Space, Time and Ways of Seeing The Performance Culture of Kutiyattam [1 ed.] 9780367724207, 9781032000374, 9781003172376

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SPACE, TIME AND WAYS OF SEEING

This volume explores the constitutive role played by space in the performance of Kutiyattam. The only surviving form of Sanskrit theatre, Kutiyattam is distinctive in terms of its performance conventions and its unique culture of extensive elaboration and interpretation. Drawing upon the concepts of phenomenology on the processes of perception, particularly on the works of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, it analyzes the role of space in the communicative structures of performance of Kutiyattam and its contribution to the production of meaning in theatre, especially in the context of contemporary theatre. The book explores the theatrical event as a phenomenon that comes into existence through a triangular relationship among the ways of doing of the performers, the ways of seeing of the audience and the space which brings them together. Based on this formulation, Kutiyattam is approached as a theatre of elaboration, made possible by the intimate, proximal ways of seeing of the audience, in the particular theatrical space of the kūttampalaṃs, the temple theatres, where Kutiyattam has customarily been performed for more than five centuries. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of cultural studies, theatre and performance studies, cultural anthropology, phenomenology and South Asian studies. Mundoli Narayanan teaches at the Department of English, University of Calicut, India. He has a PhD from the University of Exeter, UK, has also taught at the University of Sharjah, Miyazaki International College, Japan, and has been a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. He writes in both English and Malayalam, and his major areas of research and publication are Theatre  & Performance Studies, traditional Indian performance and Cultural Studies. He has also done extensive documentation in association with UNESCO, CDiT and VEDIKA.

SPACE, TIME AND WAYS OF SEEING The Performance Culture of Kutiyattam

Mundoli Narayanan

First published 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Indian Institute of Advanced Study The right of Mundoli Narayanan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised 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. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. 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 A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-72420-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-00037-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-17237-6 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To the memory of Killimangalam Vasudevan Nambudiripad

CONTENTS

List of figures Acknowledgements Note on diacritical marks

viii x xiv

Introduction: the spatial turn

1

1 Space and ways of doing/seeing in performance

27

2 Historical contexts of Kutiyattam: incorporation into temples

57

3 Physical space and the culture of elaboration

80

4 Performance time: digressions and dissonance

125

5 The training space: the body as live archive

160

6 The socio-cultural space: structures of ideology and knowledge180

Conclusion: contemporary spaces

244

Glossary of frequently used terms Bibliography Index

266 269 279

vii

FIGURES

1.1 Triangular relationship among theatre space, performers and spectators 50 1.2 Triangular relationship among theatre space, ways of doing of the performer and ways of seeing of the spectator 51 1.3 Relationship between the ways of doing of the actor and the ways of seeing of the spectator within a theatre space 52 1.4 Multiple layers of social space in theatre 54 3.1 A view of the location of the kūttampalam at the northwest corner (front-right) of the Vaṭakkuṃnāthan Temple precincts 81 3.2 The kūttampalam at the Kūṭalmāṇikyam Temple, Irinjalakuda 82 3.3 A view of the architectural design of the kūttampalam – side elevation. (From Kanippayyur Damodaran Nambudiripad (Commentary), [Chennas Narayanan Nambudiripad], Tantrasamuccayam: 82 Śilpabhāgam, 94.)  3.4 A free illustration of the floor plan of a kūttampalam. A – Outer doors; B – Backstage; C – Stage entrance door; D – Stage exit door; E – Miḻāvu (drum) players; F – Stage; G – Actor’s position; H – Lamp; I – Naṅṅyārs (rhythm) players; J – Prime audience area; K – Aisles/lower audience area 84 3.5 Illustration of a kūttampalam floor plan (From Kanippayyur Damodaran Nambudiripad (Commentary), [Chennas Narayanan Nambudiripad], Tantrasamuccayam: Śilpabhāgam, 94.)  84 3.6 Stage at the kūttampalam at Vaṭakkuṃnāthan Temple, Thrissur85 3.7 Stage at the kūttampalam at Kūṭalmāṇikyam Temple, Irinjalakuda86 viii

F igures

3.8 Stage at the kūttampalam at Śrīkrsna Temple, Guruvayur 86   kūttampalam at 3.9 Carvings on the stage ceiling of the Lakṣmaṇa Temple, Muzhikkulam 87 3.10 An uncredited, undated photograph, probably from the 1930s, of members of the audience sitting on the stage during a performance of the Vidūṣaka at the kūttampalam at the Vaṭakkuṃnāthan Temple, Thrissur 88 3.11 A view of the audience space from the stage, at Vaṭakkuṃnāthan Temple, Thrissur 89 3.12 The stage lamp with the three wicks in performance; with Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar as Sugrīva in Bālivadhāṅkam of Abhiṣēkanāṭakam91 3.13 The small circle of light created by the stage lamp; with Kalamandalam Sangeeth Chakyar as Rāma and Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar as Śūrpaṇakhā in Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam of Āścaryacūdāmaṇi91 3.14 The make-up and costume of a pacca (green – heroic) character; Kalamandalam Sangeeth Chakyar as Rāma in Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam of Āścaryacūdāmaṇi93 4.1 Temporal/spatial digressions in performance 142 7.1 A performance of Jaṭāyuvadhāṅkam on the proscenium stage at Nāṭyagṛham, Sangeetha Nataka Academy, Thrissur, on 3 January 2002, with a view of the audience 247 7.2 A performance of Bhagavadajjukīyam at the kūttampalam at Kerala Kalamandalam, Cheruthuruthi, on 31 July 2002 248 7.3 A performance of Jaṭāyuvadhāṅkam on the proscenium stage at Nāṭyagṛham, Sangeetha Nataka Academy, Thrissur, on 3 January 2002 249 7.4 A performance of Nāgānandam at Regional Theatre, Sangeetha Nataka Academy, Thrissur, on 6 June 2010 250 7.5 Illustrations for changes in male and female headgear from the notebook of Painkulam Rama Chakyar 253 7.6 Contemporary female headgear after the changes brought about by Painkulam Rama Chakyar; Artiste: Usha Nangiar 254 7.7 & 7.8   Pages from the class diary of Painkulam Rama Chakyar, dated 25 September 1967 and 27 September 1967, detailing the teaching/learning activities undertaken in the Kutiyattam class at Kerala Kalamandalam 259

ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

No book is the result of a single, concerted stint of work but is the cumulative product of years of effort, knowing and unknowing, conscious and unconscious, coming together and taking concrete shape in terms of a particular approach or governing idea. If I were to go to the original impulses of this book, four remarkable people immediately come to mind, all of whom have sadly passed on. The first is, no doubt, my father, M. P. Vasudevan Nambiar, who introduced me to the glorious world of performance, taking me by the hand to traditional presentations of Kathakali. He explained as much as a young boy could understand the intricacies of the stories, the poetry, the situations, the characters and the music and inspired in me a life-long passion for theatre. From him came my introduction to Kutiyattam, too; he was a great storyteller, and his accounts  – almost verbatim imitations – of the performances and perorations of the legendary Ammannur Chachu Chakyar and such others were etched on my mind even before I ever got an opportunity to knowingly watch a Kutiyattam performance. The second is the great Painkulam Rama Chakyar, the renowned modernizer of Kutiyattam, who took pity on a lone 15-year-old sitting with wideopen but uncomprehending eyes before a Kutiyattam performance at the Vaṭakkuṃnāthan Temple kūttampalam and proceeded to explain to him the performance over the next four days, as a kind and patient teacher would to an ignorant student. One can only remember with reverence the immense generosity of spirit with which he initiated me into the culture of Kutiyattam, even as I recall that his presence was so awe-inspiring that I did not dare ask then who he was and realized his identity only much later. The third is Killimangalam Vasudevan Nambudiripad, to whose memory this book is dedicated. Respectfully referred to as “Sūprent” (Malayalamized abbreviation of Superintendent because he was for a long time the Art Superintendent of Kerala Kalamandalam) by generations of artistes, scholars and students, he was my guru in everything but name. He taught me, without ever appearing to be doing so, that every performance is a miracle that one needs to be sympathetic to and in tune with, before one can be critical or questioning. Then, there is T. K. Ramachandran, my teacher, senior colleague and friend, x

A cknowledgements

who constantly reminded me of the necessity of being historical and to perceive the political even in apparently non-political phenomena because, as he used to say, “the non-political is only another language of the political.” Over the years, I have been greatly fortunate to have witnessed the performances of at least four generations of Kutiyattam performers, to all of whom I  owe a deep debt of gratitude, for it is that accumulated culture of “seeing” that made it possible for me to even contemplate this book. At the same time, several practitioners have been remarkably considerate in ungrudgingly sharing with me their knowledge and experience of performance and training. Foremost among them is Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar, who has been a friend and pillar of support through the years, clarifying my doubts and queries patiently and opening up the subtle inner facets of the performative culture of Kutiyattam. The long conversations and interviews I had with Usha Nangiar brought to my notice conventions and aspects of performance that I would otherwise not have known. And my discussions with Sooraj Nambiar and Kalamandalam Sangeeth Chakyar, who though young in years are consummately mature and modern when it comes to questions of performance and training, have contributed in no small measure to fleshing out the ideas in my work. The actual writing of the book was made possible by a two-year fellowship at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, which provided me with the most conducive intellectual environment and resources to do my work. I am indebted to Prof. Ajit Chaturvedi, the former Director, Dr Vijay Tiwari, the Institute Secretary, Ms Ritika Sharma, the Academic Resource Officer, Mr Prem Chand, the Librarian and Publication Officer, and all the staff of the administrative, finance, library, estate and hospitality sections for their generous support and help during my tenure at the Institute. I am at a loss for words to describe my gratitude to Prof. Kapil Kapoor, the Chairman, whose understanding and encouragement made all the difference at the most crucial of times. I am also thankful to all my fellow colleagues at the Institute for their direct and indirect input into my work. I am especially grateful to Prof. R. C. Pradhan and Prof. Sujata Patel, who took valuable time off from their own work to read large sections of my writing and give me the benefit of their advice and suggestions. Shimla is a beautiful place, but a hard one too, at times making one feel terribly lonely and left out. That I  remained sane and well there throughout is thanks to two people who held me close and made me feel wanted, Sutapa Dutta and Debjani Halder, to both of whom I do not dare to express thanks. I also remember with affection the presence of friends such as Ramashankar Singh, Ajay Kumar, Ratnakar Tripathi, Ashutosh Bharadwaj, Mathew Varghese and Anjali Duhan, who made my stay at Shimla a happy one. I thank the University of Calicut for granting me leave of absence for taking up the fellowship and my colleagues at the Department of English, who gladly stepped in and undertook additional work during my absence. xi

A cknowledgements

There are several scholars to whom I have turned during the course of this work for clarifications and suggestions. My deepest gratitude goes to Rustom Bharucha, who went through almost the entire first draft and came back with extensive suggestions that have improved the quality of the work tremendously, even as the weaknesses that remain are entirely of my own making. I also have the fondest of memories of Philip Zarrilli egging me on to complete the first draft and send it to him, which I managed hardly a few days before his very sad passing. The conversations, both direct as well as via mail, that I had with him, especially about some fundamental concepts of performance and reception, have immeasurably enriched the approaches I  have taken up in the work. I  am also thankful to Paula Richman, with whom I  had the good fortune to collaborate in another work during the course of this one, for raising some hard questions about the textual and literary contexts of Kutiyattam, which have profitably informed the arguments of the work. Juggling among three, or sometimes more, languages is never an easy task, especially when one is dealing with texts that are centuries old. In this respect, I cannot thank enough P. Narayanan Nambudiri, C. Rajendran, Venugopala Panikker and N. K. Sundareswaran, without whose invaluable linguistic help this work would not have been possible. While preparing this manuscript for publication, I have benefitted from the added stimulus of conversations with scholars such as Rajan Gurukkal, M. R. Raghava Varier, Kesavan Veluthat, K. N. Ganesh, P Venugopalan, P. Madhavan, T. V. Madhu, N. Ajayakumar, Sunil P. Elayidom, Sanal Kumaran Thampuran, Moorthiyedath Parameswaran, Rajashree Warrier, Fathima E.V., Kanippayyur Kuttan Nambudiripad and others. To each one of them I owe a debt of gratitude for their ungrudging patience and interest in my work. This work owes its existence to the support and assistance of several institutions and libraries, such as Kerala Kalamandalam Deemed University for Arts and Culture, Cheruthuruthi; Chachu Chakyar Smaraka Gurukulam, Irinjalakuda; Kerala Sahitya Academy Library, Thrissur; the Appan Thampuran Smaraka Library, Thrissur and the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Academy, Thrissur. To each one of them I express my thanks for making available their facilities and material. I  am also grateful for the generous invitations to present my work and exchange ideas at conferences and seminars organized by the School of Art and Aesthetics, JNU, New Delhi; the Department of Theatre, University of Hyderabad; the Department of Sanskrit, Sree Sankara University of Sanskrit, Kalady; the Thunchan Memorial Trust, Tirur and others. Some portions of the material in this book have appeared previously in other forms in print. I thank the editors and publishers of the journals TDR, Comparative Culture and Samskrita Kairali, and of the book Patronage, Spectacle and the Stage for permitting me to adapt some of that material for this book. Some fragments of this work have also been published in xii

A cknowledgements

Malayalam in the book Itam, Avatharanam, Kazchavazhikal. I thank DC Books for permitting me to reproduce them in English. A special word of thanks also to Aakash Chakaborty, at Routledge, for his interest and advice and to Brinda Sen for her valuable comments and assistance. Finally, my wife, Meera, and daughter, Veena, deserve my deepest thanks and love, for their patience and understanding.

xiii

NOTE ON DIACRITICAL MARKS

To ensure uniformity among the three languages – Sanskrit, Malayalam and Tamil – that figure in this work, the diacritical marks used follow the Dravidian convention, even for Sanskrit. For instance, the vowels e and o have only one version in Sanskrit and hence are usually marked as e and o; but Malayalam and Tamil have both the short and long versions, viz. e, ē and o, ō. In this situation, to avoid confusion, especially because many words are common to all three languages, the long versions are used for Sanskrit too. Regular words in Sanskrit, Malayalam and Tamil are italicized and in diacritical marks. However, the names of characters, places, deities, gods and goddesses are in diacritical marks but are not italicized. For the convenience of reading, no diacritical marks are employed for the names of contemporary people and places, as well as those for which there are established, Anglicized spellings. For instance, names of places such as Thrissur or Tripunithura, of people like Painkulam Rama Chakyar or Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, or of playwrights such as Bhasa, Kalidasa and Kulasekhara are spelt as such without italics. No diacritical marks are used for Indian terms that appear in an English dictionary or for the names of performance traditions such as Kutiyattam and Kathakali, which have come to enjoy certain standard spellings.

xiv

INTRODUCTION The spatial turn

One of the most crucial aspects of any theatre or performance is the space in which it is presented. This being so, one may tend to presume that questions regarding performative space must have figured somewhat significantly in theatre discourses from the earliest times, though probably under different terms and discursive parameters. However, even a quick survey will reveal that space as a theoretical concern figures only peripherally, or sometimes not at all, in earlier theoretical deliberations on the theatre. In most instances there is a resounding silence about the space of performance or, at the most, a perfunctory treatment that betrays an inherent tendency to either take it for granted or to regard it as external  – as setting, as background, as ­decorative spectacle – to the primary business of the theatre. A prime example of the historical silence on theatre space would be none other than Aristotle himself. Concerned as he was primarily with the poetic qualities of the dramatic text, questions of plot and character, and the aesthetics of tragedy, Aristotle had little to say about the space of performance in his Poetics. Except for a cursory reference to “place” – the fictional location of the play – in his discussion of the three unities, a direct mention of “theatre space, stage space or dramatic space” (Edmunds, 1996, 15–16) will be hard to come by in Aristotle. Though of late, his reference to opsis (spectacle) as the sixth and final element of tragedy has been taken to suggest latent notions of the mise en scène of a performance (see Vince, 1990), his somewhat disparaging description of it as “the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry” (Aristotle, 1922, 29) reveals how little importance he attached to it among the greater concerns of drama. Following on Aristotle, the Western theoretical tradition on drama also laboured under the same avoidance of space and was concerned more with the subtleties and interpretative possibilities of the dramatic text, rather than the actual contexts and processes of performance, throughout most of its history. Most other theoretical traditions, such as the Japanese or the Chinese, too were marked by a similar silence on theatre space, even as they were, contradictorily enough, remarkably interested in the dynamics of the performer’s body (see Amano, 2011). 1

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One notable exception to this traditional eschewal of space in traditional theatre discourses is Nāṭyaśāstra, the 3rd-century BCE Indian text on dramaturgy. As part of its meticulous analysis and detailed taxonomy of almost all aspects of drama – the body of the actor, the movements, the gestures, the emotions, the modes of acting, the types and modes of music, the instruments employed, etc. – Chapter 2, Maṇḍapavidhi (Description of the Playhouse), is devoted to detailed empirical commentaries on theatre architecture, sizes and measurements for theatre houses, plans and spatial demarcations, materials and methods for building, the rituals to be undertaken for the consecration of theatres, etc. (see Bharata-Muni, 1951, 18–32). In the discussion on the different classes of playhouses in Chapter 2, clear instructions are given on the size and dimensions of a “playhouse meant for mortals” and the reasons why they must be adhered to: maṇḍapē viprakṛṣṭē tu pāṭhyamuccāritasvaram/ anissaraṇadharmatvādvisvaratvam bhṛśam vrajēt// yaścāpyāsyagatō bhāvō nānadṛṣṭisamanvitaḥ/ sa vēśmanaḥ prakṛṣṭatvādvrajēdavyaktatām parām// prēkṣakagṛhāṇām sarvēṣām tasmānmadhyamamiṣyatē/ yasmāt pāṭhyam ca gēyam ca tatra śravyataram bhavēt// (Bharatamuni, 1956, 53–54) (An oblong playhouse meant for mortals should be sixty-four cubits in length and thirty-two cubits in breadth. No one should build a playhouse bigger than the above; for a play [produced] in it (i.e. a bigger house) will not be properly expressive. For, anything recited or uttered in too big a playhouse will be losing euphony due to the enunciated syllables being indistinct [to spectators not sitting sufficiently close to the stage]. [Besides this] when the playhouse is very big, the expression on the face [of actors] on which rests the Representation of States and Sentiments will not be distinctly visible [to all the spectators]. Hence it is desirable that playhouses should be medium size, so that Recitatives as well as songs in it may be more easily heard [by the spectators].) (Bharata-Muni, 1951, 20–21) At a later point in the chapter, there is also an evocative description of the most suitable shape for the playhouse: kāryaḥ śailaguhākārō dvibhūmirnāṭyamaṇḍapaḥ/ mandavātāyanōpētō nivātō dhīraśabdabhāk// tasmānnivātaḥ kartavyaḥ kartṛbhir nāṭyamaṇḍapaḥ/ gāṃbhīryam susvaratvam ca kutapasya bhavēditi// (Bharatamuni, 1956, 61)

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The playhouse should be made like a mountain cavern and it should have two floors [on two different levels] and small windows; and it should be free from wind and should have good acoustic quality. For, [in such a playhouse] made free from the interference of wind, the voice of actors and singers as well as the sound of musical instruments will be distinctly heard. (Bharata-Muni, 1951, 29–30) Once again, it is an awareness of the size and shape of the theatre facilitating the theatrical communication that is seen reflected here. Furthermore, in Abhinavabhārati, his commentary on Nāṭyaśāstra, Abhinavagupta has observed that even if the playhouse becomes too small, problems will arise, as in the case of the ones that are too large, because seeing and hearing will be affected even when the actors and spectators are too close to each other (see Bharata-Muni, 1987. Vol. 1, 110, 1956, 53). Even as these remarks express a manifest understanding of the relationship between the size of the theatre and the onstage visibility and audibility of the actor, as well as an implied awareness of how the relationship between the actor and the spectator is conditioned by the structure and space of the theatre, a more detailed consideration of the ways in which theatre space impinges upon performance is rather conspicuous by its absence in Nāṭyaśāstra. Considering its taxonomical, classificatory nature, this absence is not too surprising. However, the later critical tradition in Sanskrit too, with its overwhelming emphasis on the theorization and interpretation of the concept of rasa received from Nāṭyaśāstra and its applicability to the language of poetry and poetic drama in terms of dhvani (connotation), was averse to any serious consideration of space or its role in theatrical communication. Even as silence generally characterizes earlier discourses on theatre, the discourses of the theatre  – those of the practitioners involved in the staging and production of performances – could not but have been concerned with questions of theatre space precisely because they must live and work with it and confront it on a day-to-day basis. It is here we realize that, least surprisingly, most attempts at refashioning and reformulating theatre that have come up in various parts of the world, at different points of time, have pointedly addressed the question of theatrical spaces and the need to transform them, if not in theoretical or discursive terms, at least in practical, architectural and design terms. As Austin Quigley observes, “a play’s use of theatre space [is] a use that links texture, structure, and theme to the mode of performance that is characteristic of a particular kind of play in a particular kind of theatre space” (Quigley, 1985, 6–7). In other words, changes in the structure of the drama invariably relate to changes in the structure of the theatre, irrespective of whether this relation is consciously articulated or not.

