Indian dancing

BHARATA NATYAM

passed them on to Usha, and she to the milkmaids of Dwarakha.

In Malabar, Bharata Natyam is known at Kootbu because the first historical reference in the Si/appadikarram, a Tamil work almost two thousand years old, refers to it by that name. Various other treatises such as the Bharata Choodamani, again in Tamil, and the Natanathu

‘adya Ranjanam deal with this art on more or less the same lines as Bharata’s celebrated work.

The Natanathu Vadya Ranjanam is interesting because, besides providing us with the names of such old masters of the art as Ponnuswamy Annavi, Kalayanswamy Pillay, and Subaraya Annavi, it classifies temple dancers into three types: rajadasis, or women who perform before the flagstaffs in temples; devadas7s who dance before representations of Shiva; and swadasis whose services ate reserved for special festive occasions.

The exact bitthplace of Bharata Natyam is controversial. The argument that it sprang from the Andhra district because the songs that accompany it ate in the native dialect of Telegu does not seem sound, since the best Nataraja sculptures are not works of Andhra craftsmanship.

The modern form of Bharata Natyam presentation is the arrangement of fout nattwans of Pandanallur. They were the brothers Ponniah, Chinniah, Vadivelu, and Sivanandam, who lived in the eighteenth century. One of them, Vadivelu, was responsible for the daring innovation of introducing the violin into Carnatac music. In the house of his great grandson, Ponniah Pillay, yet another hereditary exponent of the art, may still be seen an ivory violin encased in glass, given to the zattwan by Swathi Thirunal, a Tanjore ruler.

The Vidyan Menakshi Sunderam Pillay of Pandanallur, the greatest living teacher of Bharata Natyam, is a direct descendant of the four brothers. Affectionately known as “Tata’, or Father, by his family and his pupils, this Grand Old Man of the South keeps his rich inheritance alive with religious fervour.

The Pandanallur School is characterized by verve and vigour as opposed to the softening influences that have crept into the art as taught by other sattwans, due either to laziness or the misconception that softer movements lend grace to the art. Vidwan Pillay’s tech-