the path without delay! Get off the path without delay!

caranam:

If you don’t go…[K]

I will come after you ripe with anger, and with ‘compassion’ grab you by the neck.

Tossing your obese body aside, I will have no obstacle to continuing my journey. [T]

pallavi: Lowest among the

monkeys…¹⁰

caranam:

‘Please’ note…[K]

Son of Vayu, I am the King born of the weighty moon’s clan!

Single-handed I can subjugate any enemy!

Oh, one with an evil mind, believe this now! [T]

The flower of good fortune 109

pallavi: Lowest among the

monkeys…

caranam:

‘Please’ listen…[K]

I am foremost and best among kings!

The one who has in mind only what

Dharmaputra desires—his younger brother,

Bhima, the wolf-bellied.

Also know that I am the strongest! [T]

pallavi: Lowest among the

monkeys…

caranam:

If without fear…[K]

you continue to lie there hesitating in my path— Oh, you overweight monkey, leader of fools— quickly and skillfully I will pummel you into dust. [T]

pallavi: Lowest among the

monkeys…[N]

[nilambari (raga); atanta (tala—14 beats)] sloka: (This sloka is acted.)

With half-open eyes, that leader of monkeys looked at Bhima as he continued to torment him with his insults.

Without revealing himself, he trembled as if his strength was gone.

Although adroit, he spoke as if weak:

HANUMAN:

pallavi: O King! Although I have not received you prop-erly, please do not be angry! [K]

anupallavi:

Because of my age I am unable to walk. Respected Sir, please know that I have been like

this a long time. [K]

caranam:

O brave one! Please note that usually not even a single human passes this way.

The celestial beings will become irritated if you disturb things here.

O leader of kings, please return quickly to your own city. [K]

[muriyatanta (tala—7 beats)]

110 Plays from the traditional repertory

BHIMA:

caranam:

Even if humankind and the gods… [K] join to attack me,

I have no fear.

O monkey! Do not speak to me as if to a coward. Know that I am Vayu’s son,

the skillful one. [1/2K]

pallavi: O evil-minded one! Get out of my way immediately, leader of monkeys! [K]

[atanta (tala—14 beats)]

HANUMAN:

caranam:

You who are the strongest in this world, after step-ping over me, please leave quickly.

Please know that because of this my mind will suf-fer no disturbance.

Please note that your clan duty is compassion for the disabled.^a [K]

[muriyatanta (tala—7 beats)]

BHIMA:

caranam:

O forest traveler! In your clan… [K] is Vayu’s son, the leader of the monkey clan, Hanuman.

Thinking about this brother of mine, I hesitate to cross over you and depart. [1/2K]

pallavi: O evil-minded one…

[bhairavi (raga);¹¹ muriyatanta (tala—14 beats)]

HANUMAN:

caranam:

O bull among men, didn’t you say there is a leader among the monkeys called Hanuman?

Oh, ‘ocean of humility,’ my interest increases. Kindly tell me who he is. [K]

[nilambari (raga); muriyatanta (tala—7 beats)]

BHIMA:

caranam:¹²

Siva! O Siva! Is there a single person in the entire world who does not know Hanuman, Vayu’s son?

That great-minded one who set fire to and burned down the palace of the ten-necked, Ravana, that thorn of the world. [1/2K]

pallavi: O evil-minded one…

HANUMAN:

caranam:¹³

Oh, ocean of great qualities and compassion, gen-tly move aside my tail and go.

Leader of men, please consider that because of exhaustion from old age, I don’t have the strength to move.

[ilakiyattam]

BHIMA: Don’t keep repeating yourself. Move! Even now your mind is filled with pride. Get rid of it. (To himself.) There’s no use telling him again what to do. With my mace I’ll lift and move his tail and be on my way. [N]

[nattakurunni (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

sloka: (This sloka is acted.)

Hearing these words, Bhima approached, but was unable to move even the tip of the monkey’s mighty tail.

Sobered, exhausted, doubtful, bowed with shame, and having lost his daring,

he said to the monkey leader:

BHIMA:

pallavi: O bull among monkeys, most lustrous one, listen now to my respectful words. [K]

caranam:

Please tell me if you are Varuna, the rope bearer, or Indra himself, O brave one!

I certainly know that you are not just a monkey leader. [K]+[I]

1. Hanuman reminds Bhima that as a member of the warrior caste/clan (Ksatriya) his duty should be to protect and have compassion for all, especially the helpless.

pallavi: O bull among monkeys…

caranam:

Among all living beings, no one’s strength equals yours.

So quickly now, please tell me the truth! [K]+[I]

pallavi: O bull among monkeys…

[cempata (tala—8 beats)]

HANUMAN:

caranam: (A kalasam begins this caranam.)

I am Rama’s messenger—the one who killed Ravana. (The speed changes to 16 beats.)

I am your brother. My name is Hanuman. [K]+[I]

pallavi: O bull among men, please listen to my words.

caranam:

In order to see the lotus-eyed Janaka’s daughter (Sita),

it is I who crossed the ocean, and it is I who completely destroyed Lanka with fire. [K]+[I]

pallavi: O bull among men…

[panduvarati (raga);¹⁴ cempata (tala—16 beats)]

BHIMA:

caranam:

Please do not be offended by the childish words I spoke.

I bow with my hands at your feet, O brother, ocean of compassion. [K]

caranam:

O elder brother, you crossed the ocean without difficulty.

My desire to see that form increases. [K]

[nattakurunni (raga); cempata (tala—8 beats)]

HANUMAN:

caranam:

If that is your desire… [K]

please see my body. (The speed returns to 16 beats.)

The flower of good fortune 111

I will reveal only the minimum so that you will not be overwhelmed. [K]

[ilakiyattam]

HANUMAN: Look. If you see that terrible form I assumed when I jumped across the ocean, won’t you faint, become bewildered, and fall down?

BHIMA: Even if that happens, aren’t you here with me?

HANUMAN: Oh, yes, I will be here with you. Watch carefully. [N]

[sankarabharanam (raga); muriyatanta (tala—14 beats)]

sloka: (The following sloka is acted.)¹⁵

Hanuman, whose source is the tornado and who

is the abode of justice,

saw Bhima, his younger brother, fallen out of fear at his feet.

Pleased, he assumed an agreeable form and then told Bhima:

HANUMAN:

pallavi: Do not have even a little fear in your mind, Bhimasena!^a [K]

anupallavi:

Please listen to my words: have happiness in your mind,

O you who destroys the prosperity of enemies. [K]¹⁶

caranam:

Now, without taking any more time, O Bhima, son of Vayu,

please obtain what your dear wife, the parrot-speeched one, desires. [K]¹⁷

[sriragam (raga); muriyatanta (tala—14 beats)]

BHIMA:

caranam:

Soon preparations begin for confronting the Kauravas in battle.

O brave one! On that day please come near us and destroy the leaders of our enemy. [K]¹⁸

[panduvarati (raga);¹⁹ muriyatanta (tala—7 beats)]

1. Bhima’s full name, meaning one whose army is awe-inspiring.

112 Plays from the traditional repertory

Plate 5.3 Hanuman exhibits his divine form for Bhima

Photo credit: Sharon Grady.

HANUMAN:

caranam: (A kalasam begins this caranam).

I will remain on the flagstaff of your respectable

brother Arjuna, son of Indra, and

with awe-inspiring sound in battle I will bring to ruin our enemies. [K]

[ilakiyattam]²⁰

HANUMAN: You’ve been saying one thing after another. Now the time is getting late. Go soon to secure and bring the Saugandhika flower that Panchali desires. I will remain here and meditate on Sree Rama.

BH I MA: As you say. (He prostrates before HANUMAN and receives his blessings. He is about to leave, then turns back to HANUMAN. He stands think-ing.)

HANUMAN: (To himself.) No, he won’t leave just like that. He’ll return.

BHIMA: (To himself.) Where should I go? My mace is still under his tail. How can I get it back? After all, he’s my elder brother. I will ask him. (He comes close to HANUMAN but, seeing him uttering

RAMA’s name, does not want to disturb him and steps back. But again he comes close, touching his arm.) HANUMAN: (Slapping at whatever might be touching him.) Oh, you didn’t go. Why not?

BHIMA: I was on my way, but in order to defend myself against my enemies, I had in my hand one…

HANUMAN: What, you came empty-handed?

BHIMA: No, I had a mace in my hand. HANUMAN: Oh, I have heard about that—that Bhima used to carry a big mace in his hand. Where is that mace now? Oh, I know. When Panchali told you… (Taking on the character of PANCHALI…) ‘Only you can fulfill my desire. Could you fetch me some Saugandhika flowers? No one else could get this. Only you can.’ (He steps out of the role of PANCHALI.) When she said that, you immediately set out. In the confusion you must have forgotten the mace. BHIMA: No, no. I didn’t forget it.

HANUMAN: Then where is the mace? BHIMA: When I came a while ago, you were ly-ing in the path having assumed the form of an old monkey. Because of my ignorance, I angrily tried

to throw your tail aside with my mace. Then I couldn’t get the mace back. Forgive me. HANUMAN: What, you left your mace under my tail? Oh, no. I didn’t feel anything.

BHIMA: Please, kindly return my mace. It hap-pened because of my ignorance. HANUMAN: Are you sure you put it there?

BHIMA: Yes, I’m sure.

HANUMAN: Oh! Then maybe it was broken. BHIMA: No! Don’t say that. Kindly return it. Af-ter all, I’m your younger brother. Please forgive me.

HANUMAN: (To himself and the audience.) He has such a huge form, but his mind is so innocent. Well, he is my younger brother. I’ll re-turn the mace to him. (Taking the mace.) With this mace you have struck and crushed many enemies’ heads. You left that club under an old monkey’s tail and were unable to get it back. What a pity. From now on you should not do anything without first considering the consequences.

BHIMA: Nothing like this will happen again. HANUMAN: (Meditating, he hands over the mace. Once BHIMA receives it he rushes off toward his enemies angrily.) Well, go quickly now. I will stay here meditating.

BHIMA: Where can I get the Saugandhika flow-ers?

HANUMAN: You know why I obstructed the path and lay in your way? BHIMA: Why?

HANUMAN: Human beings are not allowed to pass this way. This is the abode of the devas. If the devas see a human being, they will curse him. Therefore, you should alter your path. That’s why I closed my eyes and lay down. If you go this way, you will see Kubera’s garden. After entering it, while walking you will see a pond where there are many Saugandhika flowers. You can collect as many as you want, and give them to Panchali.

BHIMA: As you command. Please shower me with your kindness always.

HANUMAN: Therefore, we are both blessed by Sree Rama. Always meditate on Sree Rama. (Hug-ging him and blessing him, he sends him on his way.) Now, taking Sree Rama in mind, I will fix my mind and continue my meditations. (He assumes a posture of meditation.)

(Curtain.)

The flower of good fortune 113

COMMENTARY: DRAMATIZING THE AMBIGUITIES OF THE ‘HEROIC’

Since the four plays translated here include one or more heroic characters (Bhima, Arjuna, Rugmamgada), in this and other commentaries I focus on the ambiguities of ‘the heroic’ as it is ne-gotiated on the kathakali stage, and reflected in the socio-cultural milieu of historical Kerala. As dis-cussed in Chapter 3, the kathakali epic hero can be read as an ideal figure who is a brave and/or val-iant man (viran; dhiran), displaying his bravery (virata) and courage (dhairyam) as he upholds law and fulfills his duty (dharma). But this idealized concept of the heroic implicit in kathakali cannot be reduced to any single representation; rather, the heroic is negotiated between and among vari-ous heroic characters in a variety of dramatic texts. For example, among the five Pandavas the ‘heroic’ is negotiated between the three major brothers: Dharmaputra’s carefully considered at-tention to matters of duty and rightful behavior; Arjuna’s sage-like purity, acumen, and acquisition of awesome powers through meditation; and Bhima’s explosive, impetuous demands for ener-getic action and use of his strength.

Although the hero always emerges victorious at the conclusion of a play, the path toward that glorious resolution is always fraught with severe trials and tribulations. The hero’s putative pow-ers, heroism, wisdom, and/or bravery are all put to the test and/or mocked by his enemies, or the gods themselves—a phenomenon which reveals an underlying ambiguity toward these all-powerful fig-ures and what they symbolize, embody, and repre-sent.

The anxieties and concerns of Kerala’s historical ‘heroes’

As discussed in Chapter 2, kathakali reflects the ‘anxieties and concerns’ of Kerala’s ‘royal political milieux’ (Gitomer 1998:34). The fractious, frag-mentary, contestatory nature of Kerala’s political landscape during the period of kathakali’s emer-gence and development is witnessed in the nu-merous petty principalities whose rulers engaged in almost constant warfare—a state of conflict made worse by the arrival of the Portuguese,

114 Plays from the traditional repertory

Dutch, French, and English colonial powers. The realities of living in small, segmented, and self-contained ‘little kingdoms’ can be inferred by reading between the lines of kathakali dramas, among other primary sources including European diaries and Kerala’s folk ballads.

Soon after the arrival of Vasco da Gama at the close of the fifteenth century, outsiders began to com-ment upon the martial spirit and practices of Kerala’s Nayars. Duarte Barbosa recorded the ideal pattern of martial service for Nayars to their local rulers:

When these Nayres accept service with the King or with any other person by whom they are to be paid they bind themselves to die for him, and this rule is kept by most of them; some do not fulfil it, but it is a general obligation. Thus if in any way their Lord is killed and they are present, they do all they can even unto death; and if they are not at that place, even if they come from their homes they go in search of the slayer of the King who sent him forth to slay, and how many soever may be their enemies yet everyone of them does his utmost until they kill him.

(Barbosa 1921, vol II: 48)

Fluent in Malayalam, Barbosa recorded how a kalarippayattu-trained Nayar underwent a special ‘knighthood’ ceremony which bound him to his master to death. In this ceremony,

The King…asks him if he will maintain the cus-toms and rules of the other Nayres, and he and his kinsmen respond ‘Yes’. Then the King com-mands him to girt on his right side a sword with a red sheath, and when it is girt on he causes him to approach near to himself and lays his right hand on his head, saying therewith cer-tain words which none may hear, seemingly a prayer, and then embraces him saying ‘Paje Bugramarca’, that is to say ‘Protect cows and Brahmenes’.

(ibid.: 45–7)

Barbosa concludes his account by noting that af-ter the ceremony the ‘knight’ is able to ‘serve the King, go to the wars, or challenge any man at his pleasure’ (ibid.).

At a political level a Nayar’s pledge theoreti-

cally circumscribed his right to exercise violence against anyone above him in the social/caste hier-archy, and only to use his martial skills at the be-hest of his ruler. However, as Barbosa’s conclusion makes clear, his coming-into-manhood sanctioned his right to exercise violence virtually as he pleased by ‘challenging’ those equal to or lower than him in the hierarchy. Jonathan Duncan, who served more than once as Commissioner of Bengal and later as Governor of Bombay, visited Malabar in 1792–3 and described how a Nayar walked about

holding up his naked sword with the same kind of unconcern as travellers in other countries carry in their hands a cane or walking staff. I have observed others of them have it fastened to their back, the hilt being stuck in their waist band, and the blade rising up and glittering be-tween their shoulders.

(Logan 1951:139)

The sword he carried in public served as both symbol and icon of his ‘right’ to bear arms, and to exercise violence on behalf of his ruler. It also served as a marker of his ruler’s participation in the sacrificial paradigm of divine kingship. The sword is therefore both symbolic and instrumen-tal of the ‘rights’ and ‘obligations’ of the exercise of authority and power.

The lawful exercise of violence by those em-powered with the right to carry ‘the sword’ (or other weapons) was a public affair ranging from interstate warfare, to a variety of forms of duel to the death. Interstate warfare erupted for a variety of reasons from caste differences (Menon 1967:96), to pure and simple aggression, to chal-lenges over ceremonial rights. Perhaps the most infamous example of the latter is the well-docu-mented dispute between the Zamorin or Kozhikode and the Raja of Valluvanadu over which ruler was to serve as convenor and protec-tor of the Mamakam festival. Held every twelve years, this ‘great’ festival celebrated the descent of the goddess Ganga into the Bharatpuzha river in Tirunavayi, north Malabar, which by her miracu-lous presence made the river as holy as the sacred Ganges itself. Until the thirteenth century, when the dispute probably arose, the ruler of Valluvanadu possessed the traditional right of in-augurating and conducting the festival. The

Zamorin set out to usurp this right. After a pro-tracted conflict, the Zamorin wrested power by killing two Vellatri princes. The event created a permanent schism between the kingdoms. At each subsequent festival, until its discontinuation in 1766 following the Mysorean invasion, some of the Valluvanadu fighters pledged to death-in-serv-ice to their royal house attended the Mamakam to avenge the honor of the fallen princes by fighting to the death against the Zamorins much superior, massed forces (Pallath 1976, passim; Ayyar 1928– 32, passim). A few of these ‘heroes’ of the Valluvanadu kingdom continued to sacrifice themselves on behalf of their rulers’ honor for years.

In this instance, the requirement that the ruler continuously attempt to ‘expand’ his kingdom was achieved for the Zamorin of Kozhikode. Since one’s authority and ranking within the hierarchy was marked as much or more by the practices which one was entitled to perform, the Zamorin’s ‘power’ was thus both symbolically and literally expanded by violently wresting control of the Mamakam fes-tival. He ‘expanded’ his kingdom not literally through territorial expansion, but by expanding his ‘rights and duties.’

Other forms of public violence where kalarippayattu-trained martial heroes exercised their valor were duels (ankam) which legally served as a means of last resort for solving disputes within higher-caste families, duels to resolve blood feuds, or duels intended to resolve interpersonal conflicts (Devi 1975, passim). The inherent instability of the socio-political order is evidenced not only in inter-state warfare, but also in stories of the infamous Nayar hero of the northern folk ballads, Tacholi Otenan. From a family said to have lost much of its previous wealth, Otenan’s exercise of power should have been circumscribed by the authority of the local ruler in whose service his exercise of his martial skills would have been pledged. As re-vealed in these folk ballads, Tacholi Otenan’s great powers and prowess are constantly negotiated and contested within specific contexts to very different ends. In some ballads he challenges and defeats a figure of traditional authority, as when he avenges the treatment of his younger brother, Kunjan, by the Ariarkovil Tampuran by beheading him. In another story Tacholi is deputed by a local ruler to collect three years’ back rent from a land-holding

The flower of good fortune 115

family in the Kodumala area where the powerful young woman of the Kunki family was holding sway and refusing to pay. Tacholi uses his exper-tise in attacking the body’s vital spots to subdue her with a cattle prod, and sexually takes control of her as well. In this case, Tacholi tames and con-trols this malcontent ostensibly on behalf of the ‘legitimate’ local authority.

Tacholi’s celebrated exercise of extraordinary power(s) is decidedly ambivalent in relation to the traditional local Kerala social and political hierar-chy. When examined closely, he is something of a ‘joker’ in a supposedly ideal deck. But perhaps, on closer examination, even the great epic heroes as they appear in kathakali dance-dramas, whose power and character at first glance seem so absolute and ideal, are as ambivalent as Tacholi.

Time and again the epic heroes are represented on the kathakali stage as either possessing awesome strength, such as Bhima, or acquiring divine pow-ers, such as Arjuna, in order to carry out their nec-essarily violent acts of blood-letting to rid the cos-mos of the forces which have upset its balance. In the original version of The Flower of Good Fortune Bhima fulfills this necessary part of his heroic role by using his strength to kill two menacing demons, Jatasura and Krodhavasa. (This aspect of the op-eration of the heroic will be discussed further in the commentary on The Killing of Kirmira in Chap-ter 6.)

These same heroes repeatedly display an over-weening pride which leads them continuously to test and overstep the boundaries of their author-ity, power, and/or rightful behavior. Similar to Tacholi, their energetic (rajasa) quality, so neces-sary in a South Asian understanding of the person for taking decisive action in the world, leads the hero constantly to overstep all these boundaries. Consequently, in plays like The Flower of Good For-tune, The Progeny of Krishna, and Kiratam, we find Bhima, and even the warrior-sage Arjuna, having their pride not only checked, but often mocked. In a discussion of The Progeny of Krishna, V.R. Prabodhachandran Nayar commented how in this play, ‘self-pride is the vital spot (marmmam) of Arjuna!’²¹ So ubiquitous is pride that, as Wendy O’Flaherty reminds us, it is not only the epic he-roes, but occasionally even the gods themselves who are prone to a case of overweening pride (abhimanam) that must be humbled.²² South Asian

116 Plays from the traditional repertory

scholar Wendy O’Flaherty relates the following story from the Brahmavaivarta Purana concerning Indra’s pride:

Once when Indra, the king of the gods, was puffed up with pride, he made Vishvakarman, the architect of the gods, build him a palace, to be the grandest palace ever built. But Vishvakarman humbled Indra by showing him a parade of ants and pointing out that every one of those ants had, in a former life, been an Indra.

(1988:66)

When Bhima first appears in Scene 1 of The Flower of Good Fortune, he clearly displays and rep-resents the ‘energetic’ (rajasic) aspect of the heroic sentiment which calls for action again the Kauravas. The angry/furious (raudra) dimension ‘necessary’ to act is embodied and displayed, if not yet unleashed, by Bhima. The construction of the heroic here takes place between Bhima’s de-mands for immediate action and Dharmaputra’s voice of principled reason and patience in the working out of their duty.

In Scene 9, Bhima appears as the dutiful hus-band, and idealized lover with his ‘undiminished lustre’ when, ‘as requested by his consort,’ he sets out to seek the ‘flowers of good fortune.’ So pow-erful is Bhima that when he jumps and alights in the ‘great mountain forest’ the strength and speed of his steps cause a sound so great that it is as if ‘the mountain itself had cried out in fear!’ Indeed, Bhima is so powerful that his ‘forceful footsteps’ terrify all the inhabitants of the forest, and disrupt Hanuman’s meditation on Rama. When Hanuman eventually discovers the source of disruption to his meditation, he exclaims, ‘it is as if the heroic rasa itself has suddenly assumed human form and come near!’

Represented thus far as an ideal embodiment of the heroic, in Scene 10 Bhima ‘fails’ miserably. Given the requirement that warrior princes pro-tect the innocent and uphold the social order, Bhima neglects to show proper respect to the elderly mon-key who blocks his way when he angrily tries to remove the monkey by force. Finally, with great self-aggrandizement he touts his own great strength, and goes so far as to mock the decrepit old mon-key sarcastically!

Bhima’s pride is accentuated when he addresses this ‘old monkey’ with great sarcasm—‘If you don’t go… I will come after you ripe with anger, and with “compassion” grab you by the neck. Tossing your obese body aside, I will have no obstacle to continuing my journey.’ Using the self-referential ‘I,’ he continues to tout his ‘great’ powers falsely:

Even if humankind and the gods… join to attack me,

I have no fear.

O monkey! Do not speak to me as if to a coward. Know that I am Vayu’s son,

the skillful one.

Further accentuating this aspect of Bhima’s pride, he sarcastically address Hanuman with such ‘re-spectful’ titles as ‘leader of the monkeys.’ Even when the actor dances Bhima’s kalasams, they punctuate this section of the text with his impetu-ous, explosive impatience and disdain for the old monkey. Having built up the bubble of Bhima’s self-pride, the remainder of the scene enacts the humbling of this pride as Bhima’s supposedly ‘great’ powers are rendered paltry in comparison to those of the Hanuman—the simple, pious, egoless devotee of Rama.

Humor and the pleasures of The Flower of Good Fortune

An element of humor (hasya) is nearly always part of playing scenes in which an epic hero is humili-ated. The degree and type of humor varies ac-cording to the character and situation. In The Flower of Good Fortune, Hanuman at first playfully toys with Bhima when he retorts, ‘O “ocean of humility,” my interest increases.’ By the end of their encounter, when the tables are turned and Hanuman has revealed his identity, Bhima is com-pletely humiliated. So much is the humor empha-sized and enjoyed that in today’s performances the actor playing Hanuman rubs extra salt into Bhima’s wounded pride in the final interpolation when he taunts Bhima over the ‘loss’ of his great mace—the symbol and icon of his supposedly great strength which he uses to ‘vanquish his en-emies.’ It is of course with this mace that he does eventually crush Dussassana’s thighs, thereby rec-tifying the dishonor done to their wife, Panchali.²³

Scenes like this, in which the hero’s pride is lanced, always involve some degree of a hero’s self-examination of his own faults and/or short-comings, and/or at least an acknowledgment of the ‘greatness’ of the (higher) power which has defeated him. In keeping with the quite different temperaments of each of the epic heroes, Arjuna’s self-examination in The Progeny of Krishna (Chapter

1. is very different from Bhima’s in The Flower of Good Fortune. In keeping with Arjuna’s sage-like single-mindedness of purpose and moral duty, the agony over his failure to protect the Brahmin, his wife, and their son is profound and deep, and re-sults in his attempt to throw himself, as pledged, into a fire! In contrast, Hanuman’s test of the al-most child-like Bhima in The Flower of Good Fortune results in a simple act of contrition—Bhima merely ‘bows with my hands at your feet, O brother, ocean of compassion.’ Having sought and won his brother’s forgiveness, Bhima immediately ex-presses his desire to see his divine, super-human form. With child-like simplicity, he wants to experience the awe of Hanuman’s full counte-nance.

The Flower of Good Fortune remains a favorite for both connoisseurs, and general audiences. Children delight in Hanuman’s playful antics, especially when he first enters the stage and is disturbed from his meditations. In one of our many discussions, Vasudevan Namboodiripad explained to me the pleasures he has found in watching performances of Scenes 9 and 10 of The Flower of Good Fortune over the years:

The flower of good fortune 117

During the opening (love) scene [between Bhima and Draupadi], I feel the beauty of the slow patina padam. It’s very complex—the listening. Since I have seen the scene many times, I have a model in mind.

I particularly enjoy performances which feature the dignity of particular characters. I like to watch those actors who are restrained, and therefore more controlled. Therefore, I always liked seeing Kunju Nayar playing Bhima, and Raman Kutty Nayar playing Hanuman in The Flower of Good Fortune. Even though kathakali is not ‘natural,’ you feel like it is natural. After Hanuman meets Bhima, he’s really ‘acting,’ i.e., concealing his identity and playing another role [the old monkey]. He’s motivated by his broth-erly love and affection, and the result is his play-ful acting. Here he’s a ‘monkey.’ Even though he’s not presenting himself as Hanuman, the internal [stayi] understanding of Hanuman must be there. During the final interpolation of the play between Bhima and Hanuman, you feel the fraternal bonds between them. That’s very captivating to me.

I have a preconceived concept of how these char-acters should be, and their mode of acting. There’s enjoyment of the whole, and enjoyment of the spe-cific sections. For example, when Raman Kutty Nayar plays Hanuman, although he’s conscious of the audience, he doesn’t play to the audience. But restraint is a word which can’t be applied to every character in the same way.

(1993, interview)

6

the killing of kirmira (kirmiravadham)

Translated by

INTRODUCTION:

Along with The Flower of Good Fortune, The Killing of Kirmira is one of the most important plays in the training of the kathakali actor. The play falls into three major parts: the opening scenes where the focus is on the major role of Dharmaputra and Panchali and the dramatic focus is on the di-lemma of the Pandavas in exile; the middle scenes where the focus is on Panchali’s relation-ship with Krishna and the visit of the sage Durvasa to their forest home; and the final scenes where the focus shifts to the Pandavas’ en-counter with the demon Sardula, his wife Simhika, and her brother Kirmira. Unlike The Flower of Good Fortune, King Rugmamgada’s Law, and The Progeny of Krishna for which entire acts are often not performed today most of The Killing of Kirmira is still performed; however, it is seldom performed in one all-night performance. More of-ten the first one or two parts of the play focusing on Dharmaputra, Panchali, and Krishna are per-formed (Scenes 1–6), or the later part of the play (Scenes 7–14).

When the final part of the play is enacted, the performance usually begins with Scene 8 in which the demoness Simhika makes her entrance. (Scene 7 enacting the encounter between Arjuna and Sardula, culminating in Sardula’s death, is sel-dom enacted; and Scene 12 between the Pandavas and Panchali has not been enacted

Kottayam Tampuran (c.1645–1716)

V.R.PRABODHACHANDRAN NAYAR, M.P.SANKARAN NAMBOODIRI AND PHILLIP B.ZARRILLI

within memory of many performers and audience members today.)

SYNOPSIS OF THE PLAY

After losing the game of dice, the Pandavas and their common wife, Panchali (Draupadi), have been living in exile in the forest for twelve years.

(Scenes 1–6, not included in this translation): The opening scene between Dharmaputra and Panchali is set in a very slow tempo to accentuate the pathos (karuna) of their situation in exile. Dharmaputra is concerned not with his suffering or that of his brothers, but rather with Panchali’s suffering. And Panchali is not so much concerned with her own plight, but rather with the suffering of the 88,000 brahmins and 10,000 sanyasins who have followed them from their court into exile in the forest. They are all exhausted, weak, and hun-gry, and Panchali feels responsibility for providing them with the same hospitality and food they re-ceived at the court. Dharmaputra sympathizes with her plight and concerns.

To find relief from their difficulties, the sage Dhaumya suggests that Dharmaputra worship the sun god, Surya. Surya appears and gives Dharmaputra a magic vessel which will provide a continuous supply of food until Panchali herself (who takes her own meal after everyone else has finished) has eaten.

Krishna comes to visit the Pandavas in their forest home. Dharmaputra asks, ‘Aren’t you ashamed to see us in such a state?’ Remembering how the Kauravas tricked the Pandavas, Krishna becomes angry, and calls forth his divine weapon, Sudarsana Cakra, to punish Duryodhana.^a Dharmaputra is terrified that the Cakra, which is capable of destroying the entire world, will be un-leashed, and pacifies Krishna, pleading with him to send away the terrible weapon, and thereby sav-ing the Kauravas from certain destruction.

Prompted by Duryodhana, the sage Durvasa, widely known for his quick and angry temper, trav-els to the forest with his disciples.^b Dharmaputra welcomes them; however, they have arrived at a most inopportune moment. Everyone, including Panchali, has already eaten. Indeed, Panchali has already washed the magic pot and set it out to dry. There is nothing left to feed the guests. Distraught that she cannot provide the required hospitality nec-essary to welcome an honored guest, Panchali prays to Krishna for assistance. Krishna appears and pre-tends that he too is very hungry. He asks Panchali to bring the magic vessel so that he can eat. Panchali brings the vessel to convince Krishna that it is empty, but he finds a small left-over piece of leaf in it and asks her to give him a spoonful of water. When Krishna eats this bit of leaf he is fully satis-fied. He immediately turns and exits, knowing the result of his own eating. Miraculously, the sage Durvasa and his disciples, who have been purify-ing themselves by bathing in the nearby river, also feel satisfied, as if they have eaten a full meal. Durvasa explains to Dharmaputra that although he and his 10,000 disciples asked for food, they suddenly feel full, and cannot eat. He and his disci-ples bless Dharmaputra and Panchali, and leave satisfied and happy.

(Scenes 8–14, translated): When Arjuna is at-tacked by the demon Sardula he kills him. Sardula’s wife, Simhika, tries to abduct Draupadi. Sahadeva, the youngest of the Pandavas, intercepts Simhika, gains Panchali’s release, is momentarily captured by Simhika, and finally disfigures the demoness by cut-ting off her nose and breasts. Simhika’s brother,

The killing of kirmira 119

Kirmira, is infuriated. He challenges the Pandavas, and is killed in the encounter with Bhima.

The translation is based on the Menon and Redyar texts. The ilakiyattam are translated from a performance on 1 August 1996 at Tirthapada Mandapam, Thiruvananthapuram, sponsored by Dryshyavedi, the Kerala Studies Program of the Uni-versity of Kerala, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Kerala Summer Performing Arts Program. The cast included Nelliyode Vasudevan Namboodiripad as Simhika, Margi Vijayakumar as the Lalita, Margi Sukumaran as Panchali, Ettumanur Kannan as Sahadeva, Ramachandran Pilla as Kirmira, and Ettumanur Kannan as Bhima. The in-terpolations translated are from this performance.

CAST (Scenes 8–14)

SIMHIKA: a demoness—the wife of Sardula, and sister to the demon Kirmira, in kari (‘black’) fe-male make-up.

LALITA: Simhika in disguise as a beautiful young woman, in minukku (‘radiant’) make-up.

SAHADEVA: fifth and youngest of the Pandavas, in pacca (‘green’) make-up.

[DHARMAPUTRA, BHI MA, ARJU NA, NAKULA: the other four Pandavas, in pacca make-up—usually do not appear on stage today in Scene 12.]

KIRMIRA: A demon, and brother of Simhika, in katti (‘knife’) make-up.

BHIMA: SECOND of the Pandavas, in pacca make-up.

BRAHMINS: in minukku (‘radiant’) make-up—usu-ally do not appear today.

Scene 8¹

[Simhika]

[saurashtram (raga); atanta (tala—7 beats)] (The curtain is raised.)

sloka:

Hearing over and again about the killing of her dear one,

1. In personified form, the Sudarsana Cakra appears on stage in ‘red beard’ make-up (indicating the power and terror of the weapon) with a superimposed six-cornered double-triangle motif.
2. Duryodhana had hoped that the visit of the ill-tempered Durvasa would be a disaster, and incur his wrath and a curse. Krishna’s intercession foils Duryodhana’s plan.

120 Plays from the traditional repertory

in her anger the demoness’s eyes vomited blazing light like the flames of fire emitted by (the third eye) of Siva’s forehead,^a

(and her) row of fangs emitted spiraling sparks— this demoness, the infamous Simhika, (whose)

speech has unbearably hard syllables, revealed herself.

ilakiyattam

(Simhika performs her curtain look. After her curtain look, she begins to play with the branches of trees in the forest as she dances.^b Examining her body, she says to her-self:)

SIMHIKA: It’s not pleasant. It’s been a long time since I even washed my face. I should look better than this.

(Taking part of her hair, she smells it, and reacts. It’s be-come very matted. She looks around for a tree with fruit.

Seeing one, she goes to it, shakes it, and collects the fruit which have fallen to the ground. She puts the fruit on a stool, prevents them from falling off, and crushes them. Soaking her palm in the oil of the fruit, she puts it on her hair. She does the same to the other half of her hair. She removes all the loose hair she finds, rolls it into a small ball, and tucks it into the waist of her costume. She ties the tip of the right half of her hair, and puts it back, and then does the same with the left side. She acts as if others are watching her, and becoming envious of her hair. She walks proudly with her long hair. She decides to put a tilaka mark on her forehead. She looks in one of the mirrors at her costume. After putting the mark for the first time, she’s not satisfied, so she does it again. She decides to make a paste to blacken her eyebrows. She begins by making a small fire. She takes some soot on her index fingers and draws the outline of her eyebrows. One is irritated. She reacts. Afterward, she admires her eyes, and becomes very happy with herself. She wants to decorate her forehead

Plate 6.1 Simhika’s (Vembayam Appukoothan Pillai) curtain look during which she reveals her inner-nature as a dark forest-dweller

1. Literally, ‘Kama’s killer.’

^bThe actor uses actual tree branches for her curtain entrance, literally emphasizing the demoness’s association with the forest and nature; however, in the interpolation which follows, the forest, fruit, soot, etc. are all mimed.

with another paste. She knows she needs water. Where can she find some? She tries to draw milk from her breasts, but then she realizes she can’t draw milk because her children are too old. She makes the mark of Vishnu on her fore-head. Now she places ornaments on her ears. She shakes the branch of a tree to get the flowers, and then makes garlands, adorning her earrings. She covers her breast modestly, and ties her cloth to her waist.)

Now I’ve decorated myself. I look beautiful. Whoever sees me will be pleased. My husband will come home and be happy with me. I’ll pretend I’m shy, and he’s come to embrace me. To while away the time, I’ll play some games. Let me see if any-one in this forest wants to play. (She walks around looking for someone with whom to play, and calls out:)

Shall we play? Oh! You’re not ready to play? Then go away.

(Simhika begins to play by herself, clapping her hands, and then picking up a ball. After playing ball, she dances kaikottakali.^a Seeing someone else, she asks if she wants to play too.)

Oh, you’re not ready to play? I know how to play by myself, but don’t dare stare at me!

(Simhika sits down on the ground, holding sticks in her hands, and begins to play kumi. She gets up and sits on a stool, tired, and wipes away the perspiration from her play.)

I want a drink of water. What shall I do? I’ll see if I can find my husband.

(She begins to look for her husband, but he’s not to be seen. Her right shoulder begins to shiver, and her right eye twitches.^b)

What harm could ever come to me? So, how can this be? Well, I’ll just search for him.

(Simhika gets up from the stool and begins looking for her husband’s footsteps, and following them. Eventually they disappear. She begins to hear wailing to one side, and then on the other.)

The killing of kirmira 121

Who’s crying out? Someone is being killed. Is this my husband I hear? Yes! Yes!

(Hitting her head and chest with her hands, she imme-diately tears the tali from around her neck and throws it away.^c Again she hits her head and chest, crying out:)

Who has done this!

(Then with sorrow and anger she says:) [N]

SIMHIKA:

pallavi: Alas! O my dear handsome husband! Forsaking me, have you gone to the abode of Death?²

anupallavi:

What a pity! Immersed in overwhelming grief in this forest, what am I living for?

caranam:

That weakling Bhima killed Hidimba, [K]³ leader of the demons.^d

This shows that at times even the weak become strong.

caranam:

When they (the Pandavas) lived in Ekacakra [K] begging for their daily bread, Bhima single-handedly killed the demon, Baka.^e

The more I see such unseemly acts, the more the grief in my heart increases.

caranam:

And with that wicked (Bhima) who killed her brother, [K]

Hidimbi goes on enjoying herself daily! Surprisingly, nowhere in all the three worlds have

1. Kerala’s traditional women’s hand-clapping folk dance.
2. Both are bad omens.
3. The tali was a chain tied around a woman’s neck when an official alliance was formed with a man. This traditional form of ‘marriage’ was known as a sambandam alliance.
4. The story of Hidimba and Hidimbi is enacted as part of The Killing of Baka (Bakavadham), also by Kottayam Tampuran. The demon Hidimba tells his sister, Hidimbi, that he smells human flesh. He sends her to find the man he smells for his breakfast. Hidimbi promises to fulfill his wish and departs; however, as soon as she sees the Pandavas she immediately falls in love with Bhima. To entice him, she transforms herself into a beautiful maiden (Lalita). When the beautiful maiden approaches Bhima and declares her love, he explains that he cannot marry until his eldest brother is married, and sends her away. Meanwhile, Hidimba is upset that his sister is taking so long. When he finds her enamored of Bhima, he becomes furious and attacks Bhima, who kills him. On the advice of the sage Vyasa, Bhima accepts Hidimbi so that she can bear his son, Ghatolkacha. After receiving his father’s blessings, Ghatolkacha and his mother, Hidimbi, leave.
5. The story of the killing of the demon Baka is the second part of The Killing of Baka. In this part of the play, according to an agreement between the villagers of Ekacakra and the demon Baka, Baka agrees not to wipe out the entire village if he

122 Plays from the traditional repertory

I ever seen such a shameless woman!

caranam:

All five men responsible for my husband’s death

1. live in this forest. I do not have enough strength to retaliate [against them all] immedi-ately.

caranam:

However, I hear that there is only one woman who is the dear wife of all five. [K]

I shall quickly deceive them by luring her into the interior of the forest.

caranam:

Then I shall give her as a gift [K] to my brother, the brave Kirmira.

She will be the cause of their going to the abode of death!

ilakiyattam

(Taking branches from some of the trees in the forest again, Simhika walks about, reflecting.)

SIMHIKA: If I just go like this… They have gone to the riverside along with their teacher. Before they come back, I’ll capture her. I know how to deceive them. I’ll transform myself into a charming woman. I’ll approach her, and start a conversation. While her husbands are gone, I must capture her and es-cape.

(She chants a mantra, changes her shape, and after per-forming an N is transformed into the form of a beautiful woman (Lalita), and exits.)

(Curtain)

Scene 9

[Lalita and Panchali]

[navarasam (raga); atanta (tala) (patinnakalam—56 beats)]

(The curtain remains up during the singing of the following sloka.)

sloka:

Having determined when the Pandavas would be gone, the demoness waited;

transforming herself into a beautiful-bodied one, the one who intended to kill, approached Panchali—separated from her husbands—and said:

(Panchali sits on the left as the Lalita enters to a kitatakadimtam from upstage. She ties her cloth to her waist, wondering whether she’s been seen.^f She comes close to Panchali. They see each other, and react with affec-tion.)

LALITA:

pallavi: O garland adorning the hair of beautiful women! Please listen to my good words: [K]

anupallavi:

O one with graceful hair, resembling darkness! On finding you near me my sorrow has vanished. [K]

(The speed changes to 14 beats.)

caranam:

O one with a face like the moon, whose eyes re-semble the petal of the red lotus,

with your lotus-feet please do not walk needlessly in this unfit forest inhabited by lions. [K]

caranam:⁴

O one whose gait excels that of elephants, please know that I am one of those women who roam the skies.

Seeing you in the forest, I have come here. My own name is Ganika. [K]

is fed regularly. When the Pandavas arrive there disguised as brahmins, a brahmin and his wife are bemoaning their fate since their only son must be sacrificed to feed the demon. Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas, consoles him and promises that her son, Bhima, will go in place of his son. Bhima takes a cart full of food and toddy intended to satisfy Baka. As Bhima awaits Baka on the sacrificial grounds in the forest where the brahmins are supposed to leave their offerings to him, he gets voraciously hungry and starts consuming everything intended for Baka. When Baka arrives and sees Bhima eating what was intended for him, he becomes outraged. Baka declares that by consuming Bhima he will get to eat both the food offerings and Bhima himself. In the fight that follows Bhima kills Baka.

1. Tying her cloth indicates that she is concealing her identity from Panchali.

caranam:

O innocent lass, my friend, one with admirable qualities!

Dearest and most pure one, don’t think [I ask out of] jealousy, but out of affection:

please tell (me), what is your name, and which is your clan? [K]

[erikkilakkamodari (raga); atanta (tala) (etavattam— 14 beats)]

PANCHALI:

pallavi: Please know that I am King Drupada’s daughter—the one in whom he delights.⁵

anupallavi:

O lovely woman, because of my many sins I am living in this inaccessible forest.

caranam:

[With me] here are five distinguished princes. Please know that I am happy serving as their con-sort.⁶

caranam:

Having gone to the Ganges to perform evening prayers with their Guru, they will return here shortly. [K]

The killing of kirmira 123

[bhairavi (raga); muriatanta (tala—14 beats)⁷

LALITA:

caranam:

A thicket of trees and a shrine of the goddess Durga are nearby.

O lotus-eyed damsel, let us go see them.

Many women have worshipped (there) in the proper manner, and even from olden times have obtained the boons they desired. [K]

[kamodari (raga); cembata (tala—16 beats)] sloka: (This sloka is acted.)

Thus, having tempted Panchali with her (sweet) words, holding her hand with pleasure,

together they reached the interior forest anxious to take darsan of Durga,

and (there the Lalita) said to her:

LALITA:

pallavi: Seeing this forest, pleasure comes. Have you seen it? [K]

caranam:

Clusters of clouds and darkness contend with your long, curly hair.

Plate 6.2 Simhika in disguise as a Lalita (Margi Vijayakumar) entices Panchali to go with her to the nearby Durga temple

124 Plays from the traditional repertory

O one with beautiful hair like the dark Valisneria,^a swarms of bees come here one after another to see your hair again and again.^b

Alas! With grief they fly away.

pallavi: Seeing… [K]+[I]⁸

caranam:

Lo, the bamboo plays (like) the flute in synchrony with the music of the cuckoo.

(Like) actresses, some creepers take their place here, and show their pleasure,

gesticulating with their fingers which are tender leaves, moved by the wind.^c

pallavi: Seeing… [K]+[I]

caranam:

Lo, from the rows of the (red) amaranth trees, flow-ers fall on the locks of your hair.

O one with eyes like petals of the blue water-lily, it appears as if this (forest) is about to receive you.

pallavi: Seeing… [K]+[I]

[erikkilakkamodari (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

PANCHALI:⁹

caranam:

Here, the cricket’s sound resonates intensely, and my creeper-like body repeatedly shivers.

Friend, aren’t we going to return immediately? (At this point the Lalita holds Panchali’s hand. Panchali

tries to release her hand, but Lalita won’t let go. Even though the actor’s hand playing Panchali is ‘free’ so that he can perform the mudras, it is assumed that the Lalita is still holding her hand and will not let her go.) Leave! Leave me! O one with unsteady eyes!

You have been deceiving me! Telling me lies, haven’t you! [1/2 K]

[cempata (tala—8 beats)]

Plate 6.3 Smearing her face with black and putting her loosened hair in her mouth, Simhika reveals her ‘true’ form as she rushes forward, screaming and threatening Panchali

LALITA:

caranam:

[Do you think] I will let you leave quickly [K] and simply release you to rejoice with your dear ones?

By the power of fate, I have captured you, and shall consume your flesh to my full satisfaction.

pallavi: Seeing my body, terror comes! Have you seen it? [T]

(When Lalita completes the enacting of the pallavi and T, she turns upstage and puts kari [black] on her face, show-ing her real shape, and exits. Immediately Simhika enters in black kari make-up, running in, and dancing a piece of choreography known as addiddikkana. When she con-cludes, she takes Panchali away.)

(Curtain)¹⁰

1. A water plant which is blue-green in color.
2. The actor elaborates the visit of the swarms of bees as the singers repeat the line over and over.
3. The actor elaborates this image at length while the singers repeat the phrase.

Scene 10

[Simhika, Panchali]

[dvijavanti (raga); muriatanta (tala—14 beats)]¹¹

sloka:

In Simhika’s control,^a Panchali—whose heart, com-pletely attached to her husband’s, was com-pletely distraught—

wailed like a heron fallen into Rohu’s mother’s mouth.^b

(After the sloka is sung and the curtain is removed, stand-ing on a stool, Panchali cries out. Simhika dances with one foot while the other remains on the stool, giving the impres-sion that she holds Panchali on her shoulder. The more Draupadi cries, the happier Simhika becomes.)

PANCHALI:

pallavi: Oh god, how could this happen!

How could this happen! [K]^c

caranam:

O my lords! Hearing my cries, will you come be-fore the demoness swallows me? [K]

caranam:

O son of Dharma (Yudhisthira)—one concerned with dharma, pure-bodied one—

have you forsaken me, allowing this demoness to abduct me without any obstacle?¹² [K]

caranam:

Before (I) am devoured by the demoness’s cave-like mouth,

O son of Madri, brave Sahadeva, please protect me quickly! [K]

(Curtain)¹³

Scene 11

[Simhika, Panchali, Sahadeva]

[kedaragaudam (raga);¹⁴ cempata (tala—8 beats)]

(The curtain remains raised as the following sloka is sung.)

The killing of kirmira 125

sloka:

Arjuna’s younger brother, whose valor is equal to Narasimha, after gathering his weapons, ob-structed (the path)

with his sharp arrows, and said to Simhika, that cruel demoness who sounds like a lion:

ilakiyattam

(Simhika and Panchali stand left. Sahadeva enters with a sword on the right side to an etuttukalasam.)

SAHADEVA: I hear the wailing of our wife. I must find out why.

(After performing a K, he sees Simhika and orders her to release Panchali. When Simhika sees Sahadeva, she exam-ines him from head to foot and mockingly says:)

SIMHIKA: Such a tiny fellow has come to quar-rel with me!

SAHADEVA: She’s our wife. Release her immedi-ately!

SIMHIKA: Do you think I will ever do this? (When she does not obey, Sahadeva forcibly releases Panchali. He blesses her, and she exits to an N.)

SIMHIKA: For me, he’ll do [instead of her]. He’ll be equally good to eat!

SAHADEVA:

pallavi: Stop, demoness, stop! Eti, eti, eti, demoness!^d [K]

caranam:

O you who are precious to demons, one who de-sires human flesh,

my sturdy, strong, and very sharp scimitar is about to fall on your breasts.

pallavi: Stop… [T] ¹⁵

SIMHIKA:

caranam:

Even the strong, [K]

proud elephants positioned in the cardinal directions quickly run away

since they can’t stand the blows of my hands!

1. The phrase literally reads, ‘Having fallen into Simhika’s mouth’—a colloquial expression indicating that you are under somone’s control.
2. Rohu and Ketu are two serpents who swallowed the sun and the moon. Our translation is only one of a number of possibilities. Another would be, ‘who was forced to remain in the interior forest (filled) with lionesses.’
3. With Panchali on the stool, this and the following kalasams are played by the percussionists but not danced.
4. Eti is the feminine addressive form of a common, marketplace insult that is untranslatable.

126 Plays from the traditional repertory

Plate 6.4 Sahadeva intercepts Simhika as she attempts to take Panchali away

pallavi:	Stop, ‘man,’ stop!	SAHADEVA:
	Eta, eta, eta, ‘man’!a [T]	caranam:
		Women who act indecently [K] deserve to be killed
SAHADEVA:		like Rama’s example.b
caranam:		pallavi: Stop, demoness… [T]
Since my reputed wife, [K]		SIMHIKA:
was so skillfully abducted by you,
		caranam:
I will kill you.
		O you uncontrolled, [K]
pallavi:	Stop, demoness… [T]	ill-tempered, despicable mortal! I have done this
		for my own satisfaction
SIMHIKA:		to retaliate for the killing of my husband.
caranam:		pallavi: Stop, man… [T]
O petty enemy! [K]
Proud one! Leader of fools!		SAHADEVA:
Can you even stand before me?		caranam:
		Jumping like Khalgi,c [K]
pallavi:	Stop, man… [T]	I will swiftly cut off both your hard breasts!16

^aShe matches his insult in kind using the male form (eta), and by taunting him as a mere ‘man.’

^bA reference to Rama’s killing of the demoness Thadaka near the sage Viswamitra’s hermitage. This is enacted as part of the kathakali play Sita Swayamvara by Kottarkara Tampuran (c. 1555–1605).

^cThe tenth incarnation of Vishnu always shown with a sword.

pallavi: Stop, demoness… [T]

ilakiyattam

(As in the case of other battle padams, it is typical for the actors to exchange positions after each caranam. After the padam, during the fight, Simhika is about to capture Sahadeva when he cuts her with his sword. Simhika runs away crying, ‘ayyayyo.’^a Sahadeva cleans his sword.)

SAHADEVA: The demoness has run away with blood streaming from her nose and breasts, crying aloud. That’s as it should be.

(Sahadeva exits with an N.)

(Curtain)¹⁷

Scene 13¹⁸

[Kirmira, Simhika]

[ghantharam (raga); muriatanta (tala—14 beats)]

(The curtain remains up as the following sloka is sung.)

sloka:

Simhika, whose breasts and nose had been sliced, soiled with freely flowing blood,

racing here and there (as) her cries echoed through the four quarters (of the world),

spoke without a single nasal sound^b to (her) brother who possessed all strength and was surrounded

by fellow demons.

ilakiyattam^c

(Kirmira performs his curtain look, and then says:)

KIRMIRA:

I am very pleased. Why? Oh, I know why. No one is as strong and brave as me. That’s why I am so pleased. (Thinking to himself.) Now what shall I do? It’s time for my daily worship of Siva.^d

The killing of kirmira 127

If Siva is pleased I will be able to subdue the devas. (Kirmira goes to the Siva shrine. Ringing the bell, he opens the door to the sanctum sanctorum. He removes the previous day’s decorations and offerings, cleaning the idol. Sitting on a stool, he performs the ritual of bathing the Siva lingam three times. He puts sandal paste on the idol. He performs puspanjali (worship with flowers), does arati (waving a lit flame before the deity) while ring-ing a bell with his left hand. Again he offers more flowers, and then arati with both hands. He meditates, chanting the names of Siva while counting on his fingers each rep-etition. Suddenly, he hears a sound.) Oh, it’s nothing. (He returns to his meditation. Again he hears the sound, slightly louder.) What is that sound? Someone is crying out, but I should complete this puja. (He returns to his meditation. A third time he hears the sound—much louder this time.) This can’t be ignored. (He closes the sanctum, moves upstage indicating that he has left the shrine. He rushes downstage performing a piece of set choreography known as addhiddhikkana. Looking around, he says:) ^e Oh, the ocean has been churned up, and its waves are huge. All the eight directions reverberate with this sound that pierces all ears. (Climbing onto the stool, and looking ahead he asks:) What is it that’s coming? Someone is com-ing in this direction. A woman whose nose and breasts have been sliced and are smeared with blood is coming. Who is she? (He climbs down from the stool and rushes downstage, looking.) It’s my sister! (Recognizing who it is.) Come to me! Come to me! (One of Simhika’s assistants rushes to the stage cupping a handful of blood which he shows to Kirmira.^f Simhika with ninam make-up appears making her entrance through the audience, and approaches Kirmira face-to-face, crying out as she moves forward with faltering steps.) ^a (Kirmira turns around and moves to the left cor-ner of the stage, returning to center stage several times. He beckons her with his hand, once again running toward

1. ‘Ayyo’ is a commonplace expression used to express a variety of emotions from surprise or wonder, to anguish, to pain.
2. Among all languages, Malayalam perhaps possesses the largest number (six) of nasal sounds that are significant or phonemic. Kottayam Tampuran has managed to compose the following padam for Simhika without using a single nasal sound. Given her noseless condition, she naturally cannot pronounce a single nasal sound.
3. Like Simhika’s opening interpolation, the following detailed interpolation is completely mimed.
4. Demons and demonesses are worshippers of Siva. Through worship of Siva and the practice of austerities, they gain many of their great powers.
5. At this time additional drummers will come onstage if the Simhika scene is to be played with blood (ninam). (See the commentary below for an explanation.)
6. This gesture indicates that a great calamity has taken place.

128 Plays from the traditional repertory

her, saying:) I’m coming! (Finally, Simhika enters the stage and falls at his feet. He examines her carefully.)

Alas! Who has done this? Tell me immediately!

SIMHIKA:

pallavi: Alas! Alas, brave demon.

Look!

Alas! Alas! My body has

been disfigured.

anupallavi:

Alas! Alas! The pain is unbearable. O god!