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Notwithstanding this, it was only by the turn of the 20th century that space as a constitutive presence in performance – and not merely as a setting, location or background  – came to be a major theoretical concern in theatre and performance studies, and the question of what role space plays in the actual practice of performance came to be raised seriously and insistently. It is a moot point that the development of this particular area of study in theatre and performance studies has to be necessarily seen in the larger context of the occurrence of a ““spatial turn” in the human sciences” (West-Pavlov, 2009, 20), that is, the general shift in contemporary theory, especially in philosophy, the humanities and the social sciences, towards a greater consideration of space as a constitutive category. Even as it was Maurice Merleau-Ponty, with his articulations on the spatiality of the body as part of his reflections on perception and embodiment,1 and Gaston Bachelard, with his poetic contemplations on houses and the connections between memory and the experience of domestic spaces, who initially introduced space as a possible theoretical category (1964), it was Michel Foucault, though primarily a historian, who initiated the radical shift in focus from time to space. Critiquing the centuries-old practice of privileging of time over space, or what he calls the “devaluation of space that has prevailed for generations,” Foucault observes, “Space was treated as the dead, the fixed, the undialectical, the immobile. Time, on the contrary was richness, fecundity, life, dialectic” (1980, 70). In contrast to the 19th century, “the great obsession” of which was “history: with its themes of development and of suspension, of crisis, and cycle,” he perceives that “the present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space. We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed” (1986, 22). Further, Foucault also raised such issues as the divisions and hierarchies among spaces, how spaces and places are delineated or defined by societal relations making them distinctively heterogeneous, and the presence of “other” places, or heterotopias, where the “real” spaces of a culture are “represented, contested and inverted” (1986, 22–24). In effect, Foucault’s articulations indicate the perception of an ongoing epistemological shift and the formation of a new episteme that would make space theoretically visible and create a consciousness of space as a constitutive category that could not be reduced or collapsed to any other. Following this, Henry Lefebvre brought to the fore the importance of space in what he called the “reproduction of social relations of production.” For him, “space is not an empty container, but rather, the very fabric of social existence, a medium woven of the relationships between subjects, their actions, and their environment” (West-Pavlov, 2009, 19). In his monumental work The Production of Space he asserts that “All space is social space. (Social) space is a (social) product” (Lefebvre, 1991, 26). In addition, Lefebvre also

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argued that every society – or every mode of production – produces certain spaces, or its own spaces, that define and describe that particular society and its specific set of social relations, and even more importantly that, more than anything else, it is in/through such spaces that those particular sets of social relations find their tangible expression. The work of Edward Soja has also been influential in this theoretical shift towards space. In his Postmodern Geographies he calls for a “geographical and spatial imagination” in theoretical work. He argues that academic study has, in the modern era, privileged time and history over space and geography, and advocates the development of “a more flexible and balanced critical theory that re-entwines the making of history with the social production of space, with the construction and configuration of human geographies” and the formulation of “a triple dialectic of space, time, and social being” (1989, 12). The pronounced nature of this “spatial turn” inevitably led Fredric Jameson to claim that we now inhabit the synchronic rather than the diachronic, and I  think it is at least empirically arguable that our daily life, our psychic experience, our cultural languages, are today dominated by categories of space rather than by categories of time, as in the preceding period of high modernism. (1991, 16)

Space in theatre and performance studies It was inevitable that, like most other areas of humanities and social sciences, performance and theatre studies too came under the sway of this spatial turn, aided also by the fact that performance is a practice manifestly embedded in space and involves conscious negotiations with and in spaces. However, it also remains that this turn was in continuation of a distinct tendency that had surfaced a bit earlier in the discursive domains of theatre, almost as if it were anticipating the turn that was to come. From the first half of the 20th century there had been recurrent references to the spatiality of theatre and the need to accord it its rightful place in the practice of the theatre, especially in the discourses of practitioner theoreticians who endeavoured to counter the unrelenting dominance of the verbal text. For instance, Antonin Artaud asserted that the stage is a concrete physical place which asks to be filled, and [is] to be given its own concrete language to speak. I say that this concrete language, intended for the senses and independent of speech, has first to satisfy the senses, that there is a poetry of the senses as there is a poetry of language, and that this concrete physical

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language to which I  refer is truly theatrical only to the degree that the thoughts it expresses are beyond the reach of the spoken language. (1970, 37) Again, in his attempt to reclaim for theatre the primacy of its physical/visual dimensions, Peter Brook famously declared, “I  can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged” (1968, 7). Thus, when this already prevalent inclination towards a deeper consideration of space as a fundamental constituent of theatre practice was reinforced by the rising tide of theorizations of space in the humanities and the social sciences, the stage was set for the development of space as a distinct and compelling province within theatre and performance studies. The starting point of the spatial turn in theatre and performance studies was probably the work of French semiotician Anne Ubersfeld, who proclaimed rather pithily, but unequivocally, that “The theatre is space” (Quoted in McAuley, [2000] 2003, 1) and in a somewhat more detailed fashion that “We can define theatre as a particular mode of spatial organization” (Quoted in McAuley, [2000] 2003, 19).2 For her, space is that unique feature that gives theatre its formal identity and sets it apart from, say, poetry or narrative: If the primary characteristic of theatre is the use of characters played by human beings, the second characteristic, indissolubly linked to the first, is the existence of a space within which those living beings are found. The activity of these humans takes place within a certain locus and creates among them (and between them and the spectators) a three-dimensional relationship. (Ubersfeld, 1999, 94) Thus asserting the value of space as one of the most crucial aspects of both theatrical experience as well as its semiosis, Ubersfeld attempted to address the multifarious nature of space in theatre, as well as the complex interplay between physical and fictional spaces in how meanings are made and communicated in it. In the process, she also provided seminal insights into the role that space plays in the social, cultural and political construction of both play texts and performance texts. Several commendable studies have since appeared on various aspects of theatrical space.3 Some of these studies address the stage space itself and the technology of the stage, some focus on the stage/auditorium relationship, some explore the relationship between the real space of the theatre and the fictional spaces that it evokes, some look at the public places in the theatre, some take up the question of how space impinges on the performance 6

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experience and some consider the theatre in the context of the wider social and cultural space of its location. All the same, what they all have in common is an attempt, though articulated in different ways, to engage with the question of what roles space plays in the communicative structures of theatre and how it contributes to the production of meaning in theatre.

Taxonomies of space in theatre As would be the case with the development of any theoretical approach, a major challenge that arose with the spatial turn in theatre and performance studies was, and still is, the formulation of a comprehensive taxonomy of spaces and spatial functions in theatre, and the development of an adequate terminology that not only does justice to the nuances and subtle demarcations of theatre space but is also acceptable, if not to all, at least to a majority of scholars in the field, with their varied areas and objects of analysis. Not surprisingly, the first step towards creating a classification of spatial functions in theatre was taken by Ubersfeld. Following Ubersfeld’s work, there were several attempts to develop a comprehensive terminology and taxonomy of space in theatre by Steen Jansen, Etienne Soriau, Hanna Scolnicov, Michael Issacharoff, Patrice Pavis, Gay McAuley and others.4 While there are indeed predictable commonalities among these different taxonomies, no doubt it is the divergences among them that are more fascinating because they point not only to the differing foci and priorities of the theoreticians but also to the complexity of the spatial dynamics in theatre. A brief survey of these efforts will be in order here. With the aim of formulating “an extended, systematic theory of spatial function,” Ubersfeld proposed a taxonomy based on five terms: stage space (espace scénique), scenic place (lieu scénique), theatrical space (espace théâtral), theatre space (lieu théâtral) and dramatic space (espace dramatique) (McAuley, [2000] 2003, 18). While the stage space is the stage itself, or the playing area, the scenic place is the fictional place where the action is occurring, as also “the topological transposition of the major features of the social space experienced by a particular group within a given society” (Quoted in McAuley, [2000] 2003, 18). Theatrical space is a general notion that refers to the entire multifaceted function of space in the theatre and therefore brings together all the categories and distinctions made. Theatre space is the place of performance; it is both the theatre building itself, situated in a social context, and the divided space it encloses. It is that space which “brings together actors and spectators in a relationship which depends essentially on both the physical form of the auditorium and the form of social organization” (Quoted in McAuley, [2000] 2003, 19). The fifth category, dramatic space, is made up of both textual and performance signs and is accessible to the reader of the play text as well as to the spectator experiencing the space in a production. More than fictional place, it involves the dramatic 7

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geography of the action as a whole and is a means of conceptualizing the whole action or the narrative content of the play. Ubersfeld sees dramatic space as a conflict between spaces, involving the invasion and occupation of one space by a usurping force, the exclusion of the rightful occupant of a space and his fight to reinstate himself, or the attempt to bring another into the hero’s space. As she explains, it is always “multiple, divided, built upon oppositions” (see McAuley, [2000] 2003, 18–19). As would be evident, Ubersfeld’s formulation is one which brings into its ken the physical space of performance, the fictional space of the representation, the social context both within and surrounding the theatre, and at the same time also attempts to account for the semiosis of the larger thematic universe of the play. Jansen also emphasizes on the spatial configuration of the play text, but as a consequence the actual physical space of the theatre and the relationships within that recede from view. He proposed a fourfold division of theatre space, viz. stage space (espace scénique), scenic place (lieu scénique), surrounding space (espace environnant) and referred space (espace référé) (see McAuley, [2000] 2003, 19–20). Stage space is an abstraction constructed by the reader of the play text, like one would do with the narration of a prose narrative. It serves to establish the perspective within which the reader can view the fictional world presented and assess its relationship to his or her own real world. According to Jansen, it is this conceived stage space that enables a reader to make sense of all the spaces presented onstage. Scenic place comprises the fictional spaces that are presented/represented onstage, while surrounding space indicates the ones evoked via the offstage, often presented in close/contiguous relationship to the onstage, using doors or windows to indicate connection/separation. Referred space implies the spaces referred to in the dialogue, or spaces evoked verbally. On a more specialized note, again focusing primarily on the fictional places presented in theatre and totally ignoring the physical aspect of space, Soriau came up with two categories: stage microcosm (microcosme scénique), referring to the fictional world created onstage, and stage macrocosm (macrocosme scénique), the larger fictional world, or “the universe of the play.” Issacharoff too is concerned primarily with the dramatic, fictional space, and his objective is “the study of space as a semiotic system in a given play script” (1989, 55). Though he does not ignore the physical space entirely, he does not discuss it in any great detail. At the first level, he proposes three terms: theatre space, stage space and dramatic space. Theatre space is created through architectural design, separating the temple-like space in which spectators and spectacle converge from the outside public space, and stage space is created through a stage and set design in which the actors typically perform. Dramatic space is the one created by a dramatist and imagined to replace the stage space and an imagined space beyond. Dramatic space is thus where not only the characters who are visually present onstage reside but is necessarily also the space in which absent characters 8

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reside, these characters being not physically perceptible to audience members within the theatre space nor physically represented upon the stage space. Following on this distinction between present and absent characters, Issacharoff distinguishes between two types of spaces within the dramatic space itself: mimetic space and diegetic space. While mimetic space refers to the dramatic space made visible and represented to the audience within the stage space, diegetic space refers to a space described to exist within the universe of the drama but which is never visually or aurally represented to the audience, instead being merely described by those mimetic characters onstage (see 1989, 55–56). According to Issacharoff, “Mimetic space does not require mediation; in contrast, diegetic space is mediated by verbal signs (the dialogue) communicated verbally and not visually” (1989, 56). A major limitation of Issacharoff’s system, with its overriding emphasis on the seen and unseen fictional places of the play text, is that the actual space of performance and the all-too-real interaction between the performers and the audience in it are relegated to relative insignificance. With her focus primarily on the performance event, Scolnicov proposes two types of spaces: theatre space and theatrical space. Theatre space refers to the place of performance and “from the point of view of the production, the theatre space is a given space.” At the same time, Scolnicov also clarifies that theatre space is an “an architectural term,” and as an architectural space, it is “part of everyday space and exists independently of, and prior to, any performance.” Her second category, theatrical space, is one “created by the performance within the theatre space.” A concept that includes both physical and metaphorical dimensions; it is the space utilized by the performers and includes the stage proper, the aisles, the balconies and any other part of the auditorium that figures in the performance, as well as the spaces defined “through word, movement and gesture, and with the aid of props scenery, lighting and acoustic effects” (Scolnicov, 1987, 11–12). Further, Scolnicov distinguishes between two types of spaces within the theatrical space: the seen space, named “theatrical space within,” and the unseen space, termed “theatrical space without.” As she asserts, The unseen theatrical space is no less real and dramatically important than the visible theatrical space. . . . Actions of great moment like Macbeth’s murder of Duncan, may take place offstage, in what I propose to call theatrical space without as opposed to theatrical space within. The difference between them is the difference between perceived space and conceived space. (Scolnicov, 1987, 12) No doubt, Scolnicov’s distinction between seen and unseen spaces, between the perceived and the conceived, echoes Issacharoff’s distinction between mimetic space and diegetic space, but it is to be noted that her theatrical 9

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spaces are more rooted in the actuality of the theatre space and constitute an effort to capture what can be called the “spatial imaginary” of the play text. As she insists, “far from accidental or arbitrary, the articulation of the theatrical spaces is, at its best, an expression of the playwright’s philosophical stance. As such, it becomes of thematic and structural importance to the play” (Scolnicov, 1987, 14). Of equal importance is her understanding of theatre space as “part of everyday space,” which opens the possibility of tracing continuities – architectural, social and ideological – between the configurations of theatre space and those of other spaces of a culture or society. Pavis is quite aware of the futility of any attempt to come up with a comprehensive taxonomy of theatre spaces; “to try to isolate and define all of the spaces involved is a vain and hopeless undertaking,” he states succinctly. However, with this caveat, Pavis, along with Christine Shantz, proceeds to make an attempt at classification, “for the sake of clarity.” He has proposed six terms: dramatic space, stage space, theatre space, gestural space, textual space and inner space. Dramatic space, referred to by the text, is “an abstract dramaturgical space” that the reader or spectator must construct in the imagination. Stage space is the “actual space on stage in which actors move,” whether they confine themselves to the stage per se or mix with the audience. Theatre space is the “space occupied by the audience and actors in the course of a performance and is characterized by the theatrical relationship between the two.” Theatre space is the total of all six spaces, and drawing on Ubersfeld, Pavis states it is constructed “on the basis of an architecture, a pictorial view of the world, or a place sculpted by the actors’ bodies.” Within the theatre space, Pavis also sees the scope for an audience space that specifically refers to the place occupied by the audience during the performance, intermission and before and after the play. Gestural space is the one created by the actors through their presence and movements, their interrelationships and the stage arrangements. Textual space is the space wherein the text is presented in its “graphic, phonic or rhetorical materiality”; the space of the score containing the actors’ speeches and the stage directions. Textual space is realized when the text is not used as a dramatic space fictionalized by the reader or hearer but as raw material arranged for the audience’s eyes and ears as a pattern. Finally, inner space is a particular deployment of the stage space when there is as an “attempt to represent a fantasy, dream or vision of the playwright or a character” (Pavis and Shantz, 1999, 344–345). Despite the differences in terminology, the resemblance of Pavis’s taxonomy to that of Ubersfeld’s is quite apparent. At the same time, his inclusion of the idea of the “inner space” is no doubt of great relevance, especially in the context of digital theatres and, contradictorily enough, for some forms of traditional Asian theatre too in which extensive flights of memory and imagination are an integral part of the action of the stage. 10

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It will be apparent from the previous discussion that there are substantial divergences among these taxonomies not only in the terms employed but, even where there are common terms, in the expectations associated with them too. What this indicates is the immense difficulties in constructing a fool-proof and complete taxonomy or even a comprehensive inventory, given the sheer complexity and variedness of spaces in theatre, both real as well as imagined, as also the fact that many of them merge and intersect with one another. McAuley, in her measured survey of this “terminological minefield” ([2000] 2003, 17), as she describes it, identifies that though there are two major features addressed by all, viz. the onstage/offstage dialectic and the complex relationship between the physical, material reality and the fictional, illusory world created in and by it, these attempts are marked by “overlapping notions, blurred distinctions and lack of precise, shared terminology” ([2000] 2003, 17). While there is a commonly accepted set of meanings associated with established terms such as “actor” and “character” and a clear understanding of the relationships between the pair, there is a patent lack of an equivalent pair of words to denote “real stage space” and “fictional space” and a commonly accepted understanding of the relationships between them. Further, there is also no shared terminology for spaces that are not visually presented on the stage but are still part of the universe of the play (2003, 23). In an attempt to rectify this confusion, McAuley offers a framework and taxonomy which, rather than being an empirical enumeration of the spaces in theatre, is founded on the functionalities of the spaces, or their underlying performative rationalities, and groupings of the spaces based on these functionalities. She proposes a five-fold division of spatial functions in theatre: the Social Reality, the Physical/Fictional Relationship, Location and Fiction, Textual Space and Thematic Space, with the first being primarily physical spaces occupied by the practitioners and the audience, the second being where the physical and fictional spaces meet, and three, four and five being fictional spaces connected with the stage, the text and the theme (2003, 25). The first category, Social Reality, includes the theatre space, which is the theatre building itself, and within it the audience space and the practitioner space, both of which are in themselves social in nature and constitute relationships internal to the two groups. At the same time, “overriding yet subsuming this division,” there is the performance space where the “two constitutive groups meet and work together to create the performance experience.” McAuley also includes one more space in this category, which in a manner that is quite indicative of the general tendency to privilege the text over the performance never caught the attention of earlier taxonomers, namely, the rehearsal space ([2000] 2003, 25–27). The introduction of the rehearsal space as a constitutive element of theatre space unequivocally locates performance as a process, wherein the continuities between the rehearsal and the performance proper involve not only concerns of acting, 11

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character and theme but also of space and problematizes the relationship between the rehearsal space and the performance space and how the one is inscribed in the other and vice versa. McAuley’s second category, the Physical/Fictional Relationship, which she calls the “heartland of theatre semiosis” ([2000] 2003, 27) is featured by the simultaneous presence of the physical reality of the performance space and the fictional world(s) it evokes through the sets, the bodily and verbal suggestions of the actors and a variety of other means. To do justice to the complexities of this category, she further divides them into three spaces: stage space, presentational space, and fictional space. The stage space is primarily the physical space of the stage but also the extended space claimed by performers through incursions into the auditorium. Presentational space is what is carved out of the stage space though physical means. It indicates that part of the stage space actually occupied by the actors, the furniture and the props, as well as demarcated through lighting, the exits, and the modes through which offstage spaces are signified physically, thus answering to Scolnicov’s notion of “perceived space.” Fictional place refers to the place(s) presented, represented or evoked on- and offstage. It is not merely the locus dramatis of the action but is larger than that and includes all the other places suggested as part of the action, and thus answers to the description of “conceived space” (2003, 29–30). The fictional space, and its interplay with onstage/offstage location, is so complex and fundamental to theatre that McAuley takes it and its subcategories as the third major area of the taxonomy under the category Location and Fiction. At the first level, she distinguishes between two subcategories: onstage fictional place and offstage fictional place. The onstage one is physically represented or presented by the actors physically or verbally. It could be a single fictional place or multiple places that alternate or succeed one another or are simultaneously present in different parts of the stage. The offstage fictional place refers to the place(s) evoked in the course of the action through physical or verbal means and is further divided into “unlocalized in relation to performance space,” which includes places that are part of the dramatic geography of the action but which are not specifically placed, such as the city or country in which the action takes place, and the “localized in relation to performance space,” which are places specifically positioned in terms of direction, distance and connection with the performance space ([2000] 2003, 30–31). McAuley’s fourth category, Textual Space, refers to the spatial structures contained in the play text, such as the geographical and other place names, reference to objects, descriptions of place and space, verbs of movement and other indications of proxemic relationship. And the final category, Thematic Space, is concerned with the ways in which space is conceived and organized, the kinds of space shown or evoked, and the values and events associated with them, both in the play text and the performance (2003, 30). 12

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Problems with taxonomies Even a cursory scrutiny of the detailed taxonomies will reveal that most of these endeavours labour under a central contradiction: their attempt (or, at least, their aspiration) is to create taxonomies that are universal, applicable to all theatres; but their theorizations are based primarily upon a singular theatre tradition, that of the West, with its particularly powerful culture of dramatic illusion, its reliance on the dramatic text and its greater emphasis on the verbal rather than the physical aspect of performance. It is interesting to note that, except for some minor exceptions, the innumerable other theatrical traditions of the rest of the world do not figure in these taxonomies, even as an afterthought, and the implicit assumption is that the Western tradition is the universal tradition that can speak for all the others. The inevitable result is that some particular dynamics of space that are crucial in non-Western traditions do not find a place in these taxonomies. Even as the idea of dramatic illusion is central to most of Western theatre, it remains that there are several cultures of performance, especially in India, Japan, China and Southeast Asia, in which there is little attempt at dramatic illusion. Theatre/performance forms such as Kathakali, Kutiyattam, Noh-gaku, Kabuki, Chinese Opera, as well as several dance forms in these regions, are obvious examples of this phenomenon. Most often, in these forms, there is a refreshing candour and full acceptance that it is performance, with little attempt to hide the theatricality of the performance or to make it appear natural or real. In other words, it may be said that these performances actually refer to themselves. There is in them an inherent recognition that theatre is necessarily artificial, and it is the artifice  – or the “art” of the artifice – that is foregrounded in performance. With the factor of dramatic illusion thus taken away, the real focus of attention – of spectator interest – is the performance itself, its internal processes, its achieved structure, its choreographic design and the virtuosity of the performers. One particular offshoot of the rejection of dramatic illusion in these forms is that there is a remarkable flexibility that comes to inform almost all aspects of the performance. No longer is an actor tied to one character, she/ he can easily move from one to another; there are no limitations on the time frames that can be represented or evoked, quick flights from one matrix of time to another regularly mark these performances; the real space–fictional place relationship becomes very open and flexible, the fictional location can easily shift from one place to any number of other places with the most minimal of gestures or words to indicate so. What is of note here is that the performance space and time is first and foremost the actual space and time in which the performance takes place; that reality is not camouflaged, hidden or erased. That is why there is little need for sets, props, or scenery. In fact, anything that would tie down the real place-time to a single fictional timeplace is positively eschewed. It is then on top of this manifest real place-time 13

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matrix that the various fictional place-times are inscribed, primarily through word or gesture, and the spectators asked to assume, for the time being, that it is another place and another time, without ever being demanded to forget the actual reality. In such a culture, the schematic divisions between presentational space and fictional space, between onstage fictional place and offstage fictional place or between localized off and unlocalized off tend to collapse because at times they co-exist, at times they alternate and at times they are all rendered relatively insignificant in the face of the physical/visual action in the presentational space. In a somewhat similar vein, flexibility also characterizes the relationship between the dramatic text and the performance. Far from being an inviolable, or even a dominant, presence, the dramatic text – with its thematic and narrative concerns and its larger philosophical worldview – is often of minor significance in many Asian theatre forms. There are several forms where the dramatic text is only a starting point for the performance and is far from the focus. The full dramatic text – or even its outline – is many times not presented; only selected acts, segments, episodes or performative highlights are played, so much so that each performance has a logic and internal rationale that is quite different from that of the full dramatic text. Each such performance episode will have a different perspective, and a singular theme or worldview emanating from the full dramatic text seldom finds a place in the performance. It is also a fact that in many performances extensive interpolations and digressions are also featured that are exhibitions of the prowess of the performer and which rarely maintain any deference to the integrity of the dramatic text/plot or limit themselves to the fictional spaces contained in it. Once again, it is the performance itself – and the experience of its live audio-visuality – that is foregrounded rather than the imagined world and places that the dramatic text purports to denote. The culture of privileging the verbal text over the gestural text in Western theatre, where the gestures are only ancillary or supplementary to the verbal text, is also somewhat foreign to many Asian theatre forms in which the gestural text quite often holds a parallel or equal status, or in some instances completely replaces the verbal text. For instance, in the case of forms such as Kathakali, Kutiyattam, and many other dance forms of India, the gestures along with the actors’ movements and facial expressions comprise a complete language with a comprehensive syntax and grammar that is capable not only of expressing practically anything that the verbal text does but also due to its physicality represent aspects of experience in a manner that is beyond the verbal. Here, the text, and its communication, acquires an altogether different dimension because the performative discourse becomes primarily gestural; the verbal text is either accompanied by a simultaneous and equivalent gestural text, or it is relegated to the background and is completely rendered through the gestural text, or even more acutely in instances of interpolation, there is no pre-existing verbal text but only one that can 14

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be “read out” from the gestural text. The implications of this cannot be overstated. Because gestures, physical movements and facial expressions are rendered in and through space, they are spatial phenomena through and through. The spatial negotiations engaged in by the actor(s) in rendering the gestural text brings up not only questions of visibility and clarity but also those regarding the diversity and flexibility of spaces occupied by the actor, particularly the spaces carved out by the gestures and movements and the space that brings together the actor and the spectator. The radical divergence between this culture of gestural performance and the verbal intensive performance culture of the West can best be exemplified with a statement by McAuley about the value of facial expressions in Western performance: Facial expression, like other aspects of the actor’s physical appearance, is a visual signifier and is a very powerful part of the actor’s bodily expressivity. It is, however, not dependent upon the spatial reality of the theatre. . . . Unlike film and television, in which the face is foregrounded and becomes the primary channel for emotional communication, there have been many successful performance traditions in which the actor’s face was not clearly visible to the majority of spectators, either due to the size of the theatre, or to methods of lighting, or to the fact that masks were worn. ([2000] 2003, 114; emphasis added) What is most interesting is that what she considers part of the culture of film and television, and not of theatre, the “foregrounding of the face,” is not only part of the performance culture of many Asian theatre forms but in many instances an integral, defining part. Furthermore, the conditions that, according to her, precluded the use of facial expressions in some performance traditions are also of immense significance because they are pointers to the ways in which space is implicated in facial expressions, and in gestural modes of acting. For instance, in forms such as Kathakali and Kutiyattam, facial expressions that are highly systematized and follow an established “grammar of performative emotions” are a fundamental part of the theatrical discourse, with every gesture accompanied by expressions that inflect the gesture in such a way that they not only contribute to the emotional tone but also add subtle shades to the meaning conveyed. There is also the incidence of extended segments in which the array of expressions on the face of the actor is the only action on the stage, reducing the effective presentational space and the focus of spectator attention to the limits and contours of that face. Much the same can be said about gestural routines and movements too. Here, intrinsically spatial questions, such as the dynamics of proximity/distance between the actor and the spectator based on the size and configuration of the theatre; the scale and shape of the space utilized by the actor; the span, tempo and differential detail of gestures and 15

