When Shiva performed the koothu,

From his udukkai was born waves of sound

From that sound was born music

From that music was born the different dances

From dance was born the form of koothu

From that koothu was born the grammar of dance

From that was born the style of drama

(Saathanar in the Kootha Nool, p.189.)

Dance has always been associated with Shiva, the one who is called Adavallan, or expert dancer, and worshipped at Chidambaram as Nataraja or the king of dance.

Everywhere is the holy form

Everywhere is Shiva and Shakthi

Everywhere there is Chidambaram

Everywhere there is the sacred dance

Since He is everywhere, everything is the manifestation of His dance.

(Thirumoolar in Tirumanthiram, verse 2674.)

This dance, at the behest of the gods, was codified and given to humans so that they may offer it as worship to them particularly to Shiva as Nataraja. The dancer experiences through her movements, the sublime heights of emotion, the pleasure of the divine consciousness, and leads her audience to the same state.

Amongst the most ancient dance forms in India, Bharatanatyam can be called the child of Thanjavur for it was here that it was systematised as we know it today, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Originally called Sadir, it was in the preserve of the devadasi community and was later adapted and rechristened as Bharatanatyam. As mentioned earlier, dance, drama and music were closely linked in ancient and medieval India and were seen as offerings to the divine.

Indian dancing is not a mere movement of arms and legs but one where every part of the body from the little finger to the eyes has a significant role. All poses have been codified centuries ago and the greatness of the artist lies in how she uses her entire body to capture that pose and how she makes the audience feel the emotion conveyed by that pose.

Dance has two primary elements—nritta and natya. Nritta are rhythmical and repetitive elements of thirty-two body parts, such as head, hands, heel and eyebrows, which are used by the dancer to dance to the beat and are interspersed with natya. Natya is the dramatic art, and is a language of abhinaya, mudhra and poses using the limbs. The dancer uses both nritta and natya to tell a story that is sung to music. Abhinaya could, for example, be facial expressions to show various emotions. Mudhra could be the using of fingers and hands to denote animals or attributes of gods. Since mudhras and abhinaya in general cannot be seen from a distance as in a large hall, dance was meant for small groups.

There are nine main or primary emotions, also termed rasas or moods in Indian aesthetics: shringara (love), hasya (mirth), veera (heroism), roudra (anger), bhayanaka (terror), bibhatsa (disgust), adbhuta (wonder), karuna (compassion), and shanta (tranquillity). Incidentally, Bharata’s Natya Shastra and Tholkappiyam (most scholars date this to the pre-Christian era) mention only eight rasas; shanta rasa was introduced in the 9th century by Udbhata.

Like music, dance is also an ancient tradition in Thanjavur. One of the earliest inscriptions on dance is in Arachalur which dates to circa 250 CE and is written in the Brahmi script. It contains a set of syllables that creates a rhythm or sollu kattu in today’s parlance of Bharatanatyam. The syllables ‘tha’, ‘thai’, ‘thi’ are still in use in Tamil Nadu. Paintings from this period in the Sithanavasal Jain temple also depict dancers. Silappadikaram written around the same time has dancers as protagonists—Kovalan the hero is smitten by Madhavi, who was able to dance eleven different types of dances.

Texts like Kootha-nool (koothu means dance and nool refers to a book) by Sattanaar need special mention for their rich content on dance. This work was written in the 12th century or earlier and talks about various aspects of dance. Suvai nool is about the aesthetic aspects of dance; togai nool describes different dance forms including the 108 Tandavas (or dance routines) of Shiva; vari nool celebrates folk dances including the aka vari dances which deal with love and human psychology,pura vari dances which deal with natural phenomena and mukha vari dances or the acrobatic and exhibitionist dances; vachai nool is about ludicrous dances; kalai nool is the largest of the nine nools and deals with the anatomy of the human body; karana nool talks about dance sequences; tala nool deals with time measurements and rhythm; isai nool explains the thirty pann; avai nool describes the architecture of the stage, rules for lighting, costumes, makeup and so on; kan nool describes dance as a form of yoga and advises the dancer to maintain her mental and physical form to keep her performance at the highest level.

Koothu indicates a close connection between dance and drama in the 12th century and earlier. Dramas were probably composed of several units of dance with appropriate music. The word natyam does not appear to indicate dance in any of these ancient texts. Unfortunately, no Tamil treatise on dance has survived; however, we have some of their names. Dance had taken two forms by the 14th century—one was more rigidly defined by the Sanskrit Natya Shastra and the other one, the koothu, became a more popular dance form confined to the villages and patronised by commoners.

By the Chola times there were dancers of both sexes and the position became hereditary, provided the new entrant had the right credentials. The dancers were called devaradiyar if they were dancing in the temples of Lord Shiva and emberumanar adiyar (adiyar literally means slave, here it means devotee) if they were dancing in the temples of Lord Vishnu. Dance became one of the shodasha upachara or sixteen important offerings to the deity.

[Niyogi Books has given Fair Observer permission to publish this excerpt from Thanjavur: A Cultural History, Pradeep Chakravarthy, Niyogi Books, 2010.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.