Alas! Alas, brave brother, protect (me).¹⁹

caranam:²⁰

Alas! Then and there, Sahadeva’s weapon cut my

Plate 6.5 Supported by

two attendants covered, like

her, in blood, Simhika

(Nelliyode Vasudevan

Namboodiripad) enters

howling in pain through

the audience

breasts and disfigured (me). [K]

[pantuvarali (raga); cempata (tala—8 beats)]

KIRMIRA:

pallavi: Dear, why this useless wailing!

My sister, don’t worry. [K] ²¹

caranam:

Alas, disfiguring you, [K] who on earth can live in peace?

Who is there from Meru to Lanka [in the whole universe] who can resist the strength of my hands?²²

ilakiyattam

1. There are two ways of enacting this scene. One is popularly known as ‘ninam’ (‘blood’) since it uses copious amounts of stage blood made by boiling and dyeing a large quantity of rice, areca nut flowers, and other ingredients literally to create the texture of cut flesh that is graphic and gruesome. When played ‘with blood,’ sometimes the actor playing the role of Simhika also appears as the bloodied Simhika, and on other occasions a different, second actor plays this part. The second method of staging is a form of mono-acting in which Simhika never appears, but is played by the actor playing Kirmira. See the commentary below for further discussion.

KIRMIRA:

Alright. Do not worry at all. Cutting his throat, I will give you his blood to drink. (He enacts the wip-ing of the blade of his sword, and taking the final drops of blood from the sword to pour into her wide-open mouth). Is that enough? (Seeing that she is satisfied.) If so, then go without delay. (He blesses her, and she exits through the audience if the performance is with ninam. Kirmira returns downstage. He enacts the preparations for battle known as patappurappatu.) Quickly, I will go and call him to fight. (Looking from right to left, he sees the messenger.) O, Messenger, bring the chariot imme-diately. (He asks the messenger on his left to bring his weapons. He examines the chariot when it arrives. Then he receives the weapons one by one, and places them in the chariot. From his waist he removes his sword from its sheath, wipes it clean, returns it to the scabbard, and ties it to his waist. Dancing tripata vattam thatti, he puts on his armor, instructs his army to move ahead, and asks the chari-oteer to drive. He climbs onto the stool, sees that his war-riors are beginning to move, and says, ‘Move ahead!’ Then he descends from the stool.) I too must start immedi-ately. (At the end of the N, he jumps on the chariot and proceeds to the battle.) (Curtain)²³

Scene 15

[Kirmira, Bhima]

[saramgam (raga); cempata (tala—8 beats)] (The curtain remains up as the following sloka is sung.)

sloka:

Simhika fell down, soaked in flowing blood, and rose again, beating her breasts forcefully with her long arms;

she looked like an enormous mountain-slope from which many red springs spouted.

Consoling her again, Kirmira went to fight, and angrily called out to Bhima:

ilakiyattam

KIRMIRA:

(Standing on the stool, Kirmira brings down the cur-tain and sees the forest.) Where are (our) enemies in this forest? Let me see. (Jumping down from the stool, he turns around and looks:) They are not to be found. (Smelling the air, he catches Bhima’s scent:) The wind

The killing of kirmira 129

has carried his scent. They are in this direction, I will call them, and then fight. [N]

caranam:

With an army which wages battles against the ocean, I will skillfully smash the trees of this forest creating a noisy cacophony! [K] ²⁴

pallavi: Fool! Watch my technique!

You, come here! [T] ²⁵

caranam:

Cruelty to women [K] is the only skill your hand possesses, you rogue!

You worm, I am weaving about to shatter your body with my expert blows. [K]

pallavi: Fool… [T]

caranam:

Like a lofty mountain hit by Indra’s Vajra, [K] your body, pierced by my very sharp arrows will fall here now.

pallavi: Fool… [T]

caranam:

Moving mountains [K] and oceans with my ca-cophonous army, I will fight you now. [K]

pallavi: Fool… [T]

[porvakalyam (raga);²⁶ cempata (tala—8 beats)]²⁷

ilakiyattam

BHIMA: (Entering:) I hear someone calling me to fight. I’ll go see who challenges me. (He sees Kirmira. Bhima dances an edutthukalasam, and says:) Is it you who challenges me to fight? KIRMIRA: Yes.

BHIMA: If so, then I will show you! [N]

BHIMA:

pallavi: Resist this mass of weapons, meanest of demons!^a Resist these weapons!

1. According to traditional battle etiquette fighters would challenge their opponents to defend against a particular blow before it is delivered.

130 Plays from the traditional repertory

caranam:

Vilest demon, [K] your body will be chopped into pieces before the ‘auspicious’ time for you to go to

Yama’s good residence. [K]

pallavi: Resist… [T]

KIRMIRA:

caranam:

You who committed such an act against good women! [K]

My weapons are enough to retaliate against you, lowest of humans, indisciplined one!^a [K]

pallavi: Resist this mass of weapons,

meanest of humans!

Resist these weapons! [T]

BHIMA:

caranam:

In a shower of strong, cruel arrows [K] I will anni-hilate you here,

O wicked and obese one! [K]

Mandapam in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, the performance played to an enthusiastic, standing-room only audience. The overflow crowd was drawn to the performance for two reasons. It was the first time in approximately thirty years that the play had been staged ‘with blood’ in the capi-tal city, and the major role of Simhika was being played by Nelliyode Vasudevan Namboodiripad, who is well-known for his playing of demons and demonesses.

Given the centrality of blood-letting in The Kill-ing of Kirmira and many other kathakali dramas, I continue in this commentary to explore the signifi-cance of the act of killing and the sacrificial para-digm implicit in kathakali’s representations of king-ship and the heroic.³⁰ I also examine current de-bates over the use or non-use of stage blood in Scene 13 of The Killing of Kirmira to illustrate the tendency toward ‘pacification,’ ‘aestheticization,’ and ‘Brahmanization’ of kathakali by some of its con-noisseurs.

pallavi: Resist… [T]

KIRMIRA:

caranam:

O shameless, paltry human, [K] right now (my) weapons will dance on the stage of your wide chest! [K]

pallavi: Resist… [T] ²⁸

ilakiyattam

(In the fight, Kirmira is killed by Bhima. Bhima then turns around and says:)

Now, without delay, I will go and report to my el-der brother. [N]

(Bhima then performs the closing dance [Dhanasi.])

(Curtain)²⁹

COMMENTARY: THE SACRIFICIAL PARADIGM, AND CONTESTATION OVER ITS BLOODY REPRESENTATION

In 1996 when the version of The Killing of Kirmira translated here was staged at the Tirthapada

The heroic, the furious, and the significance of the bloody act of ‘killing’

In the original, full-length version of The Killing of Kirmira after Bhima kills Kirmira there is a short concluding scene seldom performed today (see endnote 29). In this scene one or more of the as-cetics living in the forest where the Pandavas are residing in exile enter to bless Bhima. This act of blessing, after Bhima’s killing of Kirmira, accentu-ates the ideal model of kshatriya behavior which requires that Bhima kills Kirmira. As a warrior (‘King’), Bhima’s ’most important duty’ is to ‘pro-tect the pious’ so that they can ‘live in this forest without fear,’ and ‘perform the fire sacrifice with pleasure,’ thereby maintaining the cosmic order.

The idealized relationship between the kshatriya’s duty to protect brahmins and maintain the order of the cosmos is spelled out specifically in Kerala in the legendary Kerala brahmin chroni-cle, Keralopathi, as well as in Duarte Barbosa’s de-tailed account of the ‘knighthood’ ritual of initia-tion of Nayars into service to their ruler as described previously. Under the obligation to ‘expand’ their kingdoms through acts of ‘sacrificial destruction’

1. According to Kirmira’s logic, as Sahadeva’s elder brother, Bhima deserves the same punishment as his brother for his violation of Simhika.

(Fuller 1992:124–5), engaging in warfare was a ne-cessity, as was the inevitably bloody act of killing which is the ‘harvest of war’ (Freeman 1991:289). Kathakali’s enactments of blood-letting, most graphi-cally represented in scenes ‘with blood’ like the dis-figurement of Simhika or the disembowelment of Dussassana, are one of many Kerala cultural per-formances and/or rituals which clearly establish blood as ‘the central metaphor for the essential fer-tilizing fluid of life’ by means of which ‘the health and fertility of the kingdom’ is promoted (Freeman 1991:289).

The significance of this fundamental sacrificial paradigm in Kerala is underscored by the central importance of the goddess to Nayar life and ritual, and of animal sacrifices traditionally part of the offerings enjoyed by the goddess (among many other Kerala deities). In the play itself the Lalita lures Panchali to Durga’s shrine where ‘many women have obtained the boons they de-sired.’ The goddess takes various forms and her names (Bhagavati, Bhadrakali, Chamundi or Durga) are virtually interchangeable. She is best known as Bhagavati. As Bhagavati she encom-passes ‘a wide range of divine personalities rang-ing from the benign to the ferocious…(and is) as-sociated with both the Sanskritic goddesses of the greater pan-Indian Hindu tradition, and with lo-cal village goddesses associated with fever dis-eases’ (Caldwell 1995:17). Bhagavati is ‘conceived of as primarily benevolent and powerful, simulta-neously a chaste virgin and a care-giving mother’ (ibid). She is central to all aspects of Nayar life. She assumes ‘paramount importance among household deities’ where it is typical for her to be installed in a room on the western side of a Nayar house or a niche where household deities are maintained (Moore 1983:242).

When propitiated by Kurup ritual specialists, she is conceived in elaborate multi-colored floor drawings as ‘an even more intense form of the urga class of fierce deities’ notable for her ‘ener-gized eyes,’ and with an expression evoking the ‘rasa of vira or valour, supported by raudra or fury’ (Jones 1981:73). Given these associations, not sur-prisingly, Bhagavati is the primary form of the guardian deity of all kalari where the traditional martial art, kalarippayattu, is taught, and in which the goddess is propitiated daily (Zarrilli 1998: Chapter 3).

The killing of kirmira 131

Bhadrakali is her violent form. She is the god-dess of war and weapons and is popularly known as that form of Kali which possesses boundless powers of destruction. Bhadrakali is depicted in popular religious art as holding a sword represent-ing her destructive power. As Bhadrakali she is the goddess ‘of the hot months’ (Meenam) who in Kerala ‘never marries, is never tamed,’ and remains ‘independent and unfulfilled’ and whose ‘sexual desire can be quenched only by violence and…by incestuous union with her father, Siva’ (Caldwell 1995:328). In her form as Bhadrakali, the ‘fierce virgin’ is the heroine of mudiyettu, the most likely one of kathakali’s most important precursors. Mudiyettu is a ritual possession performance in which the legend of the ‘killing of Darika’ is per-formed in Bhagavati temples during the annual temple festival (see Caldwell 1995: passim).

Bhagavati also played a central role in realizing the aspirations to kingship of each of the local rul-ers of medieval Kerala. As Caldwell notes:

each king had his own local installation of the goddess, who was considered to be a tutelary matrilineal ancestor and protectress of his family’s personal political interests… Propitia-tion of one’s own local Bhagavati ensured the power and success of the kingdom and its dependants.

(1995:34)

For the goddess, as well as other deities, ‘the most significant insignia of the god’s power, and the es-sential prop…of all forms of worship in this re-gion, are weapons’ (Freeman 1991:242). Weapons do not simply represent or symbolize a deity’s power, they are invested with and animate the deity’s power since the weapons themselves are often installed, propitiated and then utilized for the literal transfer of the deity’s power to his me-dium—at Bhagavati temples the oracle is known as a vdiccappatu (see Caldwell 1995:19ff; Freeman 1991:244–6). Weapons in general, and the sword in particular, are the vehicle through which divine power is manifest in the human spatio-temporal domain. Royal power is invested in rulers and royal lineages symbolized by the sword. That power is literally actualized through the martial-warrior whose hands wield power through their swords and other weapons (Zarrilli 1998:

132 Plays from the traditional repertory

Chapter 4). Freeman notes that ritual weapons are indexical icons:

ritual weapons, through being icons of those used in battle [killing], are believed to actually index that charismatically divine capacity to kill; in other words, the capacity and drive to kill are perceived as instantiated in the symbols that signify them.

(1991:299)

In traditional Kerala ritual performances such as mudiyettu, teyyam, or Ayappan tiyatta the deity’s sword is the literal vehicle through which the power of the deity passes directly into the oracu-lar vehicle whose state of possession, dance, etc. is a manifestation of the visitation of the god. The literal use of the sword to let blood is part of the veliccappatu’s process of serving as an oracle for the deity when he cuts his forehead with her sword, as well as part of those ritual performances in which cocks were traditionally sacrificed to propi-tiate many of Kerala’s ‘heated’ deities, including some forms of the goddess. As we shall see in the commentary in Chapter 8, the presence and ‘visi-tation’ of the deity is also reflected in the hero’s ‘transformative’ state of fury—a state necessary for undertaking his sacrificial acts. When the sword is wielded by the ritual specialist to draw blood by sacrificing cocks or by cutting his fore-head, or by the martial practitioner to slay his ‘en-emy’, each ‘sacrificial’ act of blood-letting is in-dexical and iconic of the deity’s power and pres-ence.

The central significance of blood is witnessed in the presence and meanings associated with the color red. Red is associated with the goddess in her ‘heated’ or ‘furious’ form, and with sakti—the dangerous, unstable feminine energy which inspires terror. As Caldwell notes, ‘the color worn by Bhadrakali in mudiyettu is brilliant red, which generally symbolizes feminine energy in south Indian ritual’ (1995:324). The associations are clearly reflected in the blood associated with animal sacrifices for the goddess, the sacrifice of war, and the color worn by traditional martial practitioners when they tied the kacca (a long cloth wrapped around their hips to support their ‘vi-tal energy’ in combat).

When Simhika’s ‘round breasts’ are ‘cut off by the scimitar’s tip and showered with blood’ (Scene

12, sloka 1), and when her ‘breasts and nose’ have been ‘sliced and soiled with freely flowing blood,’ she participates in the iconic and indexical construc-tion of this fundamental sacrificial paradigm. Be-sides, it makes very compelling theater.

The contestation over bloody representation in The Killing of Kirmira: Lokadharmi versus Natyadharmi aesthetics

As indicated in Footnote 27 in this chapter, there are two very different ways of enacting Simhika’s ‘appearance’ before her brother in Scene 13 after her nose and breasts have been cut by Sahadeva’s sword. One is popularly known as ‘with blood’ (ninam) since it makes copious use of stage blood, rice, areca nut flowers, etc. to re-cre-ate the texture of cut flesh that should be graphic and gruesome. This literal method of represent-ing Simhika’s disfigurement is not new, and origi-nated in the staging of similar scenes in the kutiyattam repertory.

A second method is also employed to enact this scene. It is known as pakarnnattam, or ‘transformed acting.’ In this method of enactment, the actor play-ing the role of Kirmira appears alone onstage. First, he mimetically enacts Simhika’s pathetic condition, and then he enacts his response to her condition. Pacifying his sister, Kirmira vows to banish the Pandavas. When this method of acting the scene is used, Simhika’s sections of dialogue are simply omitted.

This second method of enacting the scene is used to shorten the time of the performance, and to focus the audience’s attention on the actor play-ing the role of Kirmira. It is a form of mono-acting drawn from kutiyattam as well. Modelled on the nirvahana section of a performance, a single actor in a single role performs a complete story in which, for several days in a row, s/he performs a complete story in which s/he takes all the roles in turn. In this scene the actor playing Kirmira only performs his role, and that of the (absent) Simhika. For the past thirty years, until the 1996 performance in Thiruvananthapuram ‘with blood,’ Scene 13 had been performed with only the actor playing Kirmira onstage.

In one of our many lengthy discussions, kathakali connoisseur Ganesha Iyer explained why

he and other aficionados prefer mono-acting for this scene:

when Simhika appears in all her bloody appear-ance it spoils the interpolation which follows in which Kirmira prepares for battle. If an audi-ence [of connoisseurs] wants to see ‘blood,’ they usually ask for The Killing of Narakasura since that ninam is best known.

Ganesha Iyer’s preference for mono-acting reflects an increasing preference on behalf of some con-noisseurs to provide more opportunities for senior actors to display the subtler talents of what they often call the ‘ideational’ (natyadharmi).

Natyadharmi is a Sanskrit term which, along with its counterpart, lokadharmi (‘ordinary’ or ‘concrete’), has come into increasing use among both kathakali patron/connoisseurs and actors during the past thirty to forty years. Their use as one among sev-eral discursive constructs such as a ‘sense of ap-propriateness’ (aucitya bodham) for evaluation of performances is part of a tendency to use terms drawn from the Natyasastra and/or other Sanskrit texts in critiquing performances, and in shaping aesthetic and performance choices such as the stag-ing of Scene 13 ‘with blood’ or without.

Following the detailed etymological and histori-cal study of Vidya Niwas Misra and Prem Lata Sharma, lokadharmi might best be translated as the ‘ordinary’ or ‘concrete.’ Lokadharmi is that from which the ‘extraordinary’ or ‘ideational’ (natyadharmi) is elaborated, abstracted, transformed, and/or distilled:

The evolution of natyadharmi itself is based on what is happening in this loka. Any abstraction for that matter presupposes something concrete. Moreover a natyadharmi (an ideational presenta-tion) is aimed at giving the essence of what one finds at the concrete level and is necessitated by the impossibility of presenting the whole activ-ity of all times and spaces in a physically bound time and space… [The] mutual interaction of these two has to be ensured, so that the perfor-mance continues to be a process, rather than to be a dead end, and still it has to be ideational in order to be able to communicate, to people of all time and space.

(1992:145–6)

The killing of kirmira 133

Since these two terms appeared as early as the Natyasastra with reference to drama, they have re-ceived considerable attention among scholars of Sanskrit drama and Indian performing arts. Fo-cusing more specifically on the terms as used in the Natyasastra, scholars such as Kapila Vatsyayan translate dharmi as ‘modes’ or ‘conventions’ and lokadharmi and natyadharmi as ‘realistic…or sug-gestive’ conventions (1968a:8–9, 24). Natyadharmi then is usually translated as the ‘stylized’ mode of enacting drama, and lokadharmi is the ‘realistic’ (ibid: p. 24). Similarly V.Raghavan translates the terms as ‘realism’ and ‘idealism’ (1993: passim).

Misra and Sharma take account of these more specific uses, but manage to keep their account of the terms open-ended. They conclude their study by asserting that

loka is a generalised concept of space filled up primarily with activity of various kinds now and here, but secondarily of possible transformations at a higher or lower level. It can neither be equated with the world nor with common people, nor with the sphere of direct percep-tions or the manifest, nor the folk or rustic as against the elite; nor the oral unformed tradi-tion as against the codified written tradition nor the real as against the ideal. And yet it covers all these ranges of meaning interrelated to each other. Unfortunately, the term loka has been devalued during the last 150 years in India as folk, and has come to mean a subterranean flow of collective consciousness forgotten and redis-covered.

(1992:155)

When performances of The Killing of Kirmira are held ‘with blood,’ the ‘ninam aharya’ or ‘bloody costume/accoutrements’ are perceived as rela-tively ‘realistic’ or lokadharmi. Because there is no nuance of expression in the acting, and the bloody figure of Simhika dominates the scene be-tween her and her brother Kirmira, spectators have little to watch other than the bloody spec-tacle per se. Performances ‘with blood’ are per-ceived by some connoisseurs as playing to ‘the gallery’ or the ‘lowest common denominator.’

In contrast, when Scene 13 is enacted through mono-acting it is interpreted as natyadharmi— the much more restrained, refined, and ‘ideational’

134 Plays from the traditional repertory

mode of performance which fits the ‘aesthetic of the mind’ described in Chapter 2. As increasingly Sanskritized modes of appreciation have come to shape kathakali performance in recent years, the ‘choice’ to present a scene like Simhika’s disfigure-ment through mono-acting is gradually naturalized as aesthetically superior—both hiding the construc-tion of this mode of staging as a choice, and dis-placing the paradigmatic set of meanings regard-ing sacrificial kingship which are assumed in its literally ‘bloody’ staging. The paradigm of king-ship and sacrifice implicit in the articulation of the literal letting of blood in indexical/iconic acts of sacrifice, whether on the field of battle or in the ritual field of the deity’s manifestation of power, and kathakali’s enactments ‘with blood’ of scenes like the disfigurement of Simhika recede into the background as this aestheticized version comes into the foreground. Historically the growth of the pref-erence for performances without blood parallels the official government ban of animal sacrifices in tra-ditional ritual performances, and the substitution of ‘stage blood’ for animal blood in sacrificial ritu-als such as teyyam. Both reflect the colonial/Victo-rian ‘cleansing’ of representational practices like these in Kerala associated with the rediscovery of the Natyasastra and the increasing use of Sanskrit tropes of aestheticization such as concepts like natyadharmi to justify changes in stage practices as well as aesthetic taste.

When the ‘everyday’ becomes the extra-daily: the ‘pleasures’ of mimetic exactitude

Although ‘the everyday’ or ‘the realistic’ are often critiqued by today’s connoisseurs, they also take great pleasure precisely in one aspect of kathakali which draws directly on another aspect of ‘the ev-eryday’—its mimetic exactitute in representing and embodying the performance of everyday tasks. One of the most important pleasures that connoisseurs take in ‘good’ performances of The Killing of Kirmira is the pleasure of seeing daily tasks performed with mimetic attention to the details of the everyday. Such tasks abound in The Killing of Kirmira from Simhika’s satiric rendering of a woman’s process of making-up, to her playing of games like kumi and dancing kaikottakali, to Kirmira’s interpolation which abounds with the details of performing daily worship (puja) to Siva, from the ringing of the bell, to the opening of the door to the sanctum sanctorum, to the cleaning of the idol, etc. This is also evident in the detailed playing of Kirmira’s ‘preparations for battle’ (patappurappatu). When performed with mimetic precision and attention to each detail of these daily tasks, the sense of appreciation and plea-sure in an audience can be palpable. It is precisely the disruption of this pleasure with the intrusion of Simhika’s literal stage blood that causes connois-seurs like Ganesha Iyer to prefer Kirmira’s mono-acting of the scene.

7

the progeny of

Krishna Mandavappalli Ittiraricha

(santanagopalam)^a Menon (c.1747–94)

Translated by

INTRODUCTION

Mandavappalli Ittiraricha Menon was one of the poets in the court of Kartikatirunal Maharaja of Travancore, southern Kerala. His exact dates are disputed. K.P.S.Menon suggests 1747–94, and Krishnakaimal 1745–1805 (1986:282). Krishnakaimal’s brief biographical note on the poet tells us that he was born in Ambalapura (Travancore District) to a poor family, neverthe-less knowledgeable in Sanskrit (ibid.). He came to the Travancore Raja’s attention in 1763 when he presented a verse (sloka) which included the line, ‘I have nothing to say except my poetry.’ It was while a poet in residence at court that he com-posed the two plays translated here. He was awarded the virashramkala—a gold bracelet consid-ered the highest award one can receive from a ruler.

As Krishnakaimal notes, ‘even though there are no red or black beard characters which make kathakali so effective, these stories gained popular-ity because of their devotional content’ (ibid.). Both plays were probably first performed either at court or as part of the kathakali performances given an-nually as part of the temple festival at Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Thiruvanantha-

V.R.PRABODHACHANDRAN NAYAR, M.P.SANKARAN NAMBOODIRI AND PHILLIP B.ZARRILLI

puram. Given the integral relationship between the Maharaja of Travancore and the Padmanabha-swamy Temple, both plays center around devotion to Lord Vishnu. In King Rugmamgada’s Law this takes the severe form of the testing of a king’s devotion, while in The Progeny of Krishna the devotion of a simple brahmin is tested.

Mandavappalli Ittiraricha Menon adapted The Progeny of Krishna from a story in the Bhagavata Purana (X.89.22–66).¹ Like other stories in the Bhagavata Purana, it was originally told to illustrate how Vishnu is ‘the greatest [deity] of them all’ (Raghuthan, 1976:503), especially in his incarna-tion as Krishna. There are twelve scenes in the origi-nal text, but five scenes (6, 7, 9, 10, and 11) are not usually performed today. Some actors and connois-seurs in Thiruvananthapuram, where the play has always been popular, still remember performances fifteen to twenty years ago when the play was per-formed in its entirety.

SYNOPSIS OF THE PLAY

After the great battle of Kurukshetra, Arjuna vis-its Krishna. One day a Brahmin, carrying the body of his ninth dead son, comes to the gate of

1. Santana means child, issue, or progeny, as well as the celestial tree that grants a boon—usually wealth, longevity, and children. Gopala (cow herder) is one of the many names for Lord Krishna; therefore, the title can be translated as The Progeny of Krishna,’ ‘The Children and Krishna,’ or ‘Krishna the Celestial Tree.’

136 Plays from the traditional repertory

Krishna’s Council Hall and pours out his misfor-tune to the court. Each of nine sons born to his wife have died at birth. Krishna turns a deaf ear to the Brahmin’s tale, and walks out of the Council Hall. Arjuna, moved by the Brahmin’s sorrow, of-fers to help him. He promises that the next child to be born will be saved. To convince the skepti-cal Brahmin, he vows that he will immolate him-self if anything happens to the child.

The Brahmin’s wife is soon pregnant again. The Brahmin rushes to tell Arjuna, who builds a house of arrows to protect the child. The Midwife and Brahmin’s Wife enter the delivery house. Arjuna guards the entrance as the Brahmin paces nerv-ously outside. The wife delivers a new son, but immediately there is no trace of the child. It has vanished! The Brahmin is furious at Arjuna, and mocks him as a ‘fool.’

At this point in the original dramatic narrative (Scenes 6 and 7) Arjuna travels to Yama’s (the god of death, also known as Kala) abode where he an-grily confronts Yama and Chitragupta, the keeper of his registry of the dead, at his side.² He accuses Yama of having deceitfully stolen the Brahmin’s last son from his tent of arrows. Yama replies that he himself does not have the ‘power to accomplish this,’ and suggests that ‘if your dear friend (Krishna) searches, all the Brahmin’s ten sons will appear!’ Arjuna now travels to Indra’s heavenly world where he angrily requests Indra to return the sons of the ‘great Brahmin’ who have been taken away. Indra pleads ignorance of their whereabouts, and con-cludes by telling Arjuna:

It is impossible for anyone to imagine the ex-traordinary illusions (created by) Krishna, Lord of the worlds.

O brave Arjuna, go to Krishna and you will find the Brahmin’s sons.

As Scene 8 opens, Arjuna is determined to com-plete his vow and throw himself into the fire. Just as Arjuna is about to immolate himself, Krishna stops him. Having humbled his pride, he invites Arjuna to travel with him in his chariot to find the Brahmin’s sons.

During Scenes 9–11, which are no longer per-formed today, Krishna and Arjuna travel first ‘to the west along the sky path’ where they encounter Chakra (Sudarsanam), the personification of the

wheel or discus of Vishnu.³ Finally, they reach Vaikuntha, the heavenly abode of Mahavishnu— Vishnu’s supreme form. As they enter his kingdom they are overcome by what they encounter there, including Vishnu in the form of Padmanabha, ‘the embodiment of supreme knowledge, the one who reclines on the graceful couch of the Serpent-king, (whose) sides are beautified by the goddess of Earth and Lakshmi.’ Mahavishnu is very pleased to see Krishna and Arjuna. Mahavishnu tells them how it was ‘only to make you come here’ that he brought ‘that best among Brahmins’ children here with de-light.’ He then presents the children to them ‘ar-ranged in the order of their death.’ When Krishna and Arjuna beckon the children to go with them and return to their parents who await their return, they ‘don’t have the slightest desire’ to to leave Vishnu’s abode. Vishnu intercedes, and tells the children that they must return ‘to earth with Krishna, and after living there patiently and with great pleasure and comfort, you can then return to my side and live with delight.’

In Scene 12, which immediately follows Scene 8 today, they return the boys to the Brahmin and his wife—a scene of joy and devotion to Krishna. The couple and their children bless Arjuna and Krishna.

There are many reasons that Scenes 6–7, and 9–11 are no longer performed. Except for occa-sional glimpses of excellence, the poetry is rela-tively mundane. More practically, these five scenes require Yama, Chitragupta, Chakra, Indra, and probably also the goddesses Bhumi Devi and Lakshmi. Without these characters the play only requires four actors, plus the children. Perhaps, more significantly, all the cut scenes focus on the play (lila) of the gods, while the scenes still per-formed focus on the human plight of the Brahmin and his suffering. In addition, during the past thirty years, the Brahmin has gradually become a popular role for star performers, and the edited version of the play keeps the focus on the Brah-min. Divorced from the scenes which contextualize the Brahmin’s suffering within the larger play of the gods, the emphasis is decidedly on the human domain, and while devotion ulti-mately triumphs, other than the celebration at the conclusion of the play, the dramatic focus is on the individual characters rather than the play of the gods.

The translation which follows includes only those scenes usually performed today (Scenes 1–5, 8, and 12). This performance text and translation has been prepared from two published versions of The Progeny of Krishna—K.P.S.Menon’s acting edition, and the S.T. Redyar edition—and from a perform-ance of the play on 16 May 1993 at Killimangalam, Trissur District, Kerala, India, commissioned by the Killimangalam Centre for Documentation of the Performing Arts. The role of the Brahmin was played by M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri and the role of Arjuna by Kalamandalam Balasubramanian. The interpolations translated are from the 16 May 1993 performance.

The progeny of Krishna 137

carnations and is the object of great devotion, in pacca.

CHILDREN: of the Brahmin and his wife, in simple minukku.

Preliminaries

purappatu

(When the opening pure dance is performed, the following verse is sung to accompany the dance.)⁴

sankarabharanam (raga)

(Before singing of other slokas, the vocalists may improvise a preliminary composition within the structure of the raga. Once their improvisation and the ensuing K are complete, they begin the sloka in the same raga, followed by a short K.)

CAST

KRISHNA: born in the Yadava dynasty as the son of Vasudeva and Devaki, Krishna was the ninth of the ten incarnations of Vishnu. Also known as Hari and Narayana^a in pacca with a special crown (muti) used for Krishna.^b

ARJUNA: third of the Pandava brothers, son of Kunti (Prtha) (impregnated by Indra after Kunti’s repetition of a sacred mantra), also known as Nara in a previous birth,^c as Vijaya (secret name given to Arjuna by Dharmaputra when they had to remain anonymous), and as Phalguna (reference to his birth in the Uttaraphalguni constellation) in pacca.

BRAHMIN: a male householder, in minukku (‘ra-diant’).

BRAHMIN’S WIFE: in minukku.

VRIDDHA: the midwife, an old woman with spe-cial, somewhat comic make-up.

VISHNU: the preserver and embodiment of mercy and goodness who appeared in ten in-

sloka:

Hari (Vishnu/Krishna), whose mind is full of dense, supreme pleasure; the one who is gracious toward his devotees;

the pious one who took incarnation as the son of Devaki to protect the worlds;

he—the singular Lord of all the worlds; who along with Balabhadra^d killed Kamsa^e with the wres-tlers,

and who lived with pleasure accompanied by nu-merous wives in the very prosperous city of Dvaravati.^f

[saveri (raga); campa (tala—16 beats)]

sloka:

When the Supreme Lord was living in the city of the Yadus,

having protected the full expanse of the earth, Pritha’s son, Arjuna, possessing greater might of

1. In keeping with the conventions of Sanskrit poetry and drama, kathakali playwrights make extensive use of epithets. Their selection often depends on the internal demands of poetic conventions and structure. But as David L.Gitomer explains, ‘these names also bear resonances in mythological identities, references to character traits, reminders of past exploits, and perhaps most important, placement in…multigenerational narrative’ (1998:46). The most often used epithets for Krishna and Arjuna are included here.
2. This special crown is also used for Rama before his coronation, as well as his sons Lava, and Kusa.
3. Arjuna and Krishna together are sometimes referred to as Naranarayanas—a reference to the two sages (rsis) Nara and Narayana, who lived together inseparably. The estrangement and eventual reuniting of Arjuna and Krishna in The Progeny of Krishna might be read as a return to the inseparable union of Nara and Narayana.
4. Balabhadra (also known as Balarama) is the elder brother of Krishna and eighth incarnation of Vishnu.
5. Son of Ugrasena, King of Mathura, and an incarnation of an Asura called Kalanemi. Vishnu took incarnation as Krishna in Mathura as the son of Devaki and Vasudeva, all of whose children had been killed by Kamsa. In the kathakali version of this story, written by Kilimanoor Ravi Varma Tampuran (1782–1854), Krishna’s birth, childhood, and even-tual killing of Kamsa are featured.
6. Sri Krishna’s capital is also known as Dvaraka.

138 Plays from the traditional repertory

hands and wanting to see the lotus-eyed one (Krishna),

arrived with great pleasure (at Krishna’s court).

Scene 1

[Krishna and Arjuna]

[saveri (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

(The curtain is lowered. Krishna is seated on the right; Arjuna stands to his left, and enters dancing a kitatakadhimtam.)

KRISHNA:

pallavi: O seat of all auspiciousness, friend, Vijaya, intelligent one, foundation of all good qualities, are you happy,

o handsome one? [K]

anupallavi:

Upon seeing your lotus face before which the moon that attracts the three worlds bows,

this day is now one filled with great pleasure! [K]+[I]

pallavi: Oh seat of all auspicious ness…

caranam

O Leader of the Kurus,

are not Dharmaputra,^a the valorous one, jewel among the fortunate,

foundation of diplomacy and humility, the most generous one,

and the brave (wolf bellied) Bhima living happily along with (your) other brothers, (my) sister and your wife who is great with many inborn quali-

ties? [K]+[I]

pallavi: Oh seat of all auspicious ness…

[devagandharam (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

ARJUNA:

caranam

O, Lord, for those of us who are servants at your feet, can there ever be any sorrow?^b All of us live without doubts, and with pleasure.^c

O, red lotus-eyed one, the ambrosia of your com-passion protects those who seek refuge. [K]+[I]

(Sung to accompany the iratti:)

O you who are fit to be saluted

by the leader of all the gods (Indra), Siva, etc., at your lotus feet, I always bow. [K]

KRISHNA:

caranam

O glittering jewel in the Kuru’s crown, stay here for a while enjoying (life) with me. Life is like a shining water drop in the middle of the moving lotus leaf, (and) sublime pleasure is remaining in the company of good friends.^d [K]+[I]

pallavi: Oh seat of all auspicious ness…

(ilakiyattam: Krishna and Arjuna)⁵

ARJUNA:

For a long time I have wanted to see you, but my wish was not fulfilled until now. I am fortunate to-day because I have seen you.

KRISHNA:

For a long time I too wished to see you. Stay here with me for a few days.

ARJUNA: As you wish.

(Arjuna salutes Krishna and goes upstage standing behind him.)

[Curtain]

Scene 2

1. ‘Dharmaputra’ is another name for Yudhisthira, eldest of the Pandavas.
2. Badha means the result of being affected. Given the context, the actor shows the mudra for ‘sorrow,’ literally showing the effect that any affliction, difficulty, or obstacle might have on devotees.
3. Arjuna’s assertion that they are living ‘without doubts’ reflects the ideal state of the martial hero—that doubtless (vita sankam, Sanskrit) state reflected in the Bhagavad Gita.
4. The implication here is that like the beauty of the water drop which falls when the wind blows and evaporates quickly, so all the pleasures in life are also too fleeting.

[Krishna, Arjuna, and Brahmin] [ghantaram (raga)—cempata (tala—20 beats)]

sloka: (Sung while the curtain is raised.)

Along with his dear Arjuna, Krishna lived com-fortably in his capital city.

There, death came to a pious Brahmin’s eight sons in eight years.

On the death of his ninth son, that Brahmin, hold-ing the child’s body in his arms, began to wail uncontrollably, and reached Krishna’s court crying out with grief:

(The curtain is lowered. Krishna is sitting stage right. The Brahmin enters from upstage left.)

ilakiyattam

(This short opening interpolation is set to a special percus-

Plate 7.1 With Arjuna watching in the background and the body of his eighth son lying before him, the Brahmin (M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri) pours out his tale of woe at Krishna’s court.

The progeny of Krishna 139

sion composition for dramatic effect. Known as patinna kitatakadhimtam, the composition is in five different parts at five different speeds. The first part is the most complex, and is played in the slowest speed. The second part is less complex, and played in a faster speed. This second part is then repeated three more times, each in a faster rhythm, building to a climax.)

BRAHMIN:

(1st cycle/slowest speed)

O god, I haven’t sinned with mind, words, or deeds, but even so, this has happened to me!

(2nd cycle) To whom can I express my sorrow?

(3rd cycle) How can I see Krishna again?

(4th cycle) Anyway, I will go to the Yadava court, leave this dead body before Krishna, and return.

(5th cycle/fastest speed. He sees Krishna, and places the body before him.)

[ghantaram (raga); campa (tala—20 beats)]

BRAHMIN:

pallavi: Alas, what am I to do here, O god! Alas, in whom can I find refuge? [K]

anupallavi:

Surely in all the other worlds there is no comfort for a man without a son. Alas, Siva, Siva!⁶ [K]

caranam:

O brave Yadavas, listen closely: this grief is un-bearable.

I have done nothing forbidden to Brahmins.

(So why) has this happened? O son! Siva! Siva! [K]

caranam:

Alas, what you see here is my dear child lying with his eyes turned up.

Thus eight boys are lost and gone because of this arrogant king!^a

O, Siva! Siva! [K]

1. Beginning with ‘Thus eight boys’ the Brahmin counts on his fingers to dramatize his loss. The tempo momen-tarily doubles to 10 beats, and then returns by the end of this caranam to the slower 20 beats. The doubling of the tempo emphatically underscores the accusation of arrogance.

140 Plays from the traditional repertory

caranam: (The speed doubles to 10 beats.)

For (Krishna), the one whose enemy was Madhu, the weight of responsibility of know-ing what is best for more than 16,000 wives and their children,

and for protecting them all, is always increasing.^a Does he have time to protect this Brahmin? [K]

[sankarabharanam (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

sloka:

Thus, having heard this good Brahmin’s wailing over and again, (Krishna) the enemy of demons, the one who assiduously protects the world, the divine Balabhadra who bears the hoe, as well as Pradyumna^b and all the other Yadavas, said nothing. (Krishna exits.)^c Then Arjuna came before the Brahmin and said the following:

ilakiyattam

(A short ilakiyattam set within a rhythmic phrase, kitatakadhimtam, is enacted as Arjuna rushes forward to address the Brahmin.)

ARJUNA: Oh, noble Brahmin. Listen well to what I say.^d

pallavi: O, simple hearted Brahmin, enough wailing, enough! [K]

anupallavi:

1. will protect and give you your next-born son. [K]+[I]

pallavi: O, simple hearted Brahmin…

caranam:

A Kshatriya’s duty is to do away with the grief of the Brahmin clan and protect them forever.

You should forget past sorrows. Hereafter if a son is born to you, Arjuna (son of Prtha) will pro-tect him and deliver him to you! [K]+[I]

pallavi: O, simple hearted Brahmin…

BRAHMIN:^e

caranam:

When Vishnu, the master of the worlds and pro-tector of the good, heard of my sorrow,

He did not move.

But, surprisingly, without even thinking a little why this was so,

you, Fool!^f have ventured into this! [K]+[I]

pallavi: Alas, certainly you are indiscriminate, Arjuna, you treasure of bravery.^g

ARJUNA:

caranam:^h

Alas! You are blind from the weight of your grief. Therefore, I am not offended by what you have said.

Do not doubt that if a son is born to you, and

I do not protect and deliver him to you, then I am not Indra’s son! [K]+[I]

1. Madhu was a demon who, along with his brother Kaitabha, was born of the right ear of Mahavishnu. After acquiring boons they stole the Vedas. Brahma called on Mahavishnu to confront them. He did so and eventually was able to kill them.
2. Krishna’s son by Rukmini.
3. Throughout this scene Krishna’s attitude toward the Brahmin is passive—a response which makes the Brahmin even more agitated. Whenever the Brahmin looks at Krishna, he turns away, showing no interest in the Brahmin’s entreaties. Part of the ‘message’ implicit here is about fate. Even Krishna, the great protector, may not always protect.
4. The Brahmin’s response to Arjuna is to assume a mockingly humorous tone. Although his primary state (sthayi bhava) remains sorrow or pathos (karuna), due to the circumstances his secondary state (sanchari bhava) is a mocking form of humor (hasya). When Arjuna first comes forward, the Brahmin lies on the ground in despair and sorrow. As he hears Arjuna’s words, the mocking sarcasm increases until Arjuna completes performing this padam. Then he gradually looks with mocking sarcasm at Arjuna out of the corner of his eyes.
5. Although set in the same tala and raga, the tempo is increased to a faster speed to emphasize the Brahmin’s mocking tone.
6. The Malayalam word for ‘fool,’ pottan, is a very derogatory colloquial expression which emphasizes the fact that only
7. complete fool would do what Arjuna has done.
8. The poet chooses to use a term of respect for Arjuna, but does so to mock him. In addition, calling Arjuna

pallavi: O, simple hearted Brahmin…

BRAHMIN:

caranam:ⁱ

Krishna who is affectionate to his devotees, and the enemy of demons, as well as the mighty Balabhadra and others,

did not move since no one thought it possible (to protect my son).

I no longer desire to see the face of a son. [K]+[I]

pallavi: Alas, certainly you are…

[vekata (raga); muri atanta (tala—28 beats)]

ARJUNA:

pallavi: O you of virtuous character! O best among the Brahmins! Take pleasure in what I say.

[K]

anupallavi:

Don’t you know and haven’t you heard of Phalguna (Arjuna)—the one who distributes well-being even to the residents of the heavens? [K]

caranam:

You know I am neither Krishna nor Balabhadra. I am not even one one of the Vrisni heroes;^j

rather,

1. am the ever-victorious who bearsdivine weapons—

Indra’s son, the lustrous, principled, compa-ssionate.^k [K]

The progeny of Krishna 141

caranam:⁷

Can there be even the slightest fear of Death in a tent of arrows (made by) Indra’s son who in battle defeats even Lord Siva—he who brings death to death itself?^l

Could even Indra, Lord of the gods and ruler of heaven, steal the boy? [K]⁸

caranam: (The speed doubles.)

Hereafter if the son born (to you) has not been protected and delivered to you without incident, I will immediately jump into a well of fire,

immolating myself.

I promise you, I shall do so! [K]⁹

ilakiyattam¹⁰

(After a long pause, Arjuna ‘speaks’.)

ARJUNA:

You still don’t believe me? (Pause.) What…are you continuing to think like this?

BRAHMIN:

No, no. O Arjuna, your boasting is absolutely won-derful! What did you say? ‘I am not Krishna! I am not Balabhadra! I am not one of the Yadava he-roes!’ (Pause.) Could I just say one more thing? How brave you are to humiliate your good friend, Krishna, like this!

ARJUNA:

When I heard your sorrow, my mental balance was disturbed. That’s all.

‘indiscriminate’ emphasizes the fact that he can no longer appropriately differentiate between what is possible and what is not possible. He has done something completely inappropriate to the context. A pallavi, which according to poetic structure usually comes first, is here placed last to give this scene a greater sense of drama.

1. Sung in medium speed, the caranam emphasizes that Arjuna is trying to appease the Brahmin’s anger. Although insulted, he keeps his sense of dignified heroism.
2. The speed quickens to a very fast tala to emphasize the strength of the Brahmin’s retort, and the despair he feels. Although there is still a sense of mocking humor, the object of his mockery is no longer Arjuna, but is turned more inward to his own fate. Therefore, he gradually becomes more and more dejected and sorrowful, feeling that all hope has been lost.
3. A well-known king of the Yadu dynasty. Krishna was born in the Vrisni line.
4. Arjuna’s pride comes out of his supreme self-confidence in his powers. By meditating and getting all the powers at his disposal, he has full confidence in his abilities. He believes he can accomplish this act of protection without any help. The actor playing the role must be careful not to overact Arjuna’s sense of pride.
5. This is Arjuna’s interpretation of how he supposedly defeated Siva when disguised as a hunter. Actually, it was Siva who humbled Arjuna and before whom Arjuna prostrated himself after his defeat by Siva. This story is enacted in the kathakali play Kiratam, which also explores Arjuna’s sometimes overweening pride.

142 Plays from the traditional repertory

BRAHMIN:

Oh! Only that! You know all about Krishna’s greatness—he is so affectionate to his devotees. (Thinking to himself.) But in my case, I made so many offerings and meditated on him, yet he did nothing. (To Arjuna.) Did you ever hear how, long ago, Krishna gave life to his guru’s son—the one who had fallen into a river and died, and then placed his (revived) body before his guru while bowing before him?

ARJUNA:

Yes, I have heard (about that).

BRAHMIN:

A little while ago Krishna gave life to the six sons killed by Kamsa and brought them to their mother. How can I believe you when you stand in front of me and forget Krishna’s miracles, and only boast loudly about yourself? I can’t believe you!

ARJUNA:

I will tell you one story to settle your mind. Long ago, one brahmin who had no sons meditated on Siva. Lord Siva appeared and said, ‘I will give you a boon of either a highly intelligent boy who will only live sixteen years, or, I will give a child whose entire lifetime will be lived by acting mis-chievously and foolishly.’ The brahmin accepted saying that having a child for sixteen years would be enough. So, a child was born to that brahmin. The child was properly cared for and raised. The sixteen years were almost over. The last day had come. When the child was eating, his mother and father began to cry. The child, without knowing anything, looked into their faces and asked, ‘why are you crying?’ (The boy saw) Kalan^a with a rope in one hand, mounted on a buffalo coming toward him. Seeing this the child ran in fear and hid. He went to Vishnu and asked for his protec-tion. Kalan stood with the rope in hand ready (to capture him). Vishnu quickly sent the child to Siva. The child saw a great Siva lingam, ran to it, hugged it, and began to cry. Kalan tried to tie his rope (around the child), but couldn’t. Siva be-came very angry, and with his trident stabbed Kalan, who died. So, the child escaped. Haven’t

you heard this story before? (Just like this) I shall protect your child and give him to you. Please don’t worry!

(Pause. The Brahmin does not respond.)

What? Do you still have a doubt?

BRAHMIN:

Alright. Are you sure you can protect my child?

ARJUNA:

Yes! I am sure.

BRAHMIN:

If so, wait. Let me ask just one more thing. Be-cause of the sadness in my mind, I must ask one more thing. Could you take a vow?

ARJUNA:

I will take a vow.

BRAHMIN:

If so, I will feel confident. Please take a vow on the feet of your elder brother, Dharmaputra, who is among the most revered and truthful people in the world. Will you do this?

ARJUNA:

I will. Oh best among brahmins, I vow on my el-der brother, Dharmaputra’s feet—if I do not pro-tect your new born son, I will jump into the fire pit and destroy myself!

BRAHMIN:

(Your words) are like water poured on the fire of my sorrow. I feel relieved.

ARJUNA:

Then I feel fortunate. Now you can depart hap-pily. Share this news with your wife.

BRAHMIN:

Shall I go? Shall I go with relief?

(The Brahmin picks up the body of his dead son, and is about to go, but then pauses to ask himself.) Oh no! Arjuna cannot do anything

1. Another name for Yama, the god of death.

without Krishna’s help. So, I must also make him vow on Krishna’s name.

ARJUNA:

Why haven’t you gone yet?

BRAHMIN:

My mind is still not fully relieved.

ARJUNA: (Mockingly.) Then recite namam.^a

BRAHMIN:

Even if I recite many times, my mind still won’t be steady and unshaken. What can I do. Always Krishna, and only Krishna comes (into my mind). If you won’t get angry, let me ask one more thing.

ARJUNA:

Me become angry? I don’t have any enmity to-ward you.

BRAHMIN:

I know all the many heroic deeds you have accom-plished. Siva, Siva! But one thing. What have you gained without the help of Krishna?

ARJUNA:

Krishna is in my soul.

BRAHMIN:

Wait! When you were preparing to begin the dread-ful part of the Bharata-War, Krishna got into the chariot and drove it to the battlefield. Do you re-member that? At that time, while holding your bow and arrow in your hands, when you saw the (en-emy’s) army spread before you like an ocean, all your courage left you and you fell to the floor of the chariot.

ARJUNA: I didn’t lose my mental courage. In my inner mind, it was still there. Anyway, I feel confi-dent now that I can protect and hand over your child.

The progeny of Krishna 143

BRAHMIN:

Alas! It is only because of Krishna’s help that you can stand in front of me and say all these boastful words. Therefore, make one more vow at Krishna’s feet. (To himself.) Is it because I am not feeling confi-dent that I am asking all this?

ARJUNA: (To himself.)

Isn’t this characteristic of brahmins? I can’t ignore him even if this is typical. (Thinking.) What? Should I take another vow at Krishna’s feet? (To the Brah-min.) Let me tell you one more thing. When your eight sons died, you came here and pleaded, ‘please protect me.’ But the whole time Krishna was silent. If only my ungenerous vow to that ungenerous Krishna will appease you, I can’t do that!^b

BRAHMIN:

Well, then I shall leave since I am sure you can’t do anything without Krishna’s help!

ARJUNA:

I am certain I cannot take another vow.

BRAHMIN:

No? Alas! This great man has rekindled my hopes. I will accept my fate and leave. (The Brahmin takes his child’s body in his arms and is about to leave when Arjuna rushes to him and brings him back.) Give me your hand and take the vow!

ARJUNA:

Don’t go! (To himself.) Oh, the Brahmin has become angry. (To the Brahmin.) I will take (the vow). Come! Hereafter, I will protect (this Brahmin’s) next born child. If I am unable to do this, with my bow I will jump into the fire pit and destroy myself. Because of my devotion to Krishna, I surrender all my abili-ties to him and vow at his feet.

BRAHMIN: (The Brahmin embraces Arjuna.) I am relieved. Now, let me go.

ARJUNA:

Please go happily.

1. Recitation of the names of the deity is supposed to give mental strength.
2. A number of people in the audience at the performance where this ilakiyattam was enacted reacted negatively to the actor’s use of the adjective ‘ungenerous’ for Krishna. For them it was unfitting for a character like Arjuna to call Krishna ‘ungenerous.’ They felt this interpretation took his pride beyond the bounds of what they considered appropriate to the character.

144 Plays from the traditional repertory

BRAHMIN: (Hesitating.)

Is there anything else to do? (Pause.) You will re-main here?

ARJUNA: Yes, I will stay here. (The Brahmin exits.)

(Curtain)

and promised that he would duly protect (our) son whom you will deliver.

O wife, having stepped forward, he promised (this). [K]

[saveeri (raga); muri atanta (tala—14 beats)]¹¹

WIFE:

Scene 3

[Brahmin and his Wife]

[kamodari (raga); campa (tala—10 beats)] (The curtain remains up as the following sloka is sung.)

sloka:

Hearing Arjuna’s vow, the Brahmin regained his strength of mind and said:

‘When my dear wife’s pregnancy is at full term, I shall come.’

Reaching his house and consoling his chaste wife who was tired from her great grief, he spoke with words sweeter than flowing honey:

(The curtain is lowered. The Wife is seated stage right. The Brahmin enters, and moves to stage right.)^a

BRAHMIN:

caranam:

O beautiful lotus faced, listen to my words. My dear young one, no more crying. [K]

caranam:

This grief will pass. In the future it will become the source of (our) happiness.

O wife, what we desire will be realized. [K]

caranam:

Bearing the body of (our) dead son, when I reached the Yadava’s court wailing with grief,

I heard words which can wash away (our) grief. Please listen. [K]

caranam:

Arjuna, supreme hero of the world, brother-in-law of Krishna who is the ruler of the world, came forward

pallavi: Is it possible for even those who are accomplished to turn away fate?^b [K]

anupallavi:

Can anyone turn away fate?

All that we have experienced has brought us (to a place) beyond grief or pleasure.

Inwardly undisturbed, we must experience what-ever comes. [K]

caranam:

Other than this, can anyone change fate? Like grass (consumed) by the five fires, have not more than five or six boys been reduced to the five basic elements by devious actions of an

unhesitating Brahma?

Can anything obstruct Brahma’s decisions? [K] [kamodari (raga); campa (tala—10 beats)]

BRAHMIN:

caranam:

Wife! Will Krishna forsake Arjuna who has vowed thus:

‘I will quickly die by leaping into the fire pit on the same day if I do not take away this sor-row?’¹² [K]

ilakiyattam

BRAHMIN:

Soon, we will be fortunate enough to see the foot-prints of a child in this house. With that in mind, let us meditate on Krishna.

WIFE:

As you wish.

(Curtain)

1. The right side is considered the honorable side.
2. Arjuna represents ‘the’ quintessential Kshatriya who has become ‘accomplished’ in his practice of the martial arts. The pallavi points to the fact that even the most accomplished human hero cannot overcome what is ‘written on the fore-head,’ i.e., one’s fate.

Scene 4

[Brahmin and his Wife]

[kanakkurinni (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)] (The curtain remains raised as the following sloka is sung.)

sloka:

Thus, speaking about obtaining a son in the future and consoling his wife, with a mind given solely to god in prayer, the Brahmin remained at home.

Soon that Brahmin woman became pregnant. As her pregnancy drew to a close, with delight she, whose charming face resembled the moon, said to her husband:

(As the curtain is lowered the Brahmin and his Wife are seated.)

WIFE:

caranam:

O, leader of my life,

I bow at your feet.

Please listen carefully to my words and (give your) undivided attention. [K]

caranam:

(My) pregnancy is complete. The time for delivery is near—I think within three days. [K]

caranam:

O, ocean of all good actions, go without delay and bring that enemy of Karna, Arjuna, whose bow is the

Gandiva.¹³ [K]

[saveeri (raga); muri atanta (tala—7 beats)]¹⁴

BRAHMIN:

caranam:

O, abode of all that is auspicious, do not worry even a little.

O, one with lotus like eyes, don’t make me worry either!

O wife, I go without delay to bring that expert bowman, Arjuna. [K]

pallavi:¹⁵Oh dear one, whose behavior is always appropriate, let us have strength.

ilakiyattam

BRAHMIN: (Calling the midwife.)

The progeny of Krishna 145

Plate 7.2 The Brahmin’s Wife (Margi Vijayakumar), in pain as the time for her delivery draws near, is helped by the village Midwife (Margi Suresh)

Care for her properly. I will come soon. (The Brahmin exits.)