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movements; the modes, areas and foci of lighting employed; the position and angle of vision of the spectator in relation to the actor, all come to be of crucial importance. In other words, it may not be entirely amiss to say that space, and negotiations with and in it, are so folded into the performance of these gestural theatres that they take on a much more fundamental nature in their practice and experience than in verbal theatres. One more aspect that needs to be mentioned in this regard is that many non-Western performance traditions, such as Noh, Kathakali and Kutiyattam, lay great store on incessant repetition/reiteration, wherein there is an established template of performance for each play that has been instituted by convention and which sets down in minute detail almost the entire process of performance and which then gets reproduced in each individual performance, with minor variations arising out of the differences in individual abilities and inclinations of the performers and the situational differences in the time and place of performance. The template itself follows certain time-honoured conventions of costume, gesture, movement, speech, music and so on, which together define the form of the performance. In such traditions, the patterns of performance and spatial dynamics are so intrinsically inscribed in the practice itself that, whatever the space in which the performance takes place, a relatively unvarying performance space is carved out within it in accordance with the spatial demands and configurations that have come to be established in connection with the form. In other words, it is a space that institutionalizes the spatial dynamics of the performance form and is functionally replicated from performance to performance. Along with this, there is also the establishment of what can be called a “grammar of space,” which specifies precise modalities regarding entrances and exits, the relative hierarchies/precedence among the different sectors of the presentational space, such as right/left, front/back, centre/side, etc.; the positions to be taken by different characters within that space in terms of their relative social/narrative value; the distances to be maintained between characters in terms of their relationships and specific situations of interaction; the differential distances and positional angles to be observed by the performers with regard to the front of the stage or the audience during different types of performance activity and so on. There is an inevitable continuity between this effective performance space and the training/rehearsal space; it is first established in the training space through the learning of specific routines of movement that are fundamental to the form, which along with the mechanics of movement also inculcate in the performer a spatial sense of the desired span, extent and coverage of such movements. From the earliest point of training, this sense of space is reproduced and affirmed incrementally and inscribed in the minds of the performers in the form of a mental map and in their bodily practice as an embodied knowledge of space, enabling the reproduction of that space in every performance irrespective of the actualities 16

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of each performance site. This repeated reproduction in actual performances, in turn, leads to the creation of a sense of performative space in the minds of experienced spectators as part of their acquired visual knowledge of the form, which is quite often expressed in viewership practice in terms of the audience’s immediate understanding of the hierarchies/ precedence among characters, their relationships, and the nature of their interaction without having to refer to the verbal or gestural text, as also their active notions of vantage points, optimal distances or angles to watch the performance. Curiously enough, this alerts us to the possibility that these forms have achieved what Artaud had wished for in Western theatre, that is, to develop a “concrete language” of space that is “intended for the senses and independent of speech” and is capable of expressing “thoughts . . . beyond the reach of the spoken language” (1970, 37). The presence of such a systematic language of space also indicates that, even as being an active presence in the making and reception of performance, space by itself is manifestly performative in these forms and that there is a conscious, methodical employment of that performativity. When space thus performs by/as itself, it may no longer be enough to consider space as a vital or even fundamental element of performance, as in the oft-used phrase that is so characteristic of the field, “space in performance,” but may necessitate a rethinking that brings on board a conception of space that functions also in terms of “space as performance” or the “performance of space.” This brings us to probably the greatest limitation of most attempts at taxonomies of space in theatre. They may indeed have had reasonable success in identifying and defining the spaces that are operative in performance and classifying them according to shared characteristics. However, by approaching them as objective entities that are out there, either physically present or referred to by the dramatic or performative text, space is treated as essentially empty, static and passive, as something to be filled/occupied/energized by the actors’ and spectators’ bodies and to be animated/indicated by the words or gestures of the actors. The all-too-active role of space in creating the performance is lost from view, and the taxonomies turn out to be somewhat inadequate to address the really significant question as to how space becomes performative, first by/as itself, and then through its interrelationships with other elements of performance, such as the body of the performer, his/her gestures and movements, the body of the spectator, his/ her actions of seeing and responding and so on. How space constitutes the very process of performance, both in its making and in its reception, how space determines and conditions all the other elements of performance and is at the same time determined and conditioned by them and how methods and modalities – indeed, the very structure and form – of performance evolve out of these mutual interactions are largely beyond the scope of such taxonomical thinking. 17

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These reservations are stated not so much as to advocate a total rejection of the taxonomies, which indeed have their purpose in certain kinds of analysis, but to suggest that in order to grasp the constitutive role of space in performance, a different approach will be required that goes beyond an enumeration and classification of the different types of spaces and takes space in its totality as a dynamic, active phenomenon. Following Ubersfeld’s eloquent dictum, “The theatre is space,” it will have to be seen as an allencompassing presence in performance which includes, but is not simply the aggregate of, all its parts and manifestations. Such an approach will perforce address the active, live relationships among space, performer and audience and how they continually constitute one another and in the process constitute the performance itself. At the same time, it will also have to take on board the understanding that different sets of foci and perspectives are required for different performance traditions and cultures because of the varying functionalities of space in each of them.

Kutiyattam and the question of space It is in the context of the spatial turn in theatre and performance studies as well as the problems resident in the taxonomies and approaches already developed that an attempt is being made to look at the role space has played in the evolution of Kutiyattam, one of the oldest performance traditions in the world and certainly the oldest existing performance form in India. The only living form of Sanskrit theatre, Kutiyattam has a history of more than ten centuries,5 and in recognition of its antiquity and theatrical richness the UNESCO declared it a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” in 2001. Traditionally performed only in kūttampalams, the temple theatres of Kerala, Kutiyattam has a distinctive set of performance systems and a permanent repertoire that comprises of some of the core texts of the pan-Indian tradition of Sanskrit drama, written by Bhasa, Harsha, Kulasekhara, Saktibhadra and Mahendra Vikrama. It is a theatrical form that employs a consummately conventional style of performance, composed of a blend of emblematic costumes and make-up, symbolic gestures, stylised movements and facial expressions, and a unique method of dialogue rendition that is said to resemble Vedic chants. The stage is usually bare, except for the performers and the musicians. There is no scenery, very few props and the only source of light is a single bell-metal lamp with three wicks burning. (Narayanan, 2006a, 122) Kutiyattam is first and foremost a theatre of elaboration. Much more so than any other known theatre or performance form, Kutiyattam thrives on 18

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amplifications, digressions and interpretations at every available opportunity in performance. It lays store by a performative culture in which fine details are focused on, minute elements are augmented and enlarged and any avenue for embellishment is assiduously pursued. In the face of such intense reliance on elaboration and interpretation of virtually all aspects of performance  – the text, the events, the characters, the metaphors and poetic figures, the descriptions of scenes and locations, the pre-history of characters and so on – it may not be entirely amiss to state that it is a form that seeks out and exploits every possibility for narrative and performative enhancement. Consequently, in Kutiyattam, the length and pace of performance is quite exceptional; with the pre-play rituals and preliminaries, the exposition of the pre-story and the pre-history of the major characters, the detailed interpretative enactment of the text and its intricacies and the final rituals, a full performance of a play would take months to complete. This has effectively meant that complete plays are never presented on the Kutiyattam stage, only single acts are, and those too are spread over several days that range between five and ten nights. In the process, the larger textual or story narrative becomes largely redundant, and what takes its place is a performative narrative that is centred on the performance of each single day and each segment of a performance. The result is an episodic structure wherein each day’s performance is invested with a stand-alone independence and a self-contained completeness. This has led to the customary practice among both actors and connoisseurs to identify each day’s performance not by the names of the plays or of the acts presented but primarily by the name of the significant segment that is featured in that day’s performance.6 What is most noteworthy is that this culture of performance that arose and developed in the region that is present-day Kerala is radically different from the traditions of Sanskrit drama performance that evolved in the rest of India. Barring the three plays, Āścaryacūdāmaṇi (The Wondrous Crest Jewel) by Saktibhadra and Subhadrādhanañjayam (The Wedding of Arjuna and Subhadra) and Tapatīsaṃvaraṇam (The Sun God’s Daughter and King Saṃvaraṇa) by King Kulasekhara Varman, which are of Kerala origin, the rest of the plays presented on the Kutiyattam stage are primarily those of Bhasa, Harsha, Saktibhadra and Mahendra Vikrama,7 all of whom are from other parts of India and have enjoyed pan-Indian popularity. Despite this, there is no evidence to suggest that the performance conventions and the culture of elaboration that defines Kutiyattam was shared to any considerable extent by any other drama tradition in India. Further still, it appears to be a culture that seems to run totally contrary to many of the prescriptions and instructions that figure in the major theoretical texts and recognized interpretations of Sanskrit drama, such as the Nāṭyaśāstra. Going even further, it may even be claimed that Kutiyattam is unparalleled by any performance tradition not only within 19

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India but in the rest of the world, especially in its overwhelming emphasis on elaboration. In light of this, a moot question that comes up is how and why such a performance culture arose exclusively in a region that is present-day Kerala. However, such a question has not been rigorously addressed or even seriously raised. The prevailing tendencies in most scholarly work on Kutiyattam to date has been to either provide a chronological history of its evolution based on the few verifiable facts that are available (or on the basis of surmises that many a time do not stand the rigorous test of verification), or to approach some of its specific performance conventions and techniques in an isolated fashion. While the first follows a descriptive modality and steers clear of most critical questions, the primary burden of the second has been to enquire if theoretical justification for the performance conventions and techniques of Kutiyattam could be found in treatises such as the Nāṭyaśāstra or the Daśarūpaka. If such justification could be harnessed even in a remote manner, then that is taken as validation for their existence. Such an approach does not do justice to Kutiyattam on two counts. First, in forcibly linking what is essentially a dēśi (local, regional) tradition to the mārgi (general, pan-Indian) tradition, it ignores the regional influences and local history of Kutiyattam. Second, in addressing specific conventions and performative strategies in an isolative fashion, it ignores the larger performance culture of which such conventions are part and the particular sociohistorical circumstances that led to their formation. A case in point would be the convention of the nirvahaṇam, where the major characters who appear in the presentation of an act engage in a detailed exposition of their previous history, prior to the actual enactment of the act. It may probably be said that this convention of ēkahārya abhinaya (solo performance), which primarily accounts for Kutiyattam performances having assumed such lengthy durations, has received considerable critical attention. Within the nirvahaṇam itself, several techniques and performative devices, such as the practice of pakarnnāṭṭam (transferred acting), where an actor who plays the role of one character assumes the aspects of the other characters who figure in the story he narrates; the quick flights in time from the present of the play to various pasts that feature in that story; the practice of narrative digressions and descriptive elaborations and the latent similarity of these techniques with the flashback device of modern cinema, have all been subjects of critical discussion. Not only that, drawing upon the characteristics of some of the daśarūpakas (the ten dramatic forms) or the uparūpakas (the subsidiary forms) it has also been contended that such a system of solo performance used to be part of some traditions of Sanskrit drama and hence that  the nirvahaṇam in Kutiyattam is fully justified. It is also true that the convention has inspired several contemporary theatre practitioners to draw upon it and bring in a culture of flexibility in performance that, as a rule, is not permitted in theatre practices 20

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oriented towards realism. Despite such critical and performative attention, fundamental questions on how such a convention arose and developed to such an extent in Kutiyattam, such as what were the material, social and performative circumstances in which such a technique developed; how is it connected to the larger performative culture of Kutiyattam, etc., have not been addressed with the kind of focus and gravity that they deserve. In light of this, the present study aims to locate Kutiyattam’s culture of elaboration in the specificities of the kūttampalam, the temple theatre where it has been customarily performed and which has played the most significant role in determining its modalities of performance and perception. The present work then is an attempt to look at the role of space in the performance of Kutiyattam and how as a constitutive presence it has been of determining influence in the evolution of its particularly unique theatrical system. The primary object of the study is to isolate how the space of the kūttampalam – seen not only as a physical, presentational space but also as a social, cultural, religious and knowledge-related space – has been fundamentally instrumental in the way in which the performance culture of Kutiyattam has evolved into what it is now, in terms of both performance as well as reception. In keeping with this, the primary focus of the work is on Kutiyattam as a performance, a staged event, and ancillary questions such as its status as a ritual event or its religious significance does not figure in it apart from their relevance in terms of the space of performance. At the same time, it will also be an attempt to address one particular aspect of the dynamic of space in theatre, not limited to Kutiyattam alone but applicable to theatre in general, viz. the way in which the theatrical space constitutes the relationship between the actor and the spectator, initiating certain specific systems of practice and behaviour on the part of both, in terms of the performance of the former and the viewing of the latter, which in turn inducts into the performance certain formal modalities that provide it with its specific identity. In other words, the study attempts to isolate the effect of the relationship among the actor, the spectator and the space on the modes, structure and form of the performance and its methods of reception. In developing such a theoretical framework, the work draws primarily upon the phenomenological conceptualizations of the processes of perception, proposed by Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, to formulate a model that explains the relationship between performers and spectators and to situate it in terms of the space in which it comes to be.

Plan of the work The first chapter develops a general theoretical paradigm on the triangular relationship between performance space, performer and audience, the generation of specific ways of seeing on the part of the spectator and ways of doing on the part of the performer in specific theatre/performance spaces 21

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and the social and historical structures that condition them. Approaching performance as a prime site for the phenomenological understanding of perception in terms of its three major aspects, viz. intentionality, intersubjectivity and embodiment, the relationship between the performer and the spectator is located within the configurations of the specific space in which it evolves and as impinged by these three aspects of perception. In addition, as a live presence that constitutes the practices of both the performer and the spectator, the theatre space is as much a social and historical space as it is a physical space and imparts to their relationship a “horizon of potentialities” and a “forestructure of assumptions” that condition the production of meaning in performance. The historical contexts in which Kutiyattam came to be exclusively performed in the kūttampalams, the temple theatres of Kerala, are examined in detail in Chapter 2. Using available epigraphic, literary and oral evidence, an attempt is made to trace the venues and structures of patronage of Sanskrit drama in Southern India during the ancient and medieval ages and the socio-political contexts in which substantial changes came over them, particularly in the 13th–15th centuries CE. Factors such as the economic and social environment of the Brahmin-led temple-centred agrarian villages, its impact on the practitioners of Kutiyattam, and the induction of the local language, Malayalam, into the performance are also explored to isolate the specific conditions in which Kutiyattam evolved as a distinct form, conspicuously different from other styles and methods of Sanskrit drama, extant in the rest of the country. In the third chapter, a comprehensive analysis is undertaken of the performance culture of Kutiyattam, particularly its culture of elaboration, in terms of the specific modalities of the physical space of the kūttampalam, along with the ways of seeing and ways of doing that are generated in that space. The circumscribed spatiality of the kūttampalam, arising out of such features as its visual frame, the light from the single lamp, the close proximity between the stage and the audience space, is seen as the source for the generation of a culture of microscopic, proximal viewing that is closely attentive to minute details and actions, on the part of the spectator, and of a controlled, restrained mode of acting in which suggestion and evocation were of primary importance, on the part of the actor. The effects of these modes of viewing and doing on all aspects of performance is explored through detailed descriptions of the performance procedure and the specific conventions of performance that characterize Kutiyattam. Drawing from the concepts of phenomenology which sees time as a mode of experiencing things and events, and not as a linear, objective affair, apart and outside of experience, the fourth chapter discusses the different time frames that are operative in any performance, such as real time, fictive time and performative time, specifically in terms of their functions in Kutiyattam. Approaching performative time as an aspect of the inherent spatiality 22

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of theatre, and impacted by the triangular relationship among space, the actor and the spectator, the chapter analyzes the complex employment of time in the Kutiyattam performance, particularly the differing tempos of performance, the oscillations of narrative/performative time, the technique of digressive time and the practice of dissonance in which all linearity of time is disrupted with even the future brought in as an aspect of the present. Training being a crucial aspect of any theatrical practice, especially when the practice has a long-standing set of complex conventions and very sophisticated methods of communication, the fifth chapter examines the training space of Kutiyattam, the different methods of formal and informal training employed in it and how concepts and practices of space that ultimately refer to performance are inscribed in their basic modalities. Features such as an “economy of effort and practices,” by virtue of which practically everything learned in training is used in performance; the culture of embodiment achieved through a reiterative and incremental training system and the building of the actor’s body into a live archive of performance practices and conventions from which elements can be drawn out at will are studied in detail. Further, the āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas, manuals of performance and production as well as comprehensive guides to the processes of training, are situated not only as unique, cross-referenced texts that feature the three interconnected performative discourses of the textual, the physical and the spatial but also as mnemonic devices that link training with performance and evoke the live archive of the performer’s embodied knowledge. In the sixth chapter, the theatre space is approached as part of the larger socio-cultural milieu, partaking of its attitudes and ideology, giving them representation in the specific context and spatial language of theatre. The demarcations/hierarchies within the kūttampalam and its connections with the structure of the temple society with its vertical caste system are explored, as well as the incorporation of the performers and the performance into the economic and ritual systems of the temple. A significant part of the chapter is a discussion of the role of kriyas in performance and the arguments of the 15th-century critical text Naṭāṅkuśa to critique certain attempts to foist over-ritualized interpretations on the performance conventions of Kutiyattam. Further, the chapter addresses how the intersubjective engagement between the actor and the spectator and the construction of the specific cultural meanings of performance are conditioned by the “forestructure of assumptions” and “horizon of potentialities,” which are formed by the discourses and practices of perception that characterize that society at large. In this connection, the influence of the Mahābhārata and the institution of the Bhārata Bhaṭṭar on the narrative systems of Kutiyattam, the deep connections that its culture of elaboration has with the method of Sanskrit pedagogy prevalent in the temple society, and the links of the Vidūṣaka character with aspects of local culture are analyzed. Moreover, the twin aspects of translation and bilingualism that characterize Kutiyattam are explored to 23

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propose an alternate possibility for the establishment of its nomenclature. The concluding chapter explores the contemporary state of Kutiyattam after it had been brought out of the temples in the 1950s and tracks the changes that have come over it as a result of it being staged at secular, public venues. Even at the outset, it may be said that one anticipates objections that are bound to be raised regarding the use of Western theory for the analysis of a theatre form that is fundamentally Indian, especially because “Indianness” has of late become a convenient handle for a rather thinly veiled and aggressive nationalism that takes strenuous, and sometimes even violent, exception to anything that is considered external or foreign. The answer to this is simple and twofold. First, such positions involve a fundamental epistemological flaw in trapping Indian-ness into a binary with anything and everything that is non-Indian or un-Indian, thereby rejecting any possibility of a conversation among cultures or a positioning of India within a larger and pluralistic understanding of the world. Second, inscribed within these positions is an assumed notion of superiority that rests primarily upon the construction and celebration of notions of a traditional knowledge that is considered appropriate and correct for all times and hence brooks no possibility of critique. At the same time, the practice of theatre and performance, despite its local characteristics and culture-specific structures of evolution, is still not limited to any one place or time and has a universal character and shared features that cut across cultures and climates. The questions of space, doing and seeing in theatre are of equal and vital importance to any theatre culture, in so much as they are the fundamental pillars upon which the experiential structures of any theatre are built. This effectively means that the artificial division of theoretical formulations or apparatuses of analysis into narrow compartments, such as Western, Eastern, Indian, Chinese, etc., and the exclusion of some (or many) from consideration on the basis of blinkered nationalism may not be just disadvantageous but positively injurious to a proper analysis. This is not to deny the historical specificities of different theatre forms, cultures and theories or to refute that the theoretical and discursive elements that define particular cultures have always influenced and determined the making of theatre forms and traditions. However, one needs to distinguish between lines of influence or factors of determination, on the one hand, and theoretical approaches or conceptual frameworks for analysis, on the other, and not confuse and conflate the two. To the contrary, what is required is a judicious bringing together of the two, in which a deep consideration of the local, specifically historical factors of development and evolution is blended with an incisive analytic approach that connects the local with the trans-local/global theatrical experience. Ultimately, every attempt at analysis is inspired by the hope that structures of expression and experience will be discovered that go beyond the singular and the specific and connect to the several and the general, without which the very purpose of analysis will be defeated. As for Kutiyattam, it is patently obvious that 24

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even as it is specifically Keralite and Indian, it is still experienced and enjoyed not just by a small community in Kerala, nor is its relevance limited to that small society, as amply vouched by the interest and scholarship that it has evoked. In such a context, the need is not for theoretical approaches that are exclusively “Indian” but for ones that can adequately address the nuances and complexities of Kutiyattam, whatever be their origins, and through the analysis made possible by them discover in Kutiyattam the particular and the general, the local and the global. In that sense, inspired by a spirit of inclusiveness that has for centuries been the abiding internal logic of Indian culture, far from closing Kutiyattam off from the wider world of theatre, the effort in this work is to open it to that world, in the firm conviction that in Kutiyattam’s specific Keraliteness or Indian-ness one can also discover a doorway to that world.

Notes 1 see Chapter  3, “The Spatiality of One’s Own Body and Motility,” MerleauPonty. 2005, 112–170. 2 It is unfortunate that only one of Ubersfeld’s works in French, Lire le theatre, that too just Vol. 1, has been fully translated to English, as Reading Theatre. The rest, ĽEcole du spectateur, ĽObjet théâtral, Le Théâtre et la cite are available in English only as partial excerpts, summarizations and quotes in the works of other authors. Mostly, this work relies on the quotes and summaries in McAuley’s Space in Performance ([2000] 2003) for the ideas of Ubersfeld. 3 These include Richard and Helen Leacroft’s Theatre and Playhouse (1984), Marvin Carlson’s Places of Performance (1989), Iain Mackintosh’s Architecture, Actor and Audience (1993), Richard Southern’s Seven Ages of Theatre (1962), Gay McAuley’s Space in Performance ([2000] 2003), Rush Rehm’s The Play of Space (2002), David Wiles’s Tragedy in Athens (1997) and A Short History of Western Performance Space (2003), J. R. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring’s Making Space for Theatre: British Architecture and Theatre Since 1958 (1995) and Joanne Tompkins’s Theatre’s Heterotopias: Performance and the Cultural Politics of Space (2015), to name a major few. 4 see Steen Jansen. 1950, 1982; Etienne Soriau. 1950; Hanna Scolinicov. 1987; Michael Issacharoff. 1989. 5 The earliest verifiable record is that of King Kulasekhara Varman of the Cēra dynasty, variably assigned from the 9th to 11th centuries CE, who ruled Mahōdayapuram near present-day Kodungallur in central Kerala. He is credited with having written two plays, Subhadrādhanañjayam and Tapatīsaṃvaraṇam, and also having reformed Kutiyattam (Raja. 1974, 1). Kulaśekhara is a common title generally attributed to the kings of the Cēra dynasty (800–1124 CE); Perumāḷ being another one commonly used (see Gurukkal and Varier. 2018, 109–110). Though there have been several conjectures, attempts to identify precisely which king of the Cēra dynasty the poet was have not borne fruit yet. 6 Such names of segments are derived either from the action essayed in the segment, as in the case of Kailāsōdhāraṇam (the enactment of the lifting of Mount Kailāsa by Rāvaṇa) in Āścaryacūdāmaṇi (The Wondrous Crest Jewel), or from the first words of the significant verse enacted that day, as in Śikhinīśalabham (flies in the fire) of Act One of Subhadrādhanañjayam.

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7 Legend has it that Kalidasa’s plays used to be performed in earlier times but that they fell out of use at some point. However, there has been a revival of late with Abhijñānaśākuntaḷam being performed by the Chachu Chakyar Smaraka Gurukulam, Irinjalakuda, and Svapnavāsavadattam by the Department of Kutiyattam, Kerala Kalamandalam Deemed University for Art and Culture.

