Indian dancing

INDIAN DANCING

indulging in pranks with the gopés, or village maidens, on the banks of the Jumna, or in his love idyll with Radha in the garden of Brindaban (or Vrindavan), while he flaunts a peacock feather in his head-dress and carries a flute in keeping with his calling of cowherd. The devotional songs dedicated to Krishna by such poets as Vidyapati, Chandidas, Mirabai, and Jayadeva ate usually accompanied by dances that follow the verses, often the Vaishnavas, ot scholars, themselves dancing as they sing the romantic melodies.

Duting the days of Buddha, dance-drama flourished, the greatest dramatist of the time being Aswaghosa, while the dancer Ambapalli was also renowned at that time. By the second centuty A.D., satya had a prominent place in the life of the people, despite having, like evety art, its detractors. Outstanding among them was Manu the Law Giver, who advised Brahmans to refrain from practising the att.

In the fifth century a.D., during the Golden Gupta Period, the famous Mahakavi, or Poet Laureate, Kalidasa, glorified dancing in his dramas Shakuntala, Vikramorvast, and others. Indeed the heroine who gives the first-named its title was the offspring of the holy rzshz, ot hermit, Vishwamitra, and the dancing girl Menaka.

Natya declined in popularity after the Gupta Period, but, even so, it was mentioned in famous works such as the V7shnudharmottaram of the sixth centuty A.D. and the Agwipuranam of three centuries later. It was at its lowest ebb at the time of the Moghul invasion of North India in the twelfth century.

Until then dancing had been an important part of religious ritual, but amongst the Moghuls, of an alien race and culture, dancing was metely an entertainment. There was now a fusion of the Indian technique and the graceful but flimsy mode of dancing in vogue amongst the Muslims. Thus was inaugurated the Kathak school, which is mote sensuous than spiritual.

The South, fortunately, was left unscathed by the Moghul conquest. Hence, Indian dancing at its purest continued to flourish there. The technique was handed down to nattwvanars, ot scholars of dancing, from father to son. In this way, to the present day, the art has been preserved jealously amongst the families of the Vidwans Menakshi Sunderam Pillay and the late Ponniah Pillay.

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