(Curtain)

Scene 5

[Arjuna and Brahmin]

[madhyamavati (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

(The curtain remains raised as the following sloka is sung.)

sloka:

Thus, that Brahmin, having consoled her whose eyes were weak from the weight of tiredness, quickly reached Krishna’s residence and spoke to

Arjuna, the brave one.

(The curtain is lowered. The Brahmin enters to a kitatakadhimtam.)

146 Plays from the traditional repertory

BRAHMIN:

pallavi: Oh Pandu’s son, bravest of the brave and diamond among the valiant, come with me to my house immediately. [K]

anupallavi:

O one whose fame is as white as an abundance of milk,

O one whose body is as handsome as Kamadeva.^a O one who has kept away the griefs created by enemies, and is the auspicious fame of the

Puru clan. [K]+[I]

pallavi: Oh Pandu’s son, bravest…

caranam:

O handsome one, don’t you remember, it was here that we met earlier?

O one of good conduct, my wife is pregnant again,

and since the time for delivery is near, we are very excited! [K]+[I]

pallavi: Oh Pandu’s son, bravest…

caranam:

O one of wondrous valor, please don’t delay!

I do not have the strength of mind to wait!

Salute (Krishna) the embodiment of supreme

knowledge, and bow before the Lord of the heavens.^b

Take your bow with its ever-increasing power, and let us proceed! [K]+[I]

pallavi: Oh Pandu’s son, bravest…

[athana (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

ARJUNA:

caranam:

O best among Brahmins, I am coming with you to provide protection for the son your wife will deliver.

See, this is the bow which will help to protect your son.

Now, is it possible for Yama or anyone else to over-come my will? [K]

1. The god of love.
2. Indra, Arjuna’s father.

pallavi:¹⁶ Oh crown among Brahmins, please do not allow anything to upset you. Let us go without delay.

ilakiyattam

(The Brahmin and Arjuna are about to exit.)

ARJUNA: So, shall we leave now?

BRAHMIN: Oh! (Doubtful.) Should we mention something to Krishna? If you wish, you can. ARJUNA: Isn’t it enough to show him the child after the delivery?

(Both exit. The curtain is brought upstage to represent the house. They re-enter around the curtain, indicating they have entered the Brahmin’s house.)

BRAHMIN: Here the amenities are meagre. ARJUNA: That’s alright. Now I will make a house of arrows.

BRAHMIN: (Looking for an appropriate place.) Here is a very open space.

ARJUNA: Alright. I will quickly construct the house of arrows. Please sit there.

(Arjuna begins to build the house of arrows. He ties the bowstring, and pulls the string, testing it.) BRAHMIN: Alas! A sound like thunder! ARJUNA: That’s not the sound of thunder. It was only the bowstring being pulled. Don’t be afraid. (He continues to mime building the house of ar-rows. When it is complete he says:) This is enough. Alright. (To the Brahmin.) The construction is fin-ished. Come! Come!

BRAHMIN: (Eyeing and examining the house care-fully.) I think there might be one hole. Look there! ARJUNA: Rub your eyes and look again. BRAHMIN: (Rubbing his eyes.) No, there is a hole.

ARJUNA: No, no. It’s because of all the tears you cried. There’s no hole.

BRAHMIN: Yes, my mind must have been con-fused.¹⁷

ARJUNA: Please bring your wife now. BRAHMIN: (Bringing his wife to the house of arrows, the Wife and Midwife cross upstage behind the curtain.) Walk slowly, slowly, not quickly. (To Arjuna.) Are you brave enough?

ARJUNA: Surely. Sit peacefully. (Looking around.) I will display my valor for the celestial beings.

[punagavarali (raga); muri atanta (tala—28 beats)]

(The following sloka and the Wife’s padam are sung with the curtain up, i.e., she and the Midwife are ‘inside’ the house of arrows. The Brahmin and Arjuna remain in front of the curtain, ‘outside’ the house, waiting, watching, and guarding. While the following sloka is sung, Arjuna and Krishna improvise their waiting and watching.)

sloka:

That Brahmin’s young wife, with moon-like charm-ing face, upright conduct, and vina-like speech,

quickly and joyously gave birth.

Her friend was happily about to hold the child in her hands when suddenly, unable to see her son and exhausted from sorrow

that chaste woman cried out:^a

(Simultaneously, while the text (in the left column below) is being sung and is assumed to be happening in the birth house behind the curtain, the Brahmin and Arjuna interact in an ilakiyattam (in the right column below).)

ilakiyattam

WIFE: BRAHMIN: (Showing his

reaction to a bad omen.)

caranam: Why is my left side

shaking?

caranam:

O Krishna, ocean of

compassion,

have you deceived ARJUNA: It’s nothing. Just

even Nara?^b sit there quietly!

O supreme one, because of us who are without any refuge, do you relish the fact that your young sister^c will suffer the terrible sorrow of widowhood?

caranam:

The child shone with lustre at birth and before he could even touch the earth, fate took him away.

The progeny of Krishna 147

Even his dead body could not be found.

Arjuna’s plan did not bear fruit.

Is it possible for what is written on the forehead to be reversed?

caranam: (The speed doubles.)

Friends, please go quickly and tell these events to my dear one who stands at the door of the house exhausted from great worries and meditating at the feet of Krishna,

and also to Indra’s son.

[balahari (raga); muri atanta (tala—7 beats)] sloka: (This sloka is acted.)

When unexpectedly, from inside the delivery house the Brahmin heard his wife’s words, distorted from her weeping, with great sorrow he fainted and fell down.

Suddenly, like a fire flamed by the wind, he be-came blind with fury and, forsaking all affec-tion, he cruelly admonished Indra’s son: [N]

BRAHMIN:

pallavi: Fool! What happened to your highly accomplished skill? [K]

anupallavi:

O best among dunces, what is the use of this tent of arrows with all its ‘pomp and circumstance?’ [1/2K]

pallavi: Fool! What happened… [K]

caranam:

Earlier I politely but repeatedly told you that all this was unnecessary and one should not have bad intentions.

But what I said so emphatically then did not enter your heart at that time because of your deep rooted and ever increasing pride.

Now best among dullards, because of your ‘power’ I have not even seen my recently born son’s dead body! [1/2K]

pallavi: Fool! What happened… [K]¹⁸

(The actor playing Arjuna puts his hands on his belly.)

1. Since the cry of the Brahmin’s wife described in the sloka is not enacted, the focus is on the reactions of the Brahmin and Arjuna.
2. Nara and Narayana are considered mutually complementary; therefore, without Arjuna (Nara), Krishna cannot be complete.
3. If Arjuna commits suicide then Krishna’s younger sister, Subhadra, will be a widow.

148 Plays from the traditional repertory

caranam:

Why rub your belly and look around helplessly? Even if you jump into the fire, will it save my child?

O hard-hearted son of Indra, having given up help-ing us, leave quickly.

Enter Krishna’s mansion, eat until your heart’s content, and go on living,

O chief among dunces! [1/2K]

pallavi: Fool! What happened… [K]

ilakiyattam

BRAHMIN: Hereafter you should not stand be-fore me for even a single second! Get out! Go! So… look out! (He performs a choreography, but Arjuna still stands there. So he commands him:) Go! Go! Go! (Arjuna exits.)

(Curtain)

Scene 8

[Arjuna and Krishna]

[mukhari (raga), camba (tala—10 beats)] (The curtain remains raised during the singing of the fol-lowing sloka.)

sloka:

Having heard Indra’s words, Arjuna set out from the heavens and searched all the worlds without

finding the Brahmin’s children.

Then he realized this must have been Krishna’s test.

Resolving his indecision, that great one tried to jump into the fire.

(The curtain is lowered to reveal Arjuna.)

ARJUNA:¹⁹

(To himself:)

pallavi: Excellent! Wonderful! This is the play of Fate. [K]

caranam:

The boys’ deaths took place without Yama know-ing about it.

The present time is not good for Arjuna.

My duty is singular—I will immerse myself in the fire and be blessed. O Krishna, protect me! [K]

ilakiyattam

ARJUNA: O, Krishna! Assuming that you are al-ways ready to help me, I decided to fulfill that Brahmin’s wish. Now, have you abandoned me, or refused to help me?

Anyway, I will light the fire, and jump into it.

O, Agni!^a Long ago you assumed the form of a brahmin and came to me, and I fulfilled your wish. Then you gave me your divine weapon, the Gandhiva bow. Now, to fulfill another brahmin’s wish, I am returning this Gandhiva to you. Now I will jump into the fire itself. [N]

[mohanam (raga); muri atanta (tala—7 beats)]

(As the following sloka is enacted, Krishna comes and stops Arjuna from jumping into the fire.)

sloka

Having dug a large fire pit, Arjuna kindled the flame with his arrows.

As he was leaping into the fire holding (his) bow, Krishna, whose mind flows with the

rising waves of compassion, reached (there), stopped Arjuna with his hand, held him, and

said:²⁰

[kamodari (raga); muriyatanta (tala—28 beats)]

KRISHNA:

caranam:

Do not act rashly! Do not act rashly!²¹ I, Madhava—am I not here?

For you there are no obstacles to anything. Isn’t this known throughout the world? [K]

caranam:

Alas, O blessed one, have you forgotten all the beneficial things I have done?

Oh friend, what did I do for you to forget me? [K]

ARJUNA:

caranam:

Enough! You have said enough! Enough dishonor has come to me.

Having called upon your name, I vainly strutted about. Enough of that also.

I am determined.²² [K]

1. The god of fire.

caranam:

Unable to bear the grief of the loss of his sons, how severely one Brahmin reviled you!

But in response not even one person raised their voice.

Just imagine how belittling this was. [K]

caranam:

Consider this: you watched as I took a vow with your blessings. You watched unmoved.

So why do you assume an air of friendship now? [K]²³

KRISHNA:

caranam:

O Partha, my friend, please don’t be angry. Why should you die?

Whatever is in your mind, I will accomplish it for you. [K]²⁴

caranam:

The progeny of Krishna 149

No need to be listless. Those virtuous boys are living in a place without unhappiness.

Let us go and find them. [K]²⁵

ilakiyattam²⁶

ARJUNA: Forgive me! Seeing the Brahmin’s sor-row, I could not remain quiet. Whatever you feel in your mind about what has happened, please for-give me.

KRISHNA: Whatever my devotees do, don’t I forgive them?

ARJUNA: You give sorrow to your devotees, and then take it away. Isn’t that so? What shall I do now?

KRISHNA: Shall we go to Vishnu’s abode? ARJUNA: (Shall I go) with you? KRISHNA: There the children are playing. ARJUNA: As you wish. (They exit the stage in the chariot.)

(Curtain)

Plate 7.3 With his seventh son on his shoulders, the Brahmin dances with joy at his return

150 Plays from the traditional repertory

Scene 12

[Arjuna, Krishna, Brahmin, Brahmin’s Wife, Chil-dren]

[puranira (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)] (The curtain remains raised as the following sloka is sung.)

sloka

Having held the Brahmin’s children, then having bowed before Vishnu, that ocean of compas-sion,

Arjuna, with a gratified mind, boarded the chariot with Krishna, the enemy of Mura.

Having returned to the earth and reached the abode of that best among Brahmins, having given him his sons, thus (the one who has been) disciplined

said with folded hands:

(The curtain is lowered to reveal Krishna and Arjuna with the Children beside them, and with the Brahmin and his Wife on the opposite side of the stage.)

ARJUNA:

pallavi: Salutations to you, crown among Brahmins! (Please) forgive my fault. By the compassion of the Lord, all of your sons have been obtained! [K]

caranam:

O one who was weak from sadness over (the loss of) your sons, when my vital spots^a (were) pierced by the arrows of your words,

I quickly searched through Yama’s abode and the heavens, but did not see your sons. [K]+[I]

pallavi: Salutations to you…

caranam:

Unable to obtain the boys anywhere in the three worlds, I started to jump fearlessly into the fire pit to be consumed.

Then that deceitful one, Krishna, kindly came to me and together we quickly reached Vishnu’s abode. [K]+[I]

pallavi: Salutations to you…

caranam:

With delight we received the boys who were befit-tingly near that Supreme One on his serpent-bed, and quickly came here.

O one who has accumulated such exceedingly good deeds, along with your better half, to your great delight, please see (them). [K]+[I]

pallavi: Salutations to you…

caranam:

This (is) the first boy, and (here is) the second.

The third one is of virtuous qualities.

The fourth is without any impurity, (and) here is the fifth boy.

O ocean of good luck, setting aside all confusion, please receive all your ten sons I return to you.

[K]+[I]

pallavi: Salutations to you…

[bhupalam (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

BRAHMIN:

caranam:

Hail to thee, Krishna. Hail to thee, brave Arjuna!

Do not imagine in your heart of hearts that I in-tended anything (negative) when I scolded you there in my overwhelming grief.

O one whose strength of arms is unimpeded,

O ocean of supreme good fortune, those who take your name in mind will enjoy immense pros-perity from the pleasure of Krishna! [K]

ilakiyattam

BRAHMIN: Alas! Earlier I humiliated you very much. Please don’t take it to heart. Then I was immersed in an ocean of sorrow. Now you have saved me and pushed me into the ocean of happi-ness. That’s all. So, what did you do after that?

ARJUNA:^b I lit the fire, and was about to jump when (someone) grabbed my hand.

BRAHMIN: (To his Wife:) Do you know (who held his hand)?

1. Marmmam, the ‘vital spots’ of the body which, when pierced in combat, could lead to instant death.
2. The actor playing Arjuna often includes some information about his travels to Yama and Indra’s abode as he searched for the boys.

(Humorously.) Oh, you don’t know anything. (As if whispering to her.) Krishna did that.

ARJUNA: Later I went to the abode of Vishnu and found the children there. According to Vishnu’s command, we have brought the children back.

BRAHMIN: They all stayed with Vishnu? That’s most fortunate!

ARJUNA: (Pointing to one of the boys.) This boy played with the serpent, Ananta’s tail. And this boy suckled at Lakshmi Devi’s breast!

BRAHMIN: Alas! This boy is most fortunate to have suckled at Lakshmi’s breast. What can I say now? Why don’t both of you stay here happily for a few days, and only after that leave. ARJUNA: We will visit later.

KRISHNA: For now, we will leave, but later we will return.

ARJUNA: We will come for the boys’ upanayana.^a BRAHMIN: Ah! Alright, as you wish. O Arjuna, may all auspicious things happen to you. May much fame come to you.

(Krishna dances the concluding dance [danasi].)

(Curtain)

COMMENTARY: THEODICY, HU-MAN SUFFERING, AND DIVINE PLAY IN THE PROGENY OF KRISHNA

The Progeny of Krishna in performance

As discussed in Chapter 1, in addition to its her-alded pleasures as a ‘classical’ performance for connoisseurs, The Progeny of Krishna in perfor-mance today is a very accessible play which cre-ates multiple pleasures for its audiences. Perfor-mances elicit everything from interest in the story as a drama, to empathy for the main character of the Brahmin, to raucous laughter, to animated commentary and discussion, to a sense of devo-tion (bhakti) for Krishna, to subtler responses among connoisseurs to the more virtuosic elements of an actor’s performance of a role. In this commentary, I pay particular attention to the

The progeny of Krishna 151

elements of story, characterization, and theme that invite everyone to the ‘ocean of possibilities’ that makes a play like this so accessible and popular.

It was the kathakali actor Margi Vijayan who told me that he thought The Progeny of Krishna was accessible and popular not only because its lan-guage was relatively uncomplicated but also be-cause it was ‘a very simple play.’ G.S.Warrier, a connoisseur of kathakali, echoed Vijayan’s opinion when he said that the play ‘has an everyday (lokadharmi) aspect.’ Both were referring to the en-actment in The Progeny of Krishna of the very human dilemma faced by a simple Brahmin householder and his wife who are suffering a tremendous loss: nine sons have been born to them, and all nine have died at birth.

As originally written, The Progeny of Krishna em-phasizes and elaborates the overarching point of view of the original story in the Bhagavata Purana— that Vishnu is ‘the greatest’ of all the gods whose own inscrutable, capricious divine play (lila) is mani-fest not only in his incarnation in Lord Krishna but also in his own ‘play,’ and that he has actually brought the Brahmin’s children to Vaikuntha in order to necessitate a visit by Krishna and Arjuna. As described by Krishna in Scene 10 of the origi-nal unedited play, these scenes reveal the wonder and glory of Vishnu’s abode, elaborated by Krishna and Arjuna as they witness, and describe these wonders with awe where their ‘eyes begin to swim and play in the immense waves of this ocean of ambrosia.’ This view of Vishnu’s abode provides a dramatic theological and cosmological framework within which the Brahmin’s, and thereby the audi-ence’s, own day-to-day human sufferings are sub-sumed.

The Progeny of Krishna’s importance as an accessi-ble play emphasizing devotionalism is witnessed by its regular performance at certain temples, es-pecially in southern Kerala. Similar to commission-ing a Krishnattam performance at Guruvayur Tem-ple, at Panavalli Temple near Alleppey, as well as at the Kollam Asrama and Tiruvalla temples, The Progeny of Krishna is at least occasionally if not regu-larly performed as an offering to the deity of the temple. At the Tiruvalla temple, if a kathakali play other than The Progeny of Krishna is performed as an

1. Ritual for investiture of the sacred thread.

152 Plays from the traditional repertory

offering, the final scene of The Progeny of Krishna is performed beginning about 4.30 a.m. in order to conclude with the auspicious return of the children to the Brahmin. And it was at the Panavalli temple that the great kathakali actor Kunju Nayar Asan, who popularized the role of the Brahmin, used to perform the role as a personal offering, accepting in this case only expense money, and taking no fee.²⁷

At the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, performances of The Prog-eny of Krishna are compulsory on the tenth and final day of the great ten-day temple festival during Meenam (March/April), which features all-night kathakali performances on each of the ten nights. Ganesha Iyer explained that the performance of The Progeny of Krishna in the natya sala (‘drama house’), just inside the east temple gate, is held on the tenth and final day to close the festival ‘because it returns the dead children and ensures growth in the family.’ Since children are literally and symboli-cally the ‘prosperity’ of a family, gaining progeny is the future.

Until approximately forty years ago The Prog-eny of Krishna was still performed in its entirety, at least at the temple festivals at Varkala and Thiruvananthapuram. But as Krishnan Nayar popularized the role of the Brahmin, and enacted some of his now infamous ilakiyattam focusing on the dilemma of the Brahmin, it gradually became standard to cut scenes 6, 7, 9, 10, and 11. With these scenes cut, the dramatic narrative is focused more specifically on the Brahmin’s dilemma, Arjuna’s prideful attempt to resolve that dilemma, and the joy and devotion (bhakti) which comes with Krishna’s gracious return of the children.²⁸ The sim-plicity and ‘everydayness’ of the story lies in the fact that it focuses so closely on the Brahmin’s hu-man dilemma.

Within the seven scenes normally performed redundancies have been eliminated so that the pace of the play is decidedly up-tempo—in keeping with the Brahmin’s sense of urgency about his situation. The Progeny of Krishna is also unusual in that there is little emphasis on solo acting, and the only inter-polations of any length are interactive—those be-tween Arjuna and the Brahmin in Scene 2 and Scene 5.²⁹ These interactive interpolations serve to push forward and elaborate on these two charac-

ters and their relationship within the story at hand. For example, the long attam in Scene 2 elaborates the presumptuousness of Arjuna’s pride which makes him declare that he can accomplish what no one else, including Krishna, has been able to do—protect the Brahmin’s children—and it also emphasizes the Brahmin’s total trust in and devo-tion to Krishna.³⁰

Thus, unlike many kathakali plays in perform-ance whose narratives temporarily ‘stand still’ while the focus remains on a single senior actor perform-ing a virtuosic elaboration, in this shortened ver-sion particularly The Progeny of Krishna plays as a drama in which mostly two-character scenes push the narrative along toward its joyous conclusion with the return of the children.

The Progeny of Krishna’s everyday concerns: the importance of [male] progeny and raising the question, ‘Why do the pious suffer?’

In Indian mythology, the greatest loss one can suffer is to lose a child.

(Vasu Pisharodi, Kathakali actor)

The dilemma of childlessness, and, in particular, lack of male progeny, which bursts upon the stage with the Brahmin’s dramatic entrance in Scene 2 of The Progeny of Krishna, is perhaps the worst case scenario that a traditional Hindu male, and espe-cially a brahmin, can face in life. As South Asian scholar Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty explains:

Children in India represent the only form of physical permanence. They are the links of the eternal chain of rebirths in an infinity of bodies (samsara), in contrast with (and often at the sac-rifice of) the setting free or release (moksa) of the eternal soul. We see our physical selves pre-served in the bodies of our children; and we see our mythical selves preserved in their memo-ries. For many—all but those who claim to have achieved release—this is the only eternity there is. As the Hindu lawbook put it, ‘You beget chil-dren, and that’s your immortality, O mortal.’

(1988:73)

The point of view assumed in The Progeny of Krishna is that of the Dharma Sastras, which col-lectively ‘set forth a model of how society ought to be organized and not a sociological description of existing society’ (Hopkins 1971:84). According to this Brahminical religious ideal, the [male] brahmin passes through at least the first two of the four ‘stages of life’ (asrama) open to him: stu-dent, householder, forest dwelling hermit, and renunciant (sannyasin). In The Progeny of Krishna, the Brahmin is attempting to fulfill the two most es-sential duties of the brahmin householder through which society itself would be preserved, i.e., offering sacrifices and raising sons.³¹ Al-though release from the cycle of rebirths is the ul-timate goal,

for most people, householder life was the limit of their present existence: they married, raised a family, carried out their social duties, per-formed their prescribed rituals, and ended life as householders, hoping that they had prepared the way for a better future birth.

(ibid.: 81)

According to the ‘majority view’ expressed by Manu, the ‘householder life is the most important’ of the four stages since ‘it alone leads to the pro-duction of offspring and the support of society’; however, it could only be successfully completed when one produces ‘male offspring to the second generation’ and provides ‘for the continuing sup-port of one’s family.’

Every Brahmin was said to be born with a triple indebtedness: to the sages, to the gods, and to his ancestors. He became free of these only when he had satisfied the sages with celibacy, the gods with sacrifices, and his ancestors with a son.

(ibid.: 82, 77).

Not only are sons necessary for the future continu-

ation and prosperity of the family, but it is also the

eldest son’s duty to perform his father’s funeral

rites (sraddha).³² From the point of view of the

Dharma Sastras, to remain son-less is to be unable

to fulfill one’s obligations as a householder, and to

lack a son to perform one’s funeral rites.

The emphasis throughout The Progeny of Krishna on the birth of a male child places the woman (Brah-

The progeny of Krishna 153

min’s wife) in the traditional role as having respon-sibility for fulfilling her role of bearing (male) chil-dren. As anthropologist Margaret Trawick Egnor explains, the indigenous Ayurvedic medical per-spective assumes that

physical conception and birth is roughly paral-lel to…cosmic conception and birth …Just as the body exists for the purpose of the soul only…woman is treated as existing for the sole purpose of producing a (male) child only, and the female body is discussed only in connec-tion with pregnancy.

(1983:936).

For the Brahmin and his Wife the everyday con-cern for (male) progeny is not only tragically mul-tiplied, but also exacerbated by the ‘injustice’ of their suffering in a situation over which they have no control and for which they have no blame.³³ Quite simply, the Brahmin and his Wife are fault-less. As kathakali actor Nelliyode Vasudevan Namboodiripad explains, this Brahmin ‘leads a mundane and pious life.’ Throughout the play the Brahmin is addressed and/or described as ‘pi-ous,’ ‘noble,’ ‘good,’ or that ‘crown’ and/or ‘best among brahmins.’ The Progeny of Krishna dramati-cally raises the question that confronts all fami-lies—why the pious and innocent suffer.

In his study of local interpretations of popular Hindu religious concepts in a northern Kerala com-munity, sociologist of religion A.M.Abraham Ayrookuzhiel (1983) discusses how Malayalis un-derstand and interpret a situation like that faced by the Brahmin in The Progeny of Krishna—why would a good, pious person suffer? Three Chirakkal vil-lage residents shared the following thoughts which echo the Brahmin’s Wife’s attribution of their suf-fering to what has been divinely ordained, i.e., their fate (vidhi):

Sometimes really good people suffer, as in the case of Harischandra. Harischandra suffered not because of his dushkarma (evil deeds) but because of vidhi (fate) . . . What is to happen will hap-pen. One cannot prevent it. It is called vidhi… Vidhi means the happenings in life which are beyond one’s control, e.g., the sudden death of a young person… This can only be vidhi.

(Ayrookuzhiel 1983:123, 126, 127)

154 Plays from the traditional repertory

Pious, upright individuals like the Brahmin and his Wife in The Progeny of Krishna are clearly suffer-ing, not from some sin committed in the past, but from a present fate (vidhi) over which they ‘have no control’—‘innocent people also suffer. It cannot be that they have done something wrong. It may be (what is written on their foreheads)’ (1983:129).³⁴

It is the very everydayness of these concerns with progeny and the question of suffering that gives The Progeny of Krishna its strong thematic ap-peal to kathakali’s most broad-based audiences. Al-though The Progeny of Krishna is played out between heaven and earth, especially in the shortened ver-sion performed today, the thematic appeal of these everyday, human concerns is reflected in the char-acters in The Progeny of Krishna, especially the Brah-min, his Wife, the Midwife, and the children.

The Brahmin and the Midwife: ‘everyday’ characters of The Progeny of Krishna

Along with the Brahmin character in Kuchela Vrttam by Muringoor Sankara Potti (1851–1914), of the major roles in the kathakali repertory, the Brahmin in The Progeny of Krishna is, as G.S. Warrier explained, ‘more everyday’ than most major characters. Part of the ‘everydayness’ which characterizes these two roles is the fact that both are brahmins, and therefore appear in the minukku (literally, ‘radiant’) costume and make-up (vesam). In contrast to the other categories, their make-up and costuming are relatively close to the appearance of brahmins in everyday life with a non-stylized grey beard, simple wrapped lower cloth, upper body cloth draped over his left arm, sacred thread, and beads.

The Brahmin’s everydayness also comes from his familiarity—those inhering characteristics of per-sonality and behavior which are understood by kathakali actors to characterize brahmins as an iden-tifiable social type, and which form the basis of acting the role of a brahmin on the kathakali stage.³⁵ Kathakali actor Vasu Pisharodi, who often plays the role of the Brahmin in The Progeny of Krishna, ex-plains that

This Brahmin is a typical brahmin character. He is very very innocent. Because of his inno-

cence, he lashes out, terribly angry, against the ruler and loses control.

(interview)

His innocence derives from his inborn qualities at birth, i.e., his substantive purity (satvika gunam), as well as from purity of mind (guddhan) which leaves him uncorrupted.³⁶ As M.P. Sankaran Namboodiri explains, ‘whatever comes to his mind/heart comes out. He’s like a vessel.’ When he first enters he is filled with the anguish of sor-row (karuna) over the loss of his eighth son. But his sorrow (the dominant emotional state) is tinged with anger (raudra, or kopam) over the death of yet another son.³⁷ He moves back and forth between expressing his pathos, and his an-ger/outrage. But immediately after becoming an-gry, he regrets it. As M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri explains, even when the Brahmin does become angry, he remains innocent, ‘because there is no malice or evil in it. It’s a result of his circum-stances.’

Nelliyode Vasudevan Namboodiripad explains how this innocence is manifest in his behavior:

Since the Brahmin is so innocent, he shows ev-erything in the extreme. If he is happy, he will be extremely happy. His mind is very innocent, and this innocence is the common characteris-tic of a brahmin… If he gets angry he won’t consider the consequences or the position of the person. When he is angry, he won’t think first, ‘Who is Krishna?’ He won’t consider whether he is a god or not… A mature man controls his emotions, but the Brahmin doesn’t. …So at last, when he sees all his children to-gether, he is very happy and he can’t control his happiness! It’s like a person winning the lot-tery! Some people die when they hear this. They don’t have the mental power to withstand such news!

(interview)

The Kunju Nayar tradition of playing the role of the Brahmin involves an important element of en-dearing humor. Ideally it is a humor born out of the actor’s ability to sustain the Brahmin’s purity and innocence—so extreme are his reactions to his situation in extremis that his over-distraught behav-ior, when played with specific actions, takes on

this element of endearing humor. Kathakali actor Vasu Pisharodi explains how

Sometimes people laugh when I show some minute details of the Brahmin’s character. For example, when he goes with Arjuna, he’s so totally frustrated and upset that his shoulder cloth falls off! Whenever this episode is per-formed, women in the audience will laugh. Their laughter is part of the sympathy they have for the character.

(interview)

When Pisharodi’s Brahmin reacts to the thunder-ous sound of Arjuna’s first arrow shot, he shouts that his ‘ears are broken!’ Improvising, he goes on to add, ‘I’m only familiar with the sounds of wor-ship (puja)—the ringing of the bell.’ Again, it is the innocence of this response, which shows the Brahmin’s piety, that becomes humorous.

The dramatic effectiveness of the juxtaposition of the wide range of emotions, and the endearing humor which it can produce, is also apparent in the scenes leading up to the birth of the ninth son. The Brahmin pacifies his wife’s fears in Scene 3 and convinces her that Arjuna would indeed pro-tect their next son, and Scene 4 then takes place nine months later. When the Brahmin’s Wife an-nounces her pregnancy, the Brahmin’s primary bhava is happiness, but it is mixed with anxiety about her condition. The Brahmin ‘takes control’ of the situation when he announces:

Oh, abode of all that is auspicious, do not have even a little worry.

But immediately the overly anxious, over-con-cerned, and over-protective potential father says,

Oh, one with lotus like eyes, you should also not make me worry!

This mixture of joy with anxious concern makes the Brahmin into the stereotypically anxious hus-band who is over-protective of his pregnant wife. Occasionally actors playing the Brahmin add a short interpolation in which he tells his wife

Don’t sweep! Don’t grind!

And don’t climb any steps!

Just take rest!

The progeny of Krishna 155

The humor of this scene plays as a counter-bal-ance to the impending pathos of the loss of yet another child.

The Brahmin passes through this phenomenally wide-ranging and quickly changing sea of emotions in the course of The Progeny of Krishna. It is precisely this uncensored innocence of the Brahmin which allows both the role and the play to have such a broad appeal. As G.S.Warrier explains, ‘Part of the enjoyment of a really good performance of The Prog-eny of Krishna is seeing the wide gamut of emotions through which a character like this passes. This wide gamut of emotions is what makes the play unusual. It is also what makes the play popular.’ All this, but especially the Brahmin’s innocence, helps the audience develop, in Pisharodi’s words, a ‘sympathetic love’ toward the Brahmin.

Although the Brahmin is a familiar character who possesses this sense of the ‘everyday’ and must be played broadly, by no means is he a cari-cature. In G.S.Warrier’s explanation of The Prog-eny of Krishna as having a strong ‘everyday’ (lokadharmi) aspect, he qualified this description by adding, ‘but it should not be acted that way. Too often the acting descends to lokadharmi. It should not.’ Used in this negative sense, lokadharmi might best be translated ‘pedestrian,’ i.e., the type of act-ing in which one ‘plays to the gallery’ and the role of the Brahmin becomes a caricature. M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri explains how playing the Brahmin requires the actor to keep within the bounds of ‘what is appropriate’ (aucityam-bodham) to the type:

Playing the Brahmin requires a more ‘realistic’ form of acting than many other roles.³⁸ But even though he is more ‘realistically’ played, it shouldn’t be that realistic. The ideal Brahmin, even though there are of course vast differ-ences among brahmins, is that one should keep up the dignity and reputation of one’s family line. It is called taravatittam, i.e., what is due the taravatu,³⁹ keeping up the family name. The opposite is capalyam or when one behaves with-out respect for one’s family, i.e., behaving with disrespect for tradition and for the family’s reputation. Behaving with reserve, dignity and within the limits that should guide a person of this caste.

(interview)

156 Plays from the traditional repertory

What is particularly difficult about playing the role of the Brahmin is keeping the delicate bal-ance between playing the role fully and broadly, but keeping the innocence, especially when play-ing moments that are humorous. As M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri explains

A poor actor might break the bounds [of what is appropriate] by trying to play humor. That’s a problem. He can’t play at humor, but only at being angry at Krishna for ignoring him! It’s the extremity of his condition and situation that brings this on.

(interview)

So, the Brahmin must be played with broad and extreme emotions, but he must do so as specific responses to an ever-changing dramatic context.

If the mature actor playing the Brahmin must be careful not to overplay the role so that it be-comes a caricature, the young actor who takes the role of the Midwife should play this small role spe-cifically as a caricature, i.e., the most everyday or lokadharmi types of roles in the repertory. The Mid-wife is among the group of ‘special’ caricatures which spice the kathakali repertory. Like other cari-catures, kathakali’s are created by the careful copy-ing of the easily identifiable stereotypical behaviors of particular groups of people within the society at large. In The Progeny of Krishna the Midwife is usu-ally played as a buck-toothed, hunchbacked old woman from the village. It never fails to elicit a good humored response from the audience.⁴⁰

Responding to The Progeny of Krishna today:

from cupped hands to the cooking pot

Wendy O’Flaherty astutely observes that ‘It is the particular talent of mythology to bridge the gap between the affective and cognitive aspects of reli-gion—to fill the heart’ (1976:15). In the concluding section of this chapter, I turn my attention to the way in which kathakali’s performance of mythol-ogy, especially a play like The Progeny of Krishna, provides an aesthetic experience which fills the ‘hearts’ and/or ‘minds’ of its diverse audiences, from those whose hands are cupped to those who bring cooking pots.

In one of our discussions, Vasu Pisharoti recol-

lected how, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, ‘tears fell unconsciously from [my] eyes’ during a per-formance of The Progeny of Krishna. Although he had seen The Progeny of Krishna before and knew the story, on this particular night, responding to the pathos and innocence of the Brahmin, Kunju Nayar Asan’s performance ‘touched and pierced my heart/ mind. It is a special feeling… I cried and so did many other people in the audience.’ Such an overtly empathetic response may be occasioned either by the Brahmin’s moments of pathos, and/or by the occasion of overwhelming joy which concludes a good performance—a moment when joy, wonder, grace, and devotion are melded as parents and chil-dren are united and the Brahmin’s suffering is ended.

Unlike other small roles in the kathakali reper-tory, such as the Midwife, the roles of the Brah-min’s eight oldest children in The Progeny of Krishna are not taken by younger, relatively inexperienced kathakali students, but rather by children from the community where the performance is being held. (The ninth and final son is the stage property in-fant wrapped in a cloth.) Ideally, the organizers of the performance gather eight ‘volunteer’ children (male or female) from families attending the per-formance to play the eight sons. If possible, the eight children should be of different heights, rang-ing from four-or five-year-olds up to fourteen- or fifteen-year-olds, so that they can be arranged onstage from oldest/tallest to youngest/smallest. This ideal casting reflects the fact that Vishnu had taken all of the children to his heavenly abode where they had been living fully and joyfully with their heavenly father (Vishnu) and mothers (Lakshmi and Bhumi Devi) until they were taken by Arjuna and Krishna to rejoin their parents of birth.

Naturally, the spectator/actor relationship is al-tered with village children on stage. The audience is usually abuzz with conversation and commen-tary throughout the opening of the final scene as Krishna serves as onstage stage manager for the children, arranging them according to height from the tallest to the shortest, prompting the children about how to hold their hands to pay proper re-spects to their parents, when to go forward to Arjuna to be given to their parents, etc. Much of this is impromptu, and the actors playing Arjuna and the Brahmin often take full advantage to

improvise. Since the predominant mood, once the children are brought forward, is the Brahmin’s exploding abundance of joy, the good humored improvisations are often uproariously funny. At the performance at Killimangalam in 1993, the son of the actor (M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri) playing the Brahmin was one of the eight children. Sankaran Namboodiri took full advantage of the audience’s knowledge of this fact to humorously ask why this child (his son) did not look like him, but rather his wife! When a young girl with long hair was intro-duced, it led to improvised comments on how he got such long hair!

By bringing village children onto the stage, in more than most kathakali plays the context is put into the performance text (see Blackburn 1992), i.e., Krishna’s grace is not an abstract theological/ cosmological construct, but instantiated in the vil-lage’s progeny here and now. In The Progeny of Krishna the ‘everyday’ (lokadharmi) has the poten-tial to take on the sense of being this particular day for these particular people.

Among connoisseurs the same performative mo-ments that brought tears to Pisharoti’s then young eyes are often experienced and interpreted as a sub-tler internal resonation or ‘vibration’ ‘within the mind’—signs of the actualization of the rasa aesthetic. That kathakali is an ‘ocean of possibilities’ for its audiences should by now be self-evident. What is often not self-evident is that most narratives about kathakali privilege the educated point of view of the connoisseur, and his ‘theater of the mind.’ When kathakali is discussed as a ‘classical’ art (most often by Westerners), it suggests that kathakali is an art of the elite to the exclusion of the everyday and the mundane, i.e., that it could have no interest or meaning for non-connoisseurs. When kathakali is discussed as a ‘theater of the mind,’ among some connoisseurs this ‘higher’ aesthetic sensibility is used to disparage implicitly and/or explicitly the ‘lower,’ ‘sensual,’ ‘worldly,’ or ‘everyday’ apprecia-tion of the ‘un’-educated—a sense of disparagement that has the potential to make kathakali into an art for an exclusive elite which might no longer be an ‘ocean’ welcoming all.

As an outsider to Kerala and to kathakali, and therefore as little more than a child at kathakali per-formances, it is reassuring for me to know that, even with water falling between the gaps in a child’s uneducated, awkwardly cupped hands, there is

The progeny of Krishna 157

much to be taken away from a kathakali play like The Progeny of Krishna.

Theodicy, god’s ‘play,’ and historical shifts in meaning

Thematically and dramatically The Progeny of Krishna enacts one of popular Hinduism’s most important ways of addressing the problem of theodicy—if there is an all-powerful force of divine creation, how and why would such a force allow human suffering. The fact that The Progeny of Krishna, as performed today in its edited version, focuses the audience’s attention and response on the ‘human face’ of the Brahmin’s predicament and suffering, and therefore creates and even ‘en-courages’ the possibility of a sentimental re-sponse, is not at all surprising. What we need to keep in mind are the historical factors that have contributed to emphasizing this response. First is the development of an acting style which has in-creasingly emphasized playing roles like the Brah-min with increasing attention to their human pre-dicament, especially in the development of the in-terpolations where these states of mind/being/do-ing are theatrically elaborated. Certainly the ‘play’ of the gods remains fundamental to this ed-ited version of the play-in-performance; however, editing Scenes 6–7 and 9–11 considerably de-em-phasizes Mahavishnu’s lila, and the wonders of his grace. These missing scenes enact the futility of Arjuna’s pride-filled frantic search for the chil-dren, and the ‘culprit’ who ostensibly caused their death. They emphasize and culminate, not so much in the final return of the children to their human parents, but in Scenes 10–11 with Krishna and Arjuna’s arrival at Vishnu’s heavenly abode where they (and the audience) encounter the di-vine. Leaving behind their chariot, Krishna and Arjuna describe their almost blinding encounter with the wonders of Vaikuntha where their eyes ‘swim and play in the immense waves of this ocean of ambrosia.’

(Finally), the two of them reached Vishnu’s abode and saw Padmanabha, the embodi-ment of supreme knowledge,

the one who reclines on the graceful couch of the Serpent-king,

158 Plays from the traditional repertory

(whose) sides are beautified by the goddesses of Earth and Lakshmi.

His wonder-inspiring abode is suffused with pure grace since it is the residence of im-mortal souls.

Scene 11 opens as the curtain is lowered to reveal Mahavishnu in tableau, perhaps reclining as de-scribed above with Bhumi Devi and Lakshmi at his sides, and surrounded by the missing children. As Krishna and Arjuna bow before him they speak for devotees of Vishnu gathered in the au-dience when they repeat over and again in their pallavi:

O one who is the embodiment of bliss, we bow (to you).

Certainly, having seen your visage (darsan), this birth has become fruitful.

Like the audience before them, by taking darsan of Mahavishnu in this tableau they have encoun-tered the divine. Mahavishnu himself explains that it was ‘Only to make you come here, did I bring that best among Brahmin’s children here with delight,’ i.e., Vishnu’s inscrutable di-vine play has once again been at work! From this encounter with the divine, Krishna and Arjuna conclude, ‘Is it possible for there to be grief in the minds of those who are devotees at your feet?’

There can be no doubt that this earlier version of the play-in-performance elaborates popular Hin-duism’s answer to the problem of suffering as the divine ‘play’ of the gods:

The idea is that God’s creation of the world is motivated not by any desire or lack, since these would be incompatible with his or her self-ful-filled and complete nature, but rather by a free and spontaneous creativity. Later commenta-tors explain this passage through the metaphor of a great king who plays at sports in order to amuse himself, or a healthy man who, upon awakening from a sound sleep, dances from sheer exuberance.

(Sax 1995:4)

Especially relevant to The Progeny of Krishna is Norvein Hein’s comment on how the concept of lila as ‘divine sportiveness’ is commonly used

to domesticate the tragedies of life by reflecting that wealth and poverty, health and sickness, and even death itself are apportioned to crea-tures of God in his mysterious play. The rea-sons for such fateful intervention are beyond human comprehension, but devotees who un-derstand their fortunes to be the sport of God will know that it is not blind fate that controls their lot, and hence they will accept their condi-tion as providential.

(in Sax 1995:15)

Certainly, this drama, especially as originally authored and performed until approximately forty to fifty years ago, reflects Mahavishnu at play with the fate of the Brahmin and his sons. The very fact of his faultless character serves to underscore the inscrutability of the divine’s ‘mys-terious play.’

8

king rugmamgada’s

law

(rugmamgada

caritam)

Mandavappalli Ittiraricha Menon(c. 1747–94)

Translated by V.R.PRABODHACHANDRAN NAYAR, M.P.SANKARAN

NAMBOODIRI AND PHILLIP B.ZARRILLI

INTRODUCTION

The full text of King Rugmamgada’s Law has ten scenes. Today, only the final three scenes (8–10) are performed. The play is based on Chapter 21 of the Padma Purana. It focuses on how ekadasi be-came such an important day of devotion to Vishnu. Ekadasi is the eleventh day of every fort-night in a lunar month, sacred to Vishnu. On ekadasi devotees are supposed to fast and medi-tate. Ekadasi is also the subject of another kathakali play, Ambarishacaritam by Aswati Tirunal Tampuran (c. 1756–94), a contemporary of Mandavappalli Ittiraricha Menon.

Marking the importance of ekadasi, Ambarishacaritam is performed each ekadasi day dur-ing the ten-day temple festival in Meenam (March-April) at the Thiruvananthapuram Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple every year. Similarly, at the Varkala temple, it was traditional to perform King Rugmamgada’s Law in its entirety on ekadasi day.

SYNOPSIS OF THE PLAY:¹

One day when King Rugmamgada and his wife, Sandhyavali, were enjoying the pleasures of their garden, they noticed that some of the beautiful flowers were missing. Rugmamgada wanted to know why. During the night, he hid himself to ob-

serve the garden. Some celestial nymphs came to the garden riding in their airborne chariot. They began to pluck the flowers, and loaded their chariot. When they were about to leave, Rugmamgada came forward and touched their chariot, freezing it to the ground. The nymphs be-came angry, and cursed Rugmamgada. Afraid of their curses, he pleaded for their forgiveness. He asked how the chariot might be freed so they could leave. They said that if he could locate one individual in his kingdom who had observed ekadasi rites and taken absolutely no food that day, that individual would be able to free the chariot simply by touching it.

King Rugmamgada sent his servants through-out the kingdom in search of someone who had observed these rites and fasted. Eventually they found one poor, old woman who, although she had not been officially observing the rites, had never-theless not eaten all day since she was so poor. They brought her to Rugmamgada. He ordered her to touch the chariot, and when she did it was freed. Rugmamgada was amazed at her power, and asked the nymphs to explain how someone might obtain such powers. They instructed him on how to ob-serve the ekadasi rites correctly through fasting and meditation. Rugmamgada describes the observance of these rites at length.

Once Rugmamgada and all his subjects began to perform the ekadasi rites, it affected the entire

160 Plays from the traditional repertory

world. Everyone in Rugmamgada’s kingdom went to Vaikuntha, Vishnu’s heavenly abode. Since no one was going to hell where the lord of death pre-sided, Yama became concerned and asked Sage Narada what was happening. When Narada ex-plained the effect of ekadasi observances on Rugmamgada’s kingdom, Yama sent his agents into the world to find a single chandala to take to hell.^a Vishnu’s attendants interceded, and Yama’s agents returned empty-handed. Yama angrily announced that he would go into the world himself to bring back not only a chandala, but Vishnu’s attendants as well! Yama’s assistant Chitragupta intercedes, asking Yama whether it might not be better for him to approach Lord Brahma than to go to the world himself.

Yama pleads his case before Brahma. He ex-plains that with everyone observing ekadasi so faith-fully, no one is coming to his kingdom, and there-fore he has no work. Brahma tells Yama not to worry, and that he will try another way of dissuad-ing Rugmamgada from being so vigilant in his ob-servances of ekadasi.

The three scenes (8–10) performed today and translated here begin at this point in the dramatic narrative. Brahma sends the enchantress Mohini to obstruct Rugmamgada’s observances by testing his devotion. When Rugmamgada encounters Mohini, not knowing that she has been sent by Brahma to test him, he immediately falls in love with her, and he invites her to live with him as his consort. She agrees on condition that he will never deny her anything she desires. He agrees by taking an oath.

Two brahmins discuss King Rugmamgada’s re-lationship with Mohini, but note that even in the midst of this new love, he has not neglected his duties.

On ekadasi day, after undergoing the necessary purificatory rites, King Rugmamgada begins medi-tating on Vishnu. Mohini enters in an amorous mood. Rugmamgada tries to dissuade her, explain-ing that as a devotee of Vishnu he must remain pure the entire day and can only fast and meditate. Mohini then reminds him of the vow he has taken never to deny her what she desires—and at this mo-ment she desires him. She challenges him—she will allow him to continue his fasting and meditation, but on condition that he behead his only son,

Dharmamgada, while lying in his mother’s lap. Rugmamgada becomes angry with her, and then begs her to relent from her demand, but she refuses.

Dharmamgada himself comes forward and re-minds his father that for members of their clan (ksatriyas) a vow must always be honored. Rugmamgada undergoes the emotional torment of the contradictory demands of his situation, but fi-nally knows that he must sacrifice his son. Just as he raises his sword to strike, Vishnu appears and, after blessing Rugmamgada, takes him to Vaikuntha, the heavenly abode, and installs his son as king.

The translation of Scenes 8–10 has been pre-pared from the K.P.S.Menon and Redyar versions of the text, and from a performance of the play on 28 August 1993 at Killimangalam, Trissur District, Kerala, India, commissioned by the Killimangalam Centre for Documentation of the Performing Arts. The role of King Rugmamgada was played by Kalamandalam Gopi Asan, and the role of Mohini by Margi Vijayakumar. The interpolations are from this performance.

CAST

RUGMAMGADA: the great king of the Sun clan, in pacca (‘green’) make-up.

MOHINI: the enchantress, in minukku (‘radiant’) make-up.

TWO BRAHMINS: in minukku make-up.

DHARMAMGADA: son of Rugmamgada, in pacca make-up.

SANDHYAVALI: Rugmamgada’s wife and mother of Dharmamgada, in minukku make-up.

VISHNU: in pacca make-up.

[sankarabharanam (raga)]

sloka:²

Long ago was born in the prosperous Sun clan, a King named Rugmamgada.

Graceful and handsome, his only delight was serv-ing Lord Vishnu, whose mark is the distinctive Valsa.^b

(Rugmamgada) the strong one (was) counted fore-most of the brave—the one with good conduct and status;

1. A chandala is of such low birth that anyone of this caste is not supposed to perform such sacred rites.
2. Valsa is the mark of the foot of the sage Bhrigu on the chest of Lord Vishnu.

the one who had garnered the greatest reputation;

and who was praised by even the gods.

To the darkness of pride-filled enemies, he was the Sun with its scorching rays.

Scene 8³

[Rugmamgada and Mohini]

[erikkilakkamodari (raga); cempa (tala—16 beats)]

sloka:

After sending the Sun’s son, Yama, back to his city, with delight Brahma created the enchantress, Mohini^a—a woman whose face resembled the perfect and graceful moon.

Following Brahma’s directions, she reached the forest near the city of Ayodhya and lived there.

Rugmamgada, the best among kings, arrived there to hunt.

(The curtain is lowered to reveal Mohini with Rugmamgada seated stage right.)

[sari dance]^b

padam:

Mohini the enchantress had a lovely body—bril-liant and delightful, and of excellent qualities. [K]

The five-arrowed (Karna) admits the superiority of her smile;

the farthest corners of her eyes were tremulous and graceful; she was possessed of amorous delight; [K] her hair

was long, dark, and curly;

for her breasts (even) Kama felt constant desire; [K]

her entire form was like flashes of lightning. Standing before him, seeing her form, the King (too)

was enamored of her. [K]

(Rugmamgada gets up and dances a kitatakadhimtam. Sometimes a short ilakiyattam is also enacted here.)

King rugmamgada’s law 161

[kamodari (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

RUGMAMGADA:

pallavi: O one whose face is so sweet and graceful!

O one whose gait resembles the elephant in rut! [K]

anupallavi:

One with speech like honey,

why do you live alone in this forest? [K]+[I]

caranam:

O one whose hair is (black) like the bees! Seeing you (I am) overwhelmed with desire.

O young woman, surprisingly Karna has become increasingly quarrelsome with me. [K]+[I]

caranam:

(Please) understand that from now on if (I am) sepa-rated from you it will cause grief greater than death.

(Therefore, please) remain together with me. I will serve at your lotus-feet. [K]+[I]

[erikkilakkamodari (raga); muriatanta (tala—16 beats)]

MOHINI:

pallavi: O moon-faced one; one with (such a) handsome form, please listen closely. [K]

anupallavi:

O one more charming than (even) Karna, seeing you, my love increases. [K]

caranam:

If you will take (the following) small vow, I will become your most beloved and stay (with you):

‘I shall never do anything either unaffectionate to you or against your desire.’

[dhanyasi (raga); atanta (tala—14 beats)]

1. Mohini literally means ‘enchantress’. Mohini was created when Vishnu transformed himself into a beautiful woman in order to enchant Siva. The result of their union was the birth of Ayyappa—a popular deity throughout Kerala.
2. The sari dance is a set piece of choreography used for the entrance of female characters such as Mohini, Lalitas, Damayanti, etc. which describes the beauty of the female character and/or praises various deities and sages. The lengthy padam which follows is sung while the sari dance is performed.

162 Plays from the traditional repertory

RUGMAMGADA:

caranam:

I hereby take this oath and offer (it to you): ‘I will never commit even the smallest unaffectionate act toward you.’ [K]

[erikkilakkamodari (raga); muriatanta (tala—14 beats)]

MOHINI:

caranam:

Joyfully I will join you and come to your house. [K]

[ilakiyattam]⁴

RUGMAMGADA: I’m extremely lucky to have you.

MOHINI: I am also fortunate.

RUGMAMGADA: Look! This tree’s branches are

full of flowers. These full blossoms are shining and

swaying in the breeze, as if they are enjoying our

union. Should we stay awhile at the foot of this

tree, and then go?

MOHINI: Yes!

RUGMAMGADA: Here is an elephant with a slow

gait approaching you. It thinks you are a friend

and is coming near. But it quickly runs away. Do

you know why?

MOHINI: Why?

RUGMAMGADA: It thought your waist was that

of a lion, and it ran away… There is a Cakravaka

bird! Seeing your breasts it happily flies nearby.

But the Cakravaka has quickly flown away. Do

you know why?

MOHINI: Why?

RUGMAMGADA: Well, seeing your moon-like face, it hesitated, and then flew away.^a

(Looking elsewhere.) Look! Seeing the hairs of your navel, a serpent is slithering toward you, but it leaves quickly. Do you know why? Well, it thought your hairs were the feathers of a peacock. It was afraid and left.^b

(Looking elsewhere.) Here, the sound of the cuckoo can be heard. They come flying. Seeing your pearl bracelets, they think they are the eyes of a cat.

They’ve become afraid, and leave. All creatures in this forest have been attracted by your beauty. Brahma created you with his hands. It’s extremely wonderful!

MOHINI: Brahma didn’t create me with his hands. RUGMAMGADA: He didn’t touch you with his hands?

MOHINI: No, I was born from his mind. RUGMAMGADA: Oh, that’s why your body is without blemish. Well, it’s a gift given to me by Brahma because of my devotion to Vishnu. Brahma thought, ‘I should give this king an appropriate gift.’ Because of my devotion, he meditated and created you for me.

MOHINI: Oh, are you a devotee of Vishnu? RUGMAMGADA: For a very long time I have been Vishnu’s devotee.

MOHINI: What benefit do you derive from your devotion to Vishnu?

RUGMAMGADA: O Siva, Siva! I have only had benefits and no problems. Every person in this country is happy. There’s isn’t even a touch of sad-ness in anyone’s mind.

MOHINI: Why do you meditate on Vishnu? RUGMAMGADA: Long ago celestial nymphs used to come to my garden at night and pluck the flowers. The guards could not see them. One night I hid myself and watched. The celestial nymphs came in an airborne chariot and descended, plucked the flowers, ascended, and were about to leave. Before it rose from the earth, I touched the chariot. It stayed on the ground. Then the nymphs began to curse me. I asked them not to curse me. Please excuse me, but on that day if anyone who had taken food or water touched the chariot, it would not rise; therefore, I had to find someone (appropri-ate). I sent messengers everywhere. Finally they found an old woman who had not taken food or water that day. They brought her on their shoul-ders. She touched the chariot and it rose. MOHINI: Why was that?

RUGMAMGADA: I asked the same question of the nymphs. They said, ‘O King, today is the aus-picious ekadasi day. Those who perform that vow will attain union with the divine with no hindrance at all; therefore, you too should observe ekadasi. I have always performed these austerities. Not only

1. By poetic conceit in Sanskrit literature, Cakravaka birds always must leave their spouses when the moon rises.
2. Another typical poetic conceit is that the serpent and peacock are deadly enemies.

me, but everyone in my kingdom. Therefore, our wealth and fame have increased. That’s how I be-came a devotee of Vishnu. Haven’t you heard this before?