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1 SPACE AND WAYS OF DOING/ SEEING IN PERFORMANCE

What makes theatre and performance so vital and compelling is undoubtedly its liveness. The fact of liveness – that actors and spectators physically co-exist in the same time and place to engage in an activity that cannot ever be reproduced or repeated in exactly the same manner – is also what distinguishes performance fundamentally from other arts and other forms of representation. In other words, the fact that performance requires the live presence and interaction between actors and spectators and that it ceases to be just as it comes into being is what gives it its eternal charm. Not surprisingly then the recognition that liveness is the first principle of performance is shared by many practitioners and scholars, even as their practices and priorities vary vastly. With the experience of a lifetime behind him striving to fashion a political theatre that could bring about social change, Brecht states, “Theatre consists in this: in making live representations of reported or invented happenings between human beings and doing so with a view to entertainment” (1964, 180; emphasis added). Though he was primarily interested in the performer and his experience, Grotowsky declares, “The theatre is an act carried out here and now in the actors’ organisms, in front of other men” (1969, 118; emphasis in the original). In a more philosophical vein, Peggy Phelan goes further and situates the very ontology of performance in its liveness, by virtue of its necessary irreproducibility: Performance’s only life is in the present. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance. To the degree that performance attempts to enter the economy of reproduction it betrays and lessens the promise of its own ontology. Performance’s being . . . becomes itself through disappearance. (2005, 146) For Phelan, it is the aspect of time, the unrecoverable “present-ness” of performance, the fact that disappearance is structured into its appearance, 27

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that death is inscribed in its very being, which is the primary ontological condition of performance. Even as this aspect of time – the simultaneous live presence of both actors and spectators – is essential,1 the first physical condition for l­ iveness – indeed for any performance to come into being – is a space in which the actors and spectators can come together and consciously engage in an activity both know to be performance. As McAuley asserts, “If theatre involves communication between live actors and live spectators, then they must be present to each other within a given space” ([2000] 2003, 3–4; emphasis added). Grotowsky’s phrase “here and now” captures this notion of concurrent timespace most succinctly because without a shared “here,” the shared “now” of performance is impossible. It could be any “here” – indoors, outdoors, temporary, permanent, custom-made, adapted, used for other purposes at other times and so on – but a “here,” a specific space, is needed which at the time of performance unites the actors and spectators in a specifically conscious activity that implicitly assigns specific functions for both and institutes a specific relationship between the two. It is precisely the understanding of this primacy of space and the specific functions and relationships that the performers and the spectators enter into in that space that prompts Peter Brook to make his oft-quoted statement, “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged” (1968, 7).

The live(d) space Eloquent and evocative though it may be, Peter Brook’s metaphor of “empty space” nonetheless raises several questions. Is the space into which a man walks really empty? Initially, it may indeed appear to have been empty before he walks in, but during and after the walk, does it remain empty? Is it just an empty receptacle to contain the bodies of the man who walks and the man who watches – a passive, static space unaffected and unaltered by the walking and the watching in any manner? Even further, was it really empty even before the walk? Or is it a space already walked in by another man, several men, and in expectation of being walked in again? Or is it a space that was defined by another activity and then altered by the activity of walking? Even while fully appreciating the purpose of Brook’s use of the term “empty space,” which is to draw attention to what he considered the most elemental aspect of theatre, namely, the active relationship between the actor and the spectator, what these questions alert us to is the fact that no space is ultimately empty, but that as Lefebvre observes, “(Social) space is a (social) product” (1991, 26; emphasis in original). Every space becomes what it is and acquires the qualities it has through the human bodies that 28

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inhabit it and the practices that take place in it. An open ground becomes a playground, a fairground or a performance place, not because it is originally so but because it has been defined so by the uses that it has been put to and the social practices that occur in it. No space is empty or innocent of such social inscriptions. In this sense, every space is also lived space, it is always already inhabited and defined by the social nature of that inhabitation. Being so inhabited, every space is always in expectation of activities and practices that are in accordance with the nature of that social inhabitation and are reflected in the structure, configurations and architectural features of that space. In other words, every space is a concrete, physical expression of certain ways of walking, talking, watching and a spectrum of such other human activities. At the same time, every space also carries within it the inscriptions and knowledge of other spaces – spaces that define it in terms of similarity or contrast – and hence is always at any given point of time part of a particular class of spaces that expects to be used, occupied and negotiated in specific ways. Consequently, every activity that actually occurs there can be a further confirmation, a variation or a rejection of that expectation, and in its turn validate or alter the expectation as well as the space. The idea of performance space as social space is certainly not new. Marvin Carlson, who situated theatre buildings in their larger architectural, social and economic context (1989), and David Wiles, who analyzed theatre-going as a social practice (1997, 2003), have contributed substantially towards theorizing theatre spaces and buildings and in establishing that they are not fixed containers or given realities but socially mediated entities. As McAuley puts it, “Theatre is a social event, occurring in the auditorium as well as on the stage, and the primary signifiers are physical and even spatial in nature” ([2000] 2003, 5). The idea of performance space as “lived space,” occupied by human beings and transformed by their activities, has also received considerable attention. Wiles, for instance, indicates how the performance event can transform the space when he states, “The play-as-text can be performed in a space, but the play-as-event belongs to the space, and makes the space perform as much as it makes the actors perform” (2003, 1). Lisa Marie Bowler, in her work on theatre architecture, affirms that the space is not independent of the performance and that a space as it is experienced in performance is a radically different perceptual entity than the same when it is dark and empty. Interestingly, her work opens with words that seem be a subtle retort to Brook where, quoting theatre director Dominic Dromgoole, she states rather pithily, “An actor walks into a room, and the room changes” (Bowler, 2015, 1). Even as it goes some way in amending Brook’s notion of empty space and establishing that the occupants’ actions transform the space, Bowler’s metaphor of the actor walking into the room and changing it also raises several questions. Does the room affect the actor’s walk? Will he walk the same way if he is walking into a smaller room as he is into a larger one? Will there be a 29

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change in his walk if there are spectators in the room? Will he walk the same way if the spectator is just six feet away as he would if the spectator is 100 feet away? What if we were to change the action from “walk” to “talk”? Will there be a change in the volume, pitch and tone of the actor’s voice if the room were to be smaller or larger, or if the spectator was to be closer or farther away? And, as for the spectator, how does the room affect his watching? Will the focus and ways of his watching change from a smaller to a larger room? Will he see/look the same way if he were six feet away from the actor as opposed to his being 100 feet away? These questions open up a third possibility, that along with being “social space” and “lived space,” transformed by the presence and actions of the actors and spectators, performance space is also “live space,” actively impinging upon the actors and spectators and affecting and altering their doings, behaviour and their inter-relationships. A salient feature of recognizing the liveness of space in theatre is that, far from seeing it as an empty receptacle or a static background, it acquires the status of a constitutive presence determining the actors, the spectators, their practices and consequently the very nature of performance at all its different levels. A couple of simple examples will suffice to prove the point. Take the case of a person speaking to another person sitting next to her. With such close proximity, the volume of her voice will be low, the pitch will be regular and the accompanying physical gestures and movements she uses will be small in extent and slow in pace. The responses of the listener will also be of a similar kind. However, if the same two people are separated by a distance of 100 feet, the volume and pitch of the speaker’s voice will rise, the accompanying physical movements and gestures will become more expansive and rapid and the listener also will respond likewise. Here, even as the speaker, listener and content of the message are the same, the change in the space in which their interaction takes place brings about a corresponding change in their speech and actions. Now, take the case of a person viewing a painting in a gallery. When looking at it from, say, 30 feet away, the viewer will see not only the whole painting in its frame but also a host of other things, such as the paintings adjacent to it, the wall on which they are hung, the lighting arrangements, other viewers nearby and so on. However, as she gets closer to the painting, the other things gradually disappear from her field of vision until she reaches a point where she sees only the painting. At that point what she sees in the painting will be much different from what she saw in it 30 feet away because at closer range much greater detail becomes apparent. And when she moves beyond that point and gets even closer, she will cease to see the whole painting and will start to see the fine grain of the paint, the details of the brush strokes, the particulars of the lines and colours and so on, all aspects which were not perceptible to her when she was farther away. What is apparent here is that, with a change in the space that brings together the viewer and the viewed, the focus, modalities and intensity of 30

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the viewing also changes, effectively altering not only the act of seeing but also the thing seen. Along with the vision, the object of vision too is transformed by the space. These two examples clearly demonstrate how one aspect of space – distance/proximity  – impinges upon what/how one does and what/how one sees/receives in that space. It would be fairly apparent that in like manner all the other aspects of a space – physical as well as societal – will have their own specific and relative effects on the modalities of doing and seeing that happen in it. The significance of this cannot be overstated for theatre and performance because it would provide a veritable opening to why some theatres are more gestural than verbal, why there is a greater onus on physical acting in some and on rhetoric in some others, why masks are used in some performance forms while some others rely more on facial expression, why some theatres are much more slow-paced and elaborative than some others and so on. In fact, it could go a long way in providing material explanations in the form of spatial rationale for the development of certain performance styles and modes in connection with certain theatres and the evolution of the formal structures of certain performance forms. No doubt, there has been acknowledgement of the constitutive nature of space in performance. As Ubersfeld observes, theatre space (lieu théâtral) is that which “brings together actors and spectators in a relationship which depends essentially on both the physical form of the auditorium and the form of social organization” (Quoted in McAuley. [2000] 2003, 19). Or, as Richard Knowles states, “Space and place impinge directly on both production and reception . . . silently inscribing or disrupting specific (and ideologically coded) ways of working, for practitioners, and of seeing and understanding for audiences” (2004, 62–63). However, despite the clear recognition that the performance space affects the actors, the spectators and their actions, there has not been much effort hitherto to systematically analyze that effect and its bearing on the performance at large. My attempt in this work is precisely that: to develop a method to explore the effect of the performance space on the actors and spectators and their relationship, as well as its consequent effect on the methods, modalities and form of the performance. Liveness here is not an attribute of the actors and spectators alone but of the space as well, whereby it enters into a triangular relationship with live actors and live spectators, determining what actors do and how spectators see in that space. The positing of theatrical practice in terms of this triad, where live actors and live spectators come together in a live space, and in terms of the possibilities offered by that space engage themselves and one another in a conscious activity that is distinct from other quotidian activities and is based upon interdependent action and perception, opens the possibility of a phenomenological understanding of the theatrical event. Phenomenology, with its emphasis on conscious perception and experience, will be able to provide 31

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the theoretical framework to examine the nature of the relationships among space, performer and spectator and how they constitute one another.

Phenomenology of theatre Phenomenology, as the name clearly indicates, is the study of phenomena, or the appearances of things as they emerge in our experience. It seeks to examine the nature of the world as we experience it, or as “it manifests itself to consciousness,” whatever the object of that experience may be, including ourselves, our thoughts, other people, their actions or the things in the world. Husserl, the founder of continental phenomenology, famously called for a return to “the things themselves” (2001, 168), by which he aspired to bring philosophy, and even the sciences, to focus attention on the structures through which the world is experienced. In that sense, phenomenology is “a science of experience” that does not concentrate exclusively on either the objects of experience or on the subject of experience, but on the point of contact where being and consciousness meet. It is, therefore, a study of consciousness as intentional, as directed towards objects, as living in an intentionally constituted world. (Edie, 1962, 19) Opposed to the objectivist approach that characterizes the scientific attitude, where the lived, experiential nature of a subject’s apprehension of the world is systematically discounted and the world construed as a set of objective facts, the phenomenological approach returns the world and its objects to the lived, experiential field and refocuses attention on the mutuality/­ inherence of consciousness and the world. Its primary objective is to explain how perception, cognition and experience result from interactions of the subject with the material and social environment, which interactions “determine not only how we experience the world, but also what we experience of it” (Bleeker et al. 2015, 1). Following Husserl’s initial work, Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, the classical phenomenologists, along with others such as Jacques Derrida, extended and enriched the field of phenomenology by bringing in questions of being, existence, body, consciousness and language into the field. Experience, for phenomenology, encompasses the entire range of its possibilities, including the different modes of perception, imagination, thought, emotion, desire, volition and action. Experience refers not only to relatively passive or receptive experience, as in viewing, hearing or reading, but also to active experience, such as running, singing or cooking. What makes an experience conscious is a certain awareness one has of the experience while living through or performing it. This “awareness-of-experience” (Bleeker 32

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et al. 2015, 1) is a unique, defining feature of conscious experience that sets it apart from other engagements that we have in life in which we do not have a sentient sense of living through or performing them. The focus on this lived or performed character of experience – or the inherent possibility that such experiences can be described in terms of statements such as “I see/I think/I do/I feel” – furnishes phenomenology with a first-person perspective on experience that defines its primary methodology of enquiry. Theatre and performance have been customarily considered as conducive fields for phenomenological analysis since they are spheres grounded in conscious experience, which sets them apart from other quotidian activities for both the actor as well as the spectator. As Maaike Bleeker et al. state, “Both performance and phenomenology engage with experience, perception, and with making sense of processes that are embodied, situated, and relational” (2015, 1). It is not what things really are but what they appear to be, what they seem to be, that is important in theatre, and this “the world as given in experience” quality of theatre and performance makes them natural candidates for phenomenological analysis. Further, the epoché or phenomenological reduction, which is the starting point for phenomenological reflection in Husserl, may be seen to be an inherent part of the theatrical experience. To unravel the relationship between the world and the experiencing subjectivity, Husserl advocates the employment of the phenomenological reduction, which involves bracketing phenomena and removing them from our everyday assumptions about them. By adopting a critical distance towards one’s assumptions about the validity, nature and manner of the world – by suspending the “natural attitude” as Husserl calls it – one can become aware of and describe how the world comes to exist for us in experience and how it comes to be taken for granted. In theatre, the suspension of the “everyday knowledge” that what we are witnessing is actually not the events of another time and another place and that the people on the stage are not what they purport to be but are our contemporaries, and our conscious readiness to undergo that experience as seen/felt/sensed – rather inadequately described as “suspension of disbelief” in conventional theatrical parlance – can be seen as an enactment of the Husserlian epoché in a theatrical locus. If the epoché calls on us to distance ourselves from direct involvement with the world in terms of our everyday assumptions, the purported distance between what happens on the stage and the audience members can also be described in terms of such a removal from everyday assumptions. Since theatre involves perception apart from the quotidian, as Mark Franko observes, “The very operations of reduction and bracketing could be those of the proscenium stage itself” (2011, 1). More than the actual presence of a proscenium stage, it is the possibility of a clear separation between the onstage and the offstage that it indicates and the non-entrance of quotidian notions in the perception of the onstage action that such bracketing suggests. It is of little surprise then that, commenting 33

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on Husserl, Derrida noted that “phenomenological reduction is a scene, a theatre stage” (1973, 86). Interestingly enough, Derrida’s axiom also opens up the reverse possibility, of viewing phenomenology itself as primarily performative or theatrical. As have been pointed out by several scholars, not only is the conceptual terrain of phenomenology replete with images and metaphors of theatre but inherent to phenomenology is a theatrical imaginary. As Andrew Haas observes, “the thought of pure philosophy as pure theatre” is so much part of phenomenology that it veritably becomes a “theatrum philosophicum” (2003, 73). Apart from the fact that phenomenology considers “the perception of the world to be an act, or series of acts, rather than a given state of being” (Bleeker et  al. 2015, 1), from Husserl to Merleau-Ponty there is a recurrent tendency to look at theatre and the theatrical experience as resources for the phenomenological enterprise. Husserl’s resort to the image of the “illuminated theatre” and the ideas of “presentation” and “representation” to explain the phenomenology of internal time consciousness ushers in the idea of the theatre to the very core of phenomenology. With Merleau-Ponty, the image of the stage is almost central to his theorization of perception, and experience for him is a theatre with background areas of darkness against which the areas of visibility in the foreground and the gestures assayed in it stand out and acquire clarity (see [1962] 2005, 100–101). As Stanton Garner observes, the primacy of the theatre in Merleau-Ponty’s thinking can be traced to his conception that “theatre is a site of visibility and corporeality, an arena where subjectivity confronts the spectacle – and enacts the performance – of its own embodiment” (2001, 1). Not surprisingly then, theatre and performance have proved to be very fertile grounds for phenomenological enquiries over the last hundred years or so. Starting with Max Scheler, Husserl’s student, whose 1915 essay “On the Phenomenon of the Tragic” (see Scheler, 1991) was an analysis of tragedy in terms of structures of consciousness, there were several attempts in the early and middle parts of the 20th century to apply phenomenological concepts in the analysis of drama, particularly its textual and literary aspects. However, by the 1980s, as Garner notes, “phenomenology came into its own as a theoretical approach to the study of theatre” (2001, 3). While on the one hand, this emergence owes substantially to the development of the phenomenological project through the work of Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Bachelard, Paul Ricœur, Judith Butler and so on, it was also a development that went in tandem with the rise of the phenomenological approach in various disciplines, such as history, sociology, education, psychology, literature, dance and film. Within the theatre, the arrival of “self-consciously phenomenological approaches” also played a corrective role since In a theoretical field governed by semiotics, materialist and post-structuralist critical schools and by a view of the subject as 34

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discursively constituted, phenomenology offered a set of strategies for theoretically inhabiting the theatre event. In so doing, it proposed a return to questions of subjectivity and experience; embodiment and spatiality; the problematics of vision, environment, and presence; and other issues that more objectivist theoretical approaches seemed to foreclose. (Garner, 2001, 3) This initial phase of systematic phenomenological approaches to theatre saw the introduction of new concepts and terminologies drawn from the philosophical domain of phenomenology and questions regarding the alternative reality of theatre, action and subjectivity, and embodiment and spatiality came to figure prominently in it. Most noteworthy among the work that appeared during the phase were those of Bruce Wilshire, who explored the nature of mimetic practice both within the theatre and outside it in identity formation in terms of Husserl’s technique of discovering the essential structures of an object through phenomenological variation, Bert O. States, who addressed the ontological nature of theatre through an exploration of “how theatre becomes theatre” and how it presents a “pretense [of]  .  .  . another kind of reality than the one . . . on which its pretense is based,” Alice Rayner, who enquired into the nature of dramatic action as a site of “volition, the position of a subject. . . , [and] the intersection of speaking and doing,” and Garner, who addressed the question of embodiment and spatiality in theatre in terms of the theorizations of Merleau-Ponty (see Garner, 2001, 1–3). In the new millennium, phenomenological approaches to theatre have diversified even further and taken into consideration questions regarding perception, subjectivity and the use of technology, especially digital technology, in performance. As Bleeker et al. observe, two salient features are notable in these deliberations. The first is the recognition of performance as a key concept, a development that owes more to the rise of a general theoretical inclination in the humanities and the social sciences that Jon McKenzie calls “the formation of the performance stratum” (McKenzie, 2001, 117). Drawing upon the work of Arnold van Gennep, Victor Turner, John Austin, Erving Goffman and others, in a number of fields, such as anthropology, communication studies, cultural theory and the newly formed performance studies, the category of performance came to be applied to a variety of cultural practices from rites of passage to social rituals, from the habitual actions of individuals to collective rallies and demonstrations and from everyday life practices to political acts. Features such as role play, rehearsing, scripting, repetitiveness, etc., conventionally associated with theatrical performance came to be seen as constituent attributes of a variety of performative actions and behaviours. The natural fallout of this for phenomenological approaches to theatre was that they acquired an interdisciplinary 35

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edge and came to be informed by ideas associated with the performance stratum. The second feature, which came almost as a corrective step to earlier phenomenological approaches, is the acceptance of the “historical and cultural specificity of how our perceptual relationships are staged” (Bleeker et al. 2015, 16). Writing in 2001, Garner had warned, In its concern with the structures of experience, it is also important that theatre phenomenology not lose sight of its objects’ – and its own  – inherence in history. Phenomenology may seek to disclose the operative variables of the theatrical event, but these variables are also shaped by a variety of historical factors: conventional, cultural, technological, ideological and epistemic. Such factors have historically fallen outside the domain of phenomenological enquiry, bracketed out by a consciousness confronting its own operations. But the applications of phenomenology in other disciplines have called into question this ahistoricism and procedural insularity. (2001, 11) As if taking heed of this warning, most post-millennial phenomenological analyses of theatre pointedly consider the situatedness of the theatrical phenomenon and its location in specific cultural and historical processes. A happy outcome of this development was not only that recent technological and other interventions in theatre came to be addressed through a phenomenological lens but also that the constitutive processes of theatre, such as perception and action, came to be analyzed in historical terms and as subject to change and variation in terms of their time and place of occurrence.2 At the same time, phenomenological modes of analysis have been adopted also by practitioner theoreticians, such as Philip Zarrilli and Susan Kozel, who attempted to make sense of the perception and experience of actors and their embodied interactions among themselves and with the audience.3

Intentionality, embodiment and intersubjectivity As far as the present work is concerned, for a phenomenological understanding of the triangular relationship among actor, spectator and space, and the ways in which they condition and determine one another, three primary concepts of phenomenology are of fundamental importance: intentionality, embodiment and intersubjectivity. A brief review of these concepts is attempted here in so far as they are of relevance to the actor–spectator– space relationship. The central idea in Husserl’s phenomenology, intentionality is the “aboutness” or directedness of mental states. According to Husserl, the proper object of philosophical investigation is the contents of our consciousness and not objects in the world. However, consciousness is never empty or 36

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vacant; it is always of or about something, and it is the “something” which appears to our consciousness which is truly real to us. Thus, consciousness is made up of “intentional acts” correlated to “intentional objects,” and the central structure of an experience is its intentionality with which consciousness is directed towards objects which it helps to constitute in experience. In a narrow sense, intentionality can be defined as “object-directedness,” but in a broader sense, it also has to do with what Husserl and Merleau-Ponty called “operative intentionality” which is defined as “openness towards otherness (or ‘alterity’),” in both of which cases, “the emphasis is on denying that consciousness is self-enclosed” (Evan Thompson and Dan Zahavi, 2007, 12). Affirming that consciousness is “intentionally directed” is, as Joona Taipale explains, “another way of saying that subjectivity is intentionally ‘related’ to the world.” It means that the constituted and the constituting are necessary parts of the whole of experience, and the “relation” between them is not an occasional and contingent one. Subjectivity is not related to the world accidentally or “once in a while,” but subjectivity and the world belong together a priori: one is not graspable without the other. (Taipale, 2014, 8) Various types of experience ranging from perception, thought, memory, imagination, emotion, desire and volition to bodily awareness, embodied action and social and linguistic activity, according to Husserl, are all informed by intentionality. Further, the basic intentional structure of consciousness involves further forms of experience, such as temporal awareness, spatial awareness, attention that distinguishes among focal or marginal phenomena, awareness of one’s own experience, awareness of the self and its different roles, kinaesthetic awareness of the movements of the self and others, awareness of other persons, linguistic communication, social interaction, everyday activity and so on. In all of these, what Husserl stresses is the first-person point of view of conscious experience and the perceiver’s central role in determining meaning. Our experience is directed towards things  through  particular concepts, thoughts, ideas, images, etc. These make up the meaning or content of a given experience and are distinct from the things they present or mean. Objects are always grasped partially and incompletely, in “aspects” that are filled out and synthesized according to the attitudes, interests and expectations of the perceiver. But these attitudes, interests and expectations are never arbitrary; rather, they are part of a “horizon of potentialities” that the perceiver assumes on the basis of past experiences or beliefs about such phenomena. As Husserl states, “To every perception there always belongs a horizon of the past, as a potentiality of awakenable recollections; and to every recollection there belongs, as a horizon, the continuous intervening intentionality of 37

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possible recollections” (Husserl, 1960, 44–45). To put it differently, there are enabling conditions of intentionality that are based on the perceiver’s past experience, including embodiment, bodily skills, social background, cultural context, language, social practices and contextual aspects of intentional activities. Thus, phenomenology leads from conscious experience into conditions that help to give experience its intentionality. To give an example, if a sculptor and an ordinary person were to see a piece of marble, they would perceive very different phenomena. For the ordinary man, it would be just another piece of marble so perceived on the basis of its appearance, texture, coolness to the touch, etc., all features associated with marble on the basis of his previous experience and knowledge. But for the sculptor, what he would perceive in the piece of marble is the possibility of a sculpture, what forms can be brought forth from it and what carvings are possible on it. He would distinguish between this piece of marble and others in terms of tensile strength, toughness, resilience, malleability and its amenability to the tools of his trade. That is, what is perceived as/ in the object has to do with the perceiver’s experience and pre-knowledge, as also the cultural, social, linguistic and other aspects of the context – or space – in which the perception takes place. This prompted Heidegger, following Husserl, to maintain that understanding is always “ahead of itself,” projecting expectations that interpretation then makes explicit, and that inherent in understanding is a “forestructure of assumptions” and beliefs that guide interpretation (1985, 190–192). Another enduring concern in phenomenology has been the role of the body in the act of perception and in consciousness. For Husserl, consciousness or subjectivity is not something limited to the realm of the mind as traditionally postulated and institutionalized in the Cartesian mind–body dualism. On the contrary, Husserl sees experience itself as embodied and the lived body as the central “here” from which all “theres” are made possible. For him, lived embodiment is not only the means of practical action but an essential component of the structure of all perception and knowing. First, it is the locus from which all spatial directions and distances are assessed and from which lived space is experienced as an oriented space whose directional aspects – left/right, above/below, front/behind, etc. – are defined with itself as the centre. Second, this lived body – the central “here” – is not an abstract or empty centre; it is a filled one, for it is also a locus of distinctive sensations, such as the experience of tactile contact. It is at once both the organ as well as the object of touch, both the means of tactile contact and the locus where the subjective phenomenon of such contact is experienced. In other words, as I touch, I not only touch but am also being touched, indicating that the lived body is the experiential locus through which both activity and affectivity are made possible and the world experienced in a subjective manner. Third, the lived body’s capability for self-movement opens the world into a much greater spectrum of possibilities than is available through the 38