MOHINI: Well, I have heard of your fame. RUGMAMGADA: Do the gods speak badly about me?

MOHINI: No, no! They only praise you. In the dancing hall, nymphs used to dance and sing, play-ing the veena. The songs sing of your fame.

RUGMAMGADA: Having heard these songs of praise, you came to see me? Do you really love me?

MOHINI: Surely.

RUGMAMGADA: Then why do you want me to take a vow?

MOHINI: Well, after all, you are a king. You have many wives. If they see me coming with you, they may tell me to leave and you may abandon me.

RUGMAMGADA: No. I have one wife who is

devoted to me. She is a jewel among the devoted.

When she sees you, she will treat you as her sister.

Remember that. I have a boy too. Not a youth, but

a boy. He too will treat you like his mother. So

why do you have any doubts? Well, let us start to

the palace.

MOHINI: Surely.

RUGMAMGADA: Wait. Let me get my chariot. Oh, Charioteer! Bring my chariot. (To his army.) Oh! Get ready to return to the palace. Inform the queen and the prince that I am bringing a beautiful lady with me. Inform everyone with the beat of the drums. (Checking the chariot.) Let us start. (To Mohini.) If you are afraid of getting into the chariot, please hold onto me. (To the Charioteer.) Drive the chariot slowly to the palace. [N]

(Curtain)

Scene 9

[Two Brahmins]

[sahana (raga); atanta (tala—7 beats)]

sloka:

Under Karna’s spell, mutual love developed be-tween that best of kings and the lotus-faced, pas-sionate Mohini.

King rugmamgada’s law 163

After entering his palace with the slender-bodied lady,

he made love to his heart’s content and delight-fully stayed there.

Then some brahmins secretly spoke among them-selves (these) good words:

(The curtain is lowered as the two Brahmins enter dancing

1. kitatakadhimtam.)

FIRST BRAHMIN:

caranam:

Haven’t you heard, Brahmins!

Once when the King went to the forest hunting, what he obtained was an excellent woman. [K]

SECOND BRAHMIN:

caranam:

I (too) heard that, O Brahmin.

It is said that her name is the good Mohini.

It is also said that she is an extremely attractive woman. [K]

FIRST BRAHMIN:

caranam:

Day and night the King is so engaged in amorous games that (he has) no other interests. [K]

SECOND BRAHMIN:

caranam:

It is praiseworthy that even after joining with Mohini the King has not neglected to observe the

ekadasi rites.

FIRST BRAHMIN:

caranam:

O Brahmin, let us go immediately.

It is time to place the leaves in the King’s mansion for the Dvadasi feast.^a [K]

SECOND BRAHMIN:

caranam:

Oh! I will come along, Brahmin.

The King will happily grant many gifts and cloths to all brahmins (present)!^b [K]

(Dancing a kitatakshimtam, the two Brahmins move up-stage as the curtain is raised.)

1. Dvadasivrata is the twelfth lunar feast day immediately following ekadasi on which brahmins are fed. For traditional Kerala meals, food is served on a banana leaf placed on the floor.
2. Special ritual occasions are often marked by the gifting of cloth. The traditional lower garment worn by men is the muntu.

164 Plays from the traditional repertory

Scene 10

[Rugmamgada and Mohini]

[anandabhairavi (raga); muriatanta (tala—14 beats)]

(The curtain remains raised during the singing of the fol-lowing sloka.)

sloka:

Having united quickly and joyously with the King of Ayodhya,

Mohini stayed there forgetting (even) her instruc-tions from the Lord of the Worlds (Brahma).^a Then, on the morning of the highly auspicious

ekadasi day in the month of Vriscika,^b

she told her dearest king who was anxious to com-plete the ritual:

(The curtain is lowered as Mohini dances a kitatakadhimtam while King Rugmamgada is seated, meditating, stage right.)

MOHINI:

caranam:

O my lover,

one whose body is as handsome as Karna, (and) one as deep as the ocean;

one who resembles Karna in (your) amorous games,

please come to me with delight! [K]

caranam:

I haven’t yet had the slightest gratification from love play.

O good decorative mark of the Ksatriya clan, O kind one, please listen.⁵ [K]

[surutti (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

RUGMAMGADA:

caranam:

O young lady,

I will do everything you desire,

(but) today is the auspicious ekadasi day. [K]

caranam:

All Kama’s sports are prohibited,

O young lady, my life-blood, my life-blood. [K]+[I]

caranam:

O auspicious one,

(today one) must avoid rich foods, oiling the body, and other pleasures.

(One) should only meditate on Vishnu. [K]+[I]

[anandabhairavi (raga); muriatanta (tala—14 beats)]

MOHINI:

caranam:

Lo! Anyone loses their strength if they are starved.

Love play pleases and is the essence of happiness. [K]

caranam:

Listen. I say for sure that I will not observe (this rite).

Not only that, but you too will not observe it today! Let us have our love play in abundance, now! [K]

[surutti (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

RUGMAMGADA:

caranam:

I will give up (the city of) Ayodhya, and all else. (But please), permit (me) to observe (my) ekadasi rites without delay. [K]+[I]

[nilambari (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

MOHINI:

caranam:

O King! Is it proper to break a vow like this? Your reputation for upholding the truth reverber-

ates throughout the world. [K]

caranam:

Have you suddenly forgotten the vow that you took with delight:

‘My dear, I will do nothing displeasing to you or without love.’ [K]

1. Since Mohini has been sent by Brahma, she experiences conflict between her anxiety over completing the task for which she has been sent, and her desire for pleasure in the world.
2. Vriscika is the fourth month of the Malayalam calendar corresponding to the second half of November and the first half of December.

[surutti (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

RUGMAMGADA:

caranam:

You know I am neither displeased nor in disagree-ment with you.

(But please), permit me to observe the Lord’s rites, O crown among women! O lady! Mohini!

Beloved wife! [K]+[I]

[nilambari (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

MOHINI:

caranam:

You may observe this great rite if (you meet one condition):⁶

Place your son, Dharmamgada, on his mother’s lap and gracefully cut (his neck) with your sword. [K] d

[dvijavanti (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

RUGMAMGADA:

caranam:

Alas! O wicked one! How can you make such hid-eous demands?

Give up such cruelly and state what you want. [K]

[nilambari (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

MOHINI:

caranam:

If both father and mother freely do (as I have asked) without shedding a single tear,

then you may observe (the rites) without hindrance. [K]

[toti (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

RUGMAMGADA:

caranam:

O Lord! How is it that events turn out like this?

Why is Mohini angry with me?

O one full of pleasure from love’s ambrosia!

O attractive one!

(Please) do not deceive (us)! [K]

[nilambari (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

King rugmamgada’s law 165

MOHINI:

caranam:

O King, do (you) understand that if you observe this rite today without killing your son,

you will break your vow? [K]

[mukhari (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

sloka: (This sloka is acted.)

When Mohini’s cruel words suddenly fell on the King’s ears,

he became delirious from the weight of his grief, and fell to the ground, fainting.

Soon after, when his delirium ended, extremely distressed, he cried out:

‘O one who always protects your devotees,⁷ O Supreme One! Sri Padmanabha!

Please protect me, the tormented one!’

RUGMAMGADA:

caranam:

O Lord! Janardana!^a

O one full of kindness for all, and of the pleasure of knowledge.

O Hari!

With a clear conscience, how am I to sacrifice my son without shedding a single tear?

O evil minded Mohini!

Alas! Your words are unkind, wicked, and most horrible.

Why has (your) anger arisen against my dear child who is so pleasing to the eyes? [K]⁸

[bilahari (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

sloka: (This sloka is acted. Sandhyavali and Dharmamgada enter the stage directly dancing a kitatakadhimtam as the sloka is sung.)

While the King, filled with undiminished devotion to Brahmins,

and abode of the constancy of duty, said this, Rugmamgada’s son, and his mother, arrived be-

fore (the King) and said:

DHARMAMGADA:

pallavi: O Father, I respectfully bow at your feet. [K]

1. An epithet of Vishnu.

166 Plays from the traditional repertory

caranam:

My birth has become fruitful because of (my step mother’s) demand.

For those born in the world what is important is to achieve their parents’ desires by whatever means. [K]+[I]

caranam:

Great sons will be born to you in the future.

O one of praiseworthy conduct, if a vow is broken, the effect of such an evil act will not end for the clan. [K]+[I]

caranam:

Father, such grief is not appropriate.

Here is (your) sword—please take it.

O protector of the people, please fulfill this vow. With (mental) calm, gracefully complete this rite

(vratam). [K]+[I]

caranam:

O mother, I also bow at your feet.

O one whose conduct is pleasing!

With goodness please sit here calmly.

I will lay on your lap without regret. [K]+[I]

Plate 8.1

Rugmamgada in a

state of disbelief over

what has been asked of

him

[ilakiyattam]⁹

DHARMAMGADA: O father, protect the truth to increase the fame of our dynasty!

RUGMAMGADA: Alas! (How has) such a fate^a happened to me? All this time I have never know-ingly committed any sin. Yet this has happened to me. Why? O seat of affection, your father, this sin-ner, doesn’t know what to do. I am immersed in the ocean of sorrow. Since my mind is not firm and brave, I acted like this.

DHARMAMGADA: Don’t have any sorrow.

Please maintain the truth.

RUGMAMGADA: (To Mohini.) Alas! Mohini, you knew the importance of this great day. So why have you said all these foolish things?

MOHINI: Go ahead and perform your rite. Don’t kill your son, but…

RUGMAMGADA: O demoness! You are not a celestial nymph! You are a demoness who assumed

1. Literally, ‘head writing.’

the form of a beautiful lady. You have brought a bad name to this dynasty, and you’ve pushed me into the pit of destruction. Why?

MOHINI: Quickly, kill your son!

RUGMAMGADA: (Referring to his wife, Sandhyavali.) After I married my wife, we waited a long time to see this child’s face. We performed many auspi-cious rites. As a result, god gave us this boy. We were happy to see him growing day by day. Now, with this hand, I have to cut off his neck? A sinner like me has not been born on this earth before! (To Sandhyavali.) O dear one, devotee of your husband, without consulting you, long ago in the forest I married this woman thinking she was a celestial being. But she is a demoness! A messenger of the god of death. Please forgive me, sinner that I am!

SANDHYAVALI: Do not be sorry. Protect the truth.

RUGMAMGADA: A jewel among women like her cannot be found anywhere. How great is her mind. Having born ten months of pregnancy, having de-livered and raised this boy, and now thinking only of the good fame of our dynasty, she advises me to protect the truth! (To Mohini.) Are you a woman? There’s no way you can understand her. You don’t deserve (the right) to ever deliver a child.

King rugmamgada’s law 167

(Dharmamgada takes the sword and hands it to his father. Looking at the sword, he says:) This sword has drunk the blood of many of my enemies. Will you cut this boy’s neck and lick his blood? No! I have no fear. (He gradually gains the power to cut off his son’s head.) I will sacrifice the boy and maintain the good fame of our dynasty. (He raises the sword and is about to cut, but while looking at his son, he drops the sword, and falls to the ground in a faint. He revives, and then embraces his son.)

(Turning to Mohini.) O Mohini! Look at his innocent face! Where did you get the courage to tell me to cut his neck? Alas! No! I won’t break my vow, or take any food, and I will never cut his neck. I won’t break my vow!

MOHINI: (But) don’t you remember the vow you took long ago? Remember, if you break that vow it will ruin your reputation.

RUGMAMGADA: This woman may bring about my destruction, but because of me, my dynasty will not suffer bad fame.

O Lord of the World, Vishnu! If you don’t show kindness toward your devotees, who will worship you? From time to time, assuming different forms, you have killed those who are cruel, and protected the good. At first you took the form of a fish,

Plate 8.2 Rugmamgada is about to cut off Dharmamgada’s head when, seeing his beloved son at his feet, he freezes, unable to complete the ‘sacrifice.’ In the next mo-ment he collapses in a faint to the ground

168 Plays from the traditional repertory

tortoise, boar, half-man half-lion—you incarnated in all these (forms). And you protected Prahlada! Now why can’t you protect this boy? (Taking the sword again.) O, Vishnu! Please give me the cour-age to sacrifice my son, thereby protecting the truth, and in order to maintain the good fame of our dy-nasty. Please be kind. I sacrifice the boy to protect the truth!

(He looks at the sword, then at Mohini, and finally at his son. This series of three actions is repeated as Rugmamgada literally enacts the three conflicting demands placed on him.) O, Lord of the World, please protect me. I have no fear. What you see with your naked eye is perish-able. The truth is the only thing that is imperish-able. Therefore, now what should I do? Cut the boy’s neck and protect the truth itself!

(Looking at Mohini.) Watch what I do!

(To Sandhyavali.) You should not cry! Let all auspi-cious things come to you. (He raises his hand to bless Dharmamgada. Rugmamgada then performs a N, raises his sword, and is about to cut his son’s neck when Vishnu appears and stops him as the curtain is partially lowered.) [mohanam (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

VISHNU: (To Rugmamgada)

caranam:

Don’t kill the boy,

O one with a shining and graceful reputation. O King, you have attained final release,^a as well as

fame in this world!

O one who collects virtuous acts, (please) under-stand:

Brahma instructed Mohini to come and obstruct your intensive observances of this rite.

Allow her to leave as she pleases.

She will receive one-sixth of the fruits of the rites of those who sleep during the daylight hours of Dvadasi.^b [K]

(Mohini exits.)

[sriragam (raga); cempa (tala—10 beats)]

(To Dharmamgada)

caranam:

Hello, dear Dharmamgada! Come to me with delight.

No one on the earth can be as gratified as you. You will live in this world with great comfort for a

long time.

Plate 8.3 Loosening his hair, Rugmamgada en-ters a transformative state of ‘fury’ in which he will be able to sacrifice his son as required

1. According to traditional Hindu belief, mukti or moksa is the ultimate release from worldly ties and is the final destination for all souls.
2. No one is supposed to sleep when observing Dvadasi rites; therefore, for those who do sleep, the fruits of their observances are given to Mohini in return for her service to Vishnu.

In the final days, you too will achieve oneness with me. [K]

[mohanam (raga); cempata (tala—16 beats)]

(To Rugmamgada)

caranam:

O ocean of good fortune,

complete his coronation immediately and crown him ruler.

Having attained oneness with me, along with your wife, continue to live near me with great com-fort. [K]¹⁰

(There usually follows a short ilakiyattam in which the coronation of Dharmamgada is enacted. Rugmamgada and his wife move to the other side of the curtain to be with Vishnu. They all then bless Dharmamgada who prostrates himself before them. The dhanasi or closing dance is nor-mally performed by Dharmamgada.)

(Curtain)

COMMENTARY: THE ‘FAILURE’ AND EXERCISE OF ‘POWER’ IN KING RUGMAMGADA’S LAW

As discussed in the commentaries in Chapters 5 and 6, kathakali dance-dramas clearly reflect the symbiotic historical relationship between king-ship, the maintenance of the cosmos, and the ‘sac-rifice’ of battle required of rulers to protect this order as historically configured in Kerala. While The Killing of Kirmira literally dramatizes the bloody acts of sacrifice required of ksatriyas as they uphold their idealized duty of protecting brahmin ascetics and their sacrificial rites by cleansing the world of the ‘evil’ archetypically em-bodied and symbolized by demonesses and de-mon-kings, King Rugmamgada’s Law both under-scores how fundamental this sacrificial paradigm is to Kerala notions of kingship and duty, and pro-vides detailed insight into the existential state of mind/being/doing required of the martial practi-tioner when attempting to carry out his duty to kill. The ‘archive’ of the ‘annals of a cultural imagination’ (Comaroff and Comaroff 1992:xi) through which a historical ethnography of kathakali can be understood is an intertextual

King rugmamgada’s law 169

reading between the representations and enact-ments of power/sacrifice/kingship required of kathakali’s idealized, but always flawed, epic he-roes, and the discourses and practices in the eth-nographic present of Kerala’s kalarippayattu practi-tioners—those local martial ‘heroes’ trained to ac-tualize similar powers. My interest in this com-mentary is in precisely how this act of sacrifice is enacted, i.e., in the state of mind/being of the mar-tial/princely sacrificer in the act of bloody sacri-fice.

In this commentary I read between representa-tions and enactments of ‘heroic’ power, sacrifice, and kingship in King Rugmamgada’s Law and some of the commonplace ethnosemantic representations of heroic power in the ethnographic present in or-der to gain a better understanding of ‘power’ as a complex, nuanced, contextually, and historically specific set of discourses, practices, and behaviors. I focus in particular on the state of mind/being of the martial practitioner at the moment he wields his sword to kill—that existential moment when he should ideally be ‘doubtless,’ have ‘mental cour-age,’ possess ‘mental power,’ i.e., that moment when his ‘body is all eyes’ and he attains a state of transformative ‘fury.’ These commonplace expres-sions represent that idealized state or condition of selfhood to which martial artists aspire as they prac-tise their bodily-based techniques in order to ‘trans-form themselves in order to attain a certain state’ (Foucault 1988:18).

The divine tests his devotee

Like the Abraham/Isaac story, King Rugmamgada’s Law (melo)dramatically elaborates a divine test of an avid devotee—here Brahma/Vishnu tests King Rugmamgada. I focus my commentary on that aspect of edited performances today of most inter-est to connoisseurs—the performative elaboration of Rugmamgada’s inner state of mind/being/do-ing in Scene 10.

In the course of the scene, when the great king is reduced to pleading with Mohini, ‘not [to] de-ceive (us)!’ she counters by reminding him of the solemn oath he has taken, and of the weight of this obligation. Like Arjuna’s vow in The Progeny of Krishna, to break any vow, even this one, would be a transgression of keeping one’s word—a word

170 Plays from the traditional repertory

which, for the ksatriya/ruler must never be bro-ken. In the sloka which follows, the effect which Mohini’s unexpected demand makes on Rugmamgada’s state of mind is enacted as

the king became greatly delirious because of the weight of (his) grief, and (he) fell, fainting, to the ground.

As a celebrated king, an heroic ‘royal sage’ and viran, even in the face of the extreme and unex-pected demand Mohini makes of him, Rugmamgada ideally should have been able to ‘control his senses,’ maintain an inner equilibrium, and fulfill his duty by sacrificing his son. Recover-ing from his faint, but still in a state of distress and imbalance, Rugmamgada prays to the reclining form of Vishnu, Sri Padmanabha, to protect him, ‘the tormented one.’¹¹ But Vishnu does not come to his aid.

When Rugmamgada’s son, Dharmamgada (literally, ‘the mace of duty’) comes to the stage, he literally embodies sacred law or duty (dharma), as well as the continuation of divine rule within Rugmamgada’s kingdom. After bowing respect-fully at his father’s feet and dutifully reciting the reasons a son is born into this world, Dharmamgada stands before his father as the icon and index, as well as voice and embodiment of heroic duty and behavior expected of the ksatriya clan. Therefore, he reminds his father that ‘grief does not become you.’ With Rugmamgada’s honor and sword on trial, Dharmamgada picks up the sword—itself an in-dexical icon and the vehicle of divine, royal, and martial power—and tells his father to ‘preserve your vow,’ thereby upholding duty (dharma). With the sword now in his father’s right hand, Dharmamgada calmly presents himself as this ‘graceful rite (vratam) [of sacrifice] with delight.’

The performative interpolation (ilakiyattam) which follows between Rugmamgada, Mohini, and Dharmamgada elaborates the complex set of competing demands which Rugmamgada faces: that he exercise the power of his sword as a ksatriya to uphold the truth of his vow and main-tain the sanctity and legitimacy of their rule, and that he do so by engaging in an act of transgres-sion by killing/sacrificing his son. When Dharmamgada tells his father to ‘protect the truth

(satyam) to increase the fame of our own dynasty’ by going ahead with his sacrifice, Rugmamgada responds by reflecting on his mental state, con-cluding that it was ‘because my mind is not firm and brave I acted like this.’

Had Rugmamgada kept his mind ‘firm and brave,’ he would not have fainted or experienced disequilibrium, but maintained the optimal state of ‘doubtlessness’ (vita sankam) reflected in the Bhagavad Gita, and been able to bring himself to sacrifice his son. In the Bhagavad Gita the ideal

is that one should not be perturbed by feelings and emotions and lose one’s balance …the mature person is one in whom desires enter without upsetting him. The analogy of the sea is given. Though rivers discharge their water continuously into the sea, the sea is ever mo-tionless. In the same way the mature person experiences continually feelings and emotions, but he does not allow himself to be overpow-ered by them or to be swayed by them.

(Kuppuswamy 1993:26, II.70)

Rugmamgada is literally suffering the somatic ef-fects of mental distress which affects his ability to maintain a heroic (utsaha bhava) demeanor, and carry out his duty. When even a single ‘doubt’ or ‘emotion’ creates a ripple in one’s consciousness, it is understood to lead potentially to that individual’s ruin. In the Bhagavad Gita, when Arjuna’s mind was ‘distressed with grief,’ (I, 47. Zaehner 1969:117) he too displays somatic effects like those of Rugmamgada:

My limbs give way, my mouth dries up, trem-bling seizes upon my body, and my [body’s] hairs stand in dread. [My bow,] Gandiva slips from my hand, my very skin is all ablaze; I can-not stand and my mind seems to wander.

(I, 29–30. ibid.: 117)

Since ‘the natural state of the mind/body is re-

garded in Hindu philosophy as basically flawed,’

one practises exercise, dietary, and meditational

techniques to compensate for ‘natural irregulari-

ties’ (Alter 1992:95). Only when one achieves

self-realization is perfect health and balance

achieved—a state in which ‘a person is not

plagued by emotions of any sort’ (ibid.). But even

for epic and puranic heroes like Arjuna and

Rugmamgada, the road to becoming a self-actual-ized royal sage is not easy, and one falters along the way. King Rugmamgada’s Law dramatizes Rugmamgada’s ‘flawed’ moment of weakness, emotional imbalance, and all too human ‘doubt’ along the road to actualization and release.

The dramatic and performative focus through-out this interpolation remains on Rugmamgada’s mental state, allowing the senior actor playing the role to elaborate further the excruciating emo-tional roller-coaster ride that Rugmamgada takes as he attempts over and again to eradicate his ‘fears,’ overcome the overwhelming pathos caused by the demand that he kill his son, make his mind ‘firm’ or controlled, and therefore regain his opti-mal state of ‘bravery’ and heroic demeanor so that he can fulfill his duty. After Dharmamgada gives his father his sword, he talks to it as a per-sonified being which ‘has drunk the blood of many of my enemies.’ He asks the sword, ‘Will you cut this boy’s neck and lick his blood?’ Rugmamgada implicitly answers the question when he tells himself, ‘No, I [can] have no fear.’ By erasing his personal ‘fear’ and anguish in this situation he attempts to regain mental equilib-rium, and thereby the ‘mental power,’ necessary to sacrifice his son.

But just as he raises the sword and is about to ‘cut the boy’s neck and maintain the good fame of our dynasty,’ as soon as he sees his son before him, he loses his inner resolve, drops the sword, and falls to the ground in a faint. Desperate, Rugmamgada turns once again to Lord Vishnu, and after performatively embodying and enacting Vishnu’s ten major manifestations (avatars), de-mands the same protection from him that he pro-vided Prahlada, another of his great devotees. He prays not that Vishnu allow him to forgo killing his son, but rather for the ‘courage to sacrifice my son, thus protecting the truth, in order to maintain the good fame of our dynasty.’ But, once again, having called on Vishnu and taking him in mind, Rugmamgada fails to enter into a state which al-lows him to transcend the limitations of his feel-ings. He is still unable to sacrifice his son as he knows he must.

As the performative interpolation continues, Rugmamgada (melo) dramatically enacts his inner turmoil as he looks at the sword exhibiting the ‘he-roic’ demands of the moment, at Mohini embody-

King rugmamgada’s law 171

ing ‘anger’ at her demands on him, and at his son enacting the pathos of his impending loss. For kathakali connoisseurs, this particular moment in the performance is the highlight when the actor sequentially enacts in quick succession the three conflicting states which have produced Rugmamgada’s mental confusion and inability to act. But then, in a moment of internal realization of what is demanded of him in the moment to fulfill his overriding duty, Rugmamgada leans forward, loosening his hair, and draws its long strands to either side of his head. As he raises himself up, Rugmamgada’s eyes are wide open, revealing the fact that he has now entered a state of ‘fury’ (raudra). It is now, and only now, that he can definitely an-nounce, ‘I have no fear. What you see with your naked eye is perishable. The truth is the only thing that is imperishable.’ In this transformed state he can now, and only now, ‘Cut the boy’s neck and protect the truth itself.’ Therefore, he tells Mohini to ‘Watch what I do!’

After Rugmamgada blesses Dharmamgada be-fore his sacrificial beheading, he dances a final ‘he-roic’ pure dance, raises his sword and is about to complete the act of killing when Vishnu appears to stop him, much as Krishna appeared to stop Arjuna jumping into the fire in The Progeny of Krishna. The auspicious conch shell is blown, flower petals rain down on Rugmamgada who is taken to Vishnu’s abode having attained a state of accomplishment and release through his transformative ability to carry out such a sacrifice.

Achieving an idealized state of being/doing

What this kathakali performance dramatically en-acts is Rugmamgada’s progression from the very familiar human condition of mental disequilib-rium, lack of focus, and loss of mental power ‘caused’ by our normative human frailties, to a transformative state of raudra (‘fury’) beyond all such potential distractions, and in which he is fi-nally able to fulfill the ‘heroic’ demands of dharma by completing the ultimate act of transgressive blood sacrifice of his son. It is a state of concen-trated awareness characterized by single point fo-cus and concentration (ekagrata) in which all doubts, emotional upset, and consciousness itself are transcended. It is an activated state (rajasa)

172 Plays from the traditional repertory

of single-minded doing. At least temporarily entering into this transcendent state of raudra is necessary for the hero to be able ultimately to ful-fill his duty by killing.¹²

Rugmamgada’s entry into this state is clearly marked performatively when, unable to fulfill his vow after calling on Lord Vishnu, he leans for-ward to loosen his hair. In other kathakali perform-ances, transformations into this state of ‘fury’ are marked by the loosening of the hair, as when beautiful women-in-disguise (lalitas) are trans-formed into demonesses (Puthana Moksha or The Killing of Kirmira), or when Bhima appears in his ‘furious’ (raudra) form when he is about to kill Dussassana by tearing out his entrails in The Kill-ing of Duryodhana.¹³ As discussed in Chapter 3, and exemplified in the translation of The Killing of Kirmira, the furious state is ‘normative’ for de-monic characters whose fundamental nature (gunam) is to be shape changers (tamasa) who en-gage in transgressive acts. It is also the normative state of the goddess Bhagavati (Bhadrakali, Kali) in her ‘terrifying’ form’ (Caldwell 1995) when she appears with her fierce, ‘energized eyes,’ whose to-tal visual effect is to assume an expression that equally evokes vira (the heroic) rasa and raudra or fury—her inexorably conquering/victorious form as she defeats the demon Daruka (Jones 1981:73). Iconographically, with his wide-open eyes, Rugmamgada’s state combining vira and raudra clearly articulates with that of the violent/con-quering Bhagavati.

But for heroic (pacca) characters like Bhima and Rugmamgada who are required to engage in sacri-ficially transgressive acts of slaughter/sacrifice to fulfill their duty (dharma), and for whom blood-let-ting is not ‘natural,’ they can only do so when this state is appropriately marked as ‘altered.’ For Raudra Bhima it is literally marked by the fact that this special role is played by a separate actor from the one playing Bhima in the remainder of the play who appears in a special form of ‘furious’ make-up.¹⁴

In this state of single-mindedness, the royal sage Rugmamgada has overcome his emotional imbalance, doubts, and sorrows, and stands with-out ‘fear.’ This state is marked by the signs of raudra in kathakali performance and is distinct from the state of anger common to ‘ordinary’ ex-perience. If it were not, it would be a state in

which the practitioner were so absorbed in react-ing with anger that he would not be in ‘control,’ focused, or have ‘mental power.’ Rather, like Rugmamgada at first, he would be overcome by one or more emotion, and therefore be unable to fight with ‘detachment.’ The raudra state is a state of actualization quite different from a ‘normative’ state of consciousness. It is similar to that de-scribed in the ‘Dhanur Veda’ (Science of War/ Bow) chapters of Agni Purana as one in which the martial practitioner ‘conquers even Yama (the god of death)’ (Dasgupta 1993), i.e., conquers his ‘fears’ and ‘emotions’ and therefore is ready to die in battle. As represented in kathakali, it is a state of heightened acuity in which the ‘heroic’ becomes realizable through one’s actions in battle. For Rugmamgada, or Bhima, or the traditional kalarippayattu practitioner, everything is erased ex-cept the act of the ‘sword.’

This is a state to which Mohini, hitherto in com-mand and control, now responds with fear and dis-tress. Seeing Rugmamgada before her in his trans-formed state, she is ‘terrified.’ She sees that he will complete this bloody sacrifice before her eyes. In this sense, when a hero embodies a state of ‘raudra,’ it refers not to Rugmamgada’s state of mind, but to the witness’s experience of what happens when one enters this transformative state. In this state of sacrificial activation, the hero is as ‘terrifying’ as a demon, or the goddess when she appears in her terrifying forms as Kali or Bhadrakali. Just as the kathakali actor ‘becomes’ the character, so the mar-tial artist ‘becomes’ a vehicle of the goddess’s fury. The terror is in the eye of the beholder because of the ‘terrible’ things that happen when the divinely instantiated power (sakti) concentrated in this state is unleashed. Mohini is ‘terrified’ of what Rugmamgada will do,¹⁵ just as villagers are ‘terri-fied’ of what the goddess might do. And the most appropriate iconic index of this terrifying power is the sword where divine, royal, and martial are mani-fest.

Sarah Caldwell asserts that in Kerala, sexuality and war are both understood to ‘release potentially uncontrollable passions leading to both life and death of sorts. Only heroic beings of great power can properly control these forces once they are un-leashed’ (1995:308). When heroes engage in bat-tle, a fight, or an act of sacrifice like Rugmamgada, their predominant heroic state (utsaha bhava) must

be complemented by moments of entering a furi-ous state (raudra) when they must kill. It is the abil-ity to enter this transformative state that allows the hero to ‘properly control’ the divine power and forces ‘unleashed’ by his practice which raise and actualize his ‘powers.’ When kathakali’s princes and kings enter this state of ‘transformative fury’ which allows them to ‘act,’ they can become the ‘heroes’ they ideally aspire to be.

Transformative ‘fury,’ ‘doubtlessness,’ and ‘mental courage’ in the ethnographic present

It may seem a long way from the late eighteenth-century kathakali stage to the late twentieth-cen-tury kalari where Kerala’s martial art is still prac-tised, but I think it no coincidence that the com-monplace vocabulary used by today’s martial masters to discuss the optimal state of actualiza-tion of the kalarippayattu practitioner are terms de-scribing the state that kathakali’s heroic characters like Rugmamgada had to achieve—a state where the practitioner is single-minded, ‘doubtless,’ has ‘mental courage,’ or attains ‘mental power.’ In the remainder of this commentary I briefly explore these traditional discourses of practice in order to understand how this play reflects some of the ex-istential concerns of Kerala’s traditional martial practitioners.

Through the practice of the martial art, one at-tains congruence of the three humors as under-stood in Ayurveda, as well as to ‘naturally’ begin to develop a calm and stable mental state. Gurukkal Govindankutty Nayar explained in a discussion that ‘kalarippayattu is eighty percent mental and only the remainder is physical.’ The eighty percent mental is developed not only through the psychophysi-ological martial exercises where single-point focus is first raised, but also by following a strict routine of observances like Rugmamgada’s observance of ekadasi.

If you perform the exercises correctly and have the proper grip, then you begin to ‘enjoy’ prac-tice. By doing this the whole body finds enjoy-ment. The mind won’t be wandering here and there. You can do it with full confidence and courage. Your mind won’t be in a flurry (sambhramam). Sometimes, in combat, one might

King rugmamgada’s law 173

become flustered. If an opponent is powerful, one might become nervous; so, slowly you must develop this ability to be calm, to have mental peace.

What is most gratifying for an individual is when the mind is in a calm and stable state. What is ungratifying is when the mind is un-stable and easily distracted.

This state is said to give the practitioner ‘mental courage’ (manodhiryam), i.e., the ‘power to face anything that is dangerous to my health or mind. If I am confident of my art and health, then only can I have mental power (manasakti)!

Mental equilibrium is said to be ‘read’ on a person’s face. ‘If one faces an attack, relaxation of the face reflects mental equilibrium.’ Ideally, this increased mental calm is not something esoteric, but of great practical use. Like the ideal epic hero, the ideal practitioner gains control of his emo-tions, achieves mental calm and courage, and be-comes ‘concentrated with a strong will’—a state of decidedness and singular focus on one’s duty similar to the ‘heroic’ demeanor of the kathakali hero.

The common Malayalam folk expression, ‘the body becomes all eyes’ (meyyu kannakuka) encapsu-lates the martial practitioner’s idealized state of ac-tualization where the bodymind is in such a con-centrated state of acuity and awareness that, like Brahma, the ‘thousand-eyed,’ the practitioner can ‘see’ everything around him, intuitively sensing and responding with his accomplished ‘powers’ to any/ everything in the immediate environment. For the traditional martial practitioner, this state of supe-rior actualization developed in tandem with a no-tion of power (sakti) which, as we have seen, is not absolute, but highly ambiguous, contingent, and context specific (see Zarrilli 1998). Having awak-ened and raised ‘serpent power’ (kundalini sakti) within from the psychophysiological practice of exercises, this ‘power’ was traditionally understood to take on the furious, wrathful (raudra), or destruc-tive aspect of the goddess either alone or in combi-nation with Siva as the fearful (kala-bhairava). Through practice itself and/or realizing special sa-cred syllables (mantram) one might, as P.K.Balan described it, attain ‘this special power of fury,’ i.e., reach an embodied state where ‘fury’ is concen-trated and actualized.

174 Plays from the traditional repertory

I want to argue that this ‘special power of fury’ is comparable to the state of single-minded ‘transformative fury’ represented by Rugmamgada—a state similar to that described by J.Richardson Freeman regarding Kerala’s teyyam ritual performers. Freeman has observed that their bodymind state in performance ‘entails no loss of consciousness, or “dissociation” in psychological terms, but rather a heightened sense of conscious-ness’ in which ‘one’s consciousness has not trav-elled somewhere else, shaman-like, but that instead, one’s own body and mind are taken over and ani-mated by a higher and more powerful [and I would add more concentrated] form of consciousness’ (1991:131). Some masters point out that the com-bination of self-confidence, doubtless heroism and internal fury manifest in the raising of the ‘serpent power’ (kundalini sakti) does not lead to emotional upset or anger, but rather to a state of intense con-centration of energy (aveshakaram), ‘the power gen-erated from concentration.’ In teyyam this height-ened sense of consciousness takes the shape of ‘per-formative acuity with regard to the rituals’

(1991:131). For the martial practitioner, like Rugmamgada, it is a single-minded performative acuity with regard to wielding the weapon.

This ideal state of ‘transformative fury’ where the ‘body is all eyes’ and one possesses ‘mental power’ is a discursive field of the possibilities for the exercise of power. But that power can only be manifest when exercised on a particular body in a context since ‘power’ only comes into being as it is practised.

Kathakali’s traditional representations and enactments of the state of being/doing, through which its idealized epic heroes go forth to ‘sacrifice’ themselves in the ‘glorious’ harvest of war on the battlefield of death, reflects the traditional concerns, trials, and tribulations of Kerala’s Nayars—those charged with maintaining and upholding dharma of the kings to whom they had pledged themselves to death on their battlefields. Of course today in Kerala, with rare exception, the practice of kalarippayattu is becoming more about actualizing and harnessing one’s bodymind and powers for use in daily life than on a traditional battlefield.

part iii

contested

narratives:

new plays,

discourses

and contexts

9

for whom is the

king a king?

Issues of Intercultural and Reception in a

Production, Perception, Kathakali King Lear

As noted in Chapter 1, kathakali is constantly be-ing (re)created and (re)positioned by and/or for its many different participants as well as audiences. Thus far I have focused on changes ‘within the tradition,’ and on some of the meanings the tradi-tional repertory makes available to Malayali audi-ences, especially its connoisseurs, who judge inno-vation in terms of what they consider more or less ‘appropriate’ to the context. In Chapters 9 and 10 I provide a description and analysis of a variety of recent kathakali plays-in-performance which have ‘fashioned novel performances’ by ‘manipulating’ kathakali ‘in innovative ways’ both ‘within’ and ‘outside’ the tradition (Bauman 1977:34–5). I give most attention to three very different experi-ments, each of which adapts kathakali techniques and/or content in very different contexts and for very different audiences:

1 Bengali playwright Asif Currimbhoy’s little discussed 1960s English language modern drama, The Dumb Dancer, in which kathakali lit-erally and metaphorically plays a central role. 2 The intercultural production of Kathakali King Lear, created and performed primarily for today’s international, cosmopolitan, festival-going performing arts audiences.

3 People’s Victory, created and performed exclu-sively within Kerala for local consumption by left-front political audiences within Kerala.

These chapters serve two purposes. First, in all the criticism and debate surrounding contempo-rary ‘non-traditional’ experiments in general and Kathakali King Lear and People’s Victory in particular, other than my own history of kathakali through the early 1980s (Zarrilli 1984a: 263–352) there has been little if any historical analysis of such ex-periments; therefore, I begin this chapter with a historical overview of kathakali experimentation, and of the constantly shifting discourses used to justify, evaluate, and/or decry such experiments.

Second, these chapters provide a diverse set of specific examples of experimentation with and through kathakali. In contrast to the Kathakali King Lear project with its appeal to international/ intercultural audiences, People’s Victory is a decidedly ‘local’ production, growing out of Kerala’s particu-lar political history.

SETTING THE STAGE: KATHAKALI ENTERS THE TRANSNATIONAL, GLOBAL STAGE OF ‘PUBLIC CUL-TURE’

As discussed in Chapter 2, in 1930 when Vallathol founded the Kerala Kalamandalam, kathakali was a regional form of performance known primarily to Malayalis. It was only with Vallathol’s effort to bring kathakali to a larger

178 Contested narratives: new plays, discourses and contexts

public that it began to emerge from its relatively isolated status toward its present status as an ‘in-ternationally’ known form of ‘classical’ Indian performance. As kathakali encountered these newer publics both at home, through tourism, and abroad (whether within a wider India or on foreign soil), it inevitably led to a series of transnational encounters, adaptations, and trans-lations, which can be summarized as including:

1 writing and staging new plays based on non-traditional sources such as current events in pro-ductions like The Killing of Hitler, Gandhi’s Victory, or People’s Victory;

2 adapting non-Hindu myths, stories, plays, and poems for kathakali-style productions including Mary Magdalene, the Buddha, Faust, The Iliad, King Lear, Hamlet, Snow White, Shelly’s ‘La Sen-sitive,’ etc.;

3 shaping and marketing kathakali for tourist audiences whether in Kerala, New Delhi, or abroad;

4 transforming kathakali’s basic techniques and choreography into modern ‘ballet’ dance or dance-drama, such as the work of innovators like Guru Gopinath who, following the early lead of Uday Shankar, institutionalized such changes at his Thiruvananthapuram school (the Viswa Kala Kendra) (Zarrilli 1984a: 311–15).

Simultaneously, a variety of experiments were taking place more ‘within’ the kathakali tradition— experiments with content, character, narrative form, etc.

Kathakali performances today reach many non-traditional audiences in Kerala, as well as in other parts of India and abroad either under government, institutional, or private sponsorship. Performances of kathakali in Kerala especially designed and adapted for foreign tourists have been taking place at least since 1969 when the Gurukulam Kathakali Yogam created a ninety-minute evening lecture-demonstration and performance intended for tour-ists in the port cities of Kochi/Ernakulam. Tourist performances today run the gamut from compe-tent attempts to present a foreign audience with an ‘authentic’ experience of traditional kathakali, albeit in a shorter, edited version, to highly romantic/ori-entalist repackagings which emphasize kathakali as

a ‘thousand year old ritual’ drama full of ‘myster-ies’ and therefore part of the ‘wisdom of the east’ (Zarrilli 1977), to inept performances by third-rate, ill-trained performers which capitalize on the na-ivete of foreign tourists willing to pay for just about anything that seems ‘indigenous’ while on a two-week sun, surf, and sand holiday at the Kovalam beach resort.

Since the 1930s kathakali programs have been regularly organized for national and/or interna-tional tours outside of Kerala, such as the five-night 1993 ‘Kathakali Mahotsavam’ festival or-ganized by the Indian central government’s Sangeet Natak Akademi in New Delhi, the 1995 US tour of the Kerala Kalamandalam company, or the privately sponsored 1995 and 1997 tours of the U K organized by the Kala Chethena Kathakali Company and Centre Ocean Stream Theater Company in Southampton, UK. Some of these more recent tours have included perform-ances of non-traditional plays such as the 1989–

1. production of Kathakali King Lear co-produced by the Kerala Kalamandalam and Association Keli (Paris), and performed throughout Europe and at the August 1990 Edinburgh festival; French Canadian Richard Tremblay’s adaptation (Iyyemgode Sridharan’s translation) of Homer’s The Iliad first performed in Bombay in 1990, in Trissur in 1993, and again in 1996; Annette LeDay’s 1993 experimental choreography of Shelly’s poem, La Sensitive, which young kathakali actor-dancers performed in London; Kala Chethena Kathakali Company’s 1995 adaptation and UK tour of his version of ‘Snow White’ enti-tled Oppression of the Innocent; and most recently in 1996–97 an International Centre for Kathakali production of Othello at two sites in New Delhi (Jisha Menon 1998), and a very recent kathakali Cinderella adapted and staged by Paris-based cho-reographer Annette LeDay.

Reflecting kathakali’s flexibility, each specific ad-aptation, translation, or transformation has to vary-ing degrees shaped kathakali’s content, techniques, etc. to suit the expectations of particular, and some-times ‘new’ audiences. In addition, each ‘experi-ment’ more or less reflects and contributes to the formation of socio-political realities. Some adapta-tions, such as the creation of short tourist perform-ances in the port cities of Cochin-Ernakulam, have been responses to the complex contemporary

socio-political and economic realities of Kerala to-day (Zarrilli 1977).

Although no attempt has yet been made to docu-ment every kathakali experiment with non tradi-tional, non-epic content and characters, as early as World War II there was a precedent-setting pro-duction of The Killing of Hitler which the poet Vallathol helped create and whose characters were the major ‘real life’ leaders in the theater of war.¹ Hitler appeared in red-beard make-up as the evil demon-king who had set out to conquer the world. Opposing him were a variety of virtuous, heroic (‘green’ make-up) opponents, including Chiang Kai-Shek, Stalin, and Roosevelt. According to one-time

secretary of the Kalamandalam P.C.Namboodiripad, the heroic characters ‘went about asking support and people came to support them. [Culminating the production] there was a fight and ultimately Hitler was killed’ (quoted in Hanna 1983:160). Not long after, a second experi-mental kathakali was performed in which ‘living peo-ple’ entered the kathakali stage—Gandhi’s Victory. These early productions were only performed once and were probably something of a historical anomaly at the time since it is not until the 1960s that non-epic characters began to appear more regu-larly on some kathakali stages.

A number of the experiments during the 1960s took place in New Delhi under the spon-sorship of the International Centre for Kathakali, which was founded in 1960 in order to ‘lift Kerala’s Kathakali from its regional character, and to impart to it a new dimension by making this unique art known to audiences drawn from not only the various other States of India, but also from other countries’ (International Centre for Kathakali, New Delhi, program, 1968). Mary Magdelene, the 1965 adaptation of the poet Vallathol’s poem Maddalana Mariyam by T.M.B.Nedungadi, was the first of a series of ex-periments intended to ‘adapt Kathakali to the modern stage’ and attract new audiences. Other experimental productions during the 1960s in-cluded stagings of David and Goliath, Buddha Caritam, Salome, and adaptations of Tagore’s plays Chandalika and Visarjan (Sacrifice).² Although both the content and characters in these productions were not from traditional epic sources, the Centre represented itself as attempting to preserve the ‘authentic traditions of Kathakali’ by

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reelaborating each of these new narratives using traditional kathakali techniques and bringing ‘emi-nent artists from Kerala’ to ensure authenticity. Among them was one of the most respected ac-tors of the 1950s and 1960s, Vazkenkata Kunchu Nair, who was Chief Instructor at the P.S.V.Natyasangham (Kottakkal), and Principal of the Kerala Kalamandalam from 1960. The anonymous author of a review of Kunchu Nair’s career on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday called him

a traditionalist. But traditionalism in his case puts no inhibitions on his creativeness. Among his own productions are Buddha Caritam and Chitrangada, two new kathakali stories.

(Anon 1969:5)

Other experiments followed during the 1970s. In 1977 the cultural organization ‘Kaliyarang’ in Kottayam adapted and produced Aymanam Krishna Kaimal’s version of Goethe’s Faust, Faust’s Release (Faust Moksham). In his enthusiastic Indian Express review, K. Thulaseedharan praised the production for the ‘appropriateness’ of the adaptation of theme, characters, and musical modes, and for ‘giving the spectators as much de-light as they would have derived had they been witnessing a story from our ancient scriptures’ (1977:5). For K. Thulaseedharan the production ‘proved, beyond doubt, that purely western themes can form suitable material for a classical art like kathakali’ (ibid.). As discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, the concepts of ‘appropriateness’ and ‘aesthetic delight’ (rasa) are the primary interpre-tive categories through which kathakali perfor-mances are evaluated by its connoisseurs today. Thulaseedharan draws upon both concepts not to evaluate the acting or interpolations in this specific performance, but to assess the production’s non-traditional content and charac-ters.

Written in 1966, C.G.R.Kurup’s essay, ‘Kathakali on the Modern Stage,’ exemplifies the predominant attitude toward experimentation and change evident between the founding of the Kalamandalam in 1930, and the mid-1980s—an attitude of reasonable engagement between tradi-tion and contemporary innovations and concerns, whether in lighting, staging, or content. Although

180 Contested narratives: new plays, discourses and contexts

Kurup argues that as ‘a distinct, evolved classical tradition…any change [in kathakali]…should be effected from within the tradition’ (1966–67:25), he also recommends that through ‘study, research and experimentation’ kathakali can be a ‘progres-sive theater’ (1966–67:31). Among his many rec-ommendations, Kurup argues for the expansion of the repertory through the restaging of ne-glected plays from the past, the writing of new plays based on puranic sources, and the composi-tion of plays from non-puranic sources including ‘history, Buddhist lore, the Bible, Tagore’s dra-mas, Vikramaditya tales, and so on’ (ibid.). Kurup even suggests that as long as kathakali keeps its ‘classical form’ (i.e., techniques) intact, in a demo-cratic era kathakali should be flexible enough to ‘respond to new social urges’ by bringing ‘con-temporary life and aspirations’ to the kathakali stage (ibid.). As we shall see, by the 1980s this ‘reasonable’ attitude among kathakali critics and connoisseurs had changed considerably.

EXPERIMENTS FROM ‘WITHIN’ THE TRADITION

The writing of new kathakali plays based on tradi-tional epic and puranic stories has continued since kathakali’s birth; however, only occasionally do new plays sufficiently capture and hold the atten-tion of kathakali’s highly critical audience of con-noisseurs to enter the regular performance reper-tory for more than one or two performances. Some innovations, such as the Kottakkal P.S.V.Natyasangham’s introduction of Lord Ayappa’s Law (Ayappa Caritam) (1967), based on the life of the popular Kerala deity, Lord Ayappan, as well as its version of ‘The Complete Ramayana’ (Sampoorna Ramayana) are an attempt to please popular Kerala temple-festival audiences and con-tinue to attract numerous bookings for its per-forming company.

Arguably the most successful and controversial play based on traditional epic sources is V.Madhavan Nair’s 1967 play, Karna’s Oath (Karnasapadham). After its first performance under the sponsorship of the Thiruvananthapuram Kathakali Club, it rose in popularity to a point where during the 1980s it became one of the most performed plays in the active repertory. As

K.K.Gopalakrishnan observed, ‘the sign of Karna’s Oath’s success is that among those in the kathakali audience who are “mad” about the Kottayam sto-ries, they are willing to spend sleepless nights watch-ing not only King Nala’s Law, but also Karna’s Oath’ (1993).

What makes Karna’s Oath equally as successful as controversial is its almost exclusive focus on the pathos (karuna rasa) of the title character, Karna, in his quest to search out the truth of his parentage. Karna’s Oath is structured to ‘increase the intensity of emotion (bhava)’ (Gopalakrishnan 1993). It fol-lows Karna’s personal quest at the high moment of (melo)drama just before the battle of Kurukshetra, taking Karna on a journey that sur-prises and horrifies him with each new personal discovery of his previously unknown past. Popu-larized by the well-known actor Kalamandalam Gopi Asan, the role of Karna is most similar to the title roles of Nala and Rugmamgada since they too focus much more than most other plays in the kathakali repertory on the character’s personal di-lemma and suffering. Because the role of Karna depends almost exclusively on the histrionic virtu-osity of the actor playing the title role, and not so much on the choreographic structure of the play-in-performance as a whole, it has aroused consid-erable controversy. Kathakali actor Vasu Pisharody explains that

Karna’s Oath can be easily understood and ap-preciated by an audience not familiar with kathakali’s traditional form and structure. It’s like the difference between popular vocal mu-sic and classical music. When reading a play by Rabindranath Tagore, we might get a feel-ing much like that from seeing a performance of Karna’s Oath. Its story is accessible and popu-lar, and when shown in kathakali has gained popularity. But the structure of Karna’s Oath is entirely different [from the four Kottayam plays]. It cannot be performed in the kathakali structure very easily… The author thought that by foregrounding a situation of such emo-tional intensity, the play would attract an audi-ence and gain popularity. But in fact, this is not fit for the kathakali stage. Only a very tal-ented actor can make Karna’s Oath work within the kathakali style and structure. If the artist ab-sorbs the character and performs it within the

framework of kathakali, the performance may have a sense of the overall structure kathakali; but seeing Karna’s Oath is not like seeing the Kottayam plays. Successful performances of Karna’s Oath in particular depend on the contri-bution of the artist’s personality. Moreover, unlike other kathakali plays which do not de-pend so much on music, performances of Karna’s Oath will fail if the primary vocalist is not absolutely perfect.

(1993, interview)

As one Namboodiri connoisseur commented:

one can only see it no more than twice since it doesn’t have all the features of a traditional kathakali. It’s missing all the essentials. It’s more like a one-act play. For example, there’s not the full use of the curtain a number of times through-out the play. Once the curtain comes down, the play and all its entrances and exits just go on one after the other.

Critic K.K.Gopalakrishnan’s description of the content of the play as ‘heart touching’ encapsu-lates the sentimentality of the play-in-perfor-mance.

One of a number of more recent experiments with epic and puranic source materials is the 1995 Trissur Kathakali Club production of L.S. Rajagopal’s adaptation of the Tamil language Ramanatakam (The Play of Rama). Ramanatakam is the well-known work of the great Tamil poet Arunachalam Kavirayar whose devotional songs (bhajans) are well-known and loved by Malayalis as well as Tamils. The first kathakali play to be per-formed in a language other than Malayalam, the Tamil-language adaptation enacts several scenes from the Ramayana, focusing in particular on Viswamithra’s request that the young Rama pro-tect his forthcoming sacrifice (yaga), and culminat-ing with the killing of the demoness Thadaka. G.S.Paul praised the production as successful for its ‘total simplicity,’ the ingenuity of the choreog-raphy, and ‘as a major breakthrough…in popular-ising kathakali among Tamil audience’ (1995:26). Similarly, ‘Scorpio,’ writing for the Indian Express, praised the ‘experimental’ production for its abil-ity to initiate a ‘novice-[Tamil speaking] audience to the nuances of kathakali’ (1995).

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Continuing its sponsorship of a series of ex-perimental productions, in 1996 the Trissur Kathakali Club also premiered kathakali actor Kalamandalam Balasubramanian’s new play, Markande yacaritam. The play elaborates on an inci-dent often performed as an interpolation in The Progeny of Krishna—the story of the Sage Mrukandu and his wife, Mayavati, who are granted their re-quest by Siva for a child.

Whether based on traditional epic and puranic stories, such as Ramanatakam, or nonindigenous sources like Hamlet and King Lear, all these ‘new’ productions require playwrights, musical compos-ers, and director/choreographers to write the texts, develop the choreography, and set them to music. Public discussions of these new produc-tions comment on the language of the poetry, the musical settings, as well as the choreography/di-rection. Critics like G.S.Paul are expanding the critical and creative vocabulary in the kathakali lexicon by regularly commenting on the choreog-raphy. Paul wrote of Ramanatakam that ‘the inge-nuity of the choreographers [Kalamandalam M.P.S. Namboodiri and Kalamandalam Vasu Pisharody] could be felt on many occasions’ (1995:26). From the perspective of a number of today’s kathakali actor-dancers who sense an in-creasing lethargy and indifference among many of their traditional audiences at temple perform-ances, there is a growing desire both to grow in their art through such experiments and to take kathakali to new audiences.

The controversies and contestations over ‘ex-perimentation’ are in part constructed around is-sues of what is or is not viewed as legitimized au-thority. In Chapter 2 we saw that Margi was en-gaged in three modes of ‘experimentation’: restor-ing ‘lost’ scenes to plays-in-performance, restaging plays no longer in the active repertory, and ‘elabo-rating’ ever longer interpolations into the per-formance of scenes in the repertory. However, their experiments are usually not thought of as ‘experiments’ per se since the elaborations and re-constructions are easily legitimized by citation of authoritative sources within the tradition. The further experiments move away from what is per-ceived as legitimized by an authoritative source, or to ‘what is appropriate’ to the tradition, the greater the possibility and likelihood of challenge and controversy.