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single perspective of a particular time and location. In what is known as the doctrine of “perceptual adumbration,” a central concept in phenomenology, Husserl asserts that even as every particular perception of a thing is relative to a particular standpoint, it also opens up the possibility of other perceptions that are at that particular point not available visibly or perceptually. As Aron Gurwitsch explains, That perception is experienced in itself as one-sided purports, and must purport, that the perceived thing appears under a certain aspect but presents itself as susceptible of being perceived under different aspects. This signifies, in turn, that among the phenomenal features of the perception under consideration, references to further perceptions are included through which the perceived thing can appear under the several aspects possible for it. (2004, 8) According to Husserl, such perceptual adumbration is made possible by the capability of self-movement  – motility – and the “kinaesthetic ­consciousness” associated with that capability which enables a perceiver to conceive of the other contours, sides and dimensions of an object, even as only one of these is visible/perceivable at any given moment. “Being able to move,” is, for Husserl, the foundation for any specific bodily “I  do” and hence also for what he terms as the bodily “I can,” which opens up the world into a plethora of possibilities that are not immediately visible or perceivable but can be experienced – brought into realization – by the movement of the body. In other words, for Husserl, our very openness to the world essentially involves a kinaesthetic engagement with what is most immediately, sensuously given. The embodied, experiencing subjectivity – the “body-as-constituting” referred to earlier – is above all a kinaesthetic consciousness which is not a consciousness of movement but a consciousness or subjectivity capable of movement. Fourth, even in our experience of others, what we experience are not just material objects animated by immaterial minds, but others who, like us, embody themselves in particular ways and whose embodiment is experienced by us in terms of our kinaesthetic consciousness. Hence, Husserl’s understanding of perception asserts an implicit correlation between an embodied perceiver functioning as a locus and centre of experience and a world opened up by the perceiver’s motility and kinaesthetic senses into a coherent, explorable, multi-perspectival world, which is transcendental in the sense that it is not limited to one directly obtaining perspective and goes beyond to other aspects by virtue of the possibilities opened by motility. And this embodiment is not something that is attained and remains but, as Zaner puts it, is “a continuously ongoing act” (1964, 287) that unfolds every moment of a perceiver’s life with the current actualization of those particular kinaesthetic capabilities that 39

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are required with the particular objects and contexts that he encounters as he encounters them. With Heidegger having remained largely silent about the body and its role, the next major contribution on the question of embodiment in phenomenological thinking has been that of Merleau-Ponty. In his critique of Cartesian dualism, Merleau-Ponty finds both empiricism and intellectualism eminently flawed because one sees the world in terms of pure objectivity and the other in terms of pure subjectivity. In the first case consciousness is too poor, in the second too rich for any phenomenon to appeal compellingly to it. Empiricism cannot see that we need to know what we are looking for, otherwise we would not be looking for it, and intellectualism fails to see that we need to be ignorant of what we are looking for, or equally again we should not be searching. (Merleau-Ponty, [1962] 2005, 28) In questioning such dichotomous tendencies, Merleau-Ponty situates consciousness in the body itself and thereby challenges all ontological dualisms, such as mind/body, thought/language, self/world, inside/outside, etc. He argues that consciousness is always incarnate or else it would lack a situation through which to engage with the world and conceives of “perception” as the situated, embodied, un-reflected knowledge of the world, thus rejecting any division of the mind and the body or treating the body mechanistically as a mere object. Drawing upon Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty characterizes the structure of the human being as “being-in-the world” and goes on to emphasize the primary significance of understanding the lived body as the perceiving subject invested with consciousness – “I  am my body” ([1962] 2005, 202) – rather than seeing it as a perceiving object or as an empty vehicle of our being in the world. As Jack Reynolds observes, The Phenomenology of Perception is hence united by the claim that we are our bodies, and that our lived experience of this body denies the detachment of subject from object, mind from body, etc. In this embodied state of being . . . the ideational and the material are intimately linked. (2004, 6; emphasis added) It accrues from this that the perceiving mind is an incarnated body; a body that can think, perceive and act while at the same time receive, move and be affected. Merleau-Ponty also offers some crucial insights into the relationship between the lived body and space. In the third chapter of Phenomenology of Perception, which explores consciousness as it relates to the body, bodies 40

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are comprehended in terms of how they relate to the space that they occupy. The first principle that Merleau-Ponty advances here is that the body should not be seen as a composition of individual parts spread out like objects in space but rather as a whole entity that should not be split up into separate bodily functions. According to him, the body’s parts are interrelated and “enveloped in each other,” thus forming “a system” and providing a “body image” which is a compendium of our bodily experience: “I am in undivided possession of it [the body as a system] and I know where each of my limbs is through a body image in which all are included” ([1962] 2005, 112–113). The body image provides the basis not only for organizing and perceiving bodily movements but also for how the body relates to the world in terms of the tasks that it can or does undertake and is thus “finally a way of stating that my body is in-the-world” ([1962] 2005, 115). At the same time, the body image is not merely a set of associations accrued through actual experiences but a total awareness of a subject’s “posture in the intersensory world.” Taking the case of habitual actions, Merleau-Ponty explains that habit is “knowledge in the hands, which is forthcoming only when bodily effort is made, and cannot be formulated in detachment from that effort” ([1962] 2005, 167). Using the example of typing, he explains that through familiarity a subject implicitly knows in his hands and anticipates where the letters are on the typewriter, just as he knows where his limbs are – or to be more specific, the letters are known in terms of the possible movements and touch of the fingers and thus in relation to his own bodily image. It is here that Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of motility becomes important. Partially drawing upon Husserl, he places “morbid motility,” as he terms it, as that which enables the fundamental relationship between the body and space. He states, Motility, then, is, and, as it were, a handmaid of consciousness, transporting the body to that point in space of which we have formed a representation beforehand. In order that we may be able to move our body towards an object, the object must first exist for it, and our body must not belong to the realm of the “in-itself.” ([1962] 2005, 116) In other words, it is the possibility of self-movement of the lived body – the possibility of its interaction with the world – that enables it to be conscious of, perceive and engage with the space it occupies and the objects in that space, a perception and engagement that is achieved in terms of its own composite body image. This state of an incarnate consciousness that is not being “in-itself” but being “in-the-world” establishes that just as the body is spatial, so space is also embodied, which is why Merleau-Ponty admonishes that “We must therefore avoid saying that our body is in space, or in time. It inhabits space and time” ([1962] 2005, 161). It naturally follows that the 41

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consciousness located in the body is a situated consciousness, enabling us to understand “perception” as a situated, embodied knowledge of the world. In other words, the situatedness of the body and of consciousness necessarily echoes Husserl’s “horizon of potentialities” and Heidegger’s “forestructure of assumptions” and implies that social, cultural and political aspects are inherent to the very act of embodied experience. A third major phenomenological concern of considerable importance for theatre is intersubjectivity. Husserl’s idea of operative intentionality, which asserts that consciousness is not self-enclosed but in a state of “co-relation” to the world, where the constituted and the constituting in perception – the subject and the object – are indispensably inter-related parts of the whole experience, implies that subjectivity is not solitary or self-immersed but that it is one with the world. However, because of its fundamental first-person perspective and its primary aim of trying to understand the nature of a subject’s experience, it invited accusations of solipsism or the failure to account for the reality of a social world beyond one’s subjective impressions. Husserl responded to this by asserting that the very nature of subjective experience implies a world beyond oneself and that the experience of that world is inherently intersubjective, not merely subjective: In changeable harmonious multiplicities of experience I experience others as actually existing and, on the one hand, as world Objects – not as mere physical things belonging to Nature, though indeed as such things in respect of one side of them  .  .  . I experience them at the same time as subjects for this world, as experiencing it (this same world that I  experience) and, in so doing, experiencing me too, even as I experience the world and others in it. . . . I experience the world (including others) . . . as other than mine alone, as an intersubjective world, actually there for everyone, accessible in respect of its Objects to everyone. (1960, 91) Evidently, for Husserl, our experience of others is not only as objects in the world we perceive but also as subjects in that world, perceiving and experiencing that world as well as ourselves in the same way as we do the world and them. Husserl’s notion of intersubjectivity has four essential aspects to it. The first is the notion of empathy (Einfuhlung), which he adopted from Theodore Lipps, who approached aesthetics in terms of applied psychology and contended that appreciating an aesthetic object required the emotional involvement of the observer. As Edith Stein, Husserl’s student explains, for Husserl, empathy is the source of one’s experience of “otherness,” that is, other persons as centres of agency, just as one is (Stein, 1970, 33). For example, when I witness another person in pain or distress, my consciousness of her pain 42

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stems from my empathic recognition of the same kind of pain I have experienced or can experience. Husserl termed this cognitive-affective process that constitutes the senses of others in our awareness “empathic presentation,” a process that creates a vicarious experience in us of the inner motives, emotions or experiences of another person or persons. These experiences that are felt as either real or imagined within one’s own consciousness is how a sense of the other is constituted in the self. The second aspect of intersubjectivity, according to Husserl, is that for one to constitute oneself, the perceptive contributions of others are necessary. The perceiving consciousness is always at the centre of orientation – the central “here” – and from that centre, though one may be able to see parts of oneself from various angles, one can never see oneself as a whole, in the same way as one can see an object or a person “over there” around which one can move or from which one can move away. This means that the central “here” is a nonscrutinizable centre around which the rest of the oriented world unfolds, or in other words, that one’s experience of situated motility leaves one with a hole, an emptiness, in space where one’s lived body is. In this situation, for one to have a sense of one’s totality, one needs to have a sense of how one is perceived by others, for whom one is indeed “over there,” inhabiting one among many possible “theres.” And, it is only through such filling in by the contributions of others that a genuinely homogeneous, objective, three-dimensional space, of which one is also a part, can be constituted in one’s consciousness. Thus, self-constitution as well space-constitution, for Husserl, is intrinsically bound up with the experience of intersubjectivity. The third significant feature of Husserl’s notion of intersubjectivity is that it is necessarily embodied. Given that our consciousness and our practical lives are embodied, our intersubjective engagements are also embodied. As seen earlier, what we encounter as others in our life are not mere material bodies energized by immaterial minds but are others embodying themselves in particular ways, and it is these live embodied minds that engage with one another, constituting in the process both themselves and the others. This means, on the one hand, that our intersubjective interactions are also intercorporeal, though Husserl does not use that specific term, and on the other, that such bodily intersubjectivity is the basis of all community and sociality. Fourth, as a direct consequence of our embodied natures, since our openness to the world necessarily involves a kinaesthetic consciousness, the intersubjective engagement between our embodied selves and the embodied selves of others is also necessarily a kinaesthetic engagement. Just as our movement capabilities and register of sensations play a key role in how we encounter and perceive other embodied agents in the shared space of our life world, so their movement capabilities and sensations play a significant role in how they perceive us, both contributing to each other in interactively constituting both the self and the other, and a coherent world of which we are all a part. 43

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Heidegger’s understanding of intersubjectivity is of a different kind, and probably one that approaches it from an angle quite opposite to that of Husserl. If Husserl posits the individual’s subjectivity in terms of his relationship with the self and then proceeds from there to others, Heidegger begins with the individual’s relationship to others and proceeds from that to the self. For Heidegger, the individual dwells in a common public “totality of surroundings” from which all his perceptions, sensibilities and experiences derive and thereby constitutes him as an individual; hence intersubjectivity is the necessary precondition for subjectivity. As Dan Zahavi observes, “At the beginning of his analysis of Being and Time, Heidegger writes . . . that a subject is never given without a world and without others. Thus . . . it is within the context of [every human being’s] being-in-the-world that he comes across intersubjectivity” (2001, 124). Further, “we are there in the world together with others [so that] the “who” of the Dasein who is living in everydayness is therefore anyone, it is they” (2001, 130). In other words, my “being-in-the-world” is inextricably intertwined and enmeshed with the “beings-in-the-world” of others and I merge in and out of them just as they merge in and out of me. So, for Heidegger, the question of empathy does not even arise because we are “with others” even before we are “with the self,” and it is this primordial “inthe-worldness” that constitutes us as subjects per se. Merleau-Ponty’s ideas on intersubjectivity are inextricably linked with his concept of embodiment, which situated consciousness in the body itself and challenged all ontological dualisms, such as mind/body, thought/language, self/world, subject/object, inside/outside, etc. For him, the paradoxical condition of human subjectivity lies in the fact that our conscious, lived bodies are part of the world and co-extensive to it, constituting but also constituted. He states, “the body will draw to itself the intentional threads which bind it to its surroundings and finally will reveal to us the perceiving subject as the perceived world” ([1962] 1985, 453). This intertwining of the inner and the outer, subject and object, means that, “Inside and outside are inseparable. The world is wholly inside and I am wholly outside myself” ([1962] 1985, 474). To explicate this point, several commentators have drawn on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous example of a picture that can be interpreted as either a duck or a rabbit and the psychological diagram that appears to be a vase at one moment and two faces confronting one another the next. Such experiments attest that we are never passive before a sensory image of the world since the visual experience seems to change from person to person and from time to time, though nothing really changes physically or optically with respect to colour, shape or distance. What changes is our relationship with the image, leading us to construe and construct the image in a certain manner by virtue of which not only the image but we ourselves are constituted in terms of our experience of the same. As Merleau-Ponty asserts, “We must not, therefore, wonder whether we really perceive the world, we

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must instead say: the world is what we perceive” (1985, xviii). Yet another oft-elicited example is that of the broken bottle, where objectively speaking all that is seen are broken shards of glass and some spilt liquid, but we never see it as such. On the contrary, we perceive it as what had once been a bottle filled with a specific liquid which has its uses, functions and value, in fact as a particular state in a series of obtainable states in its history, by bringing to bear upon it our accumulated experience and historical knowledge of bottles, liquids and so on. This act of interpretative perception, or “creative receptivity” as Merleau-Ponty terms it, does not happen as a post-observation phenomenon but as something that happens simultaneous to the observation itself. What we see then is not simply the objective world but a world conditioned by a myriad of factors that unequivocally establishes that the relationship between perceiving subject and the object perceived is not one of exclusion but of interdependence, that the whole idea of an outside world that is entirely distinguishable from the thinking, embodied subject is entirely untenable. Both subject and object exist only through their dialectical relation to each other, leading Merleau-Ponty to conclude that “inside and outside are inseparable.” In other words, for him, the seer and the seen condition one another; the one is inscribed in the other, and in a sense our capacity for seeing depends on our capacity to be seen. In short, being a physically embodied “being-in-the-world” means that subjectivity is necessarily not only intersubjective but also inter-individual and intercorporeal. Taken together, the insights of Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty on intersubjectivity indicate that the subject has no essential priority over the world, nor does the objective world exist independently of him/her. Truth is to be found not in the interiority of man or in the exterior objectivity of the world. Man is in the world and knows himself/herself and the world by means of inhabiting that world. In thus approaching subjectivity, we are dealing with a “being-in-the-world,” where the being and world are inextricably intertwined; without the one there is no other. Zahavi explains succinctly: Phenomenological analyses reveal that I  do not simply exist for myself, but also for an other (sic), and that the other does not simply exist for him – or herself, but also for me . . . there are aspects of myself and aspects of the world that only become available and accessible through the other. In short, my existence is not simply a question of how I apprehend myself, it is also a question of how others apprehend me. Subjectivity is necessarily embedded and embodied in a social, historical, and natural context. The world is inseparable from subjectivity and intersubjectivity. (2008, 665)

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Phenomenology of the space–performer–spectator engagement A close look at the transactions among the performers, the spectators and the space in which they come together in any theatrical event will invariably prove not only the presence but the very accentuation in them of the phenomenological processes of intentionality, embodiment and intersubjectivity. Almost all the features of the intentional structure of consciousness, such as spatio-temporal awareness, the distinction between focal or marginal phenomena, awareness of the self and of one’s own experience, awareness of other persons, kinaesthetic awareness of the movements of the self and of others, linguistic communication and social interaction, are at play in the theatre. Nevertheless, the primary intentionality at work in theatre is that of the consciousness of the actor and the spectator directed principally at one another. While the actor’s and the spectator’s fields of intentionality variously include the play text, the stage, the space, the props, the characters played/witnessed by them, their co-actors and co-spectators, the ancillary discourses of music and lighting and other such aspects of the theatrical milieu and practice, the primary focal intentionality of both is invariably directed at one another. The actor and spectator are bound together in an intentional mutuality  – the one is the primary object of the other  – with the consciousness of the other’s presence and intentionality determining not only their actions and perceptions but, during the time of performance, their very being. The one is the raison d’être of the other; without the one, there is no other. At the same time, inscribed within the intentionalities of both the performer and the spectator are also their enabling conditions, the “horizon of potentialities,” according to Husserl, in terms of the structures of past experience which include training in/familiarity with the practices and devices of theatre and performance in particular social and cultural contexts, structures of active/passive embodiment, shared language and the shared awareness of social and cultural values. It is this “horizon of potentialities” that directs the spectators’ experience towards the theatrical event and helps to make sense of it through particular concepts, thoughts, ideas, images, etc. derived from their past experiences  – the “forestructure of assumptions” and views that guide interpretation, according to Heidegger – and contributes to the construction of the specific content of the performance, which is at once general as well as unique, collective as well as individual, shared as well as different. The theatre is also a prime site for embodied practice for both the performer and the spectator. The lived space of the theatre with all its divisions and segmentations, and its directions and distances, is experienced as an oriented space whose diverse aspects are defined for all participants with reference to their own bodies as the centre. The embodied, experiencing subjectivity of both performer and spectator is above all a “kinaesthetic 46

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consciousness,” a consciousness of the possibility of self-movement that enables them to perceive and engage with the space they occupy and the objects in that space, in terms of their own composite body images. While for the performer, this is an active embodied consciousness realized and actualized in action and movement, for the spectator, it is experienced as an embodied perception of the potentiality of movement, or as a kinaesthetic, embodied understanding of the practice of the performer. In effect, the relationship thus established is an intercorporeal engagement where the bodies of the performers and spectators are in mutual interaction. Additionally, for the spectator, it is the lived body’s capability for self-movement and its capacity for “perceptual adumbration” that opens the performance into a much greater range of possibilities and helps in investing it with a coherence and completeness that is not immediately visible or available from the limited perspective that is on offer to her/him from any one viewing location in the theatre. The performer, on the other hand, actively relies on this process of adumbration or completion on the part of the spectator for the performance to acquire its fullness; in other words, it is through the embodied participation of the spectator that the performance comes into full being. The relationship between performer and the spectator is also an intersubjective engagement. Whatever be the nature of performance, one cardinal principle that rules any performance is that it “takes place only through the attendance of others; it can only begin to exist through the involvement of others to whom it can respond” (Bleeker et al. 2015, 8; emphasis in original). In other words, the interaction between the performers and the audience members, and among themselves, is an absolute prerequisite for performance to come into being. As such, the interaction of the audience members with each other and with the performers is proof of the phenomenological claim that “our foundational experience is always already socialized because it takes place in a world shared with and formed by others” (Bleeker et al. 2015, 8). As for the specificities of such intersubjective engagement in the theatre, apart from the kinaesthetic consciousness that links the performer and the spectator, there is a bond of empathy through which the spectator vicariously experiences the actions and physical/mental state of the actor, and the motives, emotions and experiences of the characters he/ she assays. At the same time, for the performer and the performance to be constituted with coherence and fullness, the contributions of the spectators are inevitable. If one needs to have a sense of how one is perceived by others in order to have a sense of one’s totality, the performer’s sense of totality of the self is neither self-enclosed nor self-constituted but comes into being through an active sense of how she/he is perceived by the spectators. In other words, the performer or spectator does not simply exist for their own selves but for  – and by virtue of  – the other. Such intersubjective engagement is also an intercorporeal one. What T. Fuchs and H. De Jaegher state about the tennis player is relevant here: “The tennis player incorporates not 47

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only the ball and its trajectory but also the opponent’s position, posture and movements. . . . As this goes on reciprocally, both players are connected in a feedback/forward cycle, and there are no gaps of reaction time” (Fuchs and De Jaegher, 2009, 474). Parallels to the same can be found in performance too. In manifestly anticipating and responding to one another, the performers can be seen to create such feedback/forward cycles among themselves through which the performance progresses. Further still, an audience member immersed in a performance, anticipating each word and move of the performers and responding to them in synchrony with other members of the audience, is in mutual incorporation with both the performers and his fellow members of the audience, creating continuous feedback/forward cycles. Though not strictly from a phenomenological perspective, the notion of the “autopoietic feedback loop” put forward by Erika Fischer Lichte deserves mention here. According to her, there is no distance between the spectator and the work, as the spectator is an integral part of the work, and hence in every performance there is a feedback loop wherein the activity of the spectators, however small or subtle they may be, becomes part of the performative event, producing commensurate effects and alterations in the activities of the performers and other spectators, which in turn generate further effects and so on, thus generating a continuous cycle. Lichte calls it autopoietic because the process is self-generating, without the intervention of an external hand and requiring only the input of performative raw materials, such as the text, the costumes, the props, the setting, the lighting and sound arrangements and so on (see Fischer-Lichte, 2008, 39–42). At the same time, since the feedback loop of any single performance is not an isolated, instantaneous phenomenon, but one that refers back to earlier feedback loops connected with the same kind of performance or with similar kinds of spaces, over a period of time these repeated feedback loops will inevitably result in certain patterns of activity – on the part of both the performer and the spectator – becoming confirmed and established as normative of that particular performance form or style. In other words, the recurrence of these feedback cycles results in the establishment of certain structures of performance and response that in due course become definitive of a particular performance form or style. What is evident from this discussion on the intentional, embodied, intersubjective relationship among the performers and the spectators is that the live space of the theatrical event is a fundamental presence in the experiential field of theatre, constituting not only the performer and the actor but also the engagement between and among the two, and being constituted by them in return. With the body being spatial and space being embodied in experience, the kinaesthetic consciousnesses of the performer and the spectator function not in a singular mutuality that is exclusively immersed in one another but engaged in a complex, multilevel relationship with the space in which they find themselves together. To put it more explicitly, the 48

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actor–spectator relationship being marked by intentionality and intersubjectivity, the enabling conditions for these are provided by the specific space in which the performance unfolds. As Ubersfeld states, “The theatrical locus confronts actors and spectators in a relationship that is closely related to the shape of the hall and the kind of society” (1999, 96). On the first level, this space is a perceptibly physical space that, through all its divisions, manifestations and expressions, envelops the performers and the spectators and determines the specific modalities of their engagement. At the same time, as an enabling presence, it is also a narrative/cultural/social/political space that determines the horizon of potentialities that bear upon the intentional, intersubjective acts of the participants, so much so that the very entities of the actor and the spectator in their performative engagement with each other are constituted and conditioned by the space they occupy, just as that space is defined by their intentional and intersubjective engagement. In other words, the space in which a performance takes place has necessarily to be seen as a total live presence that constitutes the very experience of the performers and the spectators. What such a postulation offers is the possibility of a dynamic conceptualization of the process of performance, factoring into the experience of performance not only the practices that are involved in it but also the social, cultural and historical conditionalities of those practices, as manifested through the space in which they unfold. From the preceding discussion, it is obvious that, given a certain space, structured in a particular manner and inhabited by performers and spectators, the space will institute a certain kind of relationship between the performers and spectators that is dependent on the specific nature of the space, which is at once physical as well as societal. The theatrical event then can be seen as something that comes into existence through a triangular relationship among performers, audience and the space in which they come together (see Figure 1.1). On a preliminary level, this triangular relationship is dependent on the physical features of the space of performance, such as the size, shape, design and configurations of the theatre; the modes of linkage and connection between the performer space and the audience space; the internal divisions within both; the distance/proximity between the performers and the spectators; the variable angles of vision and structures of hearing offered; the areas of visibility and non-visibility; the systems of lighting and acoustics available and the material objects, props and other things that can be employed. These features determine the primary conditions of performance through their translation into the communicative proximity/ distance between the performer and spectator, the areas and possibilities of movement and speech available to the performer, the angles and possibilities of viewing and hearing available to the spectator, etc. In actual performance, these conditions and the potentialities offered by them are manifested as the specific performance practices of the actor and the viewership practices of the spectator. It then obtains that a particular 49