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KATHAKALI ON THE 1960s EXPERI-MENTAL STAGE: ASIF CURRIMBHOY’S THE DUMB DANCER

One experiment which is clearly outside the tradi-tion, but which illustrates the historical desire among modern dramatists throughout India to re-turn to their ‘roots’ and indigenous traditions, is Bengali Asif Currimbhoy’s 1961 drama, The Dumb Dancer. This is the first experimental mod-ern drama to make use of kathakali thematically as well as in performance, and deserves discussion as a model of the nontraditional use and influence of kathakali within modern Indian drama—a sub-ject seldom if ever discussed among those ‘within’ the kathakali community of interest. Educated at the University of California-Berkeley and a mem-ber of the Calcutta Writer’s Workshop, Currimbhoy wrote approximately thirty plays in English between 1959 and 1989. Along with The Hungry Ones, The Dumb Dancer was produced and performed at Ellen Stewart’s La Mama Theater in New York during the 1960s. The Dumb Dancer, The Refugee, and The Hungry Ones were subsequently translated into Malayalam by well-known Malayali scholar K.M.George so that he could in-troduce ‘this talented Indian playwright to the Malayalam reading public’ (George n.d.: 10).

Making use of kathakali, and more specifically of an episode from The Killing of Duryodhana as a ‘dance play within the play,’ Currimbhoy’s The Dumb Dancer moves fluidly between the past and present, ‘reality’ and ‘madness.’ Not unlike other experimental plays of the 1960s, The Dumb Dancer explores that liminal, loosely ‘Jungian’ netherworld where the ‘madness’ of the insane asylum becomes a site for exploring the allure of a heightened ‘real’— the ambiguous ‘dark’ side of self, passion, myth, madness that ‘acting,’ through its transformative process of ‘becoming,’ is often represented as sig-nifying. In this case, kathakali is the appropriately ‘exotic’ style of acting that Currimbhoy chooses for this ‘mad’ journey, and the bloody scene of the epic hero, Bhima’s disembowelment of Dussassana from The Killing of Duryodhana, becomes the highly theatrical vehicle for the ‘existential’ blurring of these lines between ‘reality’ and ‘madness.’

The main character, Bhima, is a student of kathakali dance-drama. In Act II, which is a flash-

back scene set during Bhima’s rigorous training, we discover that through relentless practise he is attempting to please his teacher and become the ‘greatest’ kathakali artist/actor possible. During a re-hearsal of the climactic scene of The Killing of Duryodhana, Bhima is playing the role of his name-sake, the epic hero, Bhima, while the blind musi-cian/singer Madhu sings the text for him as he acts. At the conclusion of the rehearsal, Bhima asks his teacher, ‘I was greater than he [Madhu], was I not? Was I not? [Guru does not reply.] Well…was I not?’ When his guru responds, ‘No,’ Bhima becomes an-gry, and presses his guru to demonstrate how and why Madhu is ‘greater.’ When the guru suggests that he ‘cannot teach’ Bhima the kind of artistic sensitivity that Madhu possesses, he also suggests that perhaps Madhu’s genius is due to his blind-ness since Those that lack one of the senses de-velop an unerring accuracy in another. That is part of the explanation. The rest…is his own creation’ (Currimbhoy 1961:45). The guru tells Bhima to ‘Get back to work’ since ‘there can be no greatness…without sacrifice. Speech interferes for you… Practise being the dumb dancer’ (ibid.).

Immediately, Bhima cuts out his tongue, throw-ing it ‘at the feet of his Guru.’ Through his ‘dumb-ness’ he compulsively wants to match the blind singer Madhu’s depth and subtlety of sensory awareness, and therefore further plumb the ‘depths’ and subtleties of his art. Having crossed this trans-gressive line, we find out later that Bhima believes that he has actually become his namesake, and in playing the kathakali play The Killing of Duryodhana thinks he has actually killed Dussassana and dis-embowelled him.

Act I opens with Bhima in full kathakali style costume and make-up playing the role of Bhima in the climactic scene of Bhima’s disembowelment of Dussassana.³ However, it is soon revealed that this scene is taking place in an unusual setting—it is a performance arranged in a surgical Operational Theater by Prema, a young female psychiatrist who is the Superintendent of a mental asylum. In addi-tion to the omniscient audience, two other ‘audi-ences’ are also watching the kathakali performance, but oblivious to each other—the inmates of the asy-lum on the right, and a group of well-dressed in-terns and doctors who politely witness the perform-ance as a ‘social occasion’ (ibid.: 12) on the left. The performance has been organized by Prema,

who has become both romantically and profession-ally obsessed with the handsome young actor-dancer, and desires to cure him at any cost. Since Bhima ‘is likely to lapse into a state of permanent insanity,’ she chooses to attempt a ‘drastic turn-around’ by having Bhima replay the scene that caused his illness—the bloody scene of the killing of Dussassana which culminates with Bhima wash-ing the hair of the violated Draupadi in Dussassana’s blood. When the scene is first ‘thera-peutically’ played out in Act I, the other actors are kathakali actors from outside the asylum; therefore, in Prema’s opinion, for Bhima it was ‘not real enough… graphic enough…to make him live through it again’ (ibid.: 22–3).

The obsessive/compulsive Prema can be read as both Currimbhoy’s (male) fantasy as well as a reflection of the Western/cosmopolitan 1960s coun-ter-cultural view of the allure of ‘madness’—a kind of South Asian ‘Marat/Sade.’ Currimbhoy trans-lates the kathakali play’s title as Duryodhana’s Slaugh-ter, emphasizing the killing, not as a sacrificial rite linked to traditional notions of kingship and duty central to ksatriya identity discussed earlier, but as part of a quasi-Jungian reading of the attraction of the bloody ‘gore’ representing the ‘dark side’ of our experience and persona to be explored fully in order to understand more deeply one’s inner/exis-tential dark side or ‘reality.’ While doing her ‘man’s job,’ Prema deliberately rejects the advances of her male surgeon/colleague Dilip and personalizes her involvement and investment in Bhima’s ‘cure.’ Since ‘he cannot speak, the study must go deeper…on a personalized basis… until it becomes a living experience for doctor and patient’ (ibid.: 56). Prema represents the allure of the 1960s flirta-tion with ‘danger’—Bhima is the forbidden ‘mad’ male, and as such his mad world is ‘the inner depth of an ocean’ where ‘a vertigo’ beckons her (ibid.: 23). For her, Bhima is a ‘thing of beauty.’ She re-acts with jealousy when the Guru and his daugh-ter, Shakuntala, come to visit Bhima, and Shakuntala reveals that in their innocent childhood he created her as his Draupadi in their play. Prema’s desire/passion for Bhima is literally played out in Act III, Scene 1 in Prema’s office when, noticing that he is sweating after exercising, she begins to rub him down with oil—‘her movements becoming more passionate, more irregular between its restraint and desire’ (ibid.: 53). Eventually it is Prema who in the final

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scene of the play ‘enters’ the world of Bhima’s ‘mad-ness’ by becoming Draupadi in the last playing of The Killing of Duryodhana. Prema falls victim to the dark ‘vertigo…the vortex…I found myself slipping into the terrifying abyss of darkness… slipping, slip-ping without being able to hold myself back’ (ibid.: 74). Prema ultimately enters this world completely, slaughtering her young female rival, Shakuntala, so that she can provide Bhima with the ‘real’ blood to wash her hair as she herself fully enters the role of Draupadi in her attempt to ‘bring about…a dras-tic turn-around’ for Bhima (ibid.: 56).

As an educated, cosmopolitan Bengali Muslim writing in English, Currimbhoy’s understanding, appreciation, and use of kathakali is that of an artis-tic and even cultural ‘outsider.’ Writing during the 1960s, and very much a part of the period, he se-lected those aspects and interpretations of kathakali which to ‘outsiders’ most exemplify its exotic dif-ference from a ‘modern,’ cosmopolitan sensibility— its ‘dark’ blood-letting, and the ‘dumbness’ of the actors—a term that had been used pejoratively by English-educated commentators earlier in this cen-tury. His experimental use of kathakali obviously was never intended to serve kathakali or its typical aesthetic proclivities and indulgences, but rather his own ends as a modern playwright intrigued by the fine line between madness and reality. This is the territory of Carl Jung’s (limited) vision and un-derstanding of kathakali, and of a 1960s Western acting psychology—a psychology which assumes that gaining a sense of one’s ‘full’ self involves eras-ing the personal distinctions between the ‘roles’ one plays and one’s (darker/hidden) inner self, or com-plete ‘identification.’ Eventually it is Prema that rep-resents the desire to cross that line to the other side of the forbidden.

The Dumb Dancer is a form of experimentation in which kathakali serves literally, metaphorically, and theatrically as a source for creating an experi-ment in which kathakali represents ‘itself’ as an iden-tifiable genre and tradition of performing traditional epic stories, but in which the epic heroes and story, and traditional techniques cannot be contained by their traditional references. Although experiments like The Dumb Dancer are rare, a similar premise served as the basis for an extraordinary collabora-tive experimental film Marattam between Malayali theater director K.M. Panikkar, and internation-ally known film-maker Aravindan. Only screened

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a few times, and never for more than restricted ‘art’ audiences, Marattam is filmed in one seemingly unending take as it too explores the line between ‘reality’ onstage and off through a kathakali perform-ance of The Killing of Kichaka.

KATHAKALI KING LEAR

I turn now to a second, quite different, and more recent experiment—this time with nontraditional content. On 28 July 1989 I attended the inaugu-ral performance of a kathakali version of Shakespeare’s King Lear (Kathakali King Lear) on the proscenium stage of the Victorian-styled V.J.T.Hall, Trivandrum, Kerala, India.⁴ The Eu-ropean premiere took place on 2 September 1989 at the Festival of Rovereto, Italy, followed by two and a half months of performances in the Nether-lands, France, and Spain. A second international touring production appeared in Singapore as part of its 25th Independence Day celebrations and at the Edinburgh Theater Festival in August 1990.⁵ Australian playwright/director David McRuvie and French actor-dancer Annette LeDay origi-nally conceived Kathakali King Lear, and the first production was co-produced by their Association Keli (Paris) with the Kerala State Arts Academy (Kerala Kalamandalam, Cheruthuruthy, Kerala, India). Scripted by McRuvie in English and origi-nally translated by Iyyamgode Sridharan (poet and at that time Secretary of the Kerala Kalamandalam) into Malayalam, Kathakali King Lear was choreographed and rehearsed collaboratively at the Kalamandalam by McRuvie, LeDay (who also played Cordelia), and a group of highly regarded senior kathakali artists (K.Kumaran Nayar (King Lear), C.Padmanabhan Nayar (King Lear),

Kalamandalam Gopi (France), K.P.Krishnankutty Poduval (percussion), T.K.Appukutty Poduval (percussion), Madambi Subramaniam Namboodiri (vocalist)) whose ap-proval for undertaking the project was secured well in advance of rehearsals.

With its Western content, its highly convention-alized kathakali mise-en-scène and techniques, its col-laborative process of conceptualization and reali-zation, and its performances in continental Europe,

Edinburgh, Singapore, and Kerala, Kathakali King Lear was certainly ‘intercultural’ in both produc-tion and reception. The production prompted con-siderable critical response and/or debate in a number of locations:

1 within Kerala among connoisseurs and journalists writing in both the Malayalam and English language presses about the ‘limits’ of the kathakali tradition and the value of such ex-periments with non-traditional roles and con-tent;

2 in the European press where discussions and responses focused on kathakali’s attractions as a dance in response to the continental tour;

3 in the UK press where responses focused on the Edinburgh festival production as a specific interpretation of Shakespeare’s Lear;

4 in academic circles where the production has been analysed, applauded, and/or vilified as an example of intercultural performance (Zarrilli 1991; Awasthi 1993; Bennett 1996).

From its inception, the producers of Kathakali King Lear intended the production to be more than a superficial dressing up of Shakespeare’s Lear in colorful kathakali costumes as an exotic novelty for Western audiences. Rather, it was to serve as an intercultural experiment in production and re-ception, opening in Kerala for Malayali audiences and then touring continental Europe. For Malayalis the production was intended to provide a kathakali experience of one of Shakespeare’s great plays and roles. Assuming that many Euro-pean and especially UK audiences would know Shakespeare’s play, the production was intended as an accessible way of experiencing kathakali and the aesthetic delight of rasa. For LeDay and McRuvie, kathakali’s ‘rich means of expression and its intensity of effect’ seemed an appropriate performative means through which to ‘find a the-atrical expression for the larger-than-life dimen-sion and explosive power of the play’ (LeDay and McRuvie 1989:1).

Following theater semiotician Patrice Pavis, the lengthy process of adaptation and translation which created Kathakali King Lear might best be described as a series of re-elaborations of text, gesture, and cho-reography into a new frame (ibid.: 50). The proc-ess began with McRuvie’s reelaboration of the King

Lear text to conform with kathakali’s theatrical criteria in length, action, and number of charac-ters—a process which radically transformed the original. The typed English adaptation ran barely twenty pages for the two-hour plus performance. The action focused exclusively on Lear and his three daughters. The Gloucester subplot was com-pletely cut, as were Kent, Cornwall, and Albany. Only eight characters appeared including Lear, his three daughters (Cordelia, Goneril, and Regan), the King of France (in a somewhat expanded role), the Fool, mad Tom, and a soldier. Each of nine scenes—(1) King Lear Divides His Kingdom; (2) The Departure of Cordelia and France; (3) At Goneril’s Palace; (4) At Regan’s Palace; (5) The Storm; (6) The Return of Cordelia and France; (7) The Reconciliation of Lear and Cordelia; (8) The Battle; (9) the Death of Lear—was organized around one or two major dramatic actions. For example, the first scene enacted the division of the kingdom and banishment of Cordelia. The second scene dramatized the wedding and departure of Cordelia and France in which Cordelia expresses her sor-row at leaving her father, and pledges herself to her husband.

McRuvie rendered his English adaptation into a somewhat simplified version of the three major components of a traditional kathakali performance script: narrative passages (sloka) in third person de-scribing the context of the action, dialogue passages (padam) sung by the onstage vocalists and spoken by the actors through hand-gestures, and passages (attam) delivered in gesture language and mimetic dance by the actors but not sung by the onstage vocalists. The sloka and padam were then translated into Malayalam and set in the appropriate musical mode for the vocalists and/or rhythm for the per-cussionists.

The production ensemble also carried out a se-ries of specific spatial, gestural, choreographic, and musical re-elaborations of McRuvie’s translated text to fit kathakali’s theatrical conventions—a process which required reinterpretation of a number of kathakali conventions as well as the creation of one new role (vesam). Since the vesam, literally ‘dress, mask, disguise’ which is the ‘whole outward ap-pearance, shape’ (Gundert 1872:995), determines not only the external contours but also the basic nature of each character an actor plays, the deci-

For whom is the king a king? 185

sion on each vesam was the actor’s beginning place in trying to create roles for which there was no tradition to follow. A few roles were obvious and easy to select: the heroic King France, who mar-ries Cordelia, defeats her evil sisters, and attempts to return Lear to his throne, had to be played as a pacca—the primarily green-colored, ideal, heroic, kingly type of character; Cordelia, the devoted, loving, chaste daughter had to be played as a fe-male ‘radiant’ type; Mad Tom could be played as a ‘special’ type (teppu) close to animal in nature, and therefore with a smeared black-face.

The selection of vesam for the other major char-acters, including Goneril, Regan, the Fool, and Lear, generated considerable controversy in Kerala. For Lear the ‘knife’ (katti) vesam was selected since its mixture of green and red symbolized his combi-nation of kingly and turbulent attributes. For the first production, and in keeping with kathakali con-vention, the role of Lear was split into two parts, each to be played by a senior kathakali actor: the fully costumed Lear who appears at the opening of the play in court through the moment in the storm scene when he removes his crown and orna-ments to become like mad Tom; and the partially costumed mad Lear on the heath. For Goneril and Regan the kari vesam, typically used for demoness roles, was selected and each was costumed in black and blue respectively, symbolizing their primitive nature. Finally, for the Fool, no kathakali vesam ex-

Plate 9.1 Kathakali King Lear. Goneril (right) bows before her father as Cordelia (left) asks herself, ‘What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent’

Photo credit: Annette LeDay and David McRuvie.

186 Contested narratives: new plays, discourses and contexts

isted; however, the brahmin clown (vidusaka) who serves as the king’s court fool in the kutiyattam San-skrit drama tradition, provided the closest model adapted for the production.

Appropriate ways of enacting each role and scene were developed in the collaborative rehearsal process. Beginning with the basic vesam in which each role was to be played, the spatial, choreo-graphic, gestural, and musical elements were care-fully re-elaborated to fit the non-indigenous narra-tive and the peculiarities of the story’s characters. Vasudevan Namboodiripad, former Superintend-ent of the Kerala Kalamandalam who served as an advisor for the production, explained that LeDay and McRuvie made sure that the production was more than a superficial appropriation of kathakali conventions and techniques:

Thought had to be given to not only the outer structure of kathakali, but also to the inner struc-ture and nuance. For example, for King Lear’s initial entrance with his ‘curtain look’ (tiranokku), you retain the visible structure of the look but you may change the inner structure of the nu-ance of expression in the look. The ultimate purpose of the curtain look is kept, but these subtle changes are made. Otherwise, it is just a copy of the same scene from any other curtain look of any other play in the repertory. To ac-

Plate 9.2 In the midst of the storm mad Tom is discovered by Lear and the Fool. Lear: ‘Unaccommodated man is not more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art’

Photo credit: Annette LeDay and David McRuvie.

complish this, you must have people like Padmanabhan Asan [playing Lear] who have the capacity to analyse the character’s inner state or condition (bhava). From this analysis every phrase must be worked out in detail.

(interview, 1989)

This sensitivity to the nuance of expressive inter-pretation was one reason for the decision that LeDay would play Cordelia. McRuvie explained his view of the centrality of the Cordelia role to me: ‘What makes King Lear great is a great king, which is rare. Second in making the king is the Fool. But the one thing that can ruin it is Cordelia’ (interview, 1989). To McRuvie’s decidedly West-ern eye, potential disaster threatened if one of the young male actors specializing in female roles (strivesam) were to act the ‘delicate role of Cordelia’ in what McRuvie correctly character-ized as ‘their boyish quality…that becomes kind of campy.’⁶

The lengthy process of re-elaboration created a completely new performance text that would pro-vide both Malayali and European audiences with a new performance experience—a kathakali-style pro-duction of Shakespeare.

PRODUCTION, PERCEPTION, AND RECEPTION

Although Kathakali King Lear was originally re-elaborated for continental European and Malayali audiences, in fact, it played for audiences in four quite different cultural locations on its first two tours: not only Kerala and continental Europe, but also at the Singapore and Edinburgh interna-tional festivals. Both between and within each set of cultural boundaries there are ‘different viewing publics’ (Bennett 1990:101), each of which brought to the production not only their own ‘na-tive’ cultural assumptions but also an increasingly global flow of ideas, images, and information all of which affected their expectations about what they would experience, their perceptions and cat-egories for understanding that experience, and therefore how they received and responded to Kathakali King Lear. How are we to understand re-ception of Kathakali King Lear among such diverse audiences?

Phenomenologist Maurice Natanson explains that our perceptions are shaped by a conscious-ness that posits horizons of probabilities which con-stitute expectations (1973: passim). In performance, expectations are created in four interdependent ways:

1 The daily experiences and cultural assump-tions that inform the experience that each spec-tator brings to the performance.

2 Performance experiences similar to or differ-ent from the one that each is having now.

3 Expectations created by publicity, word of mouth, etc.

4 What happens within the frame of the perfor-mance one is attending.

In the fourth mode, a set of expectations is cre-ated as the performance is enacted.

The way in which kathakali structures an audi-ence’s experience creates the possibility for a par-ticular range of meaning very different from other genres of performance whether that is American psychological realism or Japanese noh. Likewise, the way in which a Shakespeare play and its charac-ters create the possibility for a particular range of meaning is very different from other types of dra-mas such as any of the kathakali plays translated here, or such diverse genres as melodrama or a contemporary American musical.

As theater semiotician Marco De Marinis, fol-lowing Umberto Eco, asserts, ‘Production and re-ception are strictly linked even though they obvi-ously do not altogether coincide…[and that] a [performance] text postulates its own receiver as an indispensible condition not only of its own, concrete communicative ability, but also its own potential for meaning’ (1987:102). We have seen how kathakali, as a genre of performance, postu-lates both a general audience and one of connois-seurs educated to receive a range of cultural meanings implicit in the conventions used to en-act its stories. Each specific kathakali play-in-per-formance articulates a specific set of meanings for both these generic audiences and its particular au-diences. Like other adaptations of kathakali, such as P.K.Devan’s one-hour performances for tour-ists in Ernakulam, Kerala, Kathakali King Lear pos-tulated its own receiver in the process of re-elabo-ration described above, and possesses its own

For whom is the king a king? 187

potential for meaning different from other kathakali.

When kathakali performances of Indian epic sto-ries are held for Kerala audiences, it may often be said with reception theorist Anne Ubersfeld that the

signs refer to what corresponds to them in the experience of the spectator. The fictional uni-verse set before him [sic] summons up the ref-erential universe of the spectator, that of his personal as well as his cultural experience.

(1982:131)

In intercultural performance, however, codes and conventions easily read by those within one cul-ture may be opaque to those outside.

Those working interculturally have evolved a number of different production strategies for deal-ing with this fundamental problem. Peter Brook’s recent production of India’s great epic, The Mahabharata, demonstrates one strategy. For Brook ‘art means extracting the essence from every detail so that the detail can reveal itself as a meaningful part of an inseparable whole’ (Carriere 1987:xiv). Brook problematically as-sumes that if one can erase all the cultural codes in the way of reaching a hypothetically universal ‘reality of zero’ common to all humanity, then ‘ge-ography and history cease to exist’ (Schechner 1986:55). Brook works with an international act-ing company whose style attempts to reach this zero state of communication by removing any cul-tural marks which might require of the audience the ability to read any special cultural codes. Con-sequently, ‘to tell [the Mahabharata] we had to avoid evoking India too strongly so as to not lead us away from human identification, but also we had to nevertheless tell it as a story rooted in In-dian earth’ (ibid.: 68).⁷

If Brook erases distinctive cultural codes in his attempt to be universal, LeDay and McRuvie chose to challenge their European audiences by maintain-ing as much of kathakali’s structure and technique as possible.⁸ Given the fact that Kathakali King Lear was originally re-elaborated for two quite different audiences, played in four quite different geographi-cal/cultural contexts, and has conventions or con-tent that are non-indigenous to one or more of its audiences,⁹ I want to ask the following questions:

188 Contested narratives: new plays, discourses and contexts

Who was the receiver postulated by the produc-tion? What potential meanings and/or experiences were implicit in the production? What meanings were read into the production? Specifically how was the production received?

European reception: from ‘curiosity’ to ‘bewitching ritual’ to a ‘moving perfor-mance’

For anyone watching something from outside one’s own ‘culture’ for the first time there is bound to be some degree of difference in assimila-tion and understanding of what is being seen and heard between an indigenous and non-indigenous audience. Moreover, as Anne Ubersfeld explains,

when he is faced with signs which he does not understand to which he cannot give a name (objects, gestures, discourse), which do not re-fer to anything in his experience, or, more sim-ply, which pose a problem for him, the spectator’s own inventiveness is stimulated: it is up to him to manufacture the relationship between the sign and its intelligibility, or its re-lationship to the world.

(1982:133)

The West has a long and continuing history of manufacturing a variety of meanings for non-in-digenous customs, persons, or cultural artifacts/ performances it could not (or did not wish to) un-derstand. Historically, the West took this experi-ence of difference, and encapsulated it in a series of discourses on the cultural Other.¹⁰ In the West-ern-initiated colonial drama of subjugation and domination, India was cast in several key roles. Most importantly, as South Asian historian Ronald Inden relates, for empiricists and rational-ists that role was THE unchangeable’ and/or ‘THE absolutely different’ (and therefore inscru-table and dominatable), and for romantics, the ‘SPIRITUAL or IDEAL’ Other (1986:402–46). As the period of colonial expansion reached its fi-nal climax at the turn of the nineteenth century, this drama of subjugation and domination was played out symbolically rather than literally at the ‘World’s’ Fairs (Benedict 1983; Rydell 1984) and even at Coney Island and other amusement parks

where exotic Indian nautch dancers were featured in the Durbar of Delhi. Our abilities to read, un-derstand, assimilate, and even participate in In-dian performance have been shaped by these dis-courses of Otherness which feed both our imagi-nation of Otherness and the way we describe it.¹¹

Kathakali King Lear generated all these responses and more. On continental Europe, the original pro-duction was received with great and near universal acclaim by French dance critics who filled their col-umns with information on kathakali interspersed with comments which ranged from F.C.’s vacuous but appreciative ‘a splendidly colorful show’ (1989), to Pichot’s more adamant expression of appreciation— ‘a dazzling marriage’ of kathakali and Shakespeare filled with ‘intensity, energy, and extravaganza’ (1989). Not surprisingly, in Shakespeare’s home, responses focused on the production as a specific interpretation of Shakespeare’s Lear rather than on kathakali per se. The colorfully opinionated British theater press greeted the Edinburgh Festival perform-ances with less than universal praise where it reaped everything from Michael Billington’s cynical scorn (‘Empty gestures of a frustrating Lear’) (1990), to Charles Spencer’s appreciative evocation of the pro-duction as both exotic and mysterious (‘Hypnotic power of an Indian Lear’) (1990), to Randall Stevenson’s grudging appreciation (‘Beat of a dif-ferent drum’) which marvelled that even if ‘Shake-speare transformed into the traditional, colorful, highly stylised dance drama of Kerala…doesn’t sound entirely promising…[It is] one of the most enthralling performances of the Festival’ (1990). The one near-universal point of agreement among most of the British press was that Kathakali King Lear had, as Tom Morris put it, ‘little to do with Shakespeare’ (1990).

Beyond the general praise and blame, there were those like the reviewer from the Cannes-Matin/Nice-Matin who found the production inscrutable and difficult to decode: ‘we do not have all of the keys to this code, which allows us only sporadically to decipher them’ (‘L’histoire du roi Lear’ 1989). For the writer from La Presse de la Manche the only pleas-ure of the production was the spectacle of the cos-tumes:

The costumes are the main attraction of the show at least for the western audience, incapable of understanding the complex language of the

hand and face gestures, somewhere between mime and a sign language conversation.

(‘Le Roi Lear version Kathakali’ 1989)

For Sergio Trombetta from La Danse this inscruta-bility made the spectacle fascinating: The inter-play of the dance, the facial expressions and the hands remain impenetrable and fascinating’ (1989).

Some like Grandmontagne writing for Le Telegramme responded to the difficulties of reading the production by inventing kathakali as a roman-tic, timeless, Jungian dream-like world:

Without any training, you can appreciate this theater by allowing yourself to be invaded by the music, by the rhythms; by marvelling at the splendid, glittering, colorful costumes, the make-up that completely re-sculpts the actors’ faces and make them timeless even while accentuat-ing the expression of each individual charac-ter… You can, without any training, be subju-gated, letting the music intoxicate you.

(1989)

Pierre Gilles responded similarly, finding in the production a realization of a universal Artaudian reverie in which

the drama of the aging King Lear…[was] pro-moted to the ranks of the sacred, rendered to the ‘primitive destination’ of theater—which Artaud sought—and, therefore, to the universal.

(1989)

The most extreme problem with response is when either too many demands are made on the specta-tor so that she withdraws her participation (Ubersfeld 1982:133), or an audience member is unwilling to make any attempt to respond to the performance and therefore withdraws his partici-pation. It appears that the latter may have been the case for John Percival of The Times, who in a remarkably snide, nothing short of racist, tongue-in-cheek commentary entitled ‘Lear’s heath at half blast’ ungenerously wrote of the vocalists as ‘two fellows with skirts, bare chests and cymbals,’ of Tom as a ‘dirty little chap,’ of the adaptation as ‘crippling,’ and the production as a ‘curiosity’ (1990).

For whom is the king a king? 189

If, for some, Kathakali King Lear was inscruta-ble, or all spectacle, for others the production com-municated at more than a level of surface exoti-cism. I think it an oversimplification to assume with Bennett that ‘audiences are at best “fascinated” with performances that do not fall into their cultural ex-perience, performances that resist or deny the usual channels of decoding’ (1990:103). Randall Stevenson provides a balanced and sensible account of his fascination with kathakali’s spectacle, his sim-ple enjoyment of its exciting moments of obvious and colorful action, as well as the subtler way in which the performance affected him.

From the opening moment, when the screen brought on to signal scene changes drops to reveal magnificently poised and costumed per-formers, Kathakali offered spectacle and simple excitement. The two onstage percussionists add a mesmeric heartbeat to every move and turn onstage—creating a devastating prelude to the storm, for example—while the singers who chant the narrative fill in tone and color for every scene. More subtly, what seems ‘simple’ spec-tacle quickly communicates a great deal of emo-tion. Stylized movement, minute repeated hand-gestures, progressively indicate Lear’s poised withdrawal, even before Goneril’s ecstatic devil dance steals a vision of insanity and the stresses which create it.

(1990)

The argument I want to make regarding the kind of reception of Kathakali King Lear represented by Stevenson’s review depends upon a prior under-standing of the Malayali reception.

Malayali reception: from ‘bouquets to brickbats’

Although Kathakali King Lear was originally co-produced by the Kerala State government arts school, featured some of the most distinguished performers of the kathakali stage, played well over thirty performances on its contental tour and at Edinburgh, and, with the important exceptions noted above in the British press, was generally appreciated and praised on tour, Indian Express journalist Paul Jacob recalled one year after the

190 Contested narratives: new plays, discourses and contexts

original production that it opened in Kerala to ‘no great critical or popular acclaim’ (1990). As early as the January 1989 experimental staging of four scenes at the Kerala Kalamandalam, the pro-duction aroused considerable controversy in Kerala—a situation reflected in the Hindu staff writer’s report that ‘comments from the spectators…came out in the form of a mixed bag of bouquets and brickbats’ (‘“King Lear” in Kathakali; 1989).

In Kerala during the final months of rehearsal before the production opened, I read and heard the artistic and aesthetic ‘brickbats’ thrown at the production. Debated both within rehearsals and in the public and press, the controversy swirled around the following five issues all having to do with the ‘sense of appropriateness’ (aucityam bodham) in kathakali:

1. Were non-Indian, non-epic, non-mythic sto-ries like Lear appropriate for the kathakali stage?
2. To what degree was the title character of Lear kingly?
3. Was the selection of the ‘knife’ make-up (katti vesam) appropriate for Lear, or should the he-roic ‘green’ (pacca) have been selected?
4. During the storm scene was it appropriate to have Lear ‘realistically’ remove part or all of his kingly accoutrements and typifying make-up, or should his relative ‘nakedness’ have been imagined by the audience?
5. Was it appropriate to borrow the clown’s (vidusaka) make-up and costume directly from kutiyattam?

As is evident in all five of these issues, and as dis-cussed in Chapters 3 and 4, the paradigmatic past is present for the kathakali actor each time he ap-proaches any important role on the stage, and his performance will be judged on the degree of ap-propriateness of each choice he makes during a performance. Although Kathakali King Lear was a new production for which no precedents had been set for particular roles, there was very real pressure felt by some of the actors that they would be severely criticized for transgressing the boundaries of appropriateness. This was espe-cially true of Balasubramaniam who, just reaching the age of maturity as a performer, originated the role of the Fool in a costume/make-up (vesham)

over which controversy raged to and past the offi-cial opening production.

All five issues are part of a continuing ‘internal cultural debate’ (Parkin 1978: passim) within the kathakali cultural community over the limits of ex-perimentation within the tradition. As there are wide differences of opinion on these issues, my task here is to represent several parties to the debate, situate each point of view so that the terms of ar-gument informing each is clear, and discuss how this internal debate shaped perception and recep-tion of Kathakali King Lear.

I will explore Malayali response to the produc-tion primarily through the eyes of one of the most visible and certainly the most outspoken champi-ons of a radically conservative interpretation of the kathakali tradition,

Plate 9.3 Lear is revealed after he has removed his orna-ments and crown to be like Mad Tom at the Kerala Kalamandalam dress rehearsal A great deal of controversy was raised when Kumaran Asan appeared as depicted here bareheaded and virtually without makeup

Photo credit: Kunju Vasudevan Namboodiripad.

Plate 9.4 For the Thiruvananthapuram performances and subsequent tour, more of the original costume and make-up were kept for Kumaran Asan’s mad Lear. The trial scene in which Lear says, ‘Anatomize Regan; see what breeds about her heart.’

Photo credit: Annette LeDay and David McRuvie.

Appakoothan Nayar, one of the founders of the Margi Kathakali School in the capital city, Thiruvananthapuram. An engineer by training who holds a graduate degree from the University of Michigan, Appakoothan Nayar is the architect who designed the Kerala Kalamandalam Kuttambalam Theater discussed in Chapter 2. Not surprisingly, his response to Kathakali King Lear was straightforward and blunt: ‘I could not stand it… Even though there are thirty performances abroad, after five years, nobody here will remember it. It will die a natu-ral death’ (interview, 1989). To understand Appakoothan Nayar’s negative response to Kathakali King Lear, it is necessary to recall his dis-cussion of a ‘nonworldly’ ‘aesthetic of the mind’ in Chapter 2.

Appakoothan Nayar differentiates between two levels of aesthetic realization. The first and ‘lower’ aesthetic he calls ‘sensual’ or ‘worldly’ because it limits reception to the feelings of the five senses. Such reception is a simplistic and immediate sen-sual response, i.e., ‘when you see [touch, taste, feel,

For whom is the king a king? 191

etc.] a thing you like it, but it doesn’t go to the mind.’ An example is the appearance of an every-day character like the elephant mahoot in Kamsavadham, or the Midwife in The Progeny of Krishna, where the spectator’s simple recognition of the character could be characterized as sensual, immediate, and based on what one sees in daily life.

In contrast, the second aesthetic is what Appakoothan Nayar calls an ‘aesthetics of the mind,’ i.e., an act of reception which resonates long beyond the immediate apprehension of the five senses. It is an aesthetic built on the cultiva-tion of the aesthetic sensibilities of the connois-seur’s tasting and savoring of rasa, as discussed earlier. This interpretation of kathakali’s aesthetic as ‘of the mind’ is derived from kutiyattam and the classical Sanskrit drama tradition. Sanskrit scholar Barbara Stoller Miller calls the aesthetic of the most celebrated Sanskrit poet Kalidasa an ‘aesthetic of memory’ and identifies Sanskrit theater as a ‘theater of memory’ (1984: passim). In many Sanskrit dramas such as Kalidasa’s Sakuntala and Bhasa’s The Vision of Vasavadatta, the act of remembering is both a literal mode of rec-onciling and relating love-in-separation and love-in-union and remembrance of a ‘deeper meta-physical kind’ (Stoller Miller 1984:40).

Indian epistemologists hold that whatever we perceive by means of the sense organs leaves an impression on the mind. Memory occurs when a latent impression is awakened. Indian literary theorists define memory as a recollec-tion of a condition of happiness or misery, whether it was conceived in the mind or actu-ally occurred. In what is considered one of the key passages of Sanskrit aesthetics, the tenth-century Kashmiri philosopher Abhinavagupta explains what Kalidasa means by ‘memory.’ It is not discursive recollection of past events, but rather an intuitive insight into the past that tran-scends personal experience, into the imagina-tive universe that beauty evokes.

(ibid.: 40)

This aesthetic of mind is accomplished through extended narrative and performative elaboration of the basic story and playtext. The poetic conceits imbedded in a padam, such as Nala’s

192 Contested narratives: new plays, discourses and contexts

description of Damayanti (see pp. 44–5, Chapter 3), provide opportunities for the actor to embody each image through gesture language, thereby serving as the vehicle for the creation of an image of Damayanti not only in Nala’s mind, but also in the mind of the spectator.

From Appakoothan Nayar’s point of view, it is precisely these moments of superb ‘interior acting’ which epitomize an aesthetic of the mind and inform his critique of Kathakali King Lear. The two major problems with Kathakali King Lear are its all too brief two hour running time, and its non-epic characters. In contrast to King Lear where everything ‘has been cut short,’ Appakoothan Nayar is proud of the fact that the recent Margi production of Variyar’s Nalacaritam expanded its running time to thirty hours to allow more elaboration. Appakoothan Nayar told me how one friend commented,

‘If you go on like this it will come to 365 days!’ and I said, ‘it will go on to one thousand days!’ And this is precisely why I don’t like Kathakali King Lear. The potential for elaboration must be there. In most [new] kathakali they simply trans-late the text into gestures and say, ‘that’s kathakali’ But that is not kathakali! You must take the text and see how much scope there is for expansion and decoration.

From Appakoothan Nayar’s perspective, it is im-possible to elaborate non-epic stories because the characters are ‘not fit for kathakali.’ Unlike epic characters who ‘never existed’ and therefore must be created in the imagination of the spectator, Appakoothan Nayar reasons that Lear, like Jesus, Karl Marx, or Franklin Roosevelt is an historical figure who at one time existed and therefore for whom one has a set of associations.

Although one has images of epic characters, the image is not supported by any visual compari-son because the characters never existed. Ravana is supposed to have ten heads and twenty hands—can he ever have existed in any stage of human evolution?¹² Lear’s features you know because he was a human being. But in the case of Ravana, he is the concretization of a concept… The concretization of the abstract is there [in ritual and theatrical arts] in order to reach the abstract.¹³

For Appakoothan Nayar, kathakali is a metaphysi-cal theater of the imagination where the spectator ‘creates [each character] in his mind,’ and for Appakoothan Nayar-the-spectator his ability to imagine freely or ‘take in his mind’ a Lear was disrupted ‘because I have that [previous] image [of Lear] in mind.’

On the one hand, Appakoothan Nayar’s argu-ment against Kathakali King Lear is constructed from an aesthetic paradigm of the past—the rasa aes-thetic—and his institution is an attempt to insure that this aesthetic remains central to kathakali’s crea-tivity in the future. It is a paradigm written for and from the privileged position of the traditional pa-tron/connoisseur for whose pleasure kathakali was originally created. While his is an inventive form of intercultural discourse in its use of the Western intellectual icons of history and evolution as part of its argument against experimentation, it is a re-actionary one which stakes exclusive claim to in-terpreting what is or is not appropriate within the tradition and what qualifies as a legitimate form of experimentation. Appakoothan Nayar’s critique implies a denial of the validity of experiments at-tempting to reach audiences other than connois-seurs. Such experiments range from Kathakali King Lear, to populist adaptations with little elaboration for Malayali mass audiences at annual temple fes-tivals, to the 1987 production of People’s Victory, dis-cussed in Chapter 10.

AESTHETIC CONGRUENCE AND KINGLY DISSONANCE

Although Kathakali King Lear evoked little aes-thetic delight in Appakoothan Nayar and some other kathakali connoisseurs, for at least some among the European and Malayali audiences the subtlety of kathakali’s interior acting was commu-nicated and experienced. I refer especially to the penultimate and ultimate moments of pathos in the production—the seventh and ninth scenes of the production in which Lear is first reunited with Cordelia, and then dies from grief over her loss.

[His crown having been placed beside him by the Fool. Lear slowly wakes. Cordelia stands back, but the Fool urges her to present herself to Lear. Lears sits up.]

LEAR: I do not know whether I am alive or dead. I do not remember these clothes.

CORDELIA: Sir, do you know me?

LEAR: I fear I am not in my right mind, but I think you are my child.

CORDELIA: Yes! I am, I am your child!

LEAR: You have cause to hate me.

CORDELIA: No cause, no cause.

LEAR: Forgive me, I am old and foolish.

They embrace. The Soldier appears. He claims Cordelia and the Fool as prisoners. [After their departure] Lear picks up his kiritam [crown].

(McRuvie 1989: mss.)

In the battle which ensues during the eighth scene, Regan orders her Soldier to kill his prisoners, Cordelia and the Fool. The order sends France into a wild fury, played out in kathakali’s typical stylized battle choreography as he slays both Regan and Goneril. As the final scene opens, the vocalists cre-ate a transition from the cacophony of battle with its loud-sounding drums to the pathos of loss and death as they sing the opening sloka in a slow rhythm, reporting what has happened, and telling what will happen:

The young Queen and the King’s Fool have been brutally murdered. The old King finds his beloved daughter dead. He dies from grief and so ends his terrible suffering.

Even though the Western audience cannot under-stand what the vocalists are singing, the pathos carried by the music alone sets the appropriate mood. The hand-held curtain is lowered to reveal Cordelia’s body.

Lear enters in full katti vesam. He walks slowly but stands very straight. Lear approaches Cordelia. He turns her head and recognizes her. He screams with grief. He falls down beside his daughter.

LEAR: I know when someone is alive or dead.

My child is as dead as earth.

In spite of reservations about certain aspects of the production, reviewers of the Edinburgh per-formances in particular focused much of their positive commentary on Lear’s pathos over the

For whom is the king a king? 193

loss of Cordelia. Although Tom Morris, writing in the Times Literary Supplement, responded to most of the production with ‘remote fascination,’ it was different with the closing scene—‘at Lear’s cry over the dead Cordelia, magical and spot-lit, there is a frightening and uninterrupted moment of agonized theatrical communication’ (1990). For Randall Stevenson who responded positively to the shape, contours, and variety of the entire pro-duction, the closing scene in which Lear dies of grief was also a profoundly moving moment:

Lear’s concluding, rhythmic keening over Cordelia, picked up by the percussion, provides almost the first remotely human sound from performers rather than the accompanying sing-ers.

It both wrings the heart and moves the perfor-mance forward into another dimension: towards the awesome, elemental world from which Shakespeare’s original vision was compounded.

(1990)

Plate 9.5 Lear: ‘She’s gone forever’

Photo credit: Annette LeDay and David McRuvie.

194 Contested narratives: new plays, discourses and contexts

Among Malayalis who responded at least in part favorably, V.Kaldharan acknowledged that both Kumaran Nayar and Padmanabhan Nayar were ‘successful in portraying the full depth of King Lear’s sorrow (karuna rasa)’ (1989).

I would suggest that the emotive resonance that Stevenson describes was a moment of aesthetic con-gruence where at least some among the Edinburgh audience experienced the resonance of aesthetic de-light similar to if not the same as a Malayali con-noisseur’s arousal of rasa. As steeped in Shakespeare as a Kerala audience in the Mahabharata and Nala stories, at least some in the Edinburgh audience share a common knowledge of Lear’s mental state equal to that of the actors playing the roles. The knowledgeable audience ‘knows’ that Lear’s men-tal state moves from his deranged, wandering, for-getfulness and impromptu ravings to one of the dawn of remembrance when he awakes from his sleep.

In contrast to Appakoothan Nayar’s judgement that there is not sufficient time for elaboration in Kathakali King Lear, I want to argue that at least during Scene 7 McRuvie’s sparse text allows the kathakali performer the time necessary to embody through internal acting the appropriate bhavas—cinta bhava, ‘reflection’ or ‘remembrance.’ Lear, in a dreamlike state of forgetfulness, awakens to Cordelia and the Fool. In the process of remem-bering he gradually remembers Cordelia, his loss of her, his foolishness in rejecting her, and the men-tal agony of their separation. Although the tone and specific dramatic context and circumstances are quite different, Lear’s act of ‘reflection’ or re-membrance is similar to that of Nala. The scene is that moment of classic Western recognition where Lear realizes his loss. It makes possible the West-ern audience’s experience of Lear as a ‘tragic’ char-acter.

As staged at Edinburgh, the entire final scene could be characterized as Lear’s grieving cry over the loss of his beloved daughter. When Lear re-turns in the final scene to discover the dead Cordelia, he is resplendent in his full costume and make-up. With only one line ‘spoken’ during the entire scene, Padmanabhan Nayar was free to elaborate through interior acting soka bhava, the pathos of his loss, and the moment-by-moment search for any signs that she might still be alive. Since he was playing Lear as a ‘knife’ (katti) char-

acter considered less refined than the idealized kingly pacca roles, he was permitted by convention to utter sounds. In his brilliant elaboration of this long dramatic moment, Padmanabhan Nayar chose to make full use of the psychophysical means of embodiment in the kathakali repertory, subtly uttering whimpers through the control of his breath, and manifesting other signs of the grief of loss such as trembling. The sounds and signs of Lear’s grief gradually draw out of him his own life force (prana-vayu), so that he collapses beside his daughter, dead of grief.

The narrative and mimetic simplicity of these scenes meant that it was unnecessary for the Western audience to be able to read kathakali’s codified gesture language in order to follow or ap-preciate the action. Given the familiar trajectory of both the Lear story and the narrative of pa-thos, at least some in the Edinburgh and Euro-pean audiences savored karuna rasa (pathos)—the closest emotional tone in Indian theater to West-ern tragedy.

Kathakali King Lear’s success at communicating pathos is not unproblematic. The positive recep-tion of Padmanabhan Nayar’s empathic cry of loss over Cordelia unquestionably assumes a modernist paradigm of the main character’s emo-tional state as the essence of the pleasure of dra-matic reception. It was also a problem for some in the Malayali audience—how could one appreciate a play in which the predominant rasa or flavor of aesthetic delight is pathos and in which the King does not act like a (South Asian) KING? Under-stating the case somewhat, Malayali reviewer Vinita noted, ‘It is unusual to conclude a kathakali on a tragic note’ (1989).¹⁴ But even more prob-lematic was Lear’s behavior. Kathakali actor Nelliyode Vasudevan Namboodiripad, who played the role of the Fool in the original experi-mental staging of the storm scene and Goneril on the second tour, described his problems with un-derstanding Lear:

When Lear’s older daughters tell him they love him so much, and Cordelia says she can only give half her love, he believes all these things. It is difficult to believe that Lear, at 80 years of age, with all his life experience, would respond this way to his daughters!

(interview, 1989)

V.Kaladharan raised the same problem in his Mathrabhumi article, noting that even master per-cussionist Krishnankutty Poduval, who helped conceive the production, was puzzled by the fact that Lear would ‘forgo his daughter who is pre-pared to share her love between her father and her husband’ (1989). Given the fact that social convention dictates that a daughter will naturally give her love to her husband, and that tragedy and the individual human weaknesses that prompt Lear’s downfall have little resonance in Kerala culture where kingship was historically idealized and related to maintenance of the cos-mic order, to some Malayalis Lear’s behavior to-ward Cordelia appeared naive, and even silly.

Even with the emergence of a secular national government in the post-Independence period, the ideal model of royal kingship as at the center of the universe discussed in Chapter 8 and exempli-fied by characters like Rugmamgada, Nala, Rama, etc., continues to shape conceptions of kingship. As Kaladharan concluded, for those in the audi-ence for whom Lear could not be perceived as a king, ‘the theme which is important for a Western audience becomes totally awkward for an Indian audience’ (1989).

Although Kathakali King Lear was conceived ide-ally by its producers as an inter-cultural project to be performed for Kerala and European audiences, the commercial realities (over thirty performances abroad and two in Kerala), the Western Lear nar-rative, and McRuvie’s directorial eye naturally shaped the production for a cosmopolitan, inter-national, and primarily Western theater-going pub-lic. In doing so it may not have been as well re-ceived by Malayali audiences as Western audiences, but it brought to its Western audiences one type of integrity of process difficult to find in some other intercultural experiments. Unlike Peter Brook’s naturalized Mahabharata which ‘flattened’ (Pavis 1989) the Indianness of the epic’s cultural markers

For whom is the king a king? 195

and suppressed any use of India’s codified perform-ance techniques, LeDay and McRuvie’s project in-tentionally kept an active tension between a sim-plified Western narrative played in a fully codified theatrical and choreographic re-elaboration of that narrative.

As Daryl Chin argues, in the increasingly intercultural world in which we live

the interconnections of the geopolitical struc-ture are so intricate and so intertwined that there is no way out of the dilemma of [interdepen-dence. And that dependence…means that di-plomacy must be vigilant… Interculturalism can so easily accommodate an agenda of cultural imperialism. This is what happens when Lee Breuer tosses disparate elements together pell-mell as an indicator of disintegration; this is what happens when Robert Wilson’s staging over-whelms Heiner Muller’s text; this is what hap-pens when Peter Brook distorts the narrative structure of Indian mythology and of Chekhovian dramaturgy. The sense of imposi-tion is omnipresent in these enterprises.

(1989:174)

Kathakali King Lear was an intercultural project conceived and developed with the full coopera-tion of leading kathakali artists. For senior actor Padmanabhan Nayar, developing the role of Lear was considered a consummate and appropriate acting challenge. With its collaborative process of creation, the meanings and experiences it made available were constrained by the limitations it im-posed on itself—using kathakali techniques to elaborate a simplified Shakespearean narrative— and by the social, historical, literary, and aesthetic expectations its varied audiences had of both kathakali and Shakespeare’s Lear. It did not, and could not, reach some hypothetically universal realm of communication.¹⁵

10

when marx met

imperialism on the

kathakali stage

INTRODUCTION

Kathakali which once mainly functioned in the palaces of rajas and kings, has now stepped down and is performed among the common people. From this it is clear that kathakali is also an art of the people.

(Aricatasumedharan 1987)

As unlikely as it might seem to anyone unfamiliar with the recent political history of Kerala, one day during 1987 in the town of Palakkad, Kerala, Karl Marx met Imperialism on the kathakali stage in the guise of a modern kathakali morality play pitting the evil demon-king, ‘Imperialism’ in his ‘red beard’ make-up, against the heroic lead, ‘World Con-science’ in his shining ‘green’ make-up. Entitled Peo-ple’s Victory (Manavavijayan), it was produced by the leftist cultural organization ‘Kerala Art-House’ (Kerala Kalabhavan). Unlike most kathakali experi-ments with non-traditional Western content such as The Killing of Hitler, Faust, Hamlet, or Kathakali King Lear, all of which had only one or two perform-ances in Kerala, People’s Victory was performed on numerous occasions during 1987 for often wildly enthusiastic left-front political audiences. Produced a full two years before the Kathakali King Lear’s first performance in Kerala in 1989 and its subsequent international festival tours and notoriety, People’s

Victory was written and produced by the same well-known poet/playwright Iyyamgode Sridharan, who later, as Secretary of the Kerala Kalamandalam, translated and co-produced the first production and tour of Kathakali King Lear. And yet, unlike Kathakali King Lear, this leftist kathakali production has, with the exception of an earlier version of this chapter, been virtually ignored both by the English language press in Kerala and the UK, and by Indian and Western scholars, who have written with great ve-hemence and conviction about Kathakali King Lear (Awasthi 1993; Bennett 1996).

In his letter to the editor of a daily Malayalam newspaper, Aricatasumedharan applauded the overt political use of kathakali since he read the pro-duction as bringing kathakali ‘down’ from the loftly place of appreciation among Kerala’s high-caste tra-ditional patrons (‘the palaces of rajas and kings’ dis-cussed in Chapter 2) to ‘the common people’—such atypical kathakali audiences as the All-India Agri-cultural Workers Union, or the 1,000 members of the local Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) gathered for their annual meeting in Kannur, northern Kerala, by CPI(M)’s cultural wing, ‘Organization for the Propagation of Mod-ern Literature’ (‘Urugonoman Kalasahitya Sangham’).

It would be as easy to dismiss this experimen-tal leftist kathakali play as it would be to dismiss

Currimbhoy’s The Dumb Dancer as an anomaly, or as a didactic ‘morality play’ with its none too sub-tle 1980s stereotypes of America as Imperialism, the CIA as the ‘Demons,’ and the (then) USSR as World Conscience. But I have chosen to analyse precisely why and for whom People’s Victory, and his more recent 1995 experiment, Message of Love, were performed for three reasons:

1 Focusing on leftist experiments helps locate kathakali within the contemporary Kerala and post-Independence India historical and socio-political landscapes, and allows us to see how the 1987 production became a site for the gal-vanization and performance of local, Kerala, communist ideology.

1. Unlike productions of non-epic content, such as Kathakali King Lear, The Iliad, or Hamlet which use Western ‘classics’ to gain the kind of cul-tural capital marketable in the transnational, global intercultural performing arts market as-sociated with such international festival sites as Edinburgh, with its overtly didactic, political content, People’s Victory in particular was a decid-edly ‘local’ production with no aspirations of gaining access to this intercultural market-place, or to the discursive, critical modes of ac-claim, disdain, or analysis which pass ‘artistic’ judgement on productions like Kathakali King Lear.
2. As a site of considerable local contest over meanings and interpretation, the debates that surrounded the production of People’s Victory, and to some degree Message of Love, took place pri-marily in the local Malayalam newspapers. As such, the controversy throws into relief the ‘in-ternal cultural debates’ circulating around the ‘limits’ to which kathakali can be used for the presentation of ‘non-traditional’ content for non-traditional audiences.

PEOPLE’S VICTORY: KATHAKALI FOR ‘THE PEOPLE’

The story of People’s Victory and its characters may be briefly summarized. In his unpublished En-glish translation, Iyyamgode Sridharan lists each character, its make-up type, and the specific con-cept each type is intended to represent:

When marx met imperialism 197

World Conscience (‘Green’ representing Virtue and Valour)

Imperialism	(‘Red-beard’ representing
	Monstrosity)
People	(Two females representing
	Virtue)
Scientists	(Two sages representing Wis-
	dom)
Devils	(Attendants to the Demon
	…representing docile follow-
	ers of Imperialism).1

In the first scene two Scientists come before World Conscience to convince him of the dangers Imperialism poses to world peace.

SECOND SCIENTIST: The fiend raves through Nicaragua, Western Asia and Af-rica which are afflicted by his atrocious as-saults. Make haste, O Lord, to halt the car-nage and restore peace…

WORLD CONSCIENCE: I promise thee, (I shall set out at once) to face the foe that is out to destroy the earth with horrendous weapons, and will humble his pride with the blaze of Socialism.

To open the second scene, the vocalists introduce Imperialism as they sing a verse (sloka) in which they tell how ‘even the stars are said to be scared of him.’ After entering with the typical ‘curtain look’ (tiranokku) for the red-beard/demon type character, Imperialism announces that all nations must

join my camp, or I will destroy you one and all. In star-war (sic), with weapons new and in a novel fashion, I will reduce the world to ashes. Those that hope to live shall fall prostrate at my feet or face extermination.

During the third scene the Scientists ‘visit the demon’s den’ to try and convince him to make positive use of nuclear energy which is ‘best utilised for the good of Man. May you steer towards this glorious goal!’ Unconvinced by their arguments, and outraged by their reproof, Imperialism sends his attendants (‘Demons’) to capture the Scientists.