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Figure 1.1 Triangular relationship among theatre space, performers and spectators Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

form of performance, or a particular set of performance practices that define a theatrical form, are the product firstly of a specific kind of space and then of a specific kind of space–actor–spectator relationship that is possible only in that space. In this triangular relationship, even the slightest change in one will bring about a corresponding change in its relationship to the other two, and through that a change in the form of the performance. The implication of this is that at any given point in the evolution of a theatre or performance form, there will exist a specific kind of relationship among the three and that any change in its style and form can ultimately be traced back to change(s) in one or more of these constituents and their relationships with the others. It follows from this that, from the point of view of performance, given a certain space, structured in a particular manner, there develops certain performance practices and certain reception practices that are possible only in that space. That is, in every performance space there develops two kinds of interconnected practice: one being the “ways of doing” of the actor and the other being the “ways of seeing” of the spectator, both particular to that space. “Ways of doing” indicates not only the entirety of possibilities of action, verbal and physical, available to the actor but also the specific methods, approaches and behavioural systems that are brought into the rendering of these actions. And by seeing, it is not only the aspect of sight of the spectator but the entire possibilities of the five senses through which the spectator receives the actions of the actor and the specific modalities through which such reception takes place. The triangular relationship then becomes one 50

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Figure 1.2 Triangular relationship among theatre space, ways of doing of the performer and ways of seeing of the spectator Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

among the space of performance, the ways of doing of the performer and the ways of seeing of the spectator (see Figure 1.2). If we go back to the two examples detailed earlier  – those of a person speaking to another and of the viewer of a painting in a gallery – one thing becomes obvious; as the space that brings together the viewer/receiver and the viewed/sender changes, the systems of seeing/receiving as well as what is seen/received changes. In short, it is the space that determines how we see/ receive, and it is how we see/receive that determines what is seen/received. If this understanding is brought to bear upon the performance context, in terms of the conception of the ways of doing of the performer and the ways of seeing of the spectator, it becomes manifest that it is the performance space that determines not only how we see but what is seen too. Spatial conditions determine ways of seeing, and these ways of seeing, in their turn, determine what the performer can possibly do in that space and how she/ he does it, that is, her/his ways of doing. At the same time, with the spatial conditions directly impinging upon the ways of doing of the performer too, these ways of doing demand of the spectator certain ways of seeing that are appropriate to them. To put it differently, since the performance itself comes into being in/through the intersubjective interaction of the actor and the spectator, the actor’s ways of doing and the spectator’s ways of seeing not only constitute each other but the one is implicitly inscribed in the other, creating feedback/forward cycles that constantly anticipate, respond to and reinforce one another. In other words, the modes of performance (ways of doing) of the performers are in a dialectic relationship with the modes of perception (ways of seeing) of the audience, both made possible in and by the particular theatrical space in which they meet and both subject 51

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Figure 1.3 Relationship between the ways of doing of the actor and the ways of seeing of the spectator within a theatre space Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

to alterations in the space. This dialectic may be represented with a slightly different illustration where both the ways of seeing and the ways of doing are constituted in and by the theatre space, where the space is not a mere passive background, setting or context but is an active ontological presence that envelops and makes possible the seeing and the doing (see Figure 1.3). As a total live presence that constitutes the ways of doing of the performer and the ways of seeing of the spectator and imparts a “horizon of potentialities” and a “forestructure of assumptions” or knowledge that guide the production and deduction of meaning in performance, every theatre space, as we have seen, is as much a social and historical space as it is a physical space. The social structuring of the theatre space functions at two primary levels: internal and external. The internal social structuring works primarily through the divisions, classifications and hierarchies, built in or assumed, within both the performer space and the audience space. Such divisions and the allotment of different areas or zones to different groups are usually based variously on their gender, economic, social, ritual and/or political status and directly or indirectly reflect the real or perceived hierarchies of that society at that historical point in time. In the case of the spaces occupied by the performers, while the order of precedence and hierarchy among the performers will have a bearing on the configurations of the green room and the preparatory spaces, the acting area will have fine demarcations and orientations that reveal the relative hierarchy 52

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and order of precedence among the characters. As for the audience space, the relative proximity of the different audience zones to the actual acting space or the relative importance accorded to them involves a representation of the comparative status of the group for which the zone is earmarked. This can be a complex system and cannot be reduced to a singular scheme of the “closer to the stage, the higher the group” rule. While such a principle may hold true for some societies/theatres, the very opposite may be true for some other societies/theatres: for instance, in Elizabethan theatre the people closest to the action were the common folk (“groundlings,” as they were called), and they were literally assigned to the “pit,” the cheapest and socially lowliest space in the theatre, while the royal box/enclave would be the farthest, situated right across the space on the opposite side of the stage. There are also issues here of “being seen while seeing” because royalty and aristocracy were equally on performance as the performers were, and as they were watching they were also being watched. The external social structuring of a performance space is reflected first in its location, in terms of what part/zone of the social space the performance space is situated; whether it is in a designated entertainment district, on a street/area for theatres, inside a temple, on the campus of an educational institution, inside a multipurpose building, in a temporarily made space on a fairground or a festival site, etc. Such location indicates the relative historical position and nature of performance, or of that specific performance, in the general cultural milieu of that particular society. How this location interacts with the locations of other spaces, whether there is any correspondence, continuity, exclusion, etc., are also factors that determine the status of performance in that society and the a priori assumptions and expectations brought to it by the performers and spectators in their specific roles. At the same time, the architectural design and the material employed for the construction of the space evince clear indications of the society of which it is part and the state of its economic, social and cultural life. As Panill Camp has observed, “Theatre architecture is not an ideal structure; it is a material product woven into history” (2007, 627). Even as the size and shape of the theatre indicate the relative interest and following for the particular kind of performance staged there, as well as the modes of seeing and doing that are predicated by them, the configurations of the space are also reflective of the reigning structures of ownership and patronage, and of cultural and social control of performance, through established systems that govern an entire gamut of varying accesses to the space from admission and right of entry to the making of substantive decisions on who or what should feature in performance. Taken together, the patterns of internal and external social structuring of the theatre space effectively indicate that, along with being a physical space, the theatre space is also a multi-layered social space that is variously also a cultural space, a ritual space, a linguistic space, a political space and so on (see Figure 1.4). 53

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Figure 1.4 Multiple layers of social space in theatre Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

Even as these multiple layers of sociality, co-existing and overlapping within the theatre space, are configured in terms of the specific contours of the particular theatre in question, they are also extensions of the particular social organization of which the theatre is part and carry inscriptions of the prevalent cultural premises and value systems that are operative in these zones of social experience. Figure  1.4 illustrates the co-presence of these multiple social spaces in theatre, with a small set of general samples of the different types of spatiality that are possible in theatre. These samples are only indicative and are in no way exhaustive and can be extended to include many more that are operative in specific societies and specific theatre cultures. With such multiple layers of social space structured into the theatre space, the ways of doing and ways of seeing that evolve in it are also equally historical and social. Even as they are constituted by the physical qualities of the space, they are also conditioned by the general ways of doing and seeing prevalent in that culture at that particular point in historical time. The “horizon of potentialities” and the “forestructure of assumptions” and knowledge that enable them are influenced by other spaces, other spectacles, other practices of doing and seeing that characterize that society at large 54

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and are indicative of the knowledge and value systems and the structures of rationality that define that age and region. Thus the ways of seeing of the spectator and the ways of doing of the performer enter a dialectical relationship in the context of the particular historical/social/cultural conditionalities that inscribe that space and are subject to alterations in them. Most studies of theatre space do not take into serious account this dialectic between experience and perception, between ways of doing and ways of seeing, how they mediate each other and how together they mediate and are mediated by the particular theatrical space in which they unfold. Even where there is a partial acknowledgment of the dialectic, it does not develop into a consideration of the larger performative implications of the same. For instance, though McAuley does speak of a variety of “looks” in the theatre,4 she refrains from taking them into a sphere of analysis where they are considered as structural features/processes of the experience of theatre. In contrast, in the present work, the primary attempt is to bring to the fore this dialectic and to address questions that arise from it, such as what is being seen when a performance is on, what are the modes of that seeing, what historical knowledge systems and structures of rationality are at play in the seeing, how are all these determined by the space of performance, how these affect and impact on the craft and modes of performance of the actor, and indeed on the very structure and form of the performance, and so on. Though brought to bear upon Kutiyattam as a specific instance in this work, such an approach, it is hoped, will be capable of providing a standard paradigm that can assist in the elucidation of the structures of different performance forms and performance cultures, and the identification of the elemental structure of a performance form at a particular point of time in its history and the changes that come over it in terms of the alterations that happen in its practices of space, seeing and doing.

Notes 1 This is not to ignore that the advent of digital performances has deeply complicated the idea of liveness and brought in hitherto unexplored paradigms of liveness through various degrees and kinds of blending of live, recorded, documented and reproduced performances. 2 For a brief survey of postmillennial phenomenological approaches to theatre, see Bleeker et al. “Introduction.” Performance and Phenomenology: Traditions and Transformations (2015, 1–19). The work is also a fine collection of essays that showcases the developments in phenomenological approaches in the last two decades. 3 see Zarrilli’s Acting (Re)considered: A Theoretical and Practical Guide (1995), “Toward a Phenomenological Model of the Actor’s Embodied Modes of Experience” (2004), “An Enactive Approach to Understanding Acting” (2007), (Toward) A Phenomenology of Acting (2020); Susan Kozel’s “Revealing Practices: Heidegger’s Techne Interpreted Through Performance in Responsive Systems”  (2005),  Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology (2007),

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“The Virtual and the Physical: A Phenomenological Approach to Performance Research” (2011). 4 McAuley writes of the “play of looks” as a factor that conditions theatrical spectatorship and identifies three primary looks: the spectator/actor look, which is directed by the spectators towards the actors; the actor/spectator look, which is directed by the actors towards the spectators and the spectator/spectator look, which is directed by spectators towards other spectators. She also mentions the actor/actor look and the character/character look but subsumes them under the first category because they are “one of the things the spectator sees when looking at the actor” (see McAuley, 2003, 255–257).

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2 HISTORICAL CONTEXTS OF KUTIYATTAM Incorporation into temples

As we have already seen in the Introduction, Kutiyattam is a theatre of elaboration and thrives on extensive amplifications, digressions and interpretations at every available juncture of performance. A proper understanding of the performance culture of Kutiyattam can be developed only by addressing how this elaborative performance culture came to originate in the first instance and what historical circumstances facilitated its development into its distinctive present form. However, as we have seen, such a question has not been thoroughly raised, and most attempts at historicization have been characterized primarily by simplistic linear readings of the different stages of Kutiyattam’s development, most of which thrive on surmises and assumptions than on actual, verifiable historical evidence. In such a context, what is required is an incisive enquiry that draws upon the internal evidence that can be elicited from the form, in terms of its distinctive performance conventions and devices, and connects it to the specific material conditions and historical circumstances of which they are a product. If we are to approach this question in terms of the triangular relationship among theatre space, the ways of doing of the performer and the ways of seeing of the spectator, as established in Chapter 1, it will be apparent that the most crucial aspect for a comprehensive analysis of the performance culture of Kutiyattam will be the particular space in which it has been exclusively performed for centuries. Being a temple-related practice for most of its history, Kutiyattam could be performed only in kūttampalams, the temple theatres located in the precincts of some of the major temples of Kerala. Further, only two inter-connected temple servant castes, the Cākyār and the Nampyār, are involved in Kutiyattam performances. While the men of the Cākyār community are the actors, the men of the Nampyār community are the drummers and the musicians, and their women folk – the Naṅṅyārs – are the actresses and singers. (Narayanan, 2005, 344)

57

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On a primary, physical level then, by virtue of their particular physical and spatial qualities, the kūttampalams have determined the specific ways of seeing and ways of doing that have come to define the form. Further, with its clear links to the ritual routines, the patronage economy and the system of professional caste groups of the temple establishments, Kutiyattam has been moulded within and by the larger socio-cultural space of the Hindu temples. Available historical evidence suggests that permanent kūttampalams came to be built in the precincts of many major temples of Kerala in the 14th and 15th centuries (see Madhu, 2002, 20; Sarkar, 1978, 97).1 By the 15th century, Kutiyattam had come to be performed exclusively in the kūttampalams, and many of the features of performance that are considered vital to it today had already started to figure prominently in it by that time. The comments in Naṭāṅkuśa, a 15th-century work by an unknown author that is highly critical of Kutiyattam and its culture of elaboration, paints the picture of a performance culture that seems remarkably similar to, if not the same as, it is today.2 In particular, the work censures the actors of Kutiyattam on four distinct counts: addition of incidents left out by the poet, omission of what the poet has described, elaboration of things hinted at and reduction of things elaborated in the dramatic text, all of which are definitive of Kutiyattam even today (see Paulose, 1993, xxvi). In specific terms, its critique is directed at conventions such as the nirvahaṇam, the non-entry of characters in the dramatic text and the presentation of their parts by other characters through pakarnnāṭṭam or kēṭṭāṭal, the detailed elaborations of scenes and sights mentioned in the text or the interpretative explanations of expressions and figures of speech, and the compression of performance from a complete play to single acts or segments. Naṭāṅkuśa is also particularly severe on the actors for their indulgence in kriyas, sequences of ritualistic physical movement, which according to him is neither part of the dramatic text nor part of the pūrvaraṅga, the pre-play purificatory rituals, as laid down by Bharata in the Nāṭyaśāstra. Despite being thus highly negative in tone, the importance of Naṭāṅkuśa is that it provides valuable evidence that the performance culture we associate with Kutiyattam today had come to be somewhat customary as early as the 15th century.3 Though such is the case with the 15th century, we have little knowledge of the state of affairs in the centuries immediately preceding it, with practically no direct evidence available pertaining to that period. However, if we are to go still further back, to the 10th or 11th century, the time of King Kulasekhara Varman of the Cēra dynasty, the author of Subhadrādhanañjayam and Tapatīsaṃvaraṇam and the one credited with having initiated a set of dramatic reforms that culminated in the formation of Kutiyattam as we know it today, it can be seen that while there is no suggestion whatsoever of performances in the kūttampalam, there are clear hints to the existence of performances in other spaces. In Vyaṅgyavyākhya, the collection of commentaries accompanying the texts of Kulasekhara’s 58

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plays,4 while there is an incidental mention of festivals in temples, there is no reference to theatre performances or performance spaces associated with temples. At the same time, pratimāgṛha (house of statues), probably a part of a performance hall outside the temple, is specifically mentioned (Paulose, 2001, 41). The commentaries also state that the king himself, in the costume of an actor, first enacted the plays in the mantraśāla (consultation chamber) at the court, in the form of a demonstration of the acting methods required to do justice to the various levels of meaning in the texts, and that later they would be presented by talented actors at the same venue (Unni, 1976, 48). Further, Vyaṅgyavyākhya also deals with several issues that clearly situate its understanding of drama as a public staged event for aesthetic purposes. For instance, it identifies two kinds of spectators – the prēkṣaka (the discerning spectator) and nānājana (the common folk) – and the different ways of performance that would provide enjoyment to both (Unni, 1976, 49). It also discusses the methods for the expression of vyaṅgyārttha (the suggested sub-text) and dhvani (connotation) and gives instructions about the entrances of characters, emotive acting and so on (Paulose, 2001, 42–56). Equally importantly, Vyaṅgyavyākhya does not speak of the presence in performance of ritualistic elements that so manifestly punctuate the beginning and end of Kutiyattam performances or of any strictures regarding the community identities of performers, both of which carry clear inscriptions of the cultural space of temples. Further, those features of performance to which the author of Naṭāṅkuśa takes exception nearly four centuries later, when Kutiyattam was already fully ensconced in the kūttampalams, do not seem to be even remotely present in the performance as described in the Vyaṅgyavyākhya. Hence, what these commentaries indicate is that there existed at the time of their writing a culture of performance that was considerably different from what it is today, or even in the 15th century, and that it was appreciated in varying measures by both a courtly as well as a common audience. In other words, a significant stream of performance of the time was one associated with secular spaces outside the temple, and while there could have been performances inside the temples, they had not taken on such an import as to substantially condition or influence the primary form and structure of the performances. It follows that Kutiyattam  – or its precursor  – has a history of performances outside the temple and that the fundamental performative culture of Kutiyattam that we see today is one that has developed subsequent to that in the last six centuries, primarily after its exclusive incorporation into the temples and its sustained performance in the kūttampalams. In other words, it is in the specifically structured space of the kūttampalam, with the particular ways of doing of the actors and the ways of seeing of the spectators made possible by that space, that the performance culture of Kutiyattam has evolved into what it is today. In this context, some questions naturally arise. For instance, what were the historical circumstances that led to 59

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the incorporation of Kutiyattam into the practices of the temples and its exclusive limitation to the temple theatres? Was it a case of performances being conducted primarily at venues outside the temple until a particular point of time and then their entering the temples and subsequently being limited exclusively to them, as is commonly assumed?5 Or was it a more nuanced process that belies such clean binaries as inside and outside the temples? Undoubtedly, these are as much cultural and political questions as they are performative ones because the location and setting of performances are deeply social and have to do with the changing paradigms of power and patronage. To arrive at reasonable answers to these questions, we may need to go further back and look at the history of Sanskrit drama performance, its locations and the patronage it received in Southern India, that is, the ancient Tamiḷakam comprising today’s Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry and the southern parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, with particular focus on the areas that come under present-day Kerala, and trace their changing trajectory.

Early history of Sanskrit drama in Southern India: locations and patronage Like that of many other cultural forms, the history of Sanskrit drama and theatre in Southern India in the ancient and medieval periods is largely shrouded in mystery. The absence of a continuous trail of clear epigraphic or textual evidence about the performance or the performers or the contexts of performance and patronage, has effectively meant that most studies either maintain a studious silence about this period or have become fertile grounds for conjectures and postulations that masquerade as historical verities but which are in reality rather long on imagination and somewhat short on facts. At the same time, it also has to be said that, due to a remarkable empiricist bias that still governs the local discourses of/on history, there has also been little attempt to formulate innovative methodologies of cultural history that broaden the province of possible sources to include also the various signs and markers as found in language, literature and other cultural discourses as profitable resources. In this context, far from making any absolute truth claims or venturing to uncover a real and factual history, the attempt here is to line up certain available epigraphic, literary and oral evidences and within the structures of possibility offered by them, attempt to read and interpret their references to Sanskrit drama, arriving at an understanding on the matter of present concern, that is, the locations and the structures of patronage of Sanskrit drama in Southern India during the ancient and medieval ages and the changes that came over them. No doubt, this is a conditional account, subject to change, revision and even refutation on the basis of new evidence as and when it is discovered. 60

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It may be assumed on the strength of textual evidence that Southern India, especially the area known as Tamiḷakam, which comprised the Cōḷa, Pāṇḍya and Cēra kingdoms, had a well-developed theatre/performance tradition from the early periods of the first millennium CE. There are profuse references to different forms of performances in Śilappatikāram, the Tamil epic variously dated between the 3rd and 6th centuries and believed to be composed by Iḷaṅko Aṭikal, attributedly a prince of the Cēra dynasty of the Kerala region. It provides descriptions of as many as 11 different forms of kūttu (performances) that were performed during the Indra festival, in addition to several other forms performed at various other occasions. Among them is included āryakkūttu, which has been inferred as referring to the enactment of Sanskrit dramas. There are also detailed descriptions of the stage and the settings, as well as expositions of the role of music and dance in Chapter III, Araṅṅēttṟukkaḍāi, of this dramatic poem (see Aṭikal, 1939, 97–105). It is also of note that the term śākkaiyyan (with the variation śākkai) – the early Tamil equivalent of Cākyār, the name of the community of actors who perform Kutiyattam – appears in the Śilappatikāram; the 28th song describes the performance of the koṭṭiccēdam episode of Tripuradahana by Paṟavūr Kuttaśśakkaiyyan (the kūttu conducting Cākyār, who hails from Paṟavūr, a place near Mahōdayapuram, the capital city of the Cēras, close to present-day Kodungallur in Kerala) (see Aṭikal, 1957, 144, 1939, 318). In addition to these, the Tolkkāppiyam, the 5th-century treatise on phonology, grammar and poetics and considered to be the oldest of texts in the Tamil language, refers to eight basic forms of meypāṭu, which correspond rather well to the eight bhāvas as enunciated in Nāṭyaśāstra (see Tolkkāppiyār, [1963] 1994, 213–217). It is also of note here that the poetry Tolkkāppiyam addresses is entirely of the dramatic monologue variety, a pointer to the possibility that the expressive imaginary of the time was primarily dramatic in nature. There is also evidence that by the second half of the first millennium, Sanskrit drama came to be used extensively in Southern India as both a vehicle for propaganda and as a medium for religious debate during the period of Brahmin–Buddhist religious rivalry and contention. As several scholars have maintained, in its pre-history, some of the dramatic forms that preceded Kutiyattam must have had connections with Buddhism because the term Cākyār, referring to the caste of the Kutiyattam actor, may have been derived from the term śākya, a member of the Buddhist fold: “It is conjectured that Buddhists, the earlier settlers in Kerala, made use of drama as a powerful instrument of religious propagation and the particular community engaged in dramatic practices was accordingly described as śākyas” (Rajendran, 1989, 8).6 Adding strength to this argument is the prominence in the Kutiyattam repertoire of the 7th-century Buddhist play Nāgānandam, by Harsha. However, it also must be noted that propaganda through drama was not just a one-way process and that dramatic performance also 61

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figured rather prominently as an ideological weapon in Brahminism’s struggle against Buddhism. As the 9th-century plays Mattavilāsa Prahasana of Mahēndra Vikrama and Bhagavadajjukīyam Prahasana of Bōdhāyana clearly indicate, it provided a forum for intellectual argument and satirical attacks on various aspects of Buddhism. In this context, it would be fair to assume that the Cākyārs at that point in time were not a separate caste but a loosely knit community of play actors who also engaged in other vocations at the same time and who put their histrionic talents at the service of the two major denominations of religious persuasion. At the same time, it is also fairly evident from epigraphic evidence that, there was also a long-standing tradition of dramatic performances in temples, especially in connection with festivals and special occasions, and that invariably the Cākyārs were associated with it. While there are several inscriptions that vouch for this, probably the most informative one is that in the Gōmuktēsvara temple at Tiruvāduturai in Tanjavur. The inscription on the west wall of the garbhagṛha (the central sanctum), dated to the 9th regnal year of the Cōḷa emperor, Rājarāja I, corresponding to 994/995 CE, records that the village assembly of Śāttanūr, in Tēnkarai Tiraimuṟanāṭu, met in the  catuś śālai ampalam (the inner courtyard of the temple)7  and created a nibandha (endowment)  as nṛtta-bhōga (land for dancer’s consumption) in favour of one Kumaran Cīkaṇṭan, a cākkaiyyār who was in enjoyment of cākai kāṇi (land earmarked to the cākkaiyyār for his performance services), for enacting an āryakkūttu in ēḷu aṅkam (seven acts) in the Puṟattādi star festival in the month of Puṟattāśi (the holy month dedicated to Lord Vishnu falling from mid-September to mid-October), annually in perpetuity. The record says that on the first day of the sprouting ceremony in the  Puṟattāśi festival, the  nāṭaka  (drama) should be announced during the night and the seven acts performed: “puṟattāśi tirunāḷil tirumuḷaināṇṭru ira nāṭakam  colli varaviṭṭu ēḷu aṅkam āṭuvatākavum.”  The record also prescribes the daily material provisions made for the performance as two measures of rice for making rice powder, three betel nuts, two bundles of betel leaves, one  uri  of oil for preparing collyrium (black pigments) and one nāḻi (a traditional measure that amounts to approximately 200 grams) of turmeric, all of which had to be measured out to the temple treasury by those in charge of administering the festival on the respective day (Sastri, 1955, 575). There are two remarks in the inscription that are crucial to the discussion herein. The first is the statement that the nibandha is being given to nammur cākkai kāṇi uḍaiva (the one who enjoys the land of our village earmarked for the cākkai), thus providing irrefutable evidence that the Cākyārs were an established segment of the village community with a specific role assigned to them, and by virtue of that role part of its economic structure. The second is that the āryakkūttu/nāṭaka stipulated to be performed is of ēḷu aṅkam (seven acts), a clear pointer that the play(s) in question belonged to the canon of Sanskrit drama. 62

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Similar inscriptions regarding the enactment of Sanskrit drama during the Cōḷa period can be found in several other temples of Tamiḷakam. There are two inscriptions at the Śivalōkanātha Temple at Kirānur, in Tanjavur district, both dated to the reign of Rājēndra Cōḷa I. The first one (1022 CE) records a gift of land to Marūdur Cākkai, alias Paramēsvaran Śrī Kaṇṇan, for enacting dramas during festivals. In addition, he was also to be paid 70 kalams of paddy annually, at the rate of ten kalams per day of performance, a clear indication that his drama lasted seven days. The second record refers to the provision made by Kalyāṇa Mahādēvi, the queen of Rājēndra Cōḷa I, probably in the 21st year of his reign (1033 CE), for the enactment of a  cākkai kūttu in five acts (ASI, 1991. Vol. XIX, No. 434). Again, at the Mahāliṅgasvāmi temple at Tiruvidaimarudūr, on the north wall of the central shrine, is an inscription dated to the 4th regnal year of Parakēśarivarman (Āditya II Karikāla) that refers to the provision made for performing āryakkūttu over seven days at the nāṭaka śālai (drama hall) as offering to the lord of the temple and for entrusting the same to Kirttimaraikkātan alias Tiruvēlai-Araiccākkai, who was to be paid 14 kalams of paddy for these performances (Champakalakshmi, [1996] 1999, 351). Parallel to the epigraphic evidence obtained from the Cōḷa region, there is ample proof of dramatic performances in temples and related practices of patronage in areas of Tamiḷakam that now belong to present-day Kerala too. The inscriptions on the northwest wall of the sanctum of the Tṛkkoṭittānam Viṣṇu temple at Changanassery, dated to the 14th year of the reign of the Cēra king Bhāskara Ravivarma (976 CE) speaks of kūttu  staged for ten days of the Utṟaviḷa, a festival of the temple (Gurukkal and Varier, 2018, 91; Ayyar, 1925, 189). The Tiruvalla inscriptions, the set of copper plates at the Viṣṇu temple in Tiruvaḷḷaval, as the place was known then, dated to around 1027, provide a more detailed picture. One section of inscriptions enumerates the plots of land given by several people for the offering of naivēdya or tiruṟamudu (food offering) to the temple. Among them is mention of one Ponniyakka-Nāyan of Kiṭaṅṅuparal who made a gift of land that yields 75 paṟai of paddy annually, which was to be spent for offering akkarāṭalai (sugared-rice) to the deity and for meeting the expenses of a kūttu (dance or drama) to be enacted in the temple. The articles given are 12 nāḻi of rice, 2 nāḻi of ghee, 4 nāḻi of milk, 4 coconuts, 8 ripe plantain fruits and 2 nāḻi of sugarcane juice. The inscriptions also say that Kāḷiyāṅkakkūttu (the fourth act of the play Bālacaritam, attributed to Bhasa, depicting the Kāḷiyamardana – the defeat of the serpent Kāḷiya – by Lord Kṛṣṇa) was to be performed on the day of the rōhiṇi-nakṣatra (the star of rōhiṇi) that comes in the month of Vṛścikam (the fourth month of the Kerala calendar, falling from mid-November to mid-December). The honorarium to be paid to the persons who staged the kūttu was fixed at 25 parai of paddy (see Ramachandran, 2007, 270–271). At the same time, the earliest epigraphical 63

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reference in the Kerala region to a Cākyār is dated to about 1172. It is a copperplate of the Dēvidēvēccuvaram temple near Kiḷimānūr palace, giving information about the virutti to be given to the śākkaimār who performed śākkai-kūttu (Aiyar, 1923, 28–29). On the strength of the evidence provided by these temple inscriptions, it may be tempting to conclude that by the second millennium temples had become the primary, even exclusive, locations for the performance of Sanskrit drama in Tamiḷakam and in those regions of it corresponding to present-day Kerala. However, a note of caution is in order here. First, even as these inscriptions are fairly authoritative evidence to the incidence of performance in the temples and to their economic contexts, they cannot be taken as indicative of things outside since their primary concern is the affairs of the temples and the endowments they receive. In other words, the evidence offered by these inscriptions does not preclude the possibility of performances in other venues merely by the lack of their mention. Second, similar kinds of documentary inscriptions of the affairs of other institutions and other social spaces being rather hard to come by, since they probably were not attached with the same kind of social eminence or notions of permanence as temples were, it may be fairly assumed that the temple inscriptions only offer one side of the picture. For a more comprehensive picture it may be necessary to turn to evidence that can be drawn from other sources, such as literature, legends and performance conventions that contain indirect information regarding the location and patronage of performance. It is here that the testimony of Vyaṅgyavyākhya, referred to earlier, becomes crucial, especially since it is a text exclusively on the performance of Sanskrit drama, specifically the two plays of Kulasekhara Varman, who is credited with having initiated the reforms that led to the development of Kutiyattam. Apart from the lack of any mention about performances in temples, the specific reference to the mantraśāla, as the place where the king demonstrates acting methods and where talented actors are expected to present the plays later, is a clear indication of performances taking place at courtly venues (see Paulose, 2013, 74–75). Further, the identification of two kinds of spectators – the prēkṣaka (the discerning spectator) and nānājana (common folk) – and the different ways of acting required to please both (see Paulose, 2013, 57–58), is a clear indication that in the 10th–11th centuries performances were staged not exclusively before an elite, informed audience, as would be found in the temples or even in courts, but before mixed audiences of the erudite and the common that would be present in public venues. Lending further strength to the argument that there were mixed audiences is the convention of Nampyār Tamiḻ, which is believed to have originated in the 12th or 13th century8 and continues even today in connection with the performance of Aṅgulīyāṅkam (The Act of the 64

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Finger-Ring), the sixth act of Āścaryacūdāmaṇi (The Wondrous Crest Jewel) of Saktibhadra, and Mantrāṅkam (The Act of Counsel), the third act of Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇam of Bhasa. During the interludes at the end of every scene of the Act, the Nampyār playing the drums, will come centre-stage and deliver a short synopsis of the content of the scene in an older form of Malayalam.9 The lexicon and structure of this commentary, which is characterized by prose in an “archaic Malayalam, somewhat close to Tamil” (Oberlin and Shulman, 2019, xii) and “lacks any Sanskrit terminations” (Freeman, 2003, 486) have been traced to the 13th century,10 thereby providing a clear indication that at the time – that is, approximately two centuries after the time of King Kulasekhara  – the audience of Kutiyattam, or its precursor, included people who were not adequately knowledgeable in the plays and the language of the mudras (hand gestures) and who required explanation and elucidation of what was taking place on the stage in the local language. It may be pointed out that though at present this practice is associated only with Aṅgulīyāṅkam and Mantrāṅkam, at one point it must have been a more widespread convention associated with most acts and performances since there is clear mention in the kramadīpika of Āścaryacūdāmaṇi that “for all purposes, the text rendering should be followed by Tamil speech and only after the Tamil speech should there be further acting” (Pisharoti, 1995a, 42) as well as a statement that “a hundred panams (a denomination of money)” should be paid to the Nampyār for delivering the Tamiḻ (Venugopalan, 2009, 52). One is reminded of the contemporary practice connected with Kathakali of providing a summary of the play before the performance to facilitate the understanding and appreciation of spectators not well-versed in the texts, conventions and theatrical language of Kathakali. The difference in the case of Nampyār Tamiḻ is that the explanation comes after, not before, the performance proper, and further it has become such an integral part of the performance that it has turned into a convention and has been protected and maintained with minimal changes through the ages. It is probably in the same light that one needs to see the Vidūṣaka character’s use of Malayalam. As a character in the plays in which he appears, he delivers his part in Sanskrit as in the play text; however, immediately following that, he translates them into Malayalam, annotated with profuse verbal interpretations that are both proper elucidations as well as hilarious distortions. He also has the right to translate, parody and interpret the parts of all the other characters and comment on whatever is happening on the stage, all in Malayalam. The oft-repeated adage among performers is that the Vidūṣaka may speak on “everything that he sees and hears.” What the Vidūṣaka achieves in the process is making the content of the play accessible to a common folk not so knowledgeable in Sanskrit through his humorous perorations in Malayalam, a feature that again vouches for the existence of mixed audiences and public performances. 65

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Coming to the 14th century, there is another piece of evidence that places the question of public venues in a new light. In Uṇṇiyāṭīcaritam (The Story of Uṇṇiyāti), a poetic work written in maṇipravāḷam (a mixture of Malayalam and Sanskrit) by Dāmōdara Cākyār, there is a passage with clear reference to a performance site that is close to but outside the temple. The situation is quite evocative. On hearing of the unparalleled beauty of Uṇṇiyāti, the daughter of the king of the erstwhile kingdom of Ōṭanāṭu to a dancer who was his paramour, Candra Bhagavān (the Moon God) sends messengers to enquire about her. In their endeavour, the messengers reach the Śiva temple at Kaṇḍiyūr Maṯṯam, the capital of Ōṭanāṭu, near Mavelikkara in Southern Kerala. After having prayed to Śiva, the deity at the temple, the messengers walk out through the front entrance of the temple and happen upon the performance of a Cākyār (the poet himself) progressing at a maṇḍapam (a raised structure with a roof) nearby. A literal translation of the relevant lines will read as follows: We prayed to Lord Śiva and perambulated the temple. Then we reached much in front of the doorway of the temple, which was filled to the brim by people. There, at the centre of the maṇḍapam sat. . . [the Cākyār] . . . with palm leaf manuscripts in his hands, in which the words he had inscribed were shining bright. He was singing that work clearly and beautifully, in various svaras (rāgas – tunes) and with the proper changes of rasa. (Cākyār, 2016, 135–137)11 Though part of a literary work and prone to poetic license, especially in its highly embellished description of the Cākyār’s physical attractiveness (who most interestingly is the author himself), there are several noteworthy features in this description that are of immense historical value. First, the poet is none other than a Cākyār who is most informed and best placed to speak about matters of performance and the performance described here is his own. Second, the maṇḍapam is not inside the temple but immediately outside or on its boundaries, being situated right in front of the doorway of the temple. Though deserving of the appellation “public,” it is not, however, so far as to be completely cut off from the temple. In a sense, it is in a liminal space between the inside and the outside, between the temple space and the public space, the doorway being the crucial index that separates the two. Third, in a clear indication that it is not an exclusive audience, the performance is said to be thronging with spectators, niṟañña janāḍhyē (full of people) being the phrase used (Cākyār, 2016, 135). At the same time, another literary text of the 14th century provides a very precise reference to a Sanskrit play being enacted, but here it is inside a temple. In Uṇṇunīlīsandēśam (A Message to Uṇṇunīli), an anonymous 66

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epistolary love poem composed in maṇipravāḷam, the speaker of the poem asks of the beloved to whom he is writing: Had we not one day together seen a kūttu (performance) at Taḷi temple?12 A luckless Naṅṅyār playing the role of Tapati looked at me and sang in Prākṛt, with a lot of anger about a liaison with another woman. Then, you could be seen no more, having run away overcome with emotion. (Anon, Uṇṇunīlīsandēśam, Part II, Sloka 95) Obviously, the reference is to Subhadrādhanañjayam of Kulasekhara, and the situation indicated is that of Tapati, the heroine of the play, becoming indignant on learning that Saṃvaraṇa, the hero, is in love with somebody else. If one were to place side by side Uṇṇiyāṭīcaritam and Uṇṇunīlīsandēśam, both texts roughly estimated to be of the second half of the 14th century, an interesting picture emerges; that of Sanskrit drama being performed both inside and outside the temple as late as the latter half of the 14th century, even as the outside appears to be so close to the precincts of the temple that it is almost part of the cultural, if not physical, space of the temple. Putting all this evidence together, it may be safely deduced that in the period between the 10th and 14th centuries there were three types of venues for Sanskrit drama in the Kerala region  – temples, royal courts and public sites – with performances taking place in all of them parallel to one another. However, it was not as if the three were completely exclusive and separate from one another; there would have been connections and continuities among them. For one, the performers at all three, at least for Sanskrit drama, must have been the same, namely the Cākyārs, who would have naturally created continuities in the performance cultures across these venues. It would also be reasonable to assume some continuity among the audiences across the three sites, with some people being common to all three. At the same time, the first two were bound to have a more elite and erudite spectatorship, while the third would have had a fair share of common folk. This would have meant, on the one hand, that the performers had to employ different strategies of performance and communication for different venues to cater to the different audiences, but on the other hand, it meant the methods developed in one venue would have naturally spilled over and affected the performances in the other venues. This, as we shall see, had tremendous import for the development of the particular style of performance that came to be definitive of Kutiyattam. Three distinct varieties of patronage can also be discerned. The first – the most extensive and substantial – is royal patronage maintained through permanent endowments of land and payments in kind for particular performances in the form of paddy and other material. The second type of patronage is the one of temple establishments in which provisions are made for performance in connection with festivals 67

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or auspicious occasions through annual endowments as well as rights of land offered to performers. The third is by members of the public, as in the case mentioned in the Tiruvalla inscription, where an endowment of land is given to the temple so that it can pay performers in kind, in the form of paddy and material, for the enactment of plays. It is to be noted that with temples at that time being considered natural extensions of the sovereign’s authority as well as sites for the expression of his stature and eminence, royal patronage in many instances emerged in the form of temple patronage because the venue of performance was the temple. In a similar manner, public patronage also linked up with temple patronage because the endowments made were most often in the form of naivēdya to the presiding deity and the venues again were the temples. To put it succinctly, even as there were different venues and different forms of patronage for Sanskrit drama, the temple as a venue and as an agency for patronage was a significant presence in the performance culture of Kerala during that period. In light of this, if we are to revisit the questions that were posed earlier about Kutiyattam’s incorporation into the temples, it would be patently obvious that it was not a case of a binary opposition between the inside and outside of the temple, nor of Kutiyattam being performed entirely outside, then entering the temples at a particular point in time and being limited exclusively to them. In fact, given the continuity among the different venues, it appears to have been a more nuanced, gradual process, wherein the other venues and the other systems of patronage steadily diminished until Kutiyattam performances came to be the exclusive privilege of the temples. Given the close connections that patronage invariably has with the extant structures of economic and political power in any society, it only stands to reason that Kutiyattam’s restriction to the temples had to do with the changes that happened in the economic and political spheres of Kerala in the 12th–15th centuries. In such a context, the first question posed earlier will have to be rephrased: what were the historical and political circumstances that led to the disappearance of other venues and the attenuation of other forms of patronage until the temple became the exclusive venue and the sole agency for patronage of Kutiyattam? To answer this question, we may need to look specifically at the structures of socio-political power that were extant in Kerala from the 9th to 12th centuries and the shifts that occurred in them from the 12th century, in so far as they impacted on the performance and patronage of Kutiyattam.

Socio-political contexts of Kutiyattam The 9th, 10th and 11th centuries comprised the age of the Second Cēra Empire,13 which exercised authority over the whole of Kerala from their capital at Mahōdayapuram,14 a city famous all over the south as a great centre of learning and culture. Identified variously as the Cēras, the Kulaśēkharas 68

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or the Perumāḷs,15 this long line of kings which ran from 800 CE to 1124 CE, presided over an empire, which at its zenith comprised practically the whole of modern Kerala, Gudallore and some other portions of the Nilgiri district and parts of the Salem-Coimbatore region (see Menon, [1967] 1970, 138). It was divided for administrative purposes into several nāṭus or provinces. The administration of the nāṭus was carried out by feudatory chieftains appointed by the emperor or by hereditary nāṭuvāḻis (rulers of the nāṭus), none of whom had independent status and derived their authority from the sovereign, as evidenced by the regnal years of kings in their records. According to historian A. Sreedhara Menon, “Under the benevolent and enlightened rule of the Kulasekharas, Kerala enjoyed the benefits of settled administration and all-round progress. The age witnessed a cultural efflorescence of impressive dimensions. Literature, learning, religion, arts and trade registered spectacular progress” ([1967] 1970, 138). The time of the Cēras was also the time of the Brahminisation of Kerala. Between the 3rd and 7th centuries, there was a large-scale influx of Brahmins into Kerala,16 from areas that are present-day Andhra through Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, resulting in the establishment of 32 Brahmin settlements in the fertile tracts of northern and central Kerala, best suited for paddy cultivation (Veluthat, 1978, 17). From the 8th to the 12th centuries – coinciding almost exactly with the period of Cēra rule – these settlements, known in inscriptions as ūr or grāma, proliferated into sub-settlements and were consolidated as temple-centred agrarian villages, headed by Brahmins.17 Under the institutional influences of the temple, society was ordered into groups and classes that matched the various functions related to an agrarian economy. As Rajan Gurukkal states, The status of the temple as a landed institution and as a repository of gold and other valuables, enabled it to wield a great deal of social control. Through its control over land, it harnessed landed intermediaries, lease-holders, artisans, craftsmen and tillers into a society that can very well be called the temple society. (1994, 398) The groups thus formed gradually became separate and distinct castes with specific roles and positions within the hierarchy of the temple society and with rights to virutti (leases on temple owned land): “Those who were employed in temple service under the Brahmins, like Potuvāl, Paṭārar, Cākyār, Nampyār and Naṅṅyār and Uvaccar or Koṭṭikal are met with in Cēra inscriptions of the age” (Narayanan, 1996, 272). Further, they came to be known as ampalavāsis, or temple-dwelling castes. In other words, what was hitherto a relatively egalitarian pastoral society gave way to a stratified agrarian society defined by hierarchical relations based on discriminative land rights and dominated by an oligarchy of Brahmin landlords.18 69

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What is crucially important about this temple-centred Brahmin oligarchy was that it was effectively the power behind the Cēra state. The political structure of the Cēra rule was undoubtedly monarchical in nature; however, the monarchy was definitely under the constitutive influence of the temple societies. As Gurukkal and Varier observe, “Oral traditions claim that these temple-centred oligarchs were the makers of the Perumāḷ state, which is quite tenable theoretically too” (2018, 109). The four most prominent Brahmin settlements in the immediate vicinity of Mahōdayapuram – Mūḻikkuḷam, Airāṇikkuḷam, Paṟavūr and Iriññālakkuṭa  – constituted the core of the Perumāḷ’s power structure. Authorities of these settlements constituted the royal council called nālutaḷi (four temples).19 They represented the rest of the 32 temple-centered Brahmin settlements and their corporate bodies. Prominent nāṭuvāḻis along with the nālutaḷi seem to have constituted the larger council of the king (see Gurukkal and Varier, 2018, 120–122). In short, what we see in the structure of the Cēra state is a remarkable confluence of secular and religious power and a consolidation of the economic power of religious institutions. The most immediate effect of this convergence of secular and religious power, as far as our present discussion is concerned, was the rise of the temple to a place of paramount importance in religious and cultural life, fully supported by the monarchy. As M. G. S. Narayanan observes, “A highly developed form of temple oriented Hinduism held the dominant position during this period as proved by the large number of temple inscriptions and the Tamil and Sanskrit Bhakti literature” ([1996] 2013, 336). From the 8th century, several major temples were constructed with the active assistance of the kings. The rulers, as well as the people, made liberal endowments for the construction, maintenance and cultural engagements of the temples. The result was that there was a general development of culture in all its aspects, with the temple as the nerve centre of all cultural activities: In fact, almost all the artistic and intellectual activities of the period seem to have their centre in the temple so much so that there arose what we may call a temple culture. This temple culture gradually put its stamp on the general culture of Kerala. ([1996] 2013, 345) It is in this larger socio-historical context that we will need to locate the development of Kutiyattam. The community of play-actors who had engaged in religious propaganda in the earlier struggle between Buddhism and Brahminism must have received the protection and patronage of the established political power – the Cēra kings and their vassals – when, after the triumph of Brahminism, there was an alliance between the political and religious powers, and Brahminism came to be the mainstay of monarchical authority. In this situation, on the one hand, the Cākyārs may have 70

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continued with their earlier culture of public performance that must have been essential for religious propaganda and contestation, in a milieu where there were several other kinds of public performances.20 On the other, with the increasing spread of the influence of Brahminism and the marked rise in the number and power of the temples, the incidence of performances in the temples also would have increased with the active assistance of royal patronage, a fact vouched for by epigraphic and literary evidence. While this was the case in the 9th and 10th centuries, things took a much different turn from the latter half of the 11th century. The primary reason was the prolonged Cōḷa–Cēra war, rather exaggeratedly called the Hundred Years War by Elamkulam Kunhan Pillai,21 but which saw regular and intermittent attacks by the Cōḷas on Cēra territories over several decades. The continued conflict steadily undermined the unity and stability of the Cēra Empire and ate away at the power of the Cēra kings, so much so that “the age of the later Kulasekharas saw the breakdown of central authority, cultural stagnation and economic decay” (Menon, [1967] 1970, 138). It finally culminated in the defeat of the Cōḷas and their final retreat from Kerala in the early part of the 12th century, but it also sounded the death knell of the Cēra rule, with the last king Ramavarma Kulasekhara having to move his headquarters from Mahōdayapuram, which was completely burnt down, to Kollam (Quilon) in the south. Whether one attributes it to the war or to other reasons, the fact remains that there was an irrecoverable decline in Cēra authority culminating finally in its demise. As Gurukkal and Varier observe, “The Perumāḷ’s sovereign control which prevailed during the initial phase gradually declined and phased out completely by the time of Ramavarma Kulasekhara, who had to abdicate his throne and go into exile” (2018, 121–122). The decline of the Cēras led to far-reaching changes in the economic, social and political life of Kerala. Probably the most significant development was the fragmentation of a once-united empire into several smaller units that were economically and politically much less stable or powerful. To quote Sreedhara Menon, In the preceding two centuries Kerala was a homogenous political unit under the centralized administration of the Kulasekharas and the Viceroys or Naduvazhis [nāṭuvāḻis] of the different nadus [nāṭus] carried on the administration under the effective control exercised by the central government. The exceptional conditions created by the war in the 12th century weakened the authority of the centre and let loose fissiparous tendencies which encouraged the naduvazhis [nāṭuvāḻis] to assert their independence. The later Kulasekhara age therefore saw the rise of several petty principalities and chiefdoms all over Kerala. ([1967] 1970, 158) 71