The fourth scene opens with World Conscience visiting the two female characters representing the peace movement.

FIRST FEMALE: Pray, lead us Lord, to work for Peace!

198 Contested narratives: new plays, discourses and contexts

While millions languish in poverty The affluent revel in luxury.

Let all wealth be shared by every one.

Let all exploitation be eradicated.

The peace workers convince World Conscience to confront Imperialism. In the fifth scene they fight a typical kathakali battle in which World Conscience defeats Imperialism, and in the clos-ing scene the victorious World Conscience is ‘re-ceived, felicitated, and coronated by the people.’² As part of the celebrations, the two female charac-ters dance a kummi, the lyrical kathakali female dance in which joy and youthful gaiety are ex-pressed. As the following song is sung by the onstage vocalists, there is a procession in which the red flag is brought to the stage:

May messages of Peace blossom! May a new epoch dawn!

Down with arms and ammunitions!

May new ideas bloom.

May nuclear energy enrich the earth! May the day be born without fear of war! May brotherhood spread everywhere! May we go forward singing songs of

Man’s victory!

May the Red Flag go up, proclaiming that the world is one!

In production the play lasted approximately two and a half hours, and was received with great en-thusiasm by its target audiences—left-front politi-cal audiences. Although highly critical of the pro-duction in general, independent critic/journalist Gopalakrishnan described how the Kannur audi-ence of over 1,000 ‘really enjoyed the production. Although there hadn’t been much overt response during most of the production, when the red flag came to the stage, there was a tremendous re-sponse because of the political commitment of the audience… [T]he audience forgot themselves when they saw the red flag!’ (interview, 1989).

PEOPLE’S VICTORY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE KERALA POLITICAL LAND-SCAPE

It is not surprising that the red flag was brought to the kathakali stage at the conclusion of this produc-

tion since it was in Kerala in 1957 that a commu-nist government was democratically brought to power for the first time when it collected 35 per-cent of the votes and won 60 of 125 seats up for election (Nossiter 1988:65, 1982:123). Given the vagaries of electoral politics in Kerala, since the declaration of Presidential Rule in 1959, which re-moved the communists from power after their ini-tial two-year experiment, the communists have from time to time shared power in the form of left and democratic fronts, recently from 1987 until the 1991 elections when they were swept out of power following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, and then again in the elections in 1995.³

Whether communists have been in or out of the official seat of power, since the 1950s commu-nist/socialist thought, discourse, and socio-economic policies have had an impact on the daily life of Malayalis. For example, the Agrarian Relations Bill, introduced by the Communist Party of India (CPI) but not passed until 1961 in a form modified ‘to accommodate land interests’ when the Congress-PSP ministry was in office, was nevertheless ‘the first comprehensive measure of its kind attempted in India’ and a self-conscious attempt by the CPI to abolish feudalism (Nossiter 1982:149–50).⁴ At least symbolically, if not actually, it helped disman-tle the feudalistic house-land-ruler complex de-scribed in Chapter 2 where power and wealth had traditionally been concentrated, and from which kathakali had received its patronage until the 1930s when institutional patronage began with the found-ing of the Kerala Kalamandalam.

During Kerala’s formative political years be-tween the 1930s and 1950s, progressive thinkers, many of whom were from the educated higher castes and communities and who became part of CPI, helped foster both a desire for awareness and reassessment of the social ills of the old feudalistic order. To accomplish the goal, political parties and special interest organizations have had a long his-tory of fostering educational, cultural, and artistic activities, usually under the guidance of the party or organization’s ‘cultural wing.’ As early as the founding of the Congress Socialist Party in 1934, new dramas (puthiya natakam) were performed as one strategy of leftist/socialist political education (Nossiter 1988:47–8). When the Kerala branch of the Communist Party of India (CPI) was born in 1939–40, along with other socialist parties it helped

establish literacy programs in the form of reading rooms which made available modern literary works of members of the Progressive Writers’ Associa-tion ‘in whose work social criticism dominated’, such as Kesava Dev’s From the Gutter (1942), and Thakazhi’s Scavenger’s Son (1947) and Two Measures of Rice (1948) (Nossiter 1982:95). The cultural wing of the Kerala branch of the CPI began to use so-cial dramas both to raise consciousness about so-cial ills, and to propagate potential socialist solu-tions for these ills, a strategy which led to the exist-ence today of two major professional theater com-panies playing repertories of socialist dramas each performance season—the pro-Soviet Kerala People’s Arts Company (KPAC) associated with the CPI, and the Kalidasa Kalakendra associated with the splinter CPI(M), pro-Chinese branch of the com-munist party (Richmond et al. 1990:392–3, 402– 3).⁵

Another CPI goal during these formative years was appreciation and preservation of ‘a purely Malayali’ Kerala’ (Nossiter 1982:94–5). Although Indian independence was won in 1947, it was not until 1956 with the passage of the States Reorgani-zation Act that the modern state of Kerala united Malayali speakers in a Malayali Kerala. As early as 1951 A.K.Gopalan, leader of the CPI in the Lok Sabha and a Malayali, ‘asserted that “India’s most important problem, the Communists’ No. 1 goal” was the formation of linguistic provinces’ (ibid.: 119). The Kerala CPI and other socialists contrib-uted to the formation and preservation of a Malayali Kerala not only through its Malayalam literacy programs, but also by valuing the preser-vation of Kerala’s traditional arts. The poet Vallathol’s valiant campaign to ‘save’ kathakali from extinction, due to loss of traditional forms of pa-tronage and simple neglect, helped establish kathakali, along with many other traditional arts, as a major bearer and symbol of Malayali culture.⁶ As discussed in Chapter 2, part of Vallathol’s strat-egy for preservation was to take kathakali outside of Kerala on national and international tours—a plan which not only brought badly needed revenue to an underfunded institution, but also brought in-creasing international recognition of kathakali as a performing art which could be appreciated by non-indigenous audiences as a great art form on a par with Japanese kabuki or noh, Peking opera, etc. As an ‘international’ art kathakali was a fillip to devel-

When marx met imperialism 199

oping a strong and distinctive pan-Kerala Malayali identity. These developments helped accentuate a linguistically and culturally based regional Malayali identity.

During this period there appears to have been no public recognition of what might be read from

1. Western liberal-humanist political stance as a ‘contradiction’ between progressive policies, such as attempts to redress the economic imbalances of the old feudalistic order through legislating land reform, and advocacy of government support for traditional arts like kathakali, which had been born in the crucible of that same feudalistic order. Among the CPI leadership there also appears to have been no public acknowledgment of the pos-sible contradiction between simultaneously sup-porting the production of new consciousness-rais-ing social dramas (natakam), and self-consciously preserving a traditional genre like kathakali since it was considered a totally different category of per-formance, i.e., not a new drama (puthiya natakam) but a performance which enacts (attua) stories (-katha). ‘Saving’ kathakali was thought of not sim-ply as preserving the past, but as an act of resist-ance against the disintegration of Malayali cul-tural, linguistic, and political heritage brought by the imposition of false political boundaries im-posed by colonial rule. Political and economic support of kathakali was actualized in fact when in 1957 the Kalamandalam, which from its establish-ment in 1930 had been on shaky financial grounds, was placed under Kerala State govern-ment management, and thereafter became a fi-nancial ward of the state receiving substantial sub-sidies whether those in power have been CPI, Congress, or a coalition of parties.

Although only further research can determine more precisely when this shift in thinking began to occur on the political left regarding their view of Kerala’s traditional arts, it is certain that by the late 1970s the potential ‘contradictions’ between leftist progressive social analysis and their reading of the past as a feudalistic system with regressive ritual/ religious beliefs began to be publicly articulated both in discourses about the traditional arts and in their use by leftist organizations. Founded in 1962 by a group of well-educated leaders in scientific fields in order to promote ‘Science for Social Revo-lution,’ the self-styled independent progressive grass-roots, activist organization Kerala Shastra Sahitya

200 Contested narratives: new plays, discourses and contexts

Parishad (KSSP) began to use familiar folk stories, songs, and dances in new performance contexts on its all-Kerala processions (jatha) in 1977 in order to raise consciousness among the masses in Kerala’s villages about a variety of contemporary social problems from environmental to educational to women’s issues. As theater education scholar Sharon Grady has eloquently explained, rather than ‘faithfully reproducing these stories and creating art for the sake of the gods, as was traditionally done, KSSP reworked these familiar tales to make art for the sake of social justice and political change’ (n.d.).

In several articles, South Asian performance scholar Wayne Ashley and anthropologist Regina Holloman have documented how during the early 1980s Northern Kerala’s most widespread form of traditional Hindu ritual/religious practice, teyyam (the generic name for the deities propitiated in calendrically determined ritual festivals, kaliyattam), began to be performed not only in its traditional ritual context, but also for ‘Kerala Tourist week, as an entertainment for a biology symposium, as part of the Folk Dance Festival during the Republic Day celebrations, at the opening ceremonies of the 1982 Asian Olympics in New Delhi, and at the Village Art Festival in Kerala sponsored by the Ford Foundation’ (1990:148).⁷ As teyyam’s low-caste performers themselves began to conduct teyyam outside its ex-clusive ritual context, others from outside the communities which traditionally held exclusive rights to perform and patronize teyyam began to use its stories and/or its representations of specific deities in new contexts. In 1981 the Natana Kala Kshetram, a theater company from Kannur, met violent opposition from one traditional teyyam pa-tron community when it rewrote ‘several sacred texts…of teyyam and turned them into popular dramas, complete with sound systems, smoke ef-fects, flashing lights, projections, and painted backdrops’ (ibid.: 149, 1982: passim). More impor-tant for purposes of my argument here, Ashley and Holloman also documented another non-tra-ditional recontextualization of teyyam by the CPI(M) which, for the 1981 May Day rally,

featured teyyam dancing after speeches were made against capitalism, corruption, and sup-pression. The plan to show teyyam dancing was

a conscious, well thought out attempt to strip the ritual of its efficacy by demonstrating that it could be performed out of context without ritu-als, priests or offerings. The Communist Party hoped to show, contrary to the villager’s be-liefs, that there would be no anger from the god, no consequences. Teyyam could be performed for fun. At the end of the dance, instead of call-ing important high caste members from the audience to come up and receive blessings, as the deity would do in the ritual context, he called local Communist Party members over the mi-crophone…

At the conclusion of his speech, the dancer told the spectators to turn their devotion to Namboodiripad, the general secretary of the Marxist Party, and to Nayanar, who was the chief minister of Kerala from 1980–81. The organizers of the rally told me they would like to see teyyam performed as an art form, as something enjoyable to watch detached from any kind of belief sys-tem. In their view, poverty, the continuing pres-ence of a caste system, and the manipulation of the masses by an upper-caste elite, is intimately bound with the performance of and belief in rituals, which keep the proletariat passive and dependent on a force outside themselves.

(1982:71–2, emphasis added)

Even if, as South Asian anthropologist John Richardson Freeman persuasively argues, such contestatory uses of teyyam are the exception rather than the rule (1991), the incident reflects the shift in left-front views of and discourses on these traditional arts.

It is clear that by the early 1980s at least some leaders among the CPI(M) and other progressive leftist organizations had begun to reassess their view of the traditional arts and the role such arts could/ should play in the life of their (ideal) modern so-cialist state. Leftist policy makers were faced with a difficult set of alternatives. If they summarily con-demned traditional arts as a counter-progressive legacy of the feudal past, and therefore, as hap-pened in radical Maoist China, banished ‘feudalist’ traditional arts from their (ideal) socialist state, they would be faced not only with the historical contra-diction of their own position which supported the creation of a Malayali Kerala, but also with the en-mity of those whose caste-specific identity is

invested in the powerful, highly public symbols of caste-specific performances like teyyam or kathakali. In short, it would be political suicide simply to re-ject such traditional arts.

CREATING A NON-FEUDAL, DE-HISTORIZED, NON-SUPERSTITIOUS KATHAKALI ‘FOR THE PEOPLE’

What gradually began to emerge was the argu-ment that the traditional arts should continue to be valued and patronized, but only if they were historically decontextualized, shorn of the ves-tiges of the regressive feudalistic, superstitious be-lief systems of the past, and made accessible to ‘the people’ with new content. Iyyamgode Sridharan, speaking of the 1988 Kathakali King Lear experiment while on tour in Europe after he became Secretary of the Kalamandalam in 1987,⁸ wrote in one of Kerala’s daily newspapers Mathrabhumi for local consumption:

It is the need of the times to free our art from the clutches of religion and orthodox beliefs. The main culprits behind India’s problems to-day are the activities of these disguised religious fundamentalists… In the birth and development of almost all art forms, religious rituals may have had a role. But these legacies have been thrown away by many of the art forms which are now expressing their own independence. The best example is kathakali itself where there is no dif-ference between the gods, spirits, and demons. Kathakali considered Krishna and Rama only as kathakali characters which Hindus consider gods… Based on the fact that kathakali is a great art form, [Europeans] only consider its histri-onic techniques… People from almost all parts of the world have come to know about kathakali not because this is a religiously bound art.

(1989)

In his more recent 1995 experiment, Message of Love (Sneehasandesham), Iyyamgode chose to bring such a new, ‘independent interpretation of Krishna’ to the kathakali stage.⁹ In Message of Love he creates a highly charged counter-reading of Krishna’s mythological past. Iyyemgode bases his interpretation of Krishna on the assumption that

When marx met imperialism 201

the ‘dark’ lord Krishna as he first appears in the Rig Veda belongs to the non-Aryan race, and therefore his original role should be read not so much as divine, but as a ‘leader of the downtrod-den.’

In the first scene of Message of Love Krishna re-turns to Mathura filled with fond memories of his childhood. His beloved Radha greets him, only to reveal with great pathos that while Dashakarma has been king enmity has been sown between the castes, untouchability has been introduced, and the number of major sacrificial rituals has been in-creased. Krishna goads his lethargic brother, Balarama, who has done nothing about the situa-tion in his absence:

Now you’re sleeping and taking liquor. Why are you keeping silent about casteism?

Krishna reminds Balarama that the ritual and sacrifices favored by the high castes are nonsense, and that the truth is pursued through knowledge. The high castes instigate a fight among the lower castes, leading to the destruction of one of their temples. Krishna appears, advising them not to attack each other since the human body is the greatest temple. When King Dashakarma begins a major sacrificial ritual in which Lokayatha, the holy man who originally spoke out against the ef-ficacy of such gaudy, expensive sacrifices, is about to be sacrificed himself, Balarama inter-venes, killing both Dashakarma and his chief minister, and saving Lokayatha. Krishna and Radha appear in the final tableau, congratulating Balarama. Krishna describes his vision of a world without class, caste, prejudice, or discrimina-tion.¹⁰

In stark contrast to his representation in all other kathakali plays such as The Progeny of Krishna, Krishna is presented not simply as a major devotional fig-ure, but also as a leader of the socially downtrod-den, and therefore as a voice of conscience. Al-though set in the mythological past, scenes and dialogue make specific reference to the contempo-rary political landscape, especially to the destruc-tion of the Babri-Masjid temple, and the ascent and increasing influence of the Hindu, fundamentalist/ nationalist right party (BJP: Bharatiya Janatha Party).¹¹ Iyyamgode sees Message of Love as another phase of his life-long ‘fight against fanaticism’ in

202 Contested narratives: new plays, discourses and contexts

the form of the Hindu right’s fundamental nation-alism.

Revivalist forces are trying to divide people and this is why Indian democracy is having prob-lems. So as an artist I wanted to work indirectly through art to help resolve this increasing divi-sion.

(1993, interview)

In the contemporary socio-political battle over fundamentalism within India, Iyyamgode’s Mes-sage of Love was one attempt in Kerala to provide a leftist interpretation of epic and puranic content as a counterpoint to the ascent and growing politi-cal influence of the Hindu right.

In his attempts to dehistoricize and decontextualize the traditional arts, Iyyamgode Sridharan assumes that the artistic ideal is the crea-tion of (a modernist) ‘universal’ art, which leaves behind its cultural markings, is able to cross cul-tural boundaries, and shed its traditional religious associations. Sridharan’s interpretation tries to un-couple kathakali from its Hindu religious roots. His discourse claims an exclusive spectatorial position which reads its characters as characters, leaving no room for those spectators who, as devotees of Rama or Krishna attending a temple performance, might still view and experience the appearance of Rama or Krishna with reverence and the ubiquitous ges-ture of obeisance to these gods with folded hands, even if such individuals are not part of the Hindu nationalist/fundamentalist right. He uses Western appreciation of kathakali as a justification for reject-ing its traditional religious resonances, thereby ac-cepting and projecting onto kathakali a (Western) dichotomy between the sacred and the secular—a dichotomy increasingly part of India’s political land-scape. In this intercultural circulation of modernist aesthetic and political discourses, for Iyyamgode Sridharan and some other leftists, kathakali has be-come what literary theorist Terry Eagleton de-scribes as a commodity ‘in the market place [which exists] for nothing and nobody in particular, and can consequently be rationalized, ideologically speaking, as existing entirely and gloriously for [it-self]’ (1990:9).

This is the logic which gave birth to the Kerala Kalabhavan with its explicit agenda of not simply preserving the classical arts like so many other in-

stitutions such as the Kerala Kalamandalam, but rather bringing these classical arts ‘to the people.’ Its productions of Iyyamgode Sridharan’s People’s Victory in 1987, and of Message of Love in 1995 were experiments in realizing these goals. According to former CPI Chief Minister E.M.S.Nam-boodiripad, the initial 1987 revisionist production of People’s Victory attempted to ‘make kathakali a people’s art,’ by shearing it from its feudal, ritualis-tic past by cutting the preliminary ritual verses, dances, and lighting of the brass oil lamp, which traditionally began a kathakali performance, and by enacting a content based on ‘present day is-sues’ rather than ‘themes mythological which [kathakali] usually enacts.’¹² Namboodiripad uses the poet Vallathol to authorize his point of view, claiming that because of Vallathol’s involvement in the precedent-setting experiment, The Killing of Hitler, he had ‘demolished the myth that kathakali could only depict stories from mythology and proved that kathakali could be linked with the present day issues.’¹³

LOCAL DEBATES AND CONTROVER-SIES AROUND PEOPLE’S VICTORY

With the highest literacy rate in India (70 percent in 1981), and the largest circulation of Indian lan-guage newspapers in India (1.3 million in 1978–

1. (Nossiter 1988:57), after the opening of People’s Victory in 1987 the Malayalam dailies were filled with debates about the production which re-flected the fact that, as reception theorist Susan Bennett has asserted, ‘within cultural boundaries, there are obviously different viewing publics’ (1990:101). No such discussions occurred in En-glish language papers in India, which summarily ignored the production and the issues it gener-ated. Iyyamgode Sridharan’s People’s Victory clearly postulated a particular Malayali political audience as its ideal public, and it was for that particular audience that its potential for meaning was most realized. As discussed in Chapter 9, public debate over the nature and limits of change and experimentation in kathakali has al-ways defined itself as acceptable and even desired when taking place ‘from within the tradition’ (Kurup 1966–67:25–31). People’s Victory de-em-phasized the pleasures of tasting the aesthetic

delights of rasa, the experience of virtuosic real-ization of the nuance of technique, and precluded traditional narratological pleasure by substituting a contemporary political morality play for an epic story. Setting himself up as a spokesman for the ‘average [i.e., traditional] kathakali audience,’ Gopalakrishnan, while appreciating the vocalists singing of the text set to ‘popular ragas…with beautiful efficiency,’ criticized the production for the fact that ‘the actors just don’t have much to do’, and argued that since kathakali is defined as ‘playing a story,’ and its literature is called attakatha, meaning ‘a story (katha) for performing (attua),’ this is a kathakali ‘without any story!’ (1987). S.Sunderdass critiqued the production for its lack of realizing the subtleties of characteriza-tion appreciated by kathakali connoisseurs:

Although kathakali characters are types, never-theless they are something more than a simple type. Is it because of this that Nala, Damayanti, Draupadi, etc. are living on the stage and in our minds? This truth they either forget or tried to forget. This is the failure of People’s Victory. World Conscience and Imperialism never rise above the limitations of type.

(1987)

The critique’s emphasis on characters who live in the spectator’s ‘mind’ and rise ‘above the limita-tions of type’ refers, as we have seen, to the cur-rent demand for performances which elaborate and emphasize the interior life of kathakali charac-ters as exemplified in plays like Nalacaritam and King Rugmamgada’s Law.

Both Sunderdass and Gopalakrishnan chal-lenged the production’s claim that it was making kathakali popular. Gopalakrishnan asked, ‘Is it by changing the classical frames of this classical art that it will be made popular? Or will it lose its clas-sical nature?’ (1987). Gopalakrishnan and Sunderdass reached the similar conclusion that (in Gopalakrishnan’s words) ‘all contemporary events are another version of the stories of old with slight differences’ (1987), and (in Sunderdass’s words) that traditional epic characters like Ravanna already represent concepts like Imperialism (1987). For these critics, to tout the potential ‘loss’ of what makes kathakali ‘classical’ stakes their claim to the high moral ground as they ostensibly ‘protect’ what

When marx met imperialism 203

they view as the essential nature of the art and its mode of appreciation.

In contrast, for those on the left, People’s Victory contained many pleasures. Mathrabhumi’s critic de-scribed the production as ‘a very successful effort to modernize kathakali’ which, other than a few ‘minus points…can be regarded as a beautiful epic’; accounted for that success by citing the playwright’s ability to exploit kathakali’s use of representative character types in introducing contemporary con-cepts onto the stage; and finally hailed the produc-tion as ‘changing the history of kathakali’ (Asema 1987). For its ideal spectators—members of the po-litical left—People’s Victory self-consciously empha-sized the pleasure of experiencing narratological elaboration of its single metanarrative—the triumph of a particular form of good (communism) over a particular manifestation of evil (imperialism). For these spectators, their superhuman heroes are not those of India’s epic past played out with increas-ing emphasis on the subtleties of the interior life of its main characters, but of the (then) revolutionary ‘epic’ present. With communists and their activist organizations such as K.S.S.P. advocating ‘science’ in all its forms, including nuclear power, as the savior of ‘the people,’ as surely as epic heroes like Rama, Krishna, or Arjuna resonate for those whose referential universe still encompasses their right-ing of the cosmic wrongs of the universe in the cosmological lila (play) of the gods, just as assur-edly in 1987 did World Conscience’s victory over Imperialism resonate with the deeply profound cosmological ‘truth’ which inevitably brought this particular portion of the audience to its feet not for the appearance of Lord Krishna, but as the red flag, symbol of this metanarrative, was brought to the stage.

Given the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the 1987 production of People’s Victory will no doubt remain a historical anomaly. Were it played again today, it would no doubt seem an anachronism, even to devout Kerala communists. Nevertheless, this 1987 production illustrates how certain specific cultural performances become are-nas for socio-political contestation and debate at the particular moment of their production and re-ception. On this site leftist politicians and perform-ers played out a melodramatic morality play in which their version of ‘good’ triumphed over ‘evil’— at the geopolitical level Communism defeated

204 Contested narratives: new plays, discourses and contexts

Imperialism/Capitalism. This discourse and metanarrative melodramatically defines an ‘us’ as different from ‘them.’ Using kathakali to play out this cosmic battle not only theatrically reflects differ-ences, but also further separates and establishes opposing socio-political factions in the Kerala po-litical world. Given the political realities of 1987, the ‘us’ of the left-front state government was set over against the ‘them’ of Congress, which in turn was implicitly associated with both the central gov-ernment and American imperialism. At the histori-cal moment of this particular production, the kathakali stage became a platform for the expres-sion of a spirited discourse of resistance to the center, and a moment of galvanization for Kerala’s left.

CRITICAL RECEPTION OF MESSAGE OF LOVE: THE CONTINUING POLITI-CAL AND AESTHETIC DEBATES

Iyyamgode’s 1995 production of Message of Love provoked nearly as much controversy as his first experiment; however, given Message of Love’s re-imagination of Krishna—perhaps India’s most popular avatar of Vishnu—as representing the downtrodden, the attacks on the production came not only from kathakali critics, but also from the religious/political right. Similar in response to ear-lier leftist revisioning of teyyam, and as reported to me by Iyyemgode, at an open session for critical responses to the Palakkad production, P.Parameswaran, leader and theoretician of Kerala’s far radical right/fundamentalist RSS, criticized the production for ‘insulting Krishna by making him working class. Although I appreciate Iyyamgode’s experiments, and certainly there are working class devotees of Krishna, making Krishna working class is insulting!’

Given Iyyamgode’s use of traditional puranic source material for this production, the criticism from kathakali critics and journalists shifted from content to characterization. V.Kaladharan began his review by commending Iyyamgode for the ‘highly imaginative’ first scene which enacted for the first time on the kathakali stage the reunion be-tween Krishna and Radha (1993). Kaladharan praised the scene as a ‘great achievement’ for its dramatic exploration of Radha’s state of pathos,

performed within the confines of the traditional structure of kathakali. However, for Kaladharan, scenes after the first, and therefore the production as a whole failed to achieve Iyyamgode’s revolu-tionary goal of ‘creating a new consciousness for the audience’ for several reasons. Using arguments similar to those garnered against Kathakali King Lear, Kaladharan asserts that ‘kathakali has its own form and structure’ which fails ‘to allow him to bring something new to communicate to people in this story.’ More specifically, he argues that kathakali’s gestures, modes of expression, etc. are ‘not appro-priate’ ‘for conveying the feelings of a man (Krishna) who feels responsible for the working class’ (ibid.: 16). Most significantly, Kaladharan thinks the production fails because each kathakali role has its own set of traditional associations for the audience which preclude the audience from seeing such traditional characters behave or have concerns which do not fit their traditional set of associations. As Kaladharan explains, the Krishna of The Killing of Duryodhana or the Balarama of Subhadra Haranam, when compared to the same two characters in Message of Love, are ‘from two differ-ent worlds’—a fact which precludes ‘the possibility of creating a new philosophy’ (ibid.: 16).

Although Iyyamgode Sridharan’s political and aesthetic voice is clearly far from the primary aes-thetic interests and concerns of its most traditional audience of connoisseurs who continue to pursue an ever-evolving aesthetic founded on the funda-mental principles of elaboration and appropriate-ness, his experiments—from his 1987 production of People’s Victory, through his translations of Kathakali King Lear (1989) and The Iliad (1990) while Secretary of the Kalamandalam, to his most recent production of Message of Love (1995)—illuminate some of the ways in which a traditional art like kathakali is being negotiated within Kerala’s con-temporary socio-political environment. It is impor-tant to remember that Iyyamgode Sridharan’s ex-periments have all involved some of the most re-spected kathakali artists, many of whom have will-ingly and/or enthusiastically been involved in these experiments, and some of whom see no contradic-tion between their performances in traditional plays and engaging in such experiments.¹⁴ Although it is unclear whether these leftist experiments with kathakali content and interpretation will continue or not, what is definitely clear is that the debates

fostered by such experiments are becoming increas-ingly acrimonious, the binaries increasingly oppositional, and the demons increasingly de-monic.

Implicit throughout these last two chapters is the assumption that in a post-modern, post-colo-nial world our readings of non-Western perform-ance traditions like kathakali must transcend the limi-tations of earlier narrowly defined genre-based stud-ies which might accept at face value the hegemonic

When marx met imperialism 205

discourse of an aesthetic elite and their interpreta-tion of their art as singular and natural. People’s Vic-tory and Message of Love both clearly illustrate how important it is to situate productions within the his-torical and socio-political particulars of each con-text so that the variety of subject positions from which interested discourses of theatrical practice, interpretation, and reception are constructed can be clearly identified, and the implicit ideologies of each position discussed.

afterword

whose gods,

and whose

demons dance?

Who are today’s gods and demons that come to play on the kathakali stage? And who is defining what constitutes the kathakali ‘stage’ today? An-swering these questions depends, of course, on one’s perspective. As discussed in Chapter 2, kathakali has always been (re)shaped within the nexus of socittal, political, economic, and cultural formations which constantly impinge on its pro-duction and reception within Kerala. Chapters 9 and 10 detailed some of the inevitable encounters of a ‘traditional’ art like kathakali with newly emergent realities which have prompted/necessi-tated further shifts and changes. In contemporary India, amidst the increasingly ‘global’ market-place in which the kathakali stage is defined today, and from my perspective as a Western theatre-di-rector/academic, these cannot but be open-ended questions to be constantly revisited.

Within Kerala’s immediately ‘local’ spheres of influence, interpretation, and contestation, the gods and demons that play on the kathakali stage continue to be primarily those of the epic and puranic traditions. Even though their experiences of these epic gods, demons, and heroes are very different, the ‘traditional’ stories and characters are those favored by connoisseurs as well as West-ern tourists alike on the kathakali stages of Kerala. Cultural organizations and kathakali institutions like Margi, Drisyavedi, etc. continue to define the

parameters of what can and should legitimately play on the kathakali stage within a fairly narrow range of ‘what is appropriate.’ Producers of tourist kathakali programs at Kovalam Beach and the port cities of Kochi/Ernakulam continue to play on Western tourist desires for a romance of an an-tique past as they package one-hour kathakali pro-grams (Zarrilli 1977). Other cultural organiza-tions, such as Iyyamgode Sridharan’s Kerala Kalabhavan, or on occasion the Kerala Kalamandalam, with their quite different relation-ship to the contemporary political realities of Kerala, will continue to push at the edges of ‘what is’ or is not considered appropriate, and take kathakali to new content, and occasionally to non-traditional audiences, even within Kerala.

In the face of the stridency of the political re-alities shaped by an ever-hardening religious na-tionalism (van der Veer 1994), the ‘play’ of the gods is being revisited throughout India as well as in Kerala, whether in Iyyamgode Sridharan’s reimagination of Krishna in Message of Love, or in Maya Krishna Rao’s remarkable recent solo per-formance, ‘Khol Do,’ first performed in 1993. On 9 April 1999, I was fortunate enough to see Maya Krishna Rao’s ‘Khol Do’—an original dance-theatre performance inspired by the short story by Saadat Hasan Manto, and created out of her years of training and performance of

kathakali. Trained at the International Centre for Kathakali in New Delhi from a young age, Maya Rao learned kathakali from such excellent tradi-tional masters as Guru Madhava Panikkar who came to the New Delhi Centre on its creation in 1960 (Zarrilli 1984a: 304–8). These master teachers introduced her to kathakali, not through the female roles, but rather through the strong male roles, providing her with a firm foundation in the ‘strong’ (tandava) aspects of playing kathakali characters. Only later in her training did she begin to learn, and discover the joys, of the repertory’s female roles. Throughout her years of performance and teaching, often at the National School of Drama in New Delhi, Maya Rao’s work has been inspired by and based on her kathakali training.

In her program note for a performance in Ab-erystwyth, Wales sponsored by the Centre for Per-formance Research in conjunction with the Per-formance Studies International conference, Rao relates the story behind her adaptation of ‘Khol Do’:

‘Khol Do’ is set in the riots that ended the divi-sion of India and the creation of a new state, Pakistan. Millions left their homes to cross the new border to make a new home. Sirajuddin was one such who left India and travelled by train to Lahore. By the time he got off, he was near unconscious. For days he sat on the plat-form staring at the dusty sky. Where was his daughter Sakina? When had he got parted from her? He could only remember the run-ning crowd and Sakina’s dupatta or veil, falling to the ground. When he turned to pick it up she had urged yelling in the melee, ‘Don’t bother with it.’ In the refugee camp, the heavily armed eight young male volunteers had been solicitous. ‘If Sakina is alive we will find her for you,’ they had said reassuringly. How was old Sirajuddin to know they had already found her but they were not through with her, yet? (Rao 1999).

While inspired by this story, her performance—the first of a series of solo performances she began to create in 1993—is neither an exercise in story-tell-ing nor a kathakali-style enactment of the story. In

Afterword 207

this sense it is not kathakali in the way that Kathakali King Lear, People’s Victory or Message of Love are kathakali in technique and conventions, if not in content. As Rao explains, she is taking a differ-ent path through kathakali: ‘here I am looking for a physical language, where every action may set off different signals of experience. The eventual form is not kathakali, yet it is inspired by it.’

But it is also not kathakali. Occasionally during the performance, specific kathakali gestures, facittal expressions, and/or choreography emerge, but only as part of an integrated fabric of this to-tally physicalized performance developed out of a lengthy process of improvisation. During the crea-tive process of devising the performance, ‘I kept trying physical actions to generate that range of thought and emotions that are part of the atmos-phere of the story. The result is, single gestures may have no particular meaning, but resonances that create multiple meanings’ (Rao 1999). What is at the core of her process is kathakali’s mode of ‘interior’ acting—the total engagement of the per-former’s bodymind through the breath/energy in physicalization of the state/task/action at-hand. As discussed throughout this book, this is a non-psy-chologically based mode of engagement. It is Maya Rao’s intuitive utilization of this mode of internal engagement in her process of improvisa-tion and physicalization of action that gives her work its dynamism, and its contemporary resonances. Rao herself describes the problem and process of attempting to discover how ‘to shift dance energy to a moment in a person’s life when words are not being used to signal the tran-sition’ (Rao 1999).

Maya Rao’s ‘Khol Do’ is an example of yet another new direction in experimentation with kathakali—the creative use of its interior, psycho-physiological, preperformative base of engage-ment in the physicalization of action that does not need to be continuously marked by kathakali tech-nique or traditional kathakali/epic content. Rao’s strength as a performer rests both in her engage-ment wtih kathakali’s underlying psychophysi-ological technique and in her creative application of this base to new contexts and content—a con-tent with strong resonances today in a world in-creasingly terrorized by the same forces of hatred unleashed during the period of partition. Rao’s

208 Afterword

work is unrelenting in its acts of forceful physicalization, and in communicating through her body the pathos and terror of the experience of dislocation. Easier said than done. These con-temporary demons dance on Rao’s kathakali stage

in their full terror, and some among the contem-porary, primarily non-Malayali audiences that see ‘Khol Do’ will experience a destruction as com-plete as that of the goddess Kali.

appendix

kathakali

performances

on video

VIDEOS AVAILABLE FOR RENTAL

1. ‘Introduction to Kathakali Dance-Drama’ An introduction to kathakali dance-drama recorded on location in Kerala including make-up types, instruments, performance context, and exten-sive footage of the process and techniques of training. Narrative by Phillip B.Zarrilli. 30 minutes, 1/2” videotape, color.
2. ‘Plays from the Kathakali Repertory in Trans-lation and Performance Series’ includes:

1 The Flower of Good Fortune (Kalyanasaugandhikam)

by Kottayam Tampuran Featuring:

Gopi Asan as Bhima Sivadasan as Panchali Ramankutty Nayar as Hanuman

Recorded at Killimangalam, Kerala, 13 May 1993.

Sponsor: Killimangalam Documentation Centre for the Performing Arts. Approximately 4 hours, 1/2” videotape, color.

2 The Killing of Kirmira (Kirmiravadham.) by Kottayam Tampuran Featuring:

Nelliyode Vasudevan Namboodiripad as Simhika

Margi Vijayakumar as Simhika in disguise Ramachandran Pilla as Kirmira Recorded at Tirtapatta Mandapam, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, 1995.

Sponsor: Drishyavedi and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Kerala Performing Arts Summer Program.

Approximately 4 hours, 1/2” videotape, color. 3 The Progeny of Krishna (Santanagopalam) by Mantavappalli Ittiraricha Menon Featuring:

M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri as the Brahman Balasubramanian as Arjuna

Recorded at Killimangalam, Kerala, 17 May 1993.

Sponsor: Killimangalam Documentation Centre for the Performing Arts. Approximately 4 hours, 1/2” videotape, color.

4 King Rugmamgada’s Law

(Rugmamgadacaritam)

by Mantavappalli Ittiraricha Menon Featuring:

Gopi Asan as Rugmamgada Margi Vijayakumar as Mohini Recorded at Killimangalam, Kerala, 28 August 1993.

Sponsor: Killimangalam Documentation Centre for the Performing Arts. Approximately 4 hours, 1/2” videotape, color.

1. 1/2” PAL or NTSC video copies of the above are available for rental in three locations: In-dia, UK or U.S. from:

1 Centre for the Documentation of Performing Arts P.O.Killimangalam

210 Appendix

Kerala 680 591 INDIA Telephone: 91–488–452292

2 The Centre for Performance Research,

8H Science Park

Dyfed, Aberystwyth SY23 3 AH Wales, UK

Telephone: 44–1970–622133

Fax: 44–1970–622132

email: cprwww@aber.ac.uk

3 Center for South Asia, Film/Videotape Distribution Office

University of Wisconsin-Madison 203 Ingraham Hall

Madison, Wisconsin 53706 Telephone: 608–262–4884 Fax: 608–265–3062

PERFORMANCE VIDEOS FOR SALE

Of the above five videos available for rental, due to copyright restrictions and permissions, only In-troduction to Kathakali and The Killing of Kirmira are available for purchase from Routledge and the Centre for Performance Research (see 2, above)

ARCHIVAL VIDEOTAPES OF KATHAKALI AND OTHER KERALA PERFORMANCES

In addition to documentation of the performances available for rental noted above, also during 1993 and 1995, and in collaboration with the Killimangalam Centre for the Documentation of Kerala’s Performing Arts, many other perfor-mances were documented. A list of these perfor-mances is provided below. Copies either are pres-ently, or will eventually be made available at one of the following two archives:

1 The Centre for the Documentation of Performing Arts, Kerala, India

Still seeking sufficient funds to open a fully operable archive. For information about the Center, its activities and needs, and what documents and videos (PAL format) are available at this time please contact the President, K.Vasudevan Namboodiripad; Secretary, M.P.S.Namboodiri; or Technical Director, Kunju Vasudevan at the above address.

2 The AIIS (American Institute of Indian

Studies) Archive for Ethnomusicology

One of the most important fully operational

and well-managed performing arts archives

in India. It houses an extensive collection of

ethnographic field documents in audio and

video formats, as well as a significant

collection of books and journals on the

performing arts of South Asia. For further

information contact: Shubha Chaudhuri, Director AIIS Archives and Centre for Ethnomusicology

22, HUDA Institutional Area

Sector 32 Gurgaon, Harayana, INDIA Telephone: 91–11–381384, 381424 email: rkiv@arce.ernet.in or shubha@arce.ernet.in fax: 91–11–4698150

ADDITIONAL KATHAKALI PERFOR-MANCES

1 Lavana suravadham 5/4/93

Location: Saastaamkadav, Aavanaav

meriyamana Trissur District

Featuring: M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri as

Hanuman

2 Duryodhanavadham 5/4/93 Location: Saastaamkadav, Aavanaav meriyamana Trissur District

3 Thoranayudham 5/13/93 (two scenes only: ‘Azhakiya Ravana’ scene with Mandodari, and Ravana/Sita/Mandodari) Location: Killimangalam, Kerala

Featuring: Padmanabhan Nayar as Ravana 4 Kirmi¯ravadham 5/14/93 (Lalitha/Panchali scene)

Location: Killimangalam, Kerala Featuring: Kottakkal Sivaraman as Lalitha Kesvan Namboodiri as Panchali

5 Kalakeyavadham 5/14/93 (three scenes only, including ‘Swargavauranan’) Location: Killimangalam, Kerala

Featuring: Padmanabhan Nayar as Arjuna

6 Lavana suravadham (two scenes only)

Location: Killimangalam, Kerala

Featuring: Keezhpadam K.R.Kumaran

Nayar as Hanuman

Kottakkal Sivaraman as Sita

		Appendix 211
7 Rajasuyam 5/14/93 (two scenes only)	OTHER GENRES
Location: Killimangalam, Kerala
Featuring: Nelliyode Vasudevan	Mohiniattam and Ottanthullal 4/28/93
Namboodiripad as Jarasandha	Kalamandalam Artists sponsored by David
8 Bakavadham (Bhima/Baka scene only)	Bolland, filmed at Old Kalamandalam
Location: Killimangalam, Kerala	Mohiniattam:
Featuring: Nelliyode Vasudevan	Featuring: Leelaama and Hymavathi
Namboodiripad as Baka	Ottanthullul:
Kottakkal Unnikrishnan as Bhima	Featuring: Geethanandan
9 Purappatu and Melappadam 5/16/93	a. Kalyanasaughandhikam (selections)
Location: Killimangalam, Kerala	b. Kiratam (selections)
Featuring: Gopalakrishnan and	Trissur Puram 5/1/93
Balasubramanian dancing	Location: Trissur City
Vocalists: Gangadharan, Madambi	Teyyam 5/1/93
Centa: Unnikrishnan, Kottakkal Sasi	Location: Vellore, Payyannur, Kannur
Maddalam: Narayanan Nambisan, Ravi	District
10 Nalacaritam Day 2 5/16/93	Includes:
Location: Killimangalam, Kerala	1	Kelam Kulanghara Kandabhagavati
Featuring: Gopi Asan as Nala		Totam
Kottakkal Sivaraman as Damayanti	2	Periyat Chamundi Totam
Nelliyode Vasudevan Namboodiripad as Kali	3	Vishnumurti Totam
11 Balivadham 5/16/93	4 Periyatt Kandar (Scholar) Totam
Location: Killimangalam, Kerala	5	Bhagavati Teyyam
12 Balivijayan 5/17/93	6	Make-up and Teyyam—Chamundi
Location: Killimangalam, Kerala	Mohiniattam 5/16/93
Featuring: Raman Kutty Nayar as Ravana	Location: Killimangalam, Kerala
M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri as Narada	Featuring: Kalamandalam Sathyabhama
Kavungal Divakaran as Bali	Vocalist: Ambika
13 Santanagopalam 6/19/93	Mridangam: Sivadas
Location: Tirtapatta Mandapam, East Fort,	Nattuvangam: Kalamandalam Leelamma
Thiruvananthapuram	Ottanthullal: Santanagopalam 5/16/93
14 Kirmiravadham 7/17/93	Location: Killimangalam, Kerala
Location: Tirtapatta Mandapam, East Fort,	Featuring: Kalamandalam Devaki
Thiruvananthapuram	Vocalists: Guru Devakaran Nair Sarojini
15 Sitaswayamvaram 11/28/93	Mridangam: Nelluvaya Nambisan
Location: Killimangalam, Kerala	Kerala Shadow Puppet Performance 27 August
Featuring: Manojkumar as Viswamithra	1993
Ettumanoor Kannan as Rama	Location: Killimangalam, Kerala
M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri as Parasurama	Featuring:
16 Prahladacaritam	Vocalist: Vazhanath Balan Nair
Location: Killimangalam, Kerala	Organizer: P.Unnikkrishnan
Featuring: Vijayan as Hiranyakasipu	Performer: Chandran
Pradeepkumar as Prahlada	Drummer: Gunasekharan
Vadu Pisharody as Narasimha

notes

1 AN ‘OCEAN OF POSSIBILITIES’

1. Considerable differences of opinion exist among scholars of Malayalam literary history on Unnayi Variyar’s precise dates. K.P.S.Menon suggests the provisional dates of 1675–1716, making him a contemporary of Kottayam Tampuran (1645–1716) (1957:112), and C.V. Subramania Iyer gives his dates as 1674–1735 (1977:13). K.M.George asserts that Nalacaritam was written ‘immediately after the Kottayam works’ (1968:102), while Krishna Chaitanya posits a much later date, ‘some time during the second quarter of the eighteenth century’ (1971:106).
2. Similar to commissioning a Krishnattam perfor-mance at Guruvayur Temple as an offering to Lord Krishna, at Panavalli Temple near Alleppey, The Progeny of Krishna is at least occa-sionally commissioned as an offering to the de-ity. It was at the Panavalli Temple that Kunju Nayar Asan used to perform the Brahmin role as a personal offering. When performing a role as a personal offering, the actor never accepts a fee for his performance, and only receives re-imbursement for his travel.
3. For recent studies of South Asian folkloristics relevant to the issues raised here, and espe-cittally to context sensitivity and affect, see Appadurai (1991); Blackburn and Ramanujan

(1986); Blackburn (1988); Blackburn et al.

(1988); Claus and Korom (1991); Claus et al.

(1987); Flueckiger (1988); Ramanujan (1990).

1. As Frederique Marglin points out, the category ‘Indian Classical Dance’ was invented as a re-sult of turn-of-the-century socittal reform movements which helped create modern per-forming arts institutions: ‘the adjective classical reflects the Western model of the reformers: Indian Classical Dance connotes a status on a par with Western Classical Ballet’ (1985:2–3). In part, this representation of some traditional arts as ‘classical’ was a response to the dispar-agement of these arts by a newly British-edu-cated class. As discussed in Chapter 4 in detail and witnessed in Kathakali: The Art of the Non-Worldly (Nair and Paniker 1993), equally prob-lematic is the representation of kathakali as ex-clusively appealing to a refined audience of connoisseurs.
2. The puranas are a diverse collection of wisdom and stories which, along with the epics, ‘be-came the bibles of popular Hinduism’ (De Bary 1958:323). They are the sources of many modes of storytelling and performance. Of the eighteen major and eighteen minor puranas, the Bhagavata Purana is the most popular and widely circulated. Especittally dear to devotees

of Vishnu, this purana tells the story of the life of Lord Krishna.

1. Although women (Nangyars) traditionally per-form female roles (except for demonesses) in Kerala’s kutiyattam and nangyar kuttu, for reasons to be discussed below, until the recent estab-lishment of an all-women’s troupe (Tripunithura Kathakali Kendra), women have only occasionally performed on the kathakali stage. For analyses of women kathakali per-formers and issues of gender in the perfor-mance of kathakali, see Daugherty and Pitkow (1991), and especittally Pitkow’s excellent Ph.D. dissertation, ‘Representations of the Feminine in kathakali: Dance-Drama of Kerala, South India’ (1998).
2. According to Patrice Pavis, a ‘macrostructural narrative’ is one which sums up either a scene or even an entire play (1989:50).
3. Although kings, princes, and demon-kings are often represented as marshalling their armies for war, especittally in the ‘set’ choreography of ‘preparing for battle,’ the vast majority of kathakali killings take the form of one-on-one (or occasionallly one-on-two) combat. There are only a few plays in the repertory with ‘war’ and not ‘killing’ in their titles (Banayudham and Toranayudham).
4. The Malayalam word vadham literally means the act of killing, not ‘death.’
5. For further discussion of the significance of kingship in South Asia see the essays in Richards (1981).
6. Warrier’s recollection of the enthusiastic crowds attending performances in his youth must be balanced by other accounts, such as K.P.S.Menon who recalls that in spite of large crowds attending kathakali performances in the 1920s, ‘it would be wrong to think that all those who flocked to see a kathakali perfor-mance, then held in the open air, apprecittated the art. For one kathakali lover who can appre-cittate the beauty of the choliattam…there are hundreds who, insensible to such delights, are satisfied with gazing at actors doing their make-up or watching the drummers, or are fas-cinated by the noisy stage-entry of a tadi

Notes 213

(bearded) character. Thus the masses, easily pleased, rule the hour’ (1978:84).

12 These gender and caste-based restrictions on intermingling precluded all but exceptional women from entering the kathakali stage. Pre-menstrual Nayar girls freely intermingled with boys as both trained in the martial art, kalarippayattu (Zarrilli 1998); however, as soon as girls began to menstruate they were consid-ered polluting, could not enter the kalari while menstruating since it was a temple as well as training and healing space, and became ‘dan-gerous’ because of their sexually active state. For these and a variety of other reasons, as Marlene Pitkow argues, ‘female purity was… essential to the well-being and prosperity of the taravad (extended family) and many socittal practices were designed to protect it’ (Pitkow 1998:60). Circumscribing female movement whether within the household proper, or when travelling, ‘protected’ the women of one’s household, and therefore protected the ‘pros-perity’/purity of a household (see Moore 1983).

13 Like many other cities and towns throughout India, during British rule indigenous names like the capital city of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, were Anglicized in shortened and/or simplified versions such as ‘Trivandrum.’

14 When Milton Singer first proposed the cat-egory ‘cultural performance,’ he applied it to discrete items of performance which encapsu-late and exhibit ‘elementary constituents of the culture’ (1972:7). The postmodern turn in an-thropology has problematized the modernist notion of culture as a relatively stable category, as well as of cultural performances as ‘encapsu-lating’ ‘elementary constituents.’ It implies a fixed essence rather than the fluid process of creating meaning characteristic of any act of performance, or of cultural praxis.

15 I use ‘socittal drama’ in anthropologist Victor Turner’s sense—units of ‘aharmonic or dishar-monic socittal process, arising in conflict situa-tions’ (1986:74) and following a four-phase process of breach, crisis, redressive action, and

214 Notes

either reintegration or irreparable schism (1976: passim).

16 Another important qualification is necessary. Although individual and group identities are increasingly shaped in an interculture of juxta-position and disjuncture characteristic of pub-lic culture today, a self-conscious awareness of this condition is primarily the discourse of an educated and/or artistic elite. Given my posi-tion as an academic ‘elite’ writing in the United States, this book’s organization fore-grounds the discontinuities of contested narra-tives, rather than the normative arguments of those ‘traditionalists’ in Kerala who construct kathakali in its ‘pristine purity.’

1. Agatha Jane Pilaar recently published the first volume of her Kathakali Plays in English (1993) which includes translations of the most per-formed scenes from twelve different plays; however, these are inadequate and even mis-leading ‘librettos’ which Pilaar herself ‘com-posed’ loosely from verbal translations pro-vided by her collaborators. They reveal no critical attention to textual issues and offer ab-solutely no annotation of the source texts from which these ‘compositions’ were generated. Al-though these ‘librettos’ may be useful to people attending kathakali performances, they are not very useful for textual or performance schol-ars.
2. Dr Sudha Gopalakrishnan is currently com-pleting a much needed new English translation of Nalacaritam that includes the performance manual (attaprakaram) of the famous kathakali actor Kalamandalam Krishnan Nayar for the play. Dominique Vitalyos recently published a complete translation of Nalacaritam in French (1995). While concerned with the play-in-per-formance, existing translations rightfully focus on communicating the beauty of Variyar’s lan-guage in translation.
3. Their translation of Kalyanasaugandhikam was limited to Scene 9.
4. In addition to Chapter 2, the commentaries in Chapters 5–8 elaborate these historical connec-tions and concerns.
5. A SOCITTAL HISTORY OF KATHAKALI PATRONAGE, CONNOIS-SEURSHIP, AND AESTHETICS
6. Difficult historical questions remain to be an-swered about the early history of Ramanattam, and the relationship of Krishnattam to the emer-gence of kathakali. Among the proposed dates for the composition of the Ramanattam plays by Kottarakkara Tampuran, the range varies widely from 1484 to 1660! I have chosen to follow D.Appukuttan Nair’s dates of 1625–85 (1993:25), making him a contemporary of Manaveda, the Zamorin of Kozhikode and composer of Krishnattam plays in 1650. Compli-cating the history of their dates and relation-ship is the following widely circulated legend about the birth of Ramanattam:

Soon after its [Krishnattam’s] debut on the stage, Kottarakara Tampuran…made a re-quest to the Zamorin to depute his Krishnattam troupe to Kottarakara to give a few performances. For certain consider-ations—maybe political, maybe personal—the Zamorin turned down this request and Tampuran, in a state of offended pride, de-cided to compose a new art form by him-self, more or less on the same model. The result was the emergence of Ramanattam, which later came to be known as kathakali. (Raja 1964:41–54)

Whether a legend or not, this story reveals the high degree of rivalry that existed among the rulers of Kerala’s numerous petty principalities at the time.

1. Fuller traces how sovereignty is actualized at the ‘local level’ where ‘the Indian village is “a reduced version” of the kingdom and “there is a homology between the function of domi-nance at village level and the royal function at the level of a larger territory…” The king’s counterpart in the village is the headman’ (1992:139). In the larger households, the eldest male or karanavan in essence serves as ‘lord’ of the extended family.
2. ‘Caste’ is a problematic mis-translation of jati. For a more complete account of the jati and caste structure in Kerala see Fuller (1976), Jef-

frey (1976), Puthenkalam (1977), Gough (1961), and Moore (1983).

1. Betty Jones notes that the leader and master of the Vettattu Raja’s Ramanattam troupe was one Shankaran Nayar who was ‘also an officer of the Vettattu Raja’s army’ who ‘won a memo-rable victory for the Raja’ in 1705 (1983:20). Two important masters in the early history of kathakali were Vellattu Chattunni Panikkar, in service of the Kottayam Raja, the Ittiri Panikkar, in service of Kaplingattu Namboodiri. Thurston (1975:6, 54) and K.P.Padmanabha Menon (1983:2, 426) have both noted that Panikkar was a title used for ‘fencing-masters.’
2. Three of his seven plays were ‘southern’ ver-sions of three of the Kottayam plays. The Kottayam versions remain favourites in the repertory, while his versions lost favor.
3. ‘Nalanunni’ was the pseudonym given to Ramanunni since the actor was so widely known and apprecittated for his performances of the role of Nala in Nalacaritam. The pseud-onym itself further underscores the emphasis in the south on rasabhinaya.
4. While the rasa/bhava aesthetic and the Natyasastra can be described as pan-Indian, the therefore as formative in the history of Indian poetics and dramaturgy, the ways in which this aesthetic and its correlative concepts such as ‘appropriateness’ are realized are always con-text-and genre-specific, and therefore are al-ways unique and historically specific. Even though kutiyattam has played an extremely im-portant role in kathakali’s development, each contribution from kutiyattam has been adapted, however subtly, to kathakali’s unique perfor-mance structure and version of this aesthetic. Therefore, I have been careful to use the key qualifying term, ‘based on’ because kathakali’s version of ‘appropriateness’ and the rasa/bhava aesthetic are unique. D. Appukuttan Nair pro-vides a comprehensive discussion of the differ-ences between kathakali’s realization of this aes-thetic and what is found in the Natyasastra (Nair and Paniker 1993:6–9). For general discussions of rasa see Chari (1990), Baumer and Brandon (1981:209–57), and Miller (1984).