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The Cēra decline so coincided with Brahmin ascendancy that with the eclipse of the Cēra Empire, the temple establishments effectively became the most powerful presence in the political landscape of Kerala. They were not only economic powerhouses with vast holdings of productive agricultural land, but their leaders were also key players in the political sphere in continuation of the role played by the taḷiyātiris (the authorities of the nālutaḷi, the four major temples). Even more, they had also succeeded by that time in bringing almost the whole of society under the hierarchical caste system which accorded ritual and social supremacy to the Brahmins: “The CōḷaCēra war led to an enormous increase in the influence of the Namboothiri Brahmins in the economic and social life of the country” (Menon, [1967] 1970, 156).22 On the other side, secular power had fragmented into a number of smaller nāṭus, which were no match to the temple corporations in economic and political power and were also given to frequent internecine conflicts among one another. As far as the arts are concerned, this must have led to a situation where there was no centralized political authority to provide sustained patronage as given by the Kulasekharas, and the temple establishments turned out to be the sole authority capable of taking up such a role. In the case of Kutiyattam, given the fact that performances were already a regular feature at temples, the gradual waning and disappearance of royal/secular patronage must have left the temples as the sole patrons, and gradually also as the sole venues. That the Brahmins were considered to have a natural prerogative over Sanskrit, with their culture of the Vēdas and their long history of Sanskrit learning and letters, may also have contributed to their staking singular claim on this regional version of Sanskrit drama performance. Hence, the limitation of Kutiyattam to the temple theatres must have been an obvious case of Brahmin appropriation of the form, coinciding with the fact that with the splintering of political power in Kerala, the temples became the only establishments with the economic power to support the Cākyārs in the same manner as did the royal patrons earlier. One event that may have contributed in some measure to the process was the flood of 1341 CE. The waters swept down the river Periyār that year, with one branch deluging Muziris (Mahōdayapuram) and silting up its port, and the other which flows into the Vēmpanāṭu lake, opening wide the entrance to the sea and thereby bringing into existence the harbour of Cochin. Since the floods also resulted in the formation of the island of Putu Vaippu (new formation), on the northern side of the Cochin harbour, people there commenced an era called Putu Vaippu Varṣam [The Year of the New Formation] (see Panikkar, 1960, 8; Menon, 1982, 16). While there are differences of opinion whether the floods were as cataclysmic as they are presented to be or whether the disappearance of Muziris was only a natural conclusion of the gradual silting of the port as well as the “physical changes and land formation that have been going on [there] from time immemorial” 72

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(Gurukkal and Whittaker, 2001, 340), it remains that the time saw the effective erasure of the last vestiges of the Cēra capital Mahōdayapuram and with it whatever remained of the conditions that fostered Kutiyattam at public and court venues. Needless to say, it could have only hastened the temple establishments’ stronghold on patronage. At the same time, patronage is also about social and political prestige; it is a statement of power and ownership, where as much as the need to provide patronage, there is also the need to be seen as providing such patronage. It is such a stamping of ownership that one finds in the case of Kutiyattam, which as it became limited to the temple venues, also gradually got incorporated into the ceremonial structure of the temple, with rituals attached to the beginning and end of performance, provided with specific days of staging that figured in the annual calendar of the temple and with the Cākyārs being accorded the status of temple servants and formally endowed with virutti (rights on temple land). With the notions of purity and pollution that were an integral part of the temple culture, it was only one more step to expressly prohibit performances anywhere outside, thus effectively turning Kutiyattam into an exclusive temple performance. We can safely deduce that this process culminated in the late 14th century or early 15th century because by the time Naṭāṅkuśa, a text that critiques the practices of Kutiyattam, was written in the 15th century, Kutiyattam was fully ensconced in the kūttampalams, the temple theatres. Interestingly, there are two instances in discourses related to Kutiyattam, where these two systems of patronage and the shift from one to the other are subtly and indirectly indicated. The first is an apocalyptic injunction handed down through generations of Cākyārs: When Kutiyattam is performed with “illattu kūttu” (performance in a house – that is, outside the temple), “maṇṇātti māṯṯu” (soiled, impure clothes), “māṭampi viḷakku” (a smaller lamp), and aśōkappūvu (a small red flower with the botanical name, “saraca asoca”), then the Cākyār should give a last performance for a day at the Tiruvañcikkuḷam temple, hang up all his costumes in the hall (maṇdapa) and leave for Kāśi (Benares). (Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, 1995a, 34)23 The symbolism associated with images such as the house performance, the soiled clothes, the small lamp and the aśōka flower is unmistakeable; it foresees a day in the future when Kutiyattam is in such dire straits that it no longer has an audience or financial support. And, when that day comes when Kutiyattam can no longer be performed with the due respect and reverence it deserves, the injunction enjoins the performers not to try and overstay their welcome but to leave forever, with the last Cākyār hanging his aṇiyilam (costumes) on the rafters of the Tiruvañcikkuḷam temple 73

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and going on a never-returning pilgrimage to Kāśi (Benares). Like most apocalyptic visions that have a circular logic and hold within them veiled notions of the origins, this also contains the suggestion of a return to the origins before the very end. The implications of Tiruvañcikkuḷam are again unmistakeable – situated close to present-day Kodungallur, it is a reference to Mahōdayapuram, the seat of the Cēra kings – and the directive is unambiguous: the last Cākyār should depart only after paying due respects to the first benefactor Kulasekhara, who is referred to in Tapatīsaṃvaraṇam as “the lord of Mahodayapura and the crest-jewel of the Kerala race,” (Sullivan and Unni, 1996, 38; Sastri, 1911, 4) and the origins of his art in Kerala. The second indication is in the puruṣārtthakkūttu, the humorous and inverted depiction of the four puruṣārtthas (aims of life) – dharma, arttha, kāma and mōkṣa – in the form of the nirvahaṇam of the Vidūṣaka, who appears as a poor Brahmin. The puruṣārtthakkūttu is performed in almost all the plays in which the Vidūṣaka appears. The stories that he narrates and the people who figure in them are all from his home village of Anadhītimaṅgalam, a veiled reference to Periñcallūr, one of the first of the 32 temple-centred Brahmin settlements of Kerala. It is from there that the Vidūṣaka sets off to meet his prospective benefactor and friend, the king, who will be the hero of the play. Here too, with the indication that Periñcallūr is “home,” whatever be the setting of the play that follows, there is a clear suggestion that the origins and earliest patrons were the temple establishments. It is also somewhat remarkable that the plays of Kulasekhara were prohibited from being staged at Payyannūr and Periñcallūr, the original temple settlements, suggesting a formal attempt to erase the earlier history of Kutiyattam since it was incorporated into the temple system. Taken together, these two instances provide us with figurative statements about two types of patronage, the first of the earlier form and the second of the present form, with a shift from the first to the second reflected in the reluctance of the second set of patrons to acknowledge the first. Being a time of tremendous social and cultural flux, the interim period between the 12th and 14th centuries, when royal patronage waned and temple patronage was on the rise until Kutiyattam was finally fully incorporated into the temple system, must have seen several transformations in the performance culture of Kutiyattam, which were of tremendous importance in its later development. Probably the most influential aspect of larger culture in this regard is that the 12th–14th century was a crucial formative period of Malayalam, when it effectively departed ways from Tamil and developed into an independent language. Though yet to be named Malayāḷam at the time and still identified either as Tamiḻ or Bhāṣa, a term used to denote local speech in Sanskrit parlance, the language was at the time making its way into a separate identity, with the evolution of several speech variants and the composition of literary works in several genres, such as maṇipravāḷam poetic works, pāṭṭu (songs), campus (mixed compositions of poetry and 74

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prose) and sandēśa kāvyas (message poems) (see Freeman, 2003, 448–454). The conventions of Nampyār Tamiḻ and of the Vidūṣaka speaking in Malayalam, which were discussed earlier, must have been a direct offshoot of this burgeoning culture of proto-Malayalam, coupled with the pressure of having to cater to mixed audiences in public performances. At the same time, the extant literary culture of mixing Sanskrit with Malayalam, as in the maṇipravāḷam works, and that of combining verse with prose, as in the campus, may have provided the inspirational rationale for the inclusion of prose commentaries in the local language in performance. Furthermore, it may also be argued that the very multi-lingual nature of Sanskrit drama with its practice of using different forms of Prākṛt for different characters may also have contributed in it being seen as a fit discursive sphere for the insertion of the local language. Freeman’s observation in this regard is of great relevance: At that time, Sanskrit drama was already a multi-lingual sphere, wherein characters were socially differentiated by whether they spoke Sanskrit or the various artificial Prākṛts that had developed from Indo-Aryan vernacular languages, and the recitational verses in metric form were interspersed with dialogue in prose. As a literary form the Sanskrit play itself was a kind of polyglot campu, and  .  .  . this pan-Indic configuration was a structural adaptation to the very kinds of performative multiplexity that continued in Kerala. (2003, 485) The introduction of the local language into the performance in this period may also have provided the impetus for the particular ­nomenclature  – ­Kutiyattam – that came to be attached to it. Kūṭiyāṭṭam is essentially a Malayalam word, containing two distinct morphemes – kūṭi, meaning “together,” and āṭṭam,24 meaning “performance,” generally taken to indicate that it is a multi-actor dramatic performance. However, the word does not appear in Vyaṅgyavyākhya or in any of the earlier inscriptions or the literary texts that refer to performance, all of which employ either the Tamil form kūttu or the Sanskrit word nāṭaka. This alerts us to the possibility that the nomenclature must have been adopted when performances in Kerala departed from previous tradition through the inclusion of Malayalam into its performance, thereby warranting a Malayalam term to denote and distinguish what was basically a variant, regional form.25 At the same time, the earlier term kūttu, which denoted any form of performance, as in āryakkūttu, śāntikkūttu and so on, came to denote specific types of performances, such as the oral perorations of the Vidūṣaka character (as in puruṣārtthakkūttu and prabandham kūttu),26 some special segments of performance that may be conducted outside the kūttampalam (as 75

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in paṟakkum kūttu [The Flying Act])27 or the specific act of the Naṅṅyār in Subhadrādhanañjayam (Naṅṅyārkuttu). Interestingly, the word was retained also in the name of the temple theatres where Kutiyattam came to be exclusively performed – the kūttampalam. It is also interesting to note that many performance forms that arose subsequently in Kerala also took the word āṭṭam into their nomenclatures, as in Rāmanāṭṭam (the precursor of Kathakali), Mōhiniyāṭṭam, Kṛṣṇāṭṭam and so on. A popular misconception is that it was Tōla, Kulasekhara’s erudite friend and collaborator in the composition of the Vyaṅgyavyākhya, who was responsible for the introduction of Malayalam into performance as well as the writing of the āṭṭaprakārams and the kramadīpikas. However, there is no evidence to support this. Had it been Tōla who introduced the local language, it is to be expected that there would be some mention of it in the Vyaṅgyavyākhya, but there is none whatsoever. On the contrary, the commentaries do not permit any language in performance other than that of the texts of the plays. The observation by N. P. Unni is of relevance here: “It is safe to hold that Kulasekhara reformed the stage only on the lines permitted or rather implied by the canons of Hindu dramaturgy” (Unni, 2013, 25). In other words, Kulasekhara could not have introduced anything that was not expressly approved as the norm in Sanskrit drama, and hence the induction of the local language was certainly out of question. Furthermore, Naṭāṅkuśa, written more than four centuries later, does not make any mention of Tōla, even as it expresses great respect for Kulasekhara. Moreover, it lays the responsibility squarely at the doors of the Cākyārs for the deviations and aberrations, like the inclusion of Malayalam into Sanskrit drama, that it finds so abhorrent (see Unni, 2013, 25). In this sense, Tōla could have been an invention of the Cākyārs, a metaphorical fountainhead with close associations to the original preceptor, a mythical figure to whom could be attributed, and who legitimizes, their own innovations and imaginative handiwork. It also alerts us to a crucial aspect of the history of Kutiyattam that at the time of Kulasekhara, there was no Kutiyattam, only Sanskrit drama performance which partook of the general culture of performance that was then extant in most of Tamiḷakam. It is into this Sanskrit drama of his time that Kulasekhara introduced his innovations, especially the enactment of the vyaṅgya, the hidden or suggested meaning of the text.28 It would then appear that these innovations of Kulasekhara, the introduction of Malayalam and other alterations brought in by the performers under the pressure of mixed audiences in public venues together contributed to the emergence of Kutiyattam, as a distinctly different regional variety of Sanskrit drama, which was later exclusively incorporated into the temples. As stated, the earlier discussion is a provisional account, on the basis of available evidence, of the social and historical contexts in which Kutiyattam came to be incorporated into the temples and performed exclusively in the kūttampalams. Based on this account, it would be fair to say that by the time 76

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performances had become fully entrenched in the temple theatres, it had already come to be identified as Kutiyattam, had a fair amount of the local language being used in performance and some element of elaboration in the Vidūṣaka’s role. The changes it underwent afterward in the kūttampalams is a matter closely linked to the spatiality of the kūttampalam, in all its various aspects. How the physical, cultural, social, linguistic and other aspects of that space came to impact the performance is the subject of the following chapters.

Notes 1 According to H. Sarkar, Kerala saw three major phases of temple building, viz. the early phase (800–1000 CE), the middle phase (1001–1300) and the late phase (1301–1800) (Sarkar, 1978, 97). The building of the earliest kūttampalams coincided with the late phase and was done in accordance with the conception of pañca-prākāra, in which the structures of a temple are arranged in the form of five successive enclosures that form concentric rings. 2 Naṭāṅkuśa, which literally translates as “A  Goad for Actors” in the sense of being a “deterrent to the unrestrained freedom” (Unni, 1993, 161) of the actors of Kutiyattam, is of unknown authorship, though there are textual indications that it is the same person who authored Abhijñānaśākuntaḷacarcca, a critical work on Kalidasa’s play. Naṭāṅkuśa is highly critical of the liberties taken by the actors with the dramatic text and censures them for bringing into performance things that the poet did not intend through his text, as also for omitting things that are part of the text. Available only in manuscript form for several centuries, the text was collated by Killimangalam Vasudevan Nambudiripad and Sanalkumaran Thampuran and published with a commentary and English synopsis by K. G. Paulose in 1993. 3 A detailed discussion of Naṭāṅkuśa and the arguments that figure in it is taken up in Chapter 6, in connection with the question of the performative and cultural value of the practice of kriyas. 4 Ascribed to Tōlan, a contemporary of Kulasekhara Varman, who, according to legend, is supposed to have written down the explanations told by the king, Vyaṅgyavyākhya consists of practical commentaries on Subhadrādhanañjayam and Tapatīsaṃvaraṇam, with instructions to actors on how to bring out the dhvani (the alluded meaning) while staging the two plays. Originally composed as a manual to assist actors, these commentaries were known for a long time as Dhanañjayadhvani and Saṃvaraṇadhvani, the collective title Vyaṅgyavyākhya being a very recent one (see Paulose, 2001, 40). Based on the presence of the word dhvani in the nomenclature of the two commentaries, it has been assumed that they were attempts to apply Anandavardhana’s theory of dhvani to the acting of drama. However, such an assessment is not corroborated by the commentaries themselves, which seem to be mostly concerned with bringing out the vyaṅgya (hidden or additional meanings) of the dramatic text or with drawing out the motivations and internal workings of the minds of characters. 5 This is a somewhat unprobelmatized notion that enjoys considerable sway in popular perceptions as well as in scholarly discourse. For instance, K. G. Paulose states that from the 14th century to the 19th century, which he terms the “period of rituals,” “performance of drama shifted to temple premises,” (emphasis

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added), strongly implying that previous to it, performances were entirely outside and that subsequently they came to be entirely inside the temples (Paulose, 2006, 86). 6 Margi Madhu goes further and states even more emphatically, “Cākyārs were the ones who converted from the Buddhist religion to the Vedic religion, and hence the origin of the word Cākyārs is from the word śākyar (one who belongs to the śākya or Buddhist community)” (Madhu, 2002, 26). Several folk narratives within the Cākyār community also support this view. 7 This space is also known as cuṯṯampalam or nālampalam and is the enclosed space surrounded by a colonnade on four sides. For further details of the typical temple structure, see FN 3, Chapter 6. 8 This dating has been made possible primarily by virtue of a reference to it as mārḍaṅgika-tamiḻ (drummer’s Tamil) in Līlātilakam, a 14th-century maṇipravāḷam text dealing with grammar and poetics (see Freeman, 2003, 486). 9 A major reason for naming the Nampyār’s peroration as Tamiḻ was that the name Malayāḷam came to be associated with the language only at a much later date, until which time the local language continued to be identified as Tamiḻ. As Rich Freeman observes, “despite the existence of works in the regional language reaching back to perhaps the twelfth century, this named identity of the language [Malayalam] seems to have come into use only around the sixteenth century, under variant forms like ‘Malayāyma’ or ‘Malayāṇma.’ . . . Prior to this relatively modern coining of ‘Malayalam’ (Malayāḷam), . . . Kerala folk more usually referred to their language as ‘Tamil’ (Tamiḻ), just as those in the dominant kingdoms of Tamilnadu, east of the Western Ghats, had from the early centuries c.e. Use of the label ‘Tamil’ continued to overlap with that of ‘Malayalam’ into the colonial period” (2003, 441–442). 10 The profusion of Sanskrit words and the marked presence of Malayalam syntax, reflected especially in the word terminations, was a feature that was definitive of the maṇipravāḷam stage in the development of the Malayalam language, which saw a distinctive mixture of Sanskrit and Malayalam. 11 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations given are mine. 12 The Taḷi Śiva Temple at Katuthuruthi. 13 The first Cēra Empire held power in Kerala in the 4th–5th centuries. 14 Mahōdayapuram was also known as Tiruvañcikkuḷam or Mākkōṭṭai. Though not fully confirmed archeologically, it is also identified with the ancient port of Mucirippaṭṭaṇam, or Muziris, which figures prominently in Tamil Saṅgam poetry and in Greek travel records, such as Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and the writings of Pliny the Elder and Claudius Ptolemy. 15 Drawing upon different epigraphical and literary sources, different historians use different names for this line of kings. While Elamkulam Kunhan Pillai, the first major modern historian of Kerala, calls them “Kulaśēkharas,” A. Sreedhara Menon calls them “Cēras” and M.G.S. Narayanan calls them “Perumāḷs” (see Gurukkal and Varier. 2018, 109–110). 16 The time of the arrival of Brahmins in Kerala has been the subject of a longstanding debate among historians. While some place it as early as the 3rd century BCE (see Menon, 1982, 324), some others place it as late as the 8th century CE (see Logan, 1951), and between the two lie a range of dates and opinions. However, there is general consensus that it was from the 8th century CE that the Brahmins began to play an important role in Kerala society through the establishment of temple-centred agrarian villages. 17 Before Brahminism became dominant in Kerala, it was primarily Buddhism, Jainism and different forms of tribal faith that held sway in the region, as in

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the rest of South India. However, far from forming rigid and exclusive communities, these systems of belief and worship were much more flexible, so much so that there were individuals whose personal religions were a combination of principles from these different religions, and it was quite normal to have members of the same family subscribe to different faiths (see Menon, 1970, 145; Gopalakrishnan, 2000, 185–190, 206–209, 251–256). 18 As a result of this Brahmin dominance, Kerala came to be known as brahmakṣatra, the land ruled by Brahmins, instead of the Kṣatriyas. Kēralōlpatti, the chronicle about the origins of Kerala, states that Paraśurāma was the patron saint of the Brahmins and that they arrived in Kerala from Ahichatra, their ancestral abode (see Narayanan, 1996, 263). 19 The temple being the headquarters of the brāhmaṇa settlement, the term taḷi (temple) had become symbolic of the persons who had authority over the temple (taḷiadhikārikal or taḷiyātiris), which meant the most prominent brāhmaṇa landlords. 20 Several literary texts of the period, such as Uṇṇunīlīsandēśam, Uṇṇiyāṭīcaritam and others, have dancer courtesans as heroines who stay close to vaḻiyampalams (wayside inns), suggesting that there was a tradition of performances in such public places. 21 See Pillai, [1953] 1963, 128. However, this idea has been strenuously contested by M. G. S. Narayanan, who demurs on the count that “there is no evidence of continuous hostility between the Cōḷas and the Cēras, direct or indirect, lasting for a century.” He contends that there was a first period of conflict between 998 CE and 1018 CE, then a period of Cōḷa overlordship for about half a century, followed by another half-century of Cēra independence with occasional conflicts, which finally culminated in the last king abdicating in 1122 CE and bringing the Cēra rule to an end (see 1996, 115). 22 As M. G. S. Narayanan notes, “The caste suffix ‘Nambudiri’ (Nampūtiri) which their descendants employ in present-day Kerala is not found in the records probably because it was not meant for formal or official usage. The continuation of the village names of the ancient temple records among the Nambudiris of Kerala is enough to prove that the Aryan Brahmins of the Cēra period and the Nambudiris of the present day are one and the same people” (1996, 269). 23 Diacritics added. 24 Āṭṭam is actually a Tamil derivative, which originally meant “game” or “play” in Tamil but through a semantic shift came to indicate performance in Malayalam. Interestingly, the word that indicates game or play in Malayalam is “kaḷi” which again has also been used to describe and name performances, as in Kathakali, Naṅṅyārkkaḷi, Pūrakkaḷi, Saṅkhakkaḷi, etc. 25 A more detailed discussion of the issue of nomenclature is taken up in Chapter 6. 26 Prabandham kūttu is a verbal performance form in which the Cākyār tells stories drawn from the purāṇas, employing the role, the narrative conventions and techniques of the Vidūṣaka of Kutiyattam, but which has an independent status as a stand-alone performance. 27 A segment of the play Nāgānandam in which the actor playing Garuda enacts an eagle’s flight with the help of a complex system of ropes and wooden poles on a raised structure, controlled by the Nampyār. It is performed in an open space near the temple called the kūttuppaṟamba (the performance ground). 28 Further discussion on this aspect is taken up in Chapter 3.

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By the 15th century, many major temples of Kerala had kūttampalams, theatres for the express purpose of performing Kutiyattam, in their precincts. As we had seen in the previous chapter, by this time, the patronage of Kutiyattam had been almost exclusively taken over by the temple establishments, and performances had come to be entirely limited to the temples for around a century. The construction of kūttampalams in the temple compounds from the 15th century on can be taken not only as an answer to a real need for housing performances which had been incorporated into the temple system but also as a clear indication that Kutiyattam had become an integral part of the economic, ritual and cultural spheres of the temple society. The question addressed in this chapter is how the specific spatial qualities of these kūttampalams came to affect and determine the performance modalities of Kutiyattam. Though the first kūttampalams were built in the 15th century, the sad fact is that none of those original theatres survive since they were made entirely of wood and have succumbed to the ravages of time and nature. Only those that have been rebuilt on the original foundations or the ones that have been constructed at a later stage remain. Altogether, there are 15 traditional temple kūttampalams standing today.1 Listing them in order from the north of Kerala to the south, they are the ones at the Śiva Temple at Timiri, the Paḻēṭat Temple at Chemmaniyode, the Tirumāndhāṅkunnu Bhagavati Temple at Angadippuram, the Śrī Mahādēva Temple at Tiruvegappura, the Śrīkṛṣṇa Temple at Guruvayur, the Ayyappa Svāmi Temple at Tichur, the Vaṭakkuṃnāthan Temple at Thrissur, the Mahādēva Temple at Peruvanam, the Kūṭalmāṇikyam Temple at Irinjalakkuda, the Lakṣmaṇa Temple at Muzhikkulam, the Subrahmaṇya Temple at Kidangur, the Śrīkṛṣṇa Temple at Thiruvarpu, the Subrahmaṇya Svāmi Temple at Arpukkara, the Mahādēva Temple at Tirunakkara, Kottayam and the Subrahmaṇya Temple at Harippad. They were built at various points in time, and some have been renovated and rebuilt. A good example of such renovation is the kūttampalam at the Vaṭakkuṃnāthan Temple, Thrissur, which according to the inscription on one of the pillars inside the theatre was consecrated after rebuilding on 80

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“the first day of the year 1055” (Malayalam era, 1880 CE). There are also vestiges of erstwhile theatres in the form of ruins at the Sri Varāhamūrti Temple at Panniyur and at the Ranṭu Mūrti Temple at Tiruvalathur and in the form of a foundation at the Mahādēva Temple at Chengannur. Situated always in the front-right corner of the temple precincts (see Figure 3.1),2 facing the sanctum sanctorum of the temple, the kūttampalams are part of the pañca-prākāra [the five enclosures of the temple complex] and are exemplars of the medieval styles of Kerala temple architecture and follow a basic design. The kūttampalam is usually a raised rectangular structure3 with three main parts: a slanting roof that is copper-plated or tiled, the main body made primarily of wood and the stone socle which forms the