Notes 215

1. Kottarakkara Tampuran authored the still popular Ramanattam/kathakali version of this story as part of his eight play cycle on the life of Rama. Occasionally cultural organizations have sponsored back-to-back performances of the kutiyattam and kathakali versions.
2. Or at least this is how such changes are perceived and interpreted discursively. Interpolations in kutiyattam usually focus on a story-telling aspect of elaborating a character’s predicament and/or character, while in kathakali many focus on the character’s inner psychology in a more Western sense. The increasing number of interpolations in the twentieth century devoted to the character’s inner psychology, like that of Ramunni Menon discussed above, may in part reflect a subtle Western influence. Typical of the style of criti-cism and assessment of acting during the 1950s and 1960s is the following excerpt from a brief anonymous review of the career and acting of Vazhenkata Kunchu Nair on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday in the Kalamandalam Annual:

With his wide intellectual background, he is able to make a character and their changing interrelationships relevant to the progression of the plot. The result is that every character, however lifeless and stereotyped it may seem to be, is transformed into a full-blooded and easily distinguishable one when he handles it. (1969:5)

The critical introduction of notions of ‘progres-sion of the plot’ and concerns with ‘full-blooded’ or ‘rounded’ characterization no doubt stem in part from the introduction of Western, Stanislavskian-based psychological drama.

10 Extensive land reform and redistribution did not occur until after Independence and the for-mation of Kerala State in the 1960s.

11 See S.Sarma et al. (1978) for a broad overview of the importance of Vallathol as both poet and leader of Kerala’s cultural renaissance.

12 In a recent publication, Vallathol’s son C. Balachandran discusses the vagaries and difficulties of these early tours (Balachandran 1990).

13 See Scorpio (1996) for a discussion and analy-sis of some of these issues.

216 Notes

1. See Zarrilli (1984a: Chapter 7) for a more com-plete account of these other institutions.
2. Margi takes its name from the concept margi, meaning to transcend space and time.
3. One ‘night’ or evening of performance at Margi usually lasts approximately three hours. Therefore, three nights of performance at Margi would be equivalent to one traditional all-night performance. On average, Margi’s productions are adding approximately one-third more performance time to the perfor-mance of a text.

3 KATHAKALI TEXTS IN PERFOR-MANCE

1. The contemporary Western discourse of ex-perimentation, which demands that art ap-pears to be created ‘on the edge’ or the ‘fringe’ in order to exemplify the artist’s creativity and imagination, belies of course the conventional nature even of performances which construct themselves as ‘new’ or ‘experimental.’
2. For examples of other sloka in performance see Zarrilli (1984a: 233ff.). Just as some sloka are enacted, so are some dandakam.
3. While performance of padam generally follows this two-fold format which, in its structure, is a form of double-acted elaboration of the text, there are even more lengthy and complex ex-amples of elaboration of lines of a padam. One example is the lengthy choreographic elabora-tion of one line in Scene 3 of The Killing of Narakasura when, during another slow love scene between the demon-king Narakasura and his wife, he sees, and then embodies the peacocks in their garden. See Zarrilli (1984a: pp. 243ff.).
4. The style of singing was traditionally unique, and known as sopanam, but kathakali’s distinc-tive style of singing is gradually being sub-sumed by the ever-increasing influence of carnatic vocal styles (see Omchery, 1969, for a discussion of this unique style).
5. This point is argued more fully in the commen-tary in Chapter 8 when I discuss the relation-ship between ritual sacrifice and kingship in Kerala.

4 KATHAKALI ACTOR TRAINING AND CHARACTERIZATION

1. I have placed quotation marks around both ‘external’ and ‘internal’ since using the terms suggests a dualism that is inappropriate to the dialectic between these two modes of actualiza-tion—both equally integral to the actor’s pro-cess.
2. An increasing number of teachers accept part-time students today, usually from middle-class families. Many of these students are girls who undergo a few years of training in kathakali rather than an all-women’s dance such as mohiniattam as part of their ‘cultural’ education. Many college students learn and perform solo set pieces such as Puthana’s transformation in Puthana Moksha for performances at college art festival cometitions. For a more complete ac-count of part-time training see Zarrilli (1984a: 91–4).
3. These arguments are commonplace in spite the fact that in the past, as well as today, many Nayar girls trained with boys in Kerala’s martial art (kalarippayattu) at least until the age of puberty if not occasionally beyond, as exemplified by the case of the infamous Unniarcha made famous in Kerala’s northern ballads. In addition, girls train to perform a number of difficult genres of traditional performance including Nangyar kuttu, kutiyattam, Mohiniattam, etc. all requiring extensive stage time. It is clear that such arguments neglect taking account of these counter-examples of women’s abilities and ‘realities.’ Such arguments reflect the traditional male fear that women are ‘dangerous’ once they reach the age of puberty and become sexually active, and that they must be controlled by males in their extended fami-lies. See Pitkow (1998) for an extended discus-sion.
4. For a complete description of all the exercises and training summarized here, see Zarrilli (1984a: 107–43).
5. The Kalamandalam is currently considering a new officittal syllabus of twenty-five plays.
6. Gopi Asan’s view reflects the increasing em-phasis on ‘internal’ or ‘mental’ conflict in kathakali acting and aesthetics in the twentieth

century. As noted in Chapter 2, Pattiyakkantoti Ramunni Menon (1881–1949) developed a number of more ‘internally’ fo-cused interpolations, such as that of Bhima in The Killing of Baka. Gopi’s view certainly re-flects two important historical facts. First, roles like Nala and Rugmamgada were not so com-mon, especittally in central Kerala, until the noted actor Kunju Kurup (1920–72) began to popularize them. Since his technique was thought not to be as highly developed as his abilities in providing new interpretations of these two heroic roles, he began to probe the depth of their emotional states. Krishnan Nayar took up Kunju Kurup’s mantle, and has passed it on to the current generation of senior actors, especittally Gopi Asan, who is featured in these two roles. It is commonplace knowl-edge among connoisseurs that Krishnan Nayar based his own artistry on his opinion that con-flict is much more interesting within a person than between people.

1. This is a relativizing connector used to join the words on either side of the connector.
2. This form of sequential playing of multiple roles is much more characteristic of kutiyattam than of kathakali. In kutiyattam’s nirvahana sec-tions of performance, the actor playing the pri-mary role sequentially enacts all the roles in the story he recounts without changing his cos-tume through an entire evening of perfor-mance. By comparison, the kathakali version of this form of ‘solo acting’ of multiple roles is much more limited in time and scope.
3. I discuss the implication of kathakali structuring of performance for a ‘task based’ theory of act-ing elsewhere (Zarrilli 1999).
4. Perhaps the most vivid dramatic representation of this ability to ‘discard’ one’s own body and ‘enter a different body,’ is the comic exchange of souls and bodies between the Courtesan and the wandering holy man, Parivrajaka, in King Mahendravarman’s one-act farce, Bhagavadajjuka (‘The Hermit/Harlot’). As the play unfolds, the recalcitrant student, Sandilya, constantly baits his teacher, Parivrajaka, and undoes his ‘holiness’ with his own il-logic. Relevant here are

Notes 217

Parivrajaka’s attempts to explain the difference between the ‘soul’ and the ‘body’ to his student by differentiating between the ‘subtle body which transmigrates according to Fate’s decree,’ and the ‘active, gross, embodied self which is the ‘recep-tacle of suffering and pleasure’ (Lockwood and Bhat 1994, Part II: 22). The student manages to twist his teacher’s logic into the conclusion that ‘nothing is real except Body’—a conclusion which allows him to indulge himself in ‘wine, women, and song’ rather than meditation. Finally, in or-der to teach his recalcitrant and wayward dis-ciple a lesson, the holy man decides to ‘show him the real power of yoga’ by ‘injecting my self into the body of this courtesan’ (ibid. 1994, Part II: 30).

11 The analysis and translation that follow are based on the generosity of my colleague at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Professor V. Narayanan Rao, whose expertise in Sanskrit and Sanskrit aesthetics made possible any use-ful insights which might follow.

12 I am defining bhava as the state of being/doing embodied by the performer/actor, as de-manded by the dramatic context and inter-preted within a particular lineage of acting.

13 I am defining rasa as ‘flavor,’ or ‘taste,’ arising out of the act or practice of spectating which involves as complete as possible an engage-ment of the spectator in experiencing what the actor ‘brings forward’ and embodies.

14 See Zarrilli (1998) for more detailed explana-tions of this relationship.

15 For a full discussion of the kari see Pitkow

(1998, Chapter 5).

5 THE FLOWER OF GOOD FORTUNE (KALYANASAUGANDHIKAM)

1. Only Scenes 9 and 10 are included in the video version of the play on which this translation is based.
2. In addition to this padam, a text known as nilappadam is also used to accompany the

218 Notes

dance. This text is not part of the original com-position and its author is unknown.

1. The following two caranam are not usually per-formed today:

caranam:

O you who are bound to the truth,

along with your brothers you wander the forest while Ambika’s grandson, Duryodhana, that

ocentan of deceipt,

rules in Hastinapura with his retinue. [K]

caranam:

Because Arjuna is gone, here in the forest we are considerably weakened.

In fact, O King, for someone who is blind, what is the use of other parts of the body? [K]

(Editor’s note: The somewhat illogical image in the final caranam may be one reason this passage is not usually performed today.)

1. This is a lengthy astakalasam.
2. The following three caranam are not usually performed today:

caranam:

Even if the Fire God abandons heat, and even if the Sun abandons the world,

O Son of Vayu, my younger brother, I am unable to transgress the truth.

Therefore, do not speak like this. [K]+[I]

caranam:

Did not Dasaratha, chief of the Sun clan, fearful of breaking a vow,

send his sons to the fierce forest?

Doing so, his mind was full of grief. Consider this, and then decide. [K]+[I]

caranam:

Arjuna will soon return without difficulty, having secured the divine arrows.

For those who worship the Almighty who is wor-thy of worship,

others’ evil acts will be rendered useless.

Therefore, don’t be doubtful. [K]+[I]

1. The sloka includes many long vowel sounds and contains no consonant clusters—features that

contribute to the lyrically romantic (srngara) mood of the scene.

1. This caranam is sung to accompany the iratti.
2. The following two caranam were omitted at this performance:

caranam:

Because of the strength and speed of his thighs, a huge number of trees fall to the ground. [K]

caranam:

Lo! the deer, having become skittish, run about.

If one contemplates his expertise, it is very eloquent.

[K]

1. In southern Kerala an astakalasam is usually per-formed after ‘In my mind
2. This repetition of the pallavi accompanies the dancing of the tonkaram.
3. This and the subsequent change of raga are not noted in the Menon or Rediyar texts, but are part of current performance practice.
4. A kalasam begins this caranam.
5. This caranam is usually not sung, but its basic meaning is enacted in the ilakiyattam that fol-lows.
6. This and the subsequent changes in raga are not found in the Menon or Rediyar texts, but are part of current performance prac-tice.
7. This sloka is enacted. The following two sloka were omitted at this performance:

sloka

Vayu’s son, Hanuman, showed his own body to Vayu’s other son, Bhima, who was standing near,

anxious to see the frightening hard form Hanuman took when crossing the ocentan.

sloka

After duly seeing the awe-inspiring form of Hanuman whose reputation is famous,

Bhima was overwhelmed with fear and fell at Hanuman’s feet, saying…

16 The following caranam was omitted:

caranam:

Please know that I have shown this form of my body out of affection for you.

Alas, if mere mortals see it, they will faint and be-come helpless.

17 The following caranam was omitted:

caranam:

Please see this forest path, which is impossible to traverse for anyone but you.

O one of good conduct, go without delay, and re-linquish any anguish in your heart.

18 The following caranam was omitted:

caranam:

O son of Vayu, O great-minded one, have great compassion for me.

1. This change of raga is not found in the Menon or Rediyar texts, but is part of current perfor-mance practice.
2. This particular ilakiyattam is known literally as ‘combined acting,’ since it involves both Bhima and Hanuman.
3. This use of ‘vital spot’ reflects both the ver-nacular use of the term and Monier-Williams’ definition of the Sanskrit marman, ‘the core of anything, the quick’ (1899:791), i.e., the es-sence, core, or heart of the matter.
4. For katti characters such as Ravana in Bali’s Vic-tory or Bana in Bana Yudham their awesome powers lead to an overweening pride which ul-timately leads either to death or to (temporary) humiliation. In Bali’s Victory Ravana self-con-sciously displays his pride, heroism and strength by lifting Mount Kailas. When played by some of the best actors of katti roles such as Padmanabhan Nayar this demonstrative act makes all the more poignant his eventual de-feat and humiliation by Bali.
5. In Kiratam the entire play could be read as dra-matizing Arjuna’s continuous humiliations at the hands of Siva in disguise. This greatest he-roic sage among the Pandavas, who has at-tained access to the subtlest powers available

Notes 219

to martial practitioners, is constantly and hu-morously rendered impotent. Each time Arjuna attempts another mode of accessing a specittal power to overcome the Hunter, his adversary mocks and defeats him. In addition to being read as the lancing of a hero’s pride, trials and tests such as this, especittally when administered by Siva (Kiratam), Brahma (King Rugmamgada’s Law), or Vishnu (The Progeny of Krishna) can also be read as a necessary test of heroic devotion through which the hero achieves divine powers (the Pasupata for Arjuna), release (for Rugmamgada), or happi-ness and prosperity.

6 THE KILLING OF KIRMIRA (KIRMIRAVADHAM)

1. The scene numbers are those used in K.P.S. Menon’s text.
2. In the Kerala Kalamandalam style of perform-ing this padam, the pallavi and anupallavi are treated as a caranam.
3. This phrase is repeated after the performance of the kalasam. This particular structure where a kalasam is performed at the end of the first phrase of a caranam is common in Kirmiravadham. As in each caranam of this padam, the initial phrase is always repeated by the vo-calists after the kalasam has been performed.

Where this performance structure occurs, we have attempted to keep the initial phrase of each caranam in the Malayalam text first in our translation; however, this has not always been possible.

1. In the K.P.S.Menon text this caranam follows the next. Following the order of the perfor-mance on 1 August 1996, we have placed this caranam first since there is sufficient dramatic justification for this inversion.
2. In the Kerala Kalamandalam performance tra-dition the pallavi and anupallavi are treated as a caranam in performance.
3. In the Kerala Kalamandalam performance tra-dition this caranam is joined with the next to cre-ate one caranam followed by a kalasam.

220 Notes

1. In the original text the raga is savarasam and the tala is triputa.
2. For this and the following iratti, the pallavi ac-companies its performance.
3. The following caranam and pallavi are not usu-ally performed:

caranam:

O charming friend, please listen to my words:

I wonder why my right eye trembles, and whether some misfortune is about to befall me.

The wind blows adversely.

I certainly should return home.

pallavi: Seeing this omen, fear comes,

Have you seen it (the

omen)?* [K]

*This and the next pallavi below have the same grammatical construction as the pallavi above, ‘Seeing this forest, pleasure comes. Have you seen it?’ As in our translation, single words are substituted within the basic construction of the pallavi marking the dramatic shifts in circum-stances.

10 The following sloka is not usually performed:

sloka:

She whose tumultuous cry resembles that of a lion and instills great fear in the devas,

said all this from her growing anger.

At night-fall the demoness whose body terrifies (everyone),

satisfied from holding the hand of Panchali— that ornament of women—with her own, charred like firewood,

(and) angry from the killing of her husband, took Draupadi far away.

1. Menon records the tala as triputa.
2. The following three caranam are not usually performed:

caranam:

O my protector, son of the life of the universe, wild fire of the forest of demons,

please protect me and come without delay! [K]

caranam:

O husband, Arjuna—brave one, ocentan of valor, handsome-bodied one—

because of my bad luck even you have forsaken your wife! [K]

caranam:

The demoness has the color of black clouds.

She is as awe-inspiring as the final night.

O Nakula, the strong one, she will deliver me to Yama. Please protect me! Protect me! [K]

13 The following sloka is not usually performed today:

sloka:

Instructed by his guru to return first (from the Ganges River), having collected wood for the sacrificittal fire,

on his way, Sahadeva heard from the interior of the forest

the wailing of their dear (wife) who had been spir-ited away by the demoness.

1. The raga in the original text is suratti.
2. The singing of the pallavi accompanies this tonkaram and the others performed in this padam.
3. The following caranam is not usually per-formed:

SIMHIKA:

caranam:

O you boaster! With confidence and skill I will certainly capture you with my hands and leave.

17 The following sloka is not usually enacted:

sloka:

Reacting like this, the demoness quickly released Panchali.

Then, with her own hand (the demoness) captured (Sahadeva), and began to run quickly

when Pandu’s son cut her breasts with his sword.

18 Scene 12, translated below, has not been en-acted within the memory of actors or specta-tors today. Dramatically, Scene 11’s culmina-tion with Sahadeva’s cutting of Simhika’s nose is continued with Kirmira’s curtain look and Simhika’s appearance before her brother in Scene 13.

Scene 12

[Pandavas, Panchali]

[sankarabharanam (raga); cembata (tala)]

sloka:

She whose round breasts were cut off by the scimitar’s tip and showered with blood, cried out inarticulately with fear.

Having returned from the banks of the Ganges, the best among kings (Pandavas), hearing a sound from the forest, spoke to their dear one:

PANDAVAS:

Living in this forest is extremely difficult. Certainly, this is the result of bad actions.

O good-natured one, why did you go into this ter-rible forest?

O dear one, with an unblemished mind, tell us, O young woman, why you seem to be so shocked.

PANCHALI:

When you went to the banks of the Ganges to worship the Sandhya (to offer puja at twilight), a cunningly disguised demoness came to visit me.

With her smile she enchanted my heart, and ap-proaching me slowly, she held my hand.

O kings, no woman on earth has such skills. Deceiving me, she took me away. Then Sahadeva

came to the forest.

A terrible fight ensued for five or six hours. During the fight the giant-sized one let me go, and

grabbed Sahadeva.

Then I arrived here thinking that one of you would come running.

BHIMA:

Please do not worry. All of you should remain here. I am going to finish off the demoness who acted so cruelly.

This mace will help me.

Arjuna, protect our elder brother and all the oth-ers. Stand in the forefront holding your sword and arrows.

O one with an unblemished body, certainly I will kill her without the least hesitation.

SAHADEVA:

O elder brothers, do not worry.

O leaders of the Puru clan, I acted rashly.

Notes 221

All the demons will bring their armies to fight (with us).

DHARMAPUTRA:

After the demoness left, what thoughtless thing did you do because of your anger?

Our enemies will come to fight with numerous strat-egies.

Listen to their tumult!

SAHADEVA:

Remembering that it is inappropriate to kill a woman,

I cut her nose and breasts.

Within half and hour the time will be ripe for a good fight.

sloka:

Yudhisthira and the others, skilled at arms stood there brandishing their bows, swords, and ar-rows, wearing chest-plates as defensive armor,

awaiting the arrival of the demons for the fight.

sloka:

Then Kirmira, becoming angry on hearing of the killing of his friend, Sardula,

graced the assembly, arousing his army which was like an ocentan.

19 No kalasam are played or danced during this padam, perhaps because of the dramatic circum-stances.

20 The following caranam are not usually performed today:

caranam:

Alas! (You) see, those suitable for being eaten have turned out to be (our) enemies!

Alas, Arjuna killed (my) husband. (You) must kill them or me. [K]

caranam:

Deciding that it was appropriate to take revenge, without hesitation I entered the forest.

Then (I) saw his consort in the forest—that impec-cable decorative spot among women. [K]

caranam:

When separated from the Pandavas, I watched for an opportunity.

222 Notes

Without fear I approached her and captured her in the forest. [K]

caranam:

O brave one, for whom no humiliation is possible, I wanted to give her as a gift to you.

Exhausted and frightened, she began to wail. [K]

1. The anupallavi and caranam are not usually per-formed:

anupallavi:

I will immediately annihilate that inimical mortal!

caranam:

Put aside the sorrow in your heart. Rise up, O one with the elephant’s gait.

I leave with anger in my heart, ready to send mor-tals to the world of the immortals!

22 The following caranam is not usually performed:

caranam:

While I live on the earth, you should not be sad because of (any) misfortune.

They will not be the target of my anger, but of my arrows.

1. At the performance on 1 August 1996 the stage attendants neglected to come to the stage with the curtain causing some confusion onstage. Part of the ensuing sloka was then sung with the cur-tain down, or only partially covering the stage.
2. This and the other kalasam in this padam are very short links to the ensuing tonkaram.
3. The pallavi accompanies the tonkaram.
4. Considerable disagreement exists over whether the correct raga to perform here is porvakalyam or pantuvarali. Menon records pantuvarali. The two raga are very similar.
5. The following sloka is not usually performed:

sloka:

Immediately, the two chiefs of the ksatriyas and de-mons girded their loins (and) challenged each other to fight.

Forgetting themselves, they raised their excellent maces and continued to hit each other repeat-edly.

Enlocked arm-in-arm, they struck each other with their fists, and hitting the earth, they jumped, emitting sounds as they leaped.

Thus, they fought.

28 The following caranam are not usually per-formed:

BHIMA

caranam:

O demon’s son, [K]

who is ignorant of the truth, purity, etc.

you will reach and ‘enjoy’ the town of the son of Sun(Yama)! [K]

pallavi: Resist… [T]

caranam:

You know that I am vicious. [K] Because of what you have done, like a bird you have entered the strong cage of my hands. [K]

pallavi: Resist… [T]

caranam:

Come here treacherous one, wicked worm! [K] You have a large arrow in your hand, but you can’t fight with deception.

Fool! Nothing is possible against me! [K]

pallavi: Resist… [T]

1. The closing scene, translated below, is not usu-ally performed. If it is included, immediately after the killing, one or more of the ascetics en-ter, perform the first caranam, and exit after bless-ing Bhima.

sloka:

Remembering the killing of his friend (Sardula), Kirmira became extremely angry,

and righting Bhima, attained death.

[bhupalam (raga); cempata (tala)]

sloka:

When Kirmira was killed, his attendants immedi-ately hid themselves in different places.

The ascetics on the banks of the river Tapati ar-rived, and with delight each said the following:

MAHARSI:

pallavi: O Bhima, ocentan of valor, noble-minded one, our fear has vanished.

anupallavi:

King Bhima, one with great strength of arms, aus-piciousness will always be with you.

caranam:

Since you have killed the demons in battle to whom none are equal,

we can always live in this forest without fear.

caranam:

We can stay on the beautiful banks of the Ganges performing the fire sacrifice (Agnihotra) with plea-sure.

caranam:

Protection of the pious is the most important duty of Bharata’s clan.

Your birth has become fruitful. Let protection al-ways be your duty.

sloka:

Each of the sages showered Bhima with his bless-ings.

Then the Vidyadharas rained flowers on his head.

(The Vidyadharas are demi-gods overseeing and reacting to the world’s activities.)

30 Many other important issues implicit in cur-rent stagings of The Killing of Kirmira deserve further analysis. This and other representa-tions of kari characters like Simhika could be read as a class/caste commentary on the oppo-site of the educated, beautiful heroine, and therefore as a stereotype of Kerala’s darker, ‘scheduled castes’ and/or ‘tribes.’ Associttated with the untamed, dangerous, natural forest, Simhika as protrayed in Nelliyode’s opening interpolation is represented as unwashed, un-kempt, unattractive and constantly aspiring to-ward the ideal feminine which she cannot at-tain. She is stared at by other women. When she attempts to join in dancing kaikottakali, playing kumi, etc. she tries to do everything an actor does who plays such ideal heroines as Damayanti or Draupadi; however, she is re-jected, and must ‘play’ and ‘dance’ by herself—

Notes 223

an out-caste. As a satiric rendering of these as-pirations to the ideal, these portrayals can be read as mocking ‘aristocratic’ behavior, much as the ‘failures’ of the epic heroes can be read as mocking their male aspirations to fulfil the ideal. Although Simhika is a stereotype, so in one sense are all of kathakali’s characters. Like other major roles, she is complex, and cannot be reduced to this simple stereotype. In her rage over her husband’s death, she represents the ‘female’ as active and not passive. Indeed, her reaction to her husband’s death, as played by Nelliyode when he tears off the tali, reflects the ideal behavior of a woman mourning over her husband’s death. Like other representa-tional sites, such as ‘the heroic’ where behavior is explored in cultural performances, Simhika is a place for the negotiation of images and no-tions of character, behavior and, in this case, the ‘feminine.’

7 THE PROGENY OF KRISHNA (SANTANAGOPALAM)

1 For an English translation see Srimad Bhagavatam, trans. Raghunathan (1976), pp 503–7. The date of the original puranic source is uncertain, and ranges from as early as the fifth to as late as the tenth centuries. The frame story which begins the puranic account is not dramatized, and in this respect The Progeny of Krishna is similar to other kathakali adaptations of stories from the Bhagavata Purana.

1. Yama appears in a specittal form of black katti (nedunkatti) (‘knife’) with a rough design. Chitragupta appears in minukku.
2. Chakra appears in pacca make-up.
3. Normally for dancing the purappatu there is both a sloka and a series of caranam of a padam describing the heroes. Here there are no such caranam. If the purappatu is performed, caranam are added from other sources. When the purappatu is not performed, the entire sloka is not sung and the performance begins with the second sloka below.
4. Since Arjuna is a major role in the play, the ac-tor may decide to perform a longer elaboration than the short one transcribed here. In this

224 Notes

elaboration he usually enacts the ten incarna-tions of Vishnu, and ends by summarizing the Bhagavad Gita, concluding that whenever there is injustice, (adharma) in the world, Vishnu ap-pears in a form to set things right and regain a balance of dharma. If the actor playing Arjuna performs this longer interpolation, he simply goes ahead, and the actor playing Krishna takes his cues from Arjuna. The great kathakali actor Krishnan Nayar Asan is credited with in-troducing this interpolation. The dramatic jus-tification, or ‘sense of appropriateness,’ for this longer interpolation rests in the fact that since Arjuna has not seen Krishna for a very long time, he wants to recount his greatness.

1. The following caranam is not usually performed today:

caranam:

O son! Won’t you cry even a little?

1. one with a wonderfully-shining face. For your father who is a great sinner, has fate destined this? O son! Siva! Siva!
2. This caranam is only found in the Redyar text and not in Menon.
3. The following caranam is not usually performed today:

caranam:

On the day your dearest’s pregnancy comes to term, quickly come and inform me.

In the wondrous house of delivery made from my arrows, (where) your dear (wife) will deliver (your) son,

who in this world has the ability to take him away? [K]

1. There is another variant reading, not found in either the Redyar or Menon: vadiccituvan satyam. It means, ‘I shall utter this promise.’
2. This scene often concludes with a long ilakiyattam between Arjuna and the Brahmin. The main purpose of the interpolation per-formed today is to foreground the importance of devotion to Lord Krishna. How this is done differs from actor to actor.

One major version of the ilakiyattam was cre-ated by Kunju Nayar Asan. In it the Brahmin

prompts Arjuna to vow on the name of Krishna that he will jump into the fire with his divine weapon if he does not deliver the child as promised. It is intended to further subdue Arjuna’s pride.

11 The raga in the original text is recorded as gaulipantu.

1. The following caranam is not usually performed today:

caranam:

If Krishna, the one with eyes like the petals of the blue lotus,

the playful, the one with a dark body resembling blue clouds,

the one lying on the ocentan of milk supports Arjuna, the son of Indra will protect this child.

O Hari, Lord, Krishna, embodiment of compas-sion,

please protect (us). [K]

This caranam is only found in the Redyar, and not in the Menon text.

13 The following caranam are not usually per-formed today:

caranam:

My discomfort is increasing; my body is becoming weak; my stomach moves; the child plays.

It has become difficult for me to walk even one foot. [K]

caranam:

Oh husband, everything I do seems to have been transformed. [K]

14 In the original text the raga is recorded as sahana.

1. This pallavi is not danced as an iratti, but simply delivered with hand-gestures.
2. This pallavi is sung but not danced.
3. The following caranam is usually not per-formed:

ARJUNA:

caranam:

Please look with care and pleasure at the tent of arrows,

the good house (before whose) great height even the tallest mountain peak must fold its hands.

Doesn’t it also have great vastness and expanse? It is not easy for even Yama with his ever-increas-

ing power to enter here.

O Brahmin, with brightness and great joy, let that protector of your life—the lotus-eyed pregnant one, surrounded by her close attendants, grace-fully enter.

1. The following caranam is not usually performed today, and is only found in the Redyar and not the Menon text.

caranam:

Now it is inappropriate for me to approach Krishna to tell him what has happened, wail aloud, or strike my head!

Powerless Arjuna, O best among fools, we have now become refugeless because we trusted your words, O leader of wrongdoers!

This caranam continues the Brahmin’s tongue-in-cheek thrashing of Arjuna for his overweening pride. Indeed, were this performed, it would add to the humor of the performance since it takes the Brahmin’s over-emotional displays of his sor-row and anger to their logical conclusion, i.e., he can no longer publicly display his grief for Krishna.

19 Arjuna’s pallavi and caranam are only found in the Redyar edition.

20 The following are usually not performed:

KRISHNA:

pallavi: O Arjuna! Friend! O one compassionate to the good. [K]

anupallavi:

Please do not burn (your) body in the fire—(a body) which gives pleasure both in this world and the next, O great one! [K]

caranam:

O Arjuna, if you throw yourself into the fire today and are consumed, how could I continue to live without grief?

O Arjuna, Son of the Lord of the gods, your un-kindness is cruel.

Notes 225

O one who has conquered all enemies, while I, your friend, am alive, things like this will happen, O Partha. [K]+[I]

21 The remainder of Krishna’s speech and the first four lines of Arjuna’s next caranam are not included in the Redyar edition, and are only found in Menon.

22 The following caranam is not usually per-formed:

caranam:

O one with the color of black clouds, I know that you and only you are the divine Lord who lives in Vaikuntha.

Even in Siva’s mind confusion reigns from all the techniques of maya (illusion) with which you charm the worlds.

O ocentan of greatness, O one filled with maya, the only remedy for the blemish to my honor, brought by breaking my vow, is the pit of fire.

One full of illusion, ocentan of greatness,

Hail to you, my Madhava, the only Lord of the worlds. [K]

23 The following is not usually performed:

Both my purpose and vow were thwarted. Dis-honor has come to me.

(Therefore), don’t stop my attempt to die.

24 The following is not usually performed:

You were born and raised to be a brave man within the Puru clan.

As long as I live, no dishonor can come to you. O brave one, let us set forth (to attain what you

desire).

25 The following is usually not performed:

This chariot of mine is driven by Daruka.

Climb into it calmly. Please come along with me, O Paurava!

Once we have reclaimed the brahmin boys, we will return.

We shall also, with great anticipation, meet the Lord of the Worlds (Vishnu). [K]

26 This short interpolation provides a dramative and narrative bridge to Scene 12 when Scenes 9, 10, and 11 are not performed today.

226 Notes

1. Giving performances as offerings at temples is fairly common today and is by no means re-stricted to performances of The Progeny of Krishna. For example, well-known actor Kalamandalam Gopi Asan gave a performance of Bali in The Killing of Bali in 1996 at the Guruvayur (Krishna) temple.
2. The original story in the Bhagavata Purana gives very little attention to the human plight of the Brahmin.
3. There are also a few shorter interpolations, such as when the Brahmin enters in Scene 2, which allow the actor to emphasize the pathos of the Brahmin’s dilemma.
4. The version of the attam I refer to is that of ac-tors following Kunju Nayar Asan.
5. The importance of children, and especittally sons, to Kerala’s Namboodiri brahmin families is witnessed in such specific rituals as the per-formance of Ayyappan tiyatta, the propitiation of Lord Ayappan to ensure prosperity and ‘wealth’ (through progeny) of an extended family (see Zarrilli 1990a; Jones 1981).
6. On the importance and significance of funeral rites see Knipe (1991), and his more specittal-ized study (1977).
7. On the problem of evil and suffering in Indian thought and mythology see Tiwari (1986) and O’Flaherty (1976).
8. Not surprisingly, in a modern Indian state like Kerala, which elected the first communist state government in India in 1957, it is important to note that in his study of 235 interviewees, Ayrookhuzhiel reported that 55 said they did not believe in concepts like fate (vidhi). As one interviewee asserted, ‘Vidhi is brought on man by himself,’ (1983:168–9).
9. Actors follow particular traditions of interpret-ing a role. For example, M.P.Sankaran Namboodiri, Vasu Pisharoti, and Nelliyode Vasudevan Namboodiripad (all trained at the Kerala Kalamandalam) follow Kunju Nair Asan’s interpretation of the role of the Brah-min. It is this particular interpretation of the Brahmin that is explained here through inter-views with these actors.
10. On the relevance of this notion of the substan-tive, see McKim Marriott (1990).
11. Kopam is the more colloquial Malayalam ex-pression. Kopam is uncontrollable anger. To have kopam is to have a degree of anger that will cause some kind of reaction against the cause of the anger. For the Brahmin, his kopam over the loss of yet another son is directed to Krishna as King since, according to the Dharma Sastras, a king is supposed to protect his subjects. Kopam also refers to a god’s anger, as when a god or divine figure delivers a curse.
12. Although Namboodiri was using the English word ‘realistic’ here, as Rustom Bharucha sug-gests in his discussion of the lokadharmi element in Krishnattam, any use of the word ‘realism’ to translate lokadharmi ‘needs to be qualified, of course…[in] that nothing in the traditional In-dian theatre approximates “realism” in the Eu-ropean tradition’ (1990:238). As exemplified in Pisharoti’s example of the specific stage busi-ness which he incorporates in playing the Brah-min, this is the lokadharmi or ‘everyday’ aspect of playing the role.
13. The taravatu refers to the extended joint fami-lies which, until the turn of the twentieth cen-tury, lived together in large house compounds. One’s identity and well-being traditionally de-pended on one’s extended family.
14. In some kathakali plays caricatures are played by senior actors. G.S.Warrier explains how and why the carpenter (ásari) role in The Killing of Baka is so enjoyable and important: ‘Some of the great actors would be wonderful in this role! They had to translate it into the common man’s language—measuring, etc. [doing all the easily identifiable things a carpenter does]. There was always some fun in it. He’s got a coconut leaf he uses as a measure. He goes to cut the leaf, but almost cuts his head in the pro-cess! Or he’s chewing pan and spits it into the audience, and everyone moves because it’s so real!’ Similar are the washerman and washerwoman, Mannan and Mannati, in Lavanasuravadham by Amritta Sastry (1815–77). What differentiates the Brahmin from these roles is the depth of innocence and purity with

which his everyday actions must be played in order to enhance sympathy for his pathos.

8 KING RUGMAMGADA’S LAW (RUGMAMGADA CARITAM)

1. The summary of the first seven scenes of the play is based on the Redyar edition. K.P.S. Menon’s acting version includes a summary of these scenes. Menon’s summary may be based on a slightly different version than Redyar since there are some substantive differences. His translation only includes the final three scenes. The translation of scenes 8, 9, and 10 is based on K.P.S.Menon’s acting version (Vol. III, 1979).
2. This sloka is the original first sloka of the play, and is included in the Menon acting version. It was not sung at the Killimangalam perfor-mance, and is not usually performed today.
3. In the K.P.S.Menon version, scenes 8, 9, and 10 are listed as scenes 1, 2, and 3.
4. This ilakiyattam summarizes much of the con-tent of the first seven scenes of the full play.
5. Although both the Menon and Redyar texts read ‘atra sadaya sukham me,’ sadaya is doubtful. Given the context, a more likely reading would be kalaya for sadaya, thus rendering the line, ‘Please do (something) to please me.’
6. In the following line, the tempo of cempata tala is increased slightly to enhance the dramatic im-pact of Mohini’s demand. The tempo then re-turns to the original cempata tala speech with Rugmamgada’s next lines. This pattern of slightly increasing and then decreasing the tem-pos is repeated throughout the following ex-changes.
7. Both the Redyar and Menon read, ‘pranayajana,’ (‘people who have love’); how-ever, this must be a mistake since only pranatajana (‘people who bow down,’ i.e., devo-tees) makes sense in the context.
8. This kalasam is not danced. Sometimes an ilakiyattam is performed here in which Rugmamgada says, ‘She is a demoness. With-

Notes 227

out knowing that, I trusted her and took the oath. I can now take refuge only at the feet of Lord Vishnu. How can I explain my position to my son and wife?’

1. For the type of ilakiyattam which follows, where so much improvisation is allowed the actor-dancer, the centa drummer must be able to read the actor’s mind, and build toward the dra-matic crescendo of the scene when he dances the N just before raising his sword to strike Dharmamgada.
2. This kalasam is not danced.
3. This form of Vishnu is especittally sacred to Malayalis who worship Padmanabha at Sri

Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram. This is the temple asso-cittated with the Travancore ruling family at which performances of the play would have originated.

1. Other readings of the drama are also possible. The play could be read as enacting the conflict between eighteenth century Vishnavite devotionalism and the violent/dangerous pow-ers of Dravidian tantric Saktism. As in Mantavappalli Ittiraricha Menon’s The Progeny of Krishna, devotion to Vishnu prevails. This contrast is clearly marked in the differences be-tween mutiyettu, which enacts the goddess’ vio-lent fury, and Krishnattam, where Vaishnavite erotic lyricism predominates (Caldwell 1995:327).
2. Hart (1979, 1975), Hiltebeitel (1976, 1988, 1991), and Caldwell (1995) discuss the antique associttation of hair with ‘power’ in Dravidian culture. This inheritance is still seen in the loos-ening of women’s hair during state of spirit possession, as well as in the veliccappatu’s (oracle) running of the fingers of his left hand through his long, loosened hair while in trance at Bhagavati temples. The running of the fin-gers through the hair, especittally female hair, infuses the body with wild, natural sacred power’ (Caldwell 1995:184–5).
3. This state is clearly marked in yakshagana tenkutittu and, as David Gitomer records, in The Catastrophe of the Braid where Bhima is clearly associttated with ogres and demons:

228 Notes

‘Bhima’s interactions with the race of canni-balistic ogres in the epic lie behind his adharmic violence and voraciousness’ (1999:287–8). In The Catastrophe, as well as in the yakshagana tenkutittu version of the killing of Dussassana, an ogre must possess Bhima in order for him to drink blood:

Bloodfleld says, ‘My master Wolfbelly has vowed to drink the blood of Dussassana. But I, the appointed ogre, must enter the body and do the drinking for him.’

(ibid.: 94)

In both yakshagana tenkutittu and The Catastrophe, ‘the depiction of bibhatsa rasa, the disgusting, often becomes comic, and emerges as a species of hasya rasa; the raksasas of the Venisamhra function as vidusakas (buffoons) in a play where there is no vidusaka’ (ibid.: 286).

15 This reading of the dynamics of ‘raudra’ as a state of heightened acuity from which dire con-sequences result is ubiquitous in Kerala, and has symbolic importance in the world commu-nists have created to enhance consciousness about radical socittal change. In Bhaasi’s Memo-ries in Hiding the main character, Ceennan, dur-ing the Suranand Revolution in Kerala where many peasants and party workers died at the hands of the police, undergoes a transforma-tion from life-long acceptance of his socittal po-sition in service to his landlord/oppressor, to a state where his fury ‘explodes’: ‘Tamburaan!’ (He stares at the landlord and stands up straight. The landlord is puzzled by the expression on his face. Nannu Naayar (the landlord’s bodyguard) becomes afraid. Ceennan stares at him for a moment. In a firm declara-tion ‘I no longer have a Tamburaan! I am no longer a slave!’ (1995, Act 4, Scene 1:55). In the Kerala People’s Art Club production, Ceenan is bathed in red light during this scene. A number of articulations exist between the goddess/terror/fury and the radical/revolution-ary leftist movement in Kerala: the associttation of red with the ‘heated’ nature of the goddess, her fury and necessary blood-let-ting; the ‘terror’ society witnesses when the ‘people’ rise up in righteous/divine ‘fury’; and the ‘blood’ it is necessary to shed to assuage this fury.

This reading is supported by the fact that

just before this scene of revolt, in Act 3, Scene 4 during the chaotic melee in which the police are attacking the agricultural laborers and their families, Bhaasi has ‘kathakali drumming from the nearby (Bhagavati) temple’ during a perfor-mance of The Killing of Duryodhana playing in the background. With Dussassana and Duryodhana both having been killed, the drumming from the performance comes to an end just as the fighting ‘decreases and ends.’

9 ISSUES OF INTERCULTURAL PRODUCTION, PERCEPTION, AND RECEPTION IN A KATHAKALI KING LEAR

1. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to lo-cate a copy of the text of this kathakali experi-ment.
2. For a more complete account of some of these productions see Zarrilli (1984a).
3. Currimbhoy chooses to collapse Dussassana purposefully into Duryodhana for dramatic ef-fect, and therefore calls Dussassana Duryodhana. For those who know the Mahabharata well, and/or kathakali, this choice is confusing.
4. Prior to this festive opening in Thiruvananthapuram, I also attended several rehearsals, including a dress rehearsal at the Kerala Kalamandalam. Before and after the opening I conducted interviews with a number of the performers and spectators.
5. The second production, no longer associttated with the Kerala Kalamandalam, used a new Malayalam translation, several new cast mem-bers and some revisions in the staging. My analysis of the European performances is based on viewing a video of the Edinburgh production and the numerous reviews of the continental and Edinburgh performances.
6. McRuvie was referring to the fact that actors who play female roles receive specittal training in three modes of expression used exclusively for playing many female roles: a coy, ‘pre-tended’ shyness; a pouting contempt; and simi-

larly, a pouting anger. In all three modes of expression there is clearly a set of quotation marks put around each emotional state which says, ‘this is pretended’ or ‘I don’t really mean this.’ Therefore, when a female character is en-acting this specittal shyness toward her be-loved, the subtext is, ‘I’m just acting shy and you can really have me.’ Although there are a few strong and less submissive female roles played in which shyness, contempt, and anger are expressed more directly without the quota-tion marks, they are the exception rather than the rule. Consequently, McRuvie’s hesitancy about using a male kathakali actor for the role of Cordelia.

1. For a critique see Bharucha 1990:94–120.
2. Somewhat in contrast to Brook, Eugenio Barba seeks a form of metacultural communi-cation, but rather than erasing cultural distinc-tions he has his group of international actors each keep her distinctively enculturated move-ment vocabulary while developing the mise en scene, thereby seeking to reveal ‘cultures… through cultures’ (Pavis 1989:53).
3. The question of what is or is not ‘indigenous’ or perceived as ‘one’s own’ is highly problem-atic. Although Shakespeare’s King Lear might be said to ‘belong’ to England, to whom can the tale on which Shakespeare based his play be said to ‘belong’? As folklorist Peter Claus pointed out to me in a private correspondence, in contrast to the story of Cinderella, which is a type 510A colonial import to India, the Lear story is a type 510B tale which appears to have traditional forms in India. One version is the ‘Woman of the Hut of Leaves’ which tells the story of a king who had seven daughters, the youngest of whom he thought to marry to someone who might come and stay at his pal-ace. At a palace festival the King asked, ‘whose wealth are you enjoying?’ The six eldest daughters all responded, ‘We are enjoying the wealth earned by you.’ When the youngest daughter said, As long as I am in your house I will enjoy your wealth, but when I go to my husband’s house I will enjoy whatever is in my fate,’ the King became outraged and banished her to a ‘hut of leaves.’ creation of her 1905

Notes 229

‘Radha’ where she danced the role of this ‘SPIRITUAL OTHER.’ (See Erdman 1987.)

1. For a comprehensive overview see Said (1978).
2. One of the earliest performance examples of our mystification of India is Ruth St Denis’s
3. Ravanna and Rama are adversaries in one of India’s two great epics, the Ramayana. Ravanna is the ten-headed demon-king of Lanka who captures Rama’s wife, Sita, and whom Rama rescues with the help of the devoted monkey-god, Hanuman.
4. P.C.Namboodiri made the same point when he contrasted the historical characters who ap-peared in a locally initiated and produced World War II kathakali Hitler (the evil red beard), Roosevelt, Chiang Kai-Shek, and Stalin (the heroic beneficent ‘green’ character type) with epic characters:

They are real human beings you have seen either in motion pictures or in photos. But you don’t know what Siva is. People can only imagine what is his exact nature. The costumes fit only such characters. So real-ism in that [historical] way is not appropri-ate to a dance-drama like kathakali.

(Hanna 1983:162)

14 The only Sanskrit drama in which it could be argued that pathos plays a major role is Bhasa’s play, Urubhangam. In the kutiyattam repertory, the style of acting Bali’s death is filled with pa-thos, and may have served Padmanabhan Nayar as a model.

15 Kathakali King Lear played at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London from 6–17 July 1999. This most recent production is not dis-cussed here.

10 WHEN MARX MET IMPERIALISM ON THE KATHAKALI STAGE

1. Iyyamgode Sridharan, People’s Victory (manu-script, n.d.). All other quotations are from the five-page single-spaced manuscript.
2. Manavavijayam Kathakali (program, n.d.).

230 Notes

1. It is important to distinguish between the re-cently collapsed forms of Eastern European bureaucratic communism/socittalism, and this particular third-world, post-colonial, demo-cratic communist/socittalist experiment in non-adventurist policies attempted in Kerala. The long-term effect of the collapse of Eastern Eu-ropean communism on Kerala’s communists is only now gradually unfolding.
2. On land reform in Kerala see also Hart and Herring (1977) and Herring (1980). Regina Holloman and Wayne Ashley note that ‘the back of the traditional system was not broken in northern Kerala until 1972 when the Kerala Land Reforms Act was actually implemented in that area’ (1983:990).
3. On the split between the CPI and CPI(M) see Nossiter (1988, 1982).
4. It is important to understand that a kathakali text is known as an attakatha and not a natakam. Natakam would not be perceived as a totalizing category like our term ‘drama,’ which we might use to include both kathakali and socittalist texts.
5. For the best analysis of teyyam as a popular form of Hinduism, see Freeman (1991).
6. Iyyamgode Sridharan’s appointment was made in 1987 by the newly elected left-front coalition. He contined to serve as Secretary of the Kalamandalam until the 1991 election after which a new Secretary was appointed.
7. Iyyamgode’s decision to return to ‘traditional’ content was in part prompted by the press at-tacks on the subject he had chosen for People’s Victory. Even though in many respects People’s Victory was successful in reaching ‘new’ audi-ences, it was the attacks from kathakali—lovers, and changing geo-political circumstances that led Iyyamgode to admit that ‘epic, mythologi-

cal stories, are more apt for kathakali’ than con-temporary politics (1993, interview).

10 There are several unique features to Message of Love as a kathakali play. First, Krishna is usually a relatively minor character, or at most plays an intermediate role in the repertory—like the intermediate role that Krishna plays in The Progeny of Krishna. In Message of Love, Krishna becomes a major role with scope for develop-ment by the actor. Second, his beloved Radha is virtually ignored on the kathakali stage. In Message of Love, Radha comes to the stage in the opening scene with Krishna for what critics (Kaladharan 1995) found to be a very satisfy-ing scene since it follows the tenets of tradi-tional kathakali structure, style, and character-ization.

1. The BJP has come to power in the recent 1998 national elections as the leader in a coalition of primarily right/nationalist parties. It is precisely such a political development, and the attendant policies of the right that Iyyamgode was at-tempting to critique in this production.
2. Manavavijayam Kathakali (program, n.d.). It is unclear how often all of the preliminary rituals were dispensed with. S.Sunderdass noted in his Kerala Kaumudi review of 19 February 1987 that none of the rituals, including lighting the oil lamp, were performed. But according to Gopalakrishnan’s account of the Kannur per-formance in Kerala Kaumudi (23 March 1987), although Iyyamgode Sridharan ‘made clear that this kathakali was to be performed without the brass lamp, opening verses, and other rituals…everything was there except the open-ing verses.’
3. Manavavijayam Kathakali (program, n.d.).
4. To mention only a few examples: Raman Kutty Nayar planned and choreographed the fight scene, and selected some of the hand-gestures

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glossary

and

table of

transliteration

—1984a The Kathakali Complex: Actor, Performance,

Structure. New Delhi: Abhinav.

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The following glossary provides basic definitions of Malayalam and Sanskrit terms appearing in the text. Each term is fully transliterated accord-ing to the table of transliteration in the box on p. 242. The table of transliteration is a slight modification of Gundert (1982). Where modi-fications from Gundert occur, our translitera-tion is noted first, and Gundert’s original ver-sion is in parentheses. A number of well-known Sanskrit words such as tala, sloka, etc. are trans-literated in their familiar Sanskrit form rather than Malayalam. Nouns like tala, sloka, etc. end-ing in ‘a,’ add a final ‘m’ in Malayalam, i.e. talam, slokam, sampradayam, etc. Proper names are not transliterated. We have adopted commonplace, familiar spellings such as Krishna (Krsna), etc.

abhinaya: the audience’s experience of a perfor-mance is ‘carried toward’ the audience through four elements: (1) aharya—the costumes, make-up and properties; (2) vacika—the vocal element;

1. satvika—the expressive, subtle, or ‘internal’ element of acting, and (4) amgika—the embod-ied, ‘expressive’ element of acting.

adbhuta rasa: the wondrous or marvellous.

adiyar: vassal.

adyavasanan: major roles, nearly always played by the mature, senior, master actors.

aharya: the costumes, make-up and properties ele-ment of performance.

akampai: a ruler’s retinue of Nayars trained in mar-tial arts and pledged to protect his rule.

Ambarisacaritam: one of four plays written by Aswati Tirunal Rama Varma (1756–94), and still in the active repertory.

amgika: the embodied, ‘expressive’ element of acting.

Glossary 243

Ampalavasi: intermediate temple-servant castes in-cluding the performers of kutiyattam.

ananda: a state of bliss itself.

aupallavi: the subrefrain of the dialogue portion (padam) of a kathakali play. The anupallavi may be omitted from particular padam.

arannettam: inaugural performance by a student of kathakali.

Arayan: fishermen—among the lower polluting castes of Kerala.

asamyukta: single hand-gestures.

asana: basic forms or postures of hatha yoga.

asari: a relatively high-ranking expert in the science of architecture traditionally consulted when building a house or other building.

Ascarydacuamani: ninth-tenth century Sanskrit play authored by Saktibhadra and still performed in kutiyattam style in Kerala.

atanta tala: rhythmic cycle set in 14 beats.

attakkatha: literally, ‘enacted story.’ The technical term for kathakali’s play-texts.

aam: literally, ‘to dance.’

aapakaram: the performance manuals which actors compile while in training that are used to guide them in performing plays.

aucitya-bodham: the ‘sense of appropriateness’ which guides performance choices by actors and of-ten determines reactions by connoisseurs to actor’s choices about how to perform a role.

Ayurveda: literally, the ‘science of longevity’ or life. India’s traditional system of humoral medicine which attempts to balance the three humors through positive/preventive means such as ex-ercise and diet, and through treatment of illness or imbalances to the system.

Bakavadham: The Killing of Baka by Kottayam Tampuran. One of the formative four ‘Kottayam plays’ noted for its strict structure and impor-tance in training performers.

Balaramabharatam: Sanskrit treatise on aesthetics and dramaturgy written by Kartika Tirunal and in-fluential in the introduction of major changes to kathakali.

Balivijayan: Bali’s Victory, written by Kalloor Nambudirippad (1797–1835), the play features a major role for the demon-king Ravana.

bhakti: devotion, or the act of devotion.

bhava: state of mind, being, disposition. Refers to

244 Glossary

the actor’s embodiment of a character’s states of being/emotion.

bhaya bhava: the actor’s state of being/doing fear or the terrible.

bhayanaka rasa: the audience’s aesthetic experience of fear or the terrible.

bibhatsa rasa: the audience’s aesthetic experience of repulsion or disgust.

Cakyar: intermediate-ranking temple servants (Ambalavasis) who perform kutiyattam and a form of mono-acting in several of Kerala’s temples.

campa tala: a rhythmic cycle set in 10 beats.

capalyam: behaving with disregard for one’s family and traditions.

caraam: the ‘foot’ of the dialogue portions (padam) of a kathakali play. There are usually several caranam in each padam.

cattam: jumps—part of the basic training of the ac-tor-dancer for flexibility, balance, and control of the body.

cempaa tala: a rhythmic cycle set in 8 beats.

cenkila: the hand-held gong played with a stick by the lead-singer to keep the basic rhythm in a performance.

centa: equal in importance to the barrel-headed drum, this is a cylindrical double-headed drum usually played with two curved sticks, and oc-casionally with one stick and one hand.

Ceuman: one of the harijan or out-castes in Kerala.

cinta bhava: the actor’s state of being/doing reflec-tion or remembrance.

citta: what is set by ‘tradition’ or ‘convention.’

cittappetta: the rigid or tightly conventionalized struc-ture required to perform certain roles and plays in the repertory, especittally the four Kottayam plays.

cittapadanam: following specific essential conventions in performance of a role or play.

colliyattam: literally, ‘to recite’ and ‘dance,’ i.e., the re-hearsal of plays in the classroom. The term en-compasses both the vocalizing/learning of lines of the play, and learning to dance/enact each role.

Covan: among the low-ranking tenant farming castes of Kerala.

cuappuvu: the tiny crushed seed placed into each eyelid of the performer which allows the actor’s eyes to become reddish as the veins are exposed,

thereby accentuating a character’s states as re-vealed in his facittal expressions.

cui: the white rice-paste and paper border which frames the face for certain characters.

cuvanna tati: ‘red beard’ characters such as Dussassana are generally evil, vicious, and vile. cuippu: circling patterns which combine basic hand-gestures, rhythmic patterns, and specific use of the eyes as part of the basic training of the ac-

tor-dancer.

Dakayagam: Daksa’s Sacrifice authored by Irayimman Tampi (1783–1856).

dakina: traditional ‘gifts’ or ‘offerings’ a student gives to his teacher at the beginning and end of a course of training.

dandakam: narrative passages, usually composed in third person, which serve the same function as sloka, but are set in specittal rhythmic patterns and metrical feet.

danyasi: closing dance which ends a performance.

darsan: to have or take a glimpse of a deity in a temple. Implied in seeing the deity is a substan-tive exchange, and not simply a looking ‘at.’

dharma: duty, law, the sociocosmic order of things as it should be, conduct, code, or customary observance. One’s duty in upholding and/or maintaining that order. The maintenance of this order is literally played out in King Rugmamgada’s Law when his son, ‘the mace of Dharma,’ in-sists that his father cut off his head to maintain the integrity of the family, and therefore uphold the divine sociocosmic order.

Duryodhanavadham: The Killing of Duryodhana. Popu-lar kathakali play authored by Vayaskara Aryan Narayanan Moosad (1841–1902) which enacts that part of the Mahabharata in which the Pandavas achieve victory over their cousins, the Kauravas when their leader, Duryodhana, is killed by Bhima on the great Kurukshetra battle-field.

eklochana: the expression of two different states of being/emotion in two eyes at the same time.

eta: untranslatable male addressive insult.

eti: untranslatable female addressive insult.

gada: mace or club, usually associttated with Bhima.

gunam: one’s basic, inherent nature and behaviour. There are three basic gunam, including

goodness or truth (satva), passion/energy/dyna-mism (rajasa), and darkness/lethargy (tamasa).

Hastalaksanadipika: the Sanskrit manual of gesture language which came to serve as a sourcebook for much of kathakali’s hand-gestures.

hasya rasa: the audience’s experience of the comic, mirthful, or derision.

hrdaya: heart/mind.

ilakiyattam: literally, ‘having moved/dance’—the performative interpolations into the original play text, composed and created by actor-dancers or their patrons to elaborate on the original liter-ary text. When performed the actors ‘speak’ the lines of the interpolation only with hand-gestures, i.e., they are not sung by the vocalists. They have become one of the most important features of contemporary kathakali and feature star performers displaying their best abilities as actor/dancers.

ilattalam: bell-metal hand-cymbals played by the sec-ond singer.

iratti: dance compositions that come at the end of certain subrefrains, and set in a specittal rhyth-mic pattern (cempata tala).

itaykka: a small hourglass-shaped tension drum pro-ducing muted and melodious sounds used to accompany female characters.

Iyava: one name for the toddy tapping castes of Kerala.

janmam: proprietary rights given by one’s birth within the traditional caste hierarchy. The rights to hold land, or perform certain rituals were restricted to particular high-ranking castes.

jivan: life, individual soul, manifest in one’s ‘life force’ (prana vayu).

jugupsa bhava: the actor’s state of being/doing re-pulsion or disgust.

kacca: the long cloth wrapped around the abdominal/ hip area to support the Vital energy’ of the practitio-ner in both martial art practice and kathakali. In kathakali performances the cloth is now used to wrap tightly the starched undergarments which are an es-sential part of the costume.

Kalakeyavadham: The Killing of Kalakeya authored by Kottayam Tampuran (c.1675–1725).

kala: times or speeds within which rhythmic cycles are set.

kalarippayattu: a compound, technical term for

Glossary 245

Kerala’s traditional martial art—the place (kalari— a pit dug out of the ground) where exercises (payattu) are practised. The preliminary exercises of this martial art and its massage system form the basis of kathakali’s intense psychophysiologi-cal training. Its ethos pervades the plays per-formed as part of the traditional repertory.

kalasam: dance compositions that punctuate the stan-zas of the text in performance and are danced according to the most appropriate mood of a scene.

kalivilakku: the large oil lamp which sits at center stage and traditionally provided the only illu-mination for performance. Lighting the oil lamp is part of the ritual inauguration of the perfor-mance.

kaliyogam: a kathakali troupe or company fully out-fitted for performance.

Kallatikkotan: one of the early styles of kathakali per-formance.

Kalluvayi: the new composite style of kathakali de-veloped by Unniri Panikkar in 1850 under the patronage of the famous Namboodiri brahmin household at Olappamanna Mana in central Kerala. It is one of the two remaining major styles of kathakali performance today, having synthesized elements of the earlier Kallatikkotan and Kaplinnatan styles.

kalsadhakam: footwork patterns learned as part of the basic training.

Kalyanasaugandhikam: The Flower of Good Fortune en-acts the story of how Bhima retrieved the ‘flow-ers of good fortune’ requested by his common wife, Panchali, after journeying through a for-est where he encounters his brother, Hanuman, as an obstacle in his path. One of the four ‘Kottayam plays’ authored by Kottayam Tampuran (c.1675–1725). Based on the Mahabharata, these four plays are considered to have extraordinarily fine poetry, and are cru-cittal to the traditional training of the actor-dancer because of their tight and demanding structure of performance.

Kammalan: the artisan castes of Kerala—among the higher polluting castes.

kanakkaran: tenants who resided on lands owned by higher-ranking castes in return for services rendered to the land-owner.

kanam: those who worked the land for higher castes

246 Glossary

did so by tenure, i.e., they were in service to landholders.

Kaniyan: traditional astrologers and agricultural la-boring castes of Kerala—among the higher pol-luting castes.

kannusadhakam: eye exercises performed as part of the basic training of the actor-dancer.

Kaplinnaan: one of the earlier styles of kathakali.

karanavan: the eldest male member and ruler of ex-tended families.

Karavadham: The Killing of Kara—one of the original Ramanattam plays recently revived by Margi. kari: literally, ‘black,’ this class of make-up and char-

acters includes the demoness Simhika. They are close to the black beards, and are also dressed in black, and wear oversized comic false breasts. They are considered the most grotesque of kathakali characters, and are a vivid and direct contrast to the idealized females of the ‘radiant’ category.

Karipuya: one of the earlier, distinctive styles of kathakali.

Karnasapatham:. V.Madhavan Nair’s 1967 play, Karna’s Oath. Based on traditional epic sources, this is the most popular, though controversial, contemporary play authored in recent history. karuna rasa: the audience’s aesthetic experience of

pathos or sadness.

karuttatati: ‘black beards’ are evil, like red beards, but are also by nature schemers. They are primi-tive beings, and, like the hunter Kattalan, are associttated with the forest and nature.

Katattanadu: one of the distinctive earlier styles of kathakali.

kathakali: literally, ‘story play.’ The name for Kerala’s distinctive genre of performance which enacts stories from the epics and puranas.

katti: the ‘knife’ make-up refers to this type of character’s distinctive stylized mustache. These characters are arrogant and evil, yet have some redeeming qualities—usually a streak of nobil-ity.

Kaurava: led by Duryodhana, this clan tricked their cousins, the Pandavas, out of their claim to the crown of their kingdom, and sent them into banishment. The schism between the two clans is resolved at the great battle of Kurukshetra where Duryodhana and Dussassana are killed

by Bhima. This is the story of the Mahabharata enacted in many kathakali plays.

kayca: traditional offering of gifts.

keli: opening drum call for a kathakali performance.

Part of the performance preliminaries.

ketticcattam: jumping steps—part of the basic train-ing.

Kiratam: The Hunter. Kathakali play authored by Irrattakulangara Rama Varier (1801–45) enact-ing that part of the Mahabharata in which the epic hero, Arjuna, goes to the Himalayas to perform penance to lord Siva as he seeks to se-cure from him the divine weapon (pasupata) needed to defeat the Kauravas in battle.

kiritam: crown or headdress.

Kirmiravadham: The Killing Kirmira was authored by Kottayam Tampuran (c.1675–1725). Based on the Mahabharata, it enacts the story of the dis-figurement of the demoness Simhika, and the act of killing her brother, the demon Kirmira, by Bhima.

Kitangor: the distinctive style of kathakali developed in Travancore, southern Kerala, and one of the two remaining distinctive styles of performance. kopam: colloquial expression in Malayalam for ev-

eryday anger.

Kottakkal: a major center for kathakali in northern Kerala. The location of the Kottakkal Ayurveda Sala and medical factory which patronizes one of the major kathakali troops and training cen-ters today.

krodha bhava: the actor’s state of being/doing fury,anger, wrath, or a ‘transformative fury.’ Krsnagiti: cycle of eight dance-dramas composed by

Manaveda, ruler of Kozhikode, and inspired by Jayadeva’s Sanskrit work, Gitagovinda. This genre eventually became known as Krsnattam, Krishna’s dance.

Krsnanattam (or Krsnattam): literally, Krishna’s dance (attam). A cycle of eight dramatic episodes per-formed on eight consecutive nights that tells the story of Lord Krishna from his birth through his absorption into his divine form as Mahavishnu, and concluding on the ninth night with the repetition of the drama of Krishna’s birth. Performances of this cycle of dramas were traditionally restricted to the Guruvayur (Krishna) Temple. The genre is one of the im-mediate precursors of kathakali.

ksatriya: a member of the governing or ruling or-der—what eventually was considered the second highest ranking caste next to the brahmins or priests. Their duty was to uphold the sociocosmic order.

kutiyattam: literally, ‘combined acting.’ The term re-fers to Kerala’s traditional form of staging acts of Sanskrit dramas in some of Kerala’s temples where specittally constructed theaters hold per-formances as ‘visual sacrifices’ for the major deity of the temple. The conventions, make-up, etc. of kutiyattam directly influenced the birth, growth, and development of kathakali.

kuttampalam: the specittally constructed temple-the-aters in which kutiyattam and Cakyar and Nannyar kuttu are performed at selected temples in Kerala.

lajja: shyness—one of three specittal female states of being/doing.

lalita: the celestial enchantress figure appearing in ‘radiant’ costume and make-up who is also a seductress. Demonesses like Simhika can take on this form temporarily, only to have their ‘true’ demonic nature revealed.

lasya: graceful, soft, light, in contrast to the ‘strong’ (tandava).

Lavanasuravadham: The Killing of Lavanasura—popu-

lar play featuring Hanuman.

lla: divine play.

lokadharmi: the ordinary, concrete, or everyday from which the ‘ideational’ is abstracted.

maddalam: a two-headed barrel-shaped drum ap-proximately three feet wide used to accompany any character or situation in a drama.

Mahabharata: along with the Ramayana, India’s great epic which serves as a source of traditional oral narratives and teaching stories. It tells the story of the enmity and conflict between two sets of princely brothers, the Kauravas led by Duryodhana and the five princely Pandavas.

manassakti: literally, ‘mental power.’ Through prac-tise of the martial art the master ideally gains superior mental power to be used in combat and/or daily life.

Manavavijayam: People’s Victory—a leftist kathakali play by Iyyamgode Sridharan in 1987 which toured widely and played to enthusiastic, non-tradi-tional, left political audiences.

Glossary 247

manipravalam: Kerala’s heavily Sanskritized literary language especittally important from the thir-teenth to fifteenth centuries which influenced the writing of kathakali plays.

margi: to transcend space and time.

Markandeyacaritam: 1996 kathakali play by Kalamandalam Balasubramanian based on an incident performed as part of The Progeny of Krishna. matra: time units or beats within each rhythmic cycle

(tala).

melappadam: the long vocal/percussion composition that is part of the preliminaries of a performance and provides both vocalists and percussionists ample opportunity to display their consummate musical skills.

meyyarappatavu: body control exercises—the prelimi-nary training of the actor-dancer’s bodymind. minukku: literally, ‘radiant’ or ‘shining,’ this class of make-up and characters includes both idealized female heroines, such as Sita, Panchali, or Mohini, and the purest and most spiritually perfected males, including brahmins, holy men, and sages. The base make-up is a warm yellow-orange, with costumes relatively close to every-

day traditional dress.

misra: mixed hand-gestures, i.e., those that combine two different gestures.

Mohiniyaam: ‘Mohini’s dance’—the traditional female ‘classical’ dance of Kerala.

moksa: attaining a state of release or atonement for the eternal soul.

mudra: hand-gesture. Kathakali’s gesture language includes twenty-four root mudras used singly or in combination literally to speak the dialogue of a play text, and also used decoratively dur-ing pure dance.

muriyatanta: ‘half-atanta’—rhythmic cycle set in 7 beats (half of 14).

muti: the specittal crown, decorated with silver and worn by Krishna, Rama, and Lakshmana. mutiyettu: Kerala propitiatory ritual for the god-

dess Kali in her destructive form. Performed at only a few temples in Kerala as an annual propitiatory rite, this mode of performance probably influenced the development of cer-tain aspects of kathakali costuming and perfor-mance.

nabhi mula: literally, the ‘root of the navel.’

248 Glossary

nadi: the channels of the subtle body as understood in yoga philosophy and practice.

Nalacaritam: King Nala’s Victory (caritam). Kathakali’s enactment of the infamous Nala/Damayanti love story performed over four nights, and authored in four parts by Unnayi Variyar (c. 1675–1716). The writing in the four plays is considered to be the ‘highest peak in kathakali literature’ (George 1968 102) since the poetry and imagery is con-sidered to be the richest in the canon.

nalamiratti: a fixed choreography used to connect an interpolation to a scene, or to make an exit. namaskaram: to pay respects or homage by the fold-ing of the hands at the chest, and/or through prostration to an elder or deities. Also, the term for one of kathakali’s preliminary exercises in which the student stretches while performing

an act of prostration on the floor. Namputiri(Namboodiri): Kerala’s highest-ranking

brahmins.

Nampyar: the drummers who accompany the per-formances of Nannyars and Cakyars in temple performances of kutiyattam and Nannyarkuttu.

Nannyarkuttu: temple performances featuring women (Nannyars) as they interpret, elaborate, and enact epic and puranic stories through a form of mono-acting.

Nannya: among the ranks of intermediate-cast temple servants (Ambalavasis) were Nannyars— the women who performed the female roles in the staging of Sanskrit drams (kutiyattam) and who also performed solo (Nannyarkuttu) as part of the ritual life of particular temples.

Narakasuravadham: The Killing of Narakasura is one of seven plays authored by Kartika Tirunal Rama Varma Maharaja (1724–98). The play remains in the repertory and is still popular with connoisseurs.

natyadharmi: the extraordinary, ideational which is elaborated, abstracted, transformed, and/or dis-tilled in performance.

Natyasastra: the major work of Sanskrit dramaturgy ascribed to the sage Bharata and dated loosely between the 2nd century BC and 2nd century AD. It is an encyclopedic collection of tech-niques, conventions, practices, and aesthetics of Sanskrit drama-in-performance.

navarasa: the nine basic facittal expressions which the kathakali actor learns as part of his training.

Nayar: a distinct term, Nayar first appeared in the ninth century, and by the eleventh century it was commonly used to refer to a large indig-enous group of non-polluting subcastes among Kerala Hindus. Although a few families be-came ruling lineages (such as the Zamorin of Calicut), the majority of Nayars were in service occupations providing military, personal, and managerial services for higher castes. Until the twentieth century, Nayars lived in extended households, followed matrilineal descent, and children were raised in their mother’s natal household. The first kathakali actors were Nayars in service to their ruling patrons as martial practitioners.

nokku: to look or catch a glimpse.

onnam, rantam, munnam: first, second, and third speed within rhythmic cycles; madhya, druta kala: middle and fast speeds

ottantullal: a form of traditional mono-acting derived from kathakali and elaborating epic stories through solo performance with percussion ac-companiment.

pacca: literally, ‘green,’ this class of make-up/char-acters includes divine figures like Krishna and Vishnu, kings like Rugmamgada, and epic he-roes such as Rama and Bhima. The most re-fined among male characters, they are upright, moral, and ideally full of a calm inner poise— ‘royal sages’ modelled on the hero (nayaka) of Sanskrit drama whose task is to uphold sacred law.

padam: verses composed specifically as dance mu-sic for interpretation by the actor-dancer—the dialogue or soliloquy portions of the text ‘spo-ken’ through gesture language.

pallavi: the refrain section of the dialogue portion of a kathakali play.

pampin tual: the worship of serpent deities under-stood to reside on extended family properties through annual ritual propitiation/possession dances.

pancari tala: rhythmic cycle set in 6 beats.

Pandava: the five princely brothers of the Mahabharata led by Yudhisthira who fight their arch enemy cousins, the Kauravas, at the battle of Kurukshetra.

Panikkar: honorific title given to some practitioners of Kerala’s martial art.

Paayan: among the lowest polluting castes of Kerala.

pasupata: divine weapon given by Siva to Arjuna after undergoing austerities.

Patapuappatu: an elaborate choreographical inter-pretation of ‘preparations for battle.’

patinna kalam: the slowest of the slow tempos used for love scenes and the elaboration of the erotic sentiment, with 56 beats.

Paundrakavadham: one of four plays authored by Aswati Tirunal Rama Varma (1756–94).

payuppu: using the same facittal design as the ‘green’ make-up, this ‘ripe’ make-up of orange-red is used for characters such as Balarama, Brahma, Shiva, and Surya.

pondi: a small club or mace used as a hand prop-erty in kathakali performances.

ponnani: the lead singer who sets the mood and keeps the tempo of the performance as he keeps basic rhythms on his gong.

Prahladacaritam: the kathakali play, Prahlada’s Law, which enacts the story of how the demon-king Hiranyakasipu’s son, Prahlada, became an avid devotee of Lord Vishnu and withstood his father’s fury. Hiranyakasipu is eventually killed by Vishnu’s man-lion incarnation. The open-ing scene is a famous love scene between the ‘knife’ character Hiranyakasipu and his beloved wife Kayati.

prana vayu: the breath(s) or wind(s) understood to circulate within the body. Also refers to the ‘life force,’ or ‘breath of life.’ Implicit in kathakali train-ing since the actor must learn to circulate, con-trol, and use the ‘breath’ or ‘wind’ when per-forming facittal expressions, hand-gestures, etc. It is the ‘enlivening’ element of performance.

puja: worship of Hindu deities through daily or specittal/seasonal offerings pleasing to each de-ity. Kutiyattam is performed as a ‘visual sacrifice’ to deities of particular temples, i.e., as an offer-ing.

Pulayan: harijans or ‘out-castes’ of Kerala.

purana: encyclopedic collections of traditional sto-ries, lore, wisdom, techniques, etc. which, along with the two great epics, are the ‘bibles’ of Hin-duism. Most kathakali plays which do not draw their stories for enactment from the two epics, base their narratives on stories from one or more of the puranas, especittally those dealing with the life of Lord Krishna.

Glossary 249

purappatu: the preliminary pure dance usually per-formed by students in full costume and make-up.

Putanamoksam: Putana’s Release. One of four plays written by Aswati Tirunal Rama Varma (1756– 94). The role of the demoness Putana has be-come one of the most popular in the repertory, especittally for performances of the interpola-tion in which Puthana enacts her death while suckling the baby Krishna.

raga: musical modes to which verses are set by the author/composer. Each accentuates a particu-lar mood.

rajasa: one of the three basic gunam categories, ‘pas-sion’ or the energetic.

rajasic: the dynamic quality of certain characters, especittally of ‘knife’ type anti-heroes such as Ravana and Narakasura.

Rajasuyam: one of seven plays by Kartika Tirunal Rama Varma Maharaja (1724–98). Along with Narakasuravadham it is still performed today.

Ramanatakam: L.S.Rajagopal’s 1995 adaption of the Tamil language ‘Play of Rama’ into kathakali style. The original Tamil work is by the great Tamil poet Arunachalam Kavirayar.

Ramanattam: literally, ‘Rama’s dance.’ A cycle of eight plays based on the Ramayana, and authored by Kottarakkara Tampuran (c. 1625– 85). The earliest dramas in the genre that even-tually became known as kathakali.

Ramayana: along with the Mahabharata, India’s great epic which serves as a source of traditional oral narratives and teaching stories. It tells the story of the trials and tribulations of Prince Rama, his wife Sita, and his brother Lakshmana. One of the principal parts of the epic story oc-curs when the ten-headed demon-king Ravana captures Sita and takes her to his island abode Lanka. The monkey-god, son of the Wind, Hanuman, leads the monkey armies as they assist Rama in securing Sita’s freedom.

rasa: the goal of theater is to allow the audience to ‘taste’ aesthetic delight.

rasika: literally, a ‘taster of rasa’—a connoisseur edu-cated into apprecittation of the nuances of kathakali poetry, imagery, gesture language, music, etc. and therefore able to achieve the ideal aesthetic experience when watching perfor-mances.

250 Glossary

rati bhava: the actor’s state of being/doing the plea-surable, the erotic, or love.

raudra: ‘fury,’ usually associttated with the destruc-tive power of the goddess, and the state of mind required to kill. One of the nine basic aesthetic states (rasa).

Ravanotbhavam: play authored by Kallekkulangara Raghava Pisharody (1725–93) which features the major role of Ravana.

Rugmamgadacaritam: King Rugmamgada’s Law is one of two kathakali plays authored by Mandavappalli Ittiraricha Menon (1747–94). It enacts the story of King Rugmamgada’s test by the enchantress Mohini.

Rugminisvayamvaram: one of four plays authored by Aswati Tirunal Rama Varma (1725–94). Still performed as part of the repertory and featur-ing the role of Susupala.

sabdavarnana: Kirmira’s elaborate interpolation where he ‘describes the sounds’ which disturb him from his meditation in The Killing of Kirmira.

sahradaya: the ideal aesthetic engagement of the con-noisseur whose ‘heart/mind’ has been entrained and cultivated into apprecittation.

sakti: the active principle of power/energy. When defined as Sakti, the goddess, she embodies the dangerous, unstable female energy and is asso-cittated with the generation of a powerful, ‘furi-ous’ heated condition and therefore inspires terror.

Samantan: titled high-caste royal lineages.

sama bhava: the actor’s state of being/doing at-onement.

sampadayam: tradition, traditional method, lineage of practice, style.

Sampurna Ramayaam: Complete Ramayana created by the P.S.V.Natyasangham company. A compos-ite play pieced together from scenes from a num-ber of different Ramayana scenes in order to create a ‘complete’ narrative enactment of the Ramayana epic.

samsara: the eternal chain of rebirths in an infinity of bodies.

samyukta: combined hand-gestures where both hands make use of the same gesture.

sancaribhava: the secondary or subordinate state of being/doing, such as pride.

santa rasa: the audience’s aesthetic experience of atonement, union, or peace.

Santanagopalam: literally, Krishna’s (Santana) chil-dren, progeny, or prosperity (gopalam), i.e., The Progeny of Krishna. Kathakali play authored by Mandavappalli Ittiraricha Menon (1747–94).

sanyasin: a renuncittant.

satva: goodness or truth. One of the three basic gunam or substances. Usually associttated with the high, purest priestly castes.

satvika: the expressive, subtle, or ‘internal’ elements of acting.

Setubandhanam: one of the original eight Ramanattam plays recently revived by Margi.

siddha: one who has become accomplished in a prac-tice, usually through repetition, or by divine gift.

Simhadhvajacaritam: kathakali play authored by Utram Tirunal Maharaja (1815) who ruled Travancore during the mid-nineteenth century. sloka: metrical verse composed in stanzas, usually in the third person, which indicate the context and tell what is going to happen in the ensuing

dialogue portion of the play.

soka bhava: the actor’s state of being/doing pathos or sorrow.

sopanam: kathakali’s unique traditional form of vo-cal music.

sraddha: traditional funeral rites which an eldest son performs for his father.

srngara rasa: the audience’s aesthetic experience of pleasure, the erotic, or love.

srutva: literally, ‘having heard.’

sthayibhava: the nine basic, ‘enduring’ states of be-ing/doing, eight of which were identified in the Natyasastra. The ninth state included in kathakali, at-onement was identified by the commentator Abinavagupta in the twelfth century.

strivesam: female roles in kathakali.

Subhadraharanam: play authored by Manthredath Namboodiripad (1851–1906).

suci: literally, ‘needles,’ or the splits performed as part of kathakali training.

Takayi: one of the earlier, distinctive styles of kathakali.

tala: rhythmic patterns to which the dialogue por-tion of the texts (padam) are set and within which dances and dramatic action are performed.

talavattam: the number of rhythmic cycles within

which sections of dialogue are set for perfor-mance.

tali: the chain necklace conventionally given when a woman formed an arranged relationship with a man as approved by the eldest male of her household—a traditional form of ‘marriage.’

tamasa: darkness/lethargy—one of the three gunam or fundamental types.

tamburan: an honorific title meaning lord or ruler.

tandava: the strong or energetic quality manifest in choreography.

tantetattam: one type of interpolation into the dra-matic text, this is a set form of soliloquy acted by specific character types (‘knife,’ ‘beard,’ or ‘black’) after their entrances. They also take the form of an assessment of the situation a charac-ter faces.

tapas: austere meditation used to achieve higher powers.

tapassattam: Ravana’s lengthy enactment of penance.

taravatittam: what is due to one’s family home and therefore one’s family name.

taravatu: extended family household presided over by the eldest male of the family.

tati: literally, ‘beard,’ the general term covering three different classes of ‘beard’ characters, including ‘white,’ ‘red,’ and ‘black’.

tattvahini vesi: one who is ‘philosophically oriented.’

teppu: a make-up class which is a catch-all or miscellaneous group of approximately eighteen characters from the active repertory that do not fit the other, standard types. Included here are the specittal bird-style make-ups and costumes of such famous characters as Garuda, Jatayu, and Hamsa (the goose in Nalacaritam); the god-dess Bhadrakali in Daksa’s Sacrifice, etc.

teyyam: traditional ritual performances of northern Kerala which serve as the locally most popular form of Hinduism through which hundreds of pan-Indian and local deities are propitiated, in-cluding local heroes.

tiranokku: the ‘curtain look’ used for entrances of certain characters who, by their manipulation of the curtain, reveal certain enduring aspects of their inner-nature.

tirassila: the multi-colored kathakali curtain hand-held by two onstage attendants. Used for entrances and exits.

Glossary 251

Tiya: one of the toddy tapping, higher polluting castes.

tonkaram: a short dance choreography similar to an iratti in that it too is performed to a pallavi. totayam: a lengthy piece of pure dance choreogra-

phy taught during the student’s first year of training, and including all the basic non-inter-pretive foot patterns, body movements, use of hands, and cycles of rhythm basic to perfor-mance.

triputa tala: rhythmic cycle set in 7 beats.

utsaha bhava: the actor’s state of being/doing the heroic or the vigorous.

uyiccil: derived from Kerala’s martial art, this vigor-ous full body massage is given annually to kathakali students as a part of their training pro-cess.

vacika: the vocal element of performance.

vadham: literally, the act of killing.

vandana slokam: singing of the opening verses that begins a performance, and contextualizes the story to be enacted.

vayttari: the verbal instructions or commands re-cited by a master as students perform exercises. vellattati: ‘white beards’ represent a higher, divine type of being, such as Hanuman, the wise and

valorous chief of the monkeys.

vesam: a role the actor plays, or the ‘covering’ an actor uses to become the character, i.e., the put-ting on of costume, make-up, and character.

Vicchinnabhisekam: one of the original Ramanattam plays recently revived by Margi.

vidusaka: the stock high-caste brahman character of kutiyattam and Sanskrit dramas.

vira rasa: the audience’s aesthetic experience of the heroic. One of the nine basic aesthetic states (rasa) to be ‘tasted’ by an audience in kathakali. This state is particularly associttated with the main heroic (pacca) characters of kathakali, and with the Nayar martial caste of Kerala who were protectors of ‘cows and brahmins.’

vismaya bhava: the actor’s state of being/doing the wondrous or marvellous.

vistarikkuka: a tour de force dance elaboration such as the ‘peacock dance’ in The Killing of Narakasura. yaksi: a specittal type of female ghost—the unhappy women who die before having had sex or be-

fore marriage or giving birth.

252 Glossary

yoga: from the root meaning ‘to bind together, hold fast, or yoke.’ Any ascetic, meditational, or psycho-physiological technique which achieves such a ‘binding’ of bodymind. Especittally im-portant for both brahmins and princes who model themselves on ‘royal sages’ and are sup-posed to overcome their emotions through such disciplines of practice.

TRANSLITERATION OF COMPLETE PHRASES/PASSAGES QUOTED

Natan kathapatravumayi tadatmyam prapikkanam.

Natan kathapatravumayi alinnu cerunnu. Mancel miyiyale ninnal vanchitannalayitunnor

ancita saugandhikaal ancate koanntuvan.

Saila mukalilennalum sakralokattennakilum

velayilla tava hitam vikramena sadhippanum.

Index

Note: Page references in italics indicate illustrations.

Abhinavagupta 37, 68, 95, 191 Abhinayadarpanam: sloka 36 re-evaluated 90–2

actor-dancers 4, 21, 27, 28, 41, 63; creative process during performance 66, 67, 68; extent of involvement with character 87–90; maturity 66, 89; preparation for performance 57–8; synthesizing the external and internal 68, 69; see also characterization; training

aesthetics: ‘aesthetic of disinterestedness’ 38; ‘aesthetics of the mind’ 191–2; differing approaches to 91; as learned experience 36–8; see also rasa

agents of the gods 5 Agrarian Relations Bill 198 Ambalavasis 20 Ambarishacaritam 12, 25, 159 animal characters 50, 55 anti-heroes 25;

see also ‘knife’ characters

appropriateness 36, 45, 179, 190

Aravindan 184

Aricatasumedharan 196

Arjun, Appadurai 8, 9

Arjuna 5, 170–1; in The Flower of Good Fortune 113, 115, 116; in The Progeny of Krishna 152, 157–8

Arya Vaidya Sala 32

Asan, Gopi (Vadakke Manalath Govindan) 102; on approach to characters 89; in role of

Karna 7, 180; in role of Rugmamgada 90, 160; on training, 30–1, 68, 69–72, 84

Asan, Ittararicha Menon 23 Asan, Kumaran 190, 191

Asan, Kunju Nayar see Nayar, Kunju Asan, Padmanabhan 7, 57, 186 Asan, Ramankutty Nayar see Nayar,

Ramankutty

Ascarayacudamani 22

Ashley, Wayne 200

Associttation Keli 178, 184

Aswati Tirunal Tampuran 25, 159

attakatha 1, 22

attaprakaram (performance manual) 11 audiences 187–8, 189; expectations of 187; see

also rasa

authorship: and patronage 22–3, 25 Ayappa Caritam see Lord Ayappa’s Law Ayrookuzhiel, A.M.Abraham 153 Ayurveda 7, 73, 93, 153, 173

Bakavadham see Killing of Baka, The

Balaramabharatam 25, 27

Balasubramanian 84, 89, 137, 181, 190

Balivadham see Killing of Bali, The

Balivijayam 25

ballet 39

Barbosa, Duarte 114, 130 battles, choreography of 61, 62 Bauman, Richard 10

254 Index

bearded characters 50, 54; black 55; red 54; white 54

Bennett, Susan 10, 202 Bhadrakali 131, 132 Bhagavad Gita 170 Bhagavati 57, 131, 172 bhakti (devotion) 12 Bharatiya Janatha Party 202

bhava 4, 24, 26, 27, 47, 85, 87, 95; nine basic states, plus one (stayibhava) 68, 77–8, 79; physicalization of 90; secondary states (sancaribhava) 68

Bhima 5, 88–9, 130; in The Flower of Good Fortune 87, 113, 115–17; as ‘misfit’ 24, 53; properties used by 58; and state of fury 28, 53, 172

Billington, Michael 188

bird characters 55

blood 130–4

body-control exercises 72–3

brahmins 3, 20, 21, 153, 154; see also Namboodiri brahmins

breathing 93–5

Breckenridge, Carol 8, 9

Brook, Peter 187, 195

Buddha Carita 179

Caldwell, Sarah Lee 131, 132, 172

caste system 3, 6–7, 20–2; and socittal reform movements 30

cattam (jumps) 71, 72

centa (cylindrical drum) 24, 58

Centre Ocentan Stream Theater Company 178 Chakyar, Guru Ammannur Madhava 28–9 Chandalika 179

character types, recognition of 4, 5; see also make-up

characterization 87–97; developing interpolations 95–7; extent of actor’s involvement with character 87–90; optimal state of actualization (re-evaluation of ‘sloka 36’) 90–2; and psychophysiology of ‘form’ 92–5

children: Hanuman’s popularity with 65, 117; theme of loss of 152–4

Chin, Daryl 195

choreography 41, 61–4;

accentuating/linking dances 62; and new

productions 181; preliminary dances 52, 62; triangular posture 82, 93

Cinderella 178

Clifford, James 8

Cochin see Kochi

colliyattam (students’ rehearsal of roles) 82–3 colonial era 9, 25, 113, 188 comic characters 55

communism 198, 203

Communist Party of India (CPI) 198–9, 200–1, 202

Complete Ramayana 180

conch shell 61, 171

connoisseurship 2, 17–18, 88, 192; and aesthetic experience 35–6; contemporary 33–8; and elitism 157; and traditional patronage 23–4, 27–30

costumes 22, 54, 55; of brahmins 154; dressing process 57; innovations in 24

crowns 24, 54 cultural politics 18 Currimbhoy, Asif 182, 183 curtain, hand-held 50 cymbals 4, 24, 60

Daksa’s Sacrifice 55

dandaka (rhythmic narrative) 41 David and Goliath 179 Davis, Marvin 56

De Marinis, Marco 187

demonesses 50, 55, 56–7, 96–7;

transformation process 172

demons 54

desi style 35

Devan, P.K. 187

dharma (duty) 170

Dharma Sastras 152–3

Dharmaputra 89, 113, 116

dialogue see padam

diet 73

Drewal, Margaret 10

drummers 22, 61

drums 4, 24, 60; three types 58

Dumb Dancer, The 177, 182–4, 197

Duncan, Jonathan 114

Duryodhanavadham see Killing of Duryodhana, The

Eagleton, Terry 202

Edinburgh Festival 184, 188, 194, 197

ekadasi day 159

eklochana 36

elaboration 39–40, 42, 64, 192;

cycles of 63–4

Eliade, Mircenta 63

energy: grounding and control 93–5; triangle of 82, 93

entrances and exits 50

epic characters, nature of 192; see also heroes

epic literature 3, 5, 27, 56, 66, 180

Erdman, Joan 10

Ernakulam 178, 187

erotic state (rati bhava/srngara rasa) 78, 88–9, 94 experimentation 9–10, 12, 177–81; in 1960s 179–

80, 182–4; debate over limits of 190–2; see also Dumb Dancer, The; Kathakali King Lear; People’s Victory

eyes: exercises 72, 92; follow the hands 77; importance of 93–4; use of cuntappuvu 57; see also facittal expressions

Fabian, Johannes 10

facittal expressions (navarasa) 26, 68, 73, 77–8, 79; see also eyes

F.A.C.T. Kathakali School 33 Faust’s Release 179, 196

female characters 55, 56–7, 61, 79; see also demonesses feudalism 199, 200–1

Flower of Good Fortune, The 11, 41, 50, 51, 101–17; bearded characters 54; Bhima’s encounters with demons 5; Bhima’s interpolation 40, 43, 87; Hanuman’s meditation 42–3; Hanuman’s popularity with children 65, 117; heroic tradition and Bhima’s character 113–16; humour 116–17; Margi’s performance of complete original text 34; poetic qualities 39; properties 58; Scene 9 analysed 42–3, 86, 87; scenes usually performed 40; students’ progressive learning of roles 82

Freeman, John Richardson 19, 174, 200 French critics 188–9

From the Gutter 199

Fuller, Chris 5–6, 19, 24

fury, state of (krodha bhava/raudra rasa) 78, 94, 171–4

Gandhi’s Victory 178, 179

Ganesha 72

George, K.M. 182

Gilles, Pierre 189

Gitagovinda 4

Gitoma, David 12–13

goddess, the 131

Gopalakrishnan, K.K. 32, 180, 181, 198, 203

Index 255

Gopalan, A.K. 199

Gopinath, Guru 178

Gough, Kathleen 25

Grady, Sharon 200

Grandmontagne, Cl. 189

Greek drama 40

gunam (one’s basic nature) 56 gurukkula system 68–9 Gurukulam Kathakali Yogam 178 Guruvayur Temple 4

Hamlet 181, 196, 197 hand gestures see mudra Hanuman 42–3, 54, 65, 116–17 Hastalaksanadipika (gesture manual) 24–5 Hein, Norvein 158

heroes and heroic state 5, 6, 23–4; ambiguities of 113–17; characterization of 88–90; and duty 170; four types in Natyasastra 56; green make-up 23–4, 53–4, 56; and power 169, 172–3; and state of fury 171–4

Hinduism 5, 202

histrionics 43

Holloman, Regina 200

holy men 55

humour 55, 116–17, 154–5, 156 Hungry Ones, The 182 hunters 50, 55

ilakiyattam see interpolations

Iliad, The 178, 197, 204

improvisation 44, 63, 156–7

Inden, Ronald 188

Independence, Indian (1947) 3, 5, 199

Indian Express 179, 181, 190

individuality (of characters) 56

Indra 115

International Centre for Kathakali 178, 179, 206–7 interpolations 40, 42–4, 95–7 itaykka (small drum) 58

Iyer, Ganesha 2, 34, 36, 37, 38, 152; preference for mono-acting of Simhika’s mutilation 132–3, 134

Iyer, Rama 36–7

Iyer, V.Subramania 11

Jacob, Paul 190

jatis 20, 21, 22

Jayadeva 4

Jeffrey, Robin 6, 7

256 Index

jumps see cattam

kabuki 90, 199

kala (tempo) 41

Kala Chethena Kathakali Company 178 Kaladharan, V. 194, 195, 204 kalarippayattu 131, 173, 174

kalasams (linking dances) 62

Kali 57, 131

Kalidasa (poet) 191

Kalidasa Kalakendra 199

‘Kaliyarang’ 179

kaliyattam 200

Kalladikkotan 26

Kalluvayi style 26, 27, 28

Kalyanasaugandhikam see Flower of Good Fortune, The

Kamsavadham 191

Kannan, Ettumanur 119

Kannur 198, 200

Karna’s Oath (Karnasapatham) 7, 83, 180–1

Kartika Tirunal Rama Varma Maharaja 25, 26,

27, 96

kathakali:

competition with popular culture 7–9; develop-ment of distinctive styles 26; history 3–7; importance of poetic text 39; modern performances 7; ‘most glorious phase’ 27; recent changes and experiments 9–10, 12, 177–84, 190–2; socittal history 17–38

Kathakali: The Art of the Non-Worldly 35, 38 Kathakali King Lear 9, 10, 38, 177, 178, 181,

184–95, 196, 197, 201, 204; closing scenes 192–5; European reception 188–9; Malayali reception 189–95

katti see ‘knife’ characters Kavirayar, Arunachalam 181 Kerala: goddesses and ritual 131–2; history 3–7, 113–15; politics and the arts

198–202; socittal history and patronage 19–30 Kerala Kalabhavan (Kerala Art-House) 196, 202,

206

Kerala Kalamandalam (Kerala State School of the Arts) 8, 9, 30–2, 33–4, 179, 206; colliyattam class 83; exclusion of women 70; interpreta-tion of Prahlada’s Law 46; and Kalluvazhi style 26; and King Lear experiment 38, 184; placed under state management 199; Ramunni Menon’s influence 28; syllabus 80–2;

tours 178; training conditions 69, 70–2; see also Kuttampalam Theater

Kerala People’s Arts Company 199

Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad 199–200, 203

Keralopathi 130

Kharavadham 34

‘Khol Do’ 206–8

Kidangoor style 26, 27

Killing of Baka, The 28, 34, 82

Killing of Bali, The 28–9, 55

Killing of Duryodhana, The 2–3, 5, 172, 182, 204 Killing of Hitler, The 178, 179, 196, 202 Killing of Kichaka, The 79, 184

Killing of Kirmira, The 5, 11, 39, 118–34; character types 54, 55; Dharmaputra’s role 89; furious state in 172; interpolations 43; Kirmira’s preparation for battle 41; and mimetic exactitude 134; modern performances of 118; Nelliyode’s performance of Simhika 96–7; set structure 86; significance and representation of blood 130–4; Simhika’s beautification scene 42; Simhika’s entrances 50, 61; students’ progressive learning of roles 82–3

Killing of Lavanasura, The 81, 82

Killing of Narakasura, The 5, 25, 52, 96; peacock dance 62, 64

‘killings’ 5, 6, 24, 64, 131, 169 King Lear see Kathakali King Lear

King Nala’s Law 27, 83, 88–9, 203; basic story 44–5; as high point in kathakali literature 1, 39; interpolations 95–6; loose structure 84; Margi’s work on 34, 35; Nala’s decision to leave wife in forest 43; Nala’s reflection on love for Damayanti (third sloka) 45, 94, 192; translations 11

King Prahlada’s Law 50, 55; opening love scene dialogue 45–9

King Rugmamgada’s Law 5, 12, 83, 135, 159–74, 203; character types 55, 56; heroic power and duty in (king’s inability to kill his son) 90, 169–71; interpolations 43, 44; loose structure 84; Lord Vishnu’s entrance 61; state of fury in 171–4

kingship 5–6, 19, 131, 169, 195; sacrificittal 134 Kinsley, David R. 5

Kiratam 5

Kirmiravadham see Killing of Kirmira, The ‘knife’ (katti) characters 25, 27, 45, 50, 54 Kochi (Cochin) 19, 25, 178 Kottakkal 7

Kottarakkara Tampuram 18

Kottayam Tampuram and ‘Kottayam Plays’ 1,

11–12, 18, 27, 34, 39; biography 101; changes initiated by 23, 24, 27; importance of plays for training due to precise structure 83–7; poetic language 101–2; ‘technical virtuosity’ demanded by 26, 83; see also Flower of Good Fortune, The; Killing of Baka, The; Killing of Kirmira, The

Kozhikode 18, 101, 114–15 Krishna 4–5, 54, 201, 204 Krishnakaimal, Aymanam 101, 135, 179 Krishnattam 4–5, 6, 18, 20, 21, 23 krodha bhava see fury, state of Ksatriya families 19, 20

KSSP see Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad Kuchela Vrttam 154

Kulashekhara, King 4, 22, 24 kundalini sakti 173, 174 Kuppuswamy, B. 170 Kurup, C.G.R. 179–80

kutiyattam 6, 12, 29, 132, 191; basis in temple socio-economic network 20, 22; different experience to kathakali 28; hand gestures in 24, 73; influence on Kidangoor style of kathakali 26; link with ‘Sanskritization’ of kathakali 27; Margi and 34

Kuttampalam Theater 49, 51, 191

La Mama Theater, New York 182 lalita (enchantress) 57 land see property rights

LeDay, Annette 178, 184, 186, 187 lighting 50–1

lila (play of the gods) 4, 64, 151, 157, 158 literacy 199, 202

lokadharmi (ordinary) 133–4, 155, 156, 157 Lord Ayappa’s Law 180

McConachie, Bruce 10

McDaniel, June 95

McRuvie, David 184–6, 187, 194, 195

maddalam (large drum) 58

Mahabharata, The 2, 3, 5, 11, 18, 187, 195

make-up 24, 53–8; applying 57–8; beard (tati) 54–5; black (kari) 55; green (pacca) 23–4, 53–4, 56; knife (katti) 25, 27, 45, 50, 54; radiant (minukku) 55, 154; ripe (payuppu) 54; specittal (teppu) 55

Malabar 4, 25, 114

male characters 56

Mamakan festival 114–15

Index 257

Manavavijayam see People’s Victory Manaveda (of Kozhikode) 4, 5, 18 manipravalam tradition 22 Manto, Saadat Hasan 206 Marattam (film) 184

Margi 7, 33–8, 181, 191, 192 Markandeyacaritam 181 marriage traditions 3, 29, 30 Martanda Varma Maharaja 26

martial arts 19, 21, 72, 92, 93, 131, 169, 172, 173–4

Mary Magdalene 178, 179

masks 55

massage 72, 73, 93

Mathrabhumi 201, 203

Meenam 159

Mencher, Joan P. 25

Menon, Ittirarissa 26

Menon, K.P.S. 135

Menon, Mahakavi Vallathol Naryana (Vallathol) 9, 30–2, 70, 177–8, 179, 199, 202

Menon, Mandavappalli Ittiraricha 1, 12, 135

Menon, Pattiyakkantoti Ramunni 26, 28

Menon, Nanu 23

mental equilibrium 173

Message of Love 197, 201–2, 204–5, 206 Misra, Vidya Niwas 133

monkey chiefs: red beard 54; white beard 54; see also Hanuman

mono-acting 43, 132–4; see also soliloquy Moore, Melinda 20

Moosad, Vayaskara Aryan Narayanan 2

Morgan, David 18

Morris, Tom 188, 193

mudiyettu 131, 132

mudra (hand gestures) 4, 73–6, 77, 92–3; and complex rhythms 84–5; innovations 24–5; and mind focus 95

Mukunda Mala 4

Mukunda Raja 30

music 4, 24, 27, 58–61, 64; dramatic moods 61; raga 1, 24, 59, 61; speed 59; tala 41, 59, 60, 61, 63, 84–5

musicittans 22

Muslim invasions 25

myth 4, 156

nails 58

Nair, D.Appukuttan 33, 35–6, 37, 38, 49 Nair, V.Madhavan 180

258 Index

Nair, Vazkenkata Kunchu 179

Nalacaritam see King Nala’s Law

‘Nalanunni’ 26

Namboodiri, Kaplingattu 24

Namboodiri, M.P.Sankaran 31, 65; on kalasams 62; on Ramayana plays 23; and role of Brahmin 137, 139, 154, 155, 156, 157; on training 66, 93, 95

Namboodiri, Mankulham Vishnu 2, 33 Namboodiri, Nelliyode Vasudevan 96–7, 119,

128, 153, 154, 194–5

Namboodiri, Thottam Sankaran 94

Namboodiri brahmins 20, 22–3, 25, 26, 27

Namboodiripad, E.M.S. 202

Namboodiripad, P.C. 179

Namboodiripad, Vasudevan 34, 117, 186

Nambudirippad, Kalloor 25

Nambudirippad, Olappamanna Subrahmanian 38

Narakasuravadham see Killing of Narakasura, The

Narasimha Temple 7

narrative see sloka

Natana Kala Kshetram 200 Natanson, Maurice 187 nationalist movement 3, 202 natyadharmi (extraordinary) 133–4

Natyasastra 25, 37, 49; on audience experience 68; on characterization 88; on exercise and health 73; on types of heroes 56; use of terms from 133, 134

navarasa see facittal expressions Nayar, Appakoothan 191–2, 194 Nayar, Gurukkal Govindankutty 173 Nayar, K.Kannan 79

Nayar, Krishnan 1, 28, 33, 152 Nayar, Kumaran 194

Nayar, Kunju 1, 117, 152, 154, 156 Nayar, Mali Madhavan 83 Nayar, Padmanabhan 97, 194, 195

Nayar, Ramankutty 28, 65, 102, 107, 117 Nayar, V.R.Prabodhachandran 1, 2, 3, 8, 97, 115 Nayar Service Society 30

Nayars 19, 20, 21, 22–3, 26, 29, 174; importance of goddess 131; martial practices 113–15, 130–1

Nedungadi, T.M.B. 179

Nehru, Jawaharlal 31

Nelliyode see Namboodiri, Nelliyode Vasudevan noh theater 26, 39, 187, 199

O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger 115, 152, 153, 156 Olappamanna Mana 26

Omchery, Leela 59–61

Oppression of the Innocent 178

oracles 131, 132

Otenan, Tacholi 115

Othello 178

outdoor performances 50

P.S.V.Natyasangham 7, 32, 55, 179, 180 padam (dialogue) 41, 45–9; cycles of repetition

and elaboration 63, 64

Palakkad 196

Panavalli Temple 151, 152

Paniker, K.Ayyapa 35

Panikkar, Chitra 18, 29

Panikkar, Guru Madhava 207

Panikkar, Itichenna 27

Panikkar, Ittiri 24

Panikkar, K.M. 184

Panikkar, Kochayyappa 27

Panikkar, Unniri 26

Panikkar, Vellattu Chattunni 24

Parameswaran, P. 204

pathos 79, 194

patinattam (slow tempo) 45

patronage 9, 17–33, 198; and authorship 22–3, 25; breakdown of traditional 33–4; and connoisseurship 23–4, 27–30; early modern decline 29–30; and innovation 24–6; royal 18–19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27;

socio-economic basis 19–22 Paul, G.S. 181 peacock dance 62, 63

People’s Victory 9, 10, 196–201, 202–4, 205 Percival, John 189

percussion orchestra 4, 59, 61; see also cymbals; drums

performance 39–64; actor’s creative process during 66, 67, 68; actor’s preparation for 57–8; audience expectations 187; preliminary dances 52, 62; ritual start and finish 52; traditional times and schedules 52–3, 64; see also choreography; make-up; music; properties performance scores, structure of 39–48; dialogue 45–8; editing 40; interpolations 42–4; sloka 41, 44–5; textual sub-units 41

performance spaces 49–52

Pilla, Ramachandran 119

Pillai, Vembayam Appukoothan 79, 84, 120 Pisharody, Kallekkulangara Raghava 25 Pisharody, Vasu 79, 88–9, 152, 154–5, 180–1

Pitkow, Marlene 57, 70, 97 Poduval, Krishnankutty 195 posture, triangular 82, 93 Potti, Muringoor Sankara 154 Prahladacaritam see King Prahlada’s Law Presse de la Manche, La 188–9

Progeny of Krishna, The 1–2, 5, 12, 38, 135–58; addresses problem of theodicy and lila 157–8; character types 55, 56; depicts everyday themes and characters 152–6, 157; humour 154–5, 156, 157; interpolations 44, 152, 181; loose structure 84; loss of children theme 152–3; midwife as caricature 156, 191; pathos in 79; popularity of 151–2; self-pride of Arjuna 115; theme of suffering of good people 153–4; use of local children in performance 156–7

Progressive Writers’ Associttation 199 properties 58

property rights (‘house and land’) 3, 20, 25, 26, 29, 30

puranas 3, 5, 27, 56, 66, 180; Agni Purana 172; Bhagavata Purana 135, 151; Brahmavaivarta Purana 115; Padma Purana 159

Putanamoksham 89

raga 1, 24, 51, 60, 61

Raghavan, V. 133

Rajagopal, L.S. 181

Rajasuyam 25

Rama 4, 24

Raman, P.M.Kunhi 32

Ramanatakam 181

Ramanattam 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 27; Margi’s revival of 34

Ramanujan, A.K. 11

Ramayana 3, 54, 83

Rao, Maya Krishna 206–8

rasa (audience’s aesthetic experience) 78, 95, 157, 179; see also aesthetics; audiences

rasika see connoisseurship

rati bhava see erotic state

raudra rasa see fury, state of Ravanolbhavam 25 red, symbolism of 132 repertory 83–7

repetition, cycles of 63

rhythmic patterns see tala

ritual arts 20

Roy, Arundhati 3

royal patronage 18–19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27

Index 259

‘royal sages’ 53

Rugmamgadacaritam see King Rugmamgada’s Law Rugminiswayamvaran 25

sacrifice 131, 132, 134, 169–73 sahrdaya see connoisseurship Saktibhadra, King 22

Salome 179

Sampoorna Ramayana 180 sampradayas (styles) 18, 26 Sangeet Natak Akademi 31, 178

Sanskrit 22–3, 27; classical drama 191; teaching 80

Santanagopalam see Progeny of Krishna, The sari dance 63

Sax, William S. 158

Scavenger’s Son 199

‘Scorpio’ 181

Sensitive, La 178

Sethubandhanam 34

sexuality 172

Shakespeare, William 40; see also Hamlet; Kathakali King Lear; Othello

Shankar, Uday 178

shape-changers 172

Sharma, Prem Lata 133

Shiva 54

Simhadhuvajacaritam 27

Sivaraman, Kottakkal 7

sloka (narrative) 41, 44–5; see also elaboration Sneehasandesham see Message of Love

socittal reform 30

soliloquy 41, 42–3; see also mono-acting Spencer, Charles 188

Sri Kartika Tirunal Theater 49

Sri Muthappan Kathakali Yogam 32

Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple 135, 152, 159 Sridharan, Iyyamgode 184, 196, 197, 201–2,

204–5, 206

srngara rasa see erotic state

stage: relative status of right and left 51–2 States Reorganization Act 199 Stevenson, Randall 188, 189, 193–4 Stoller Miller, Barbara 191 styles see sampradayas

Subhadra Haranam 204

Sudarsana Cakra 5

Sukumaran, Margi 119

Sunderdass, S. 203

sword 114, 131–2, 170

260 Index

Tagore, Rabindranath 179, 180 tala 41, 59, 60, 61, 64, 84–5 Tamil language production 181 tantetattam see soliloquy

tati see bearded characters

Telegramme, Le 189

temple festivals 7, 8, 131, 135, 152, 180 temples 4, 6, 20, 22, 151–2, 159 teyyam 174, 200, 204 theater, nature of 10

‘theater of roots’ 35

‘theater of the mind’ 36, 37–8, 157 theaters 49–52

Thiruvananthapuram 7, 33, 135, 152; Kathakali Club 7, 180; V.J.T.Hall 184

Thulaseedharan, K. 179

time, cyclical notion of 63

Times, The 189

Times Literary Supplement 193 Tippu Sultan 25 Tiruvalla Temple 151–2

tourist performances 178, 187, 206 tours, international 178 ‘tradition’ 11, 17

training 65–87, 90, 92; basic (first year) 73–81; body preparation and exercise 72–3; breath-ing and energy 93–5; importance of Kottayam plays for 83–7, 118; initiation 70; intermediate and advanced 81–3; as male privilege 70; process and structure 68–72; selection procedure 69–70

translations 37

transmigration 88

Travancore 19, 25, 26, 27, 29, 135 Trawick Egnor, Margaret 153 Tremblay, Richard 178 Trissur:

Kathakali Club 7, 181

Trombetta, Sergio 189

Turner, Graeme 18

Two Measures of Rice 199

Ubersfeld, Anne 187, 188

Unnayi Warrier Smaraka Kalanilayam 33

Utram Tirunal Maharaja 26, 27, 29

Vallathol see Menon, Mahakavi Vallathol Naryana

Valluvanadu 114–15

Varier, Irrattakulangara Rama 5

Varier, Vaidyaratnam P.S. 7, 32 Variyar, Unnayi 1, 11–12, 27, 34 Varkala Temple 159 Vatsyayan, Kapila 133 Veliccappatu see oracles Venttatu Raja 19 Vettom Tampuran 18, 24

Vichinnabhishekom 34

Vijayakumar, Margi 34, 89, 95, 119, 123, 145, 160

Vijayan, Margi 35, 151

Vira Kerala Varma 25

Visarjan 179

Vishnu 135, 151, 159 Vishwambhara Krishna Temple 7 vocalists 41, 59, 61, 63 vows 169–70

warfare 6, 19, 24, 114, 131, 172–3, 174 Warrier, G.S. 3, 6, 35, 94, 151, 154, 155 weapons 5, 58, 114, 131–2 Western drama 88, 187, 188, 194

women: traditional exclusion from Kathakali 70; traditional separation in audiences 6, 7; see also female characters

yaksis (female ghosts) 57

yoga 73, 92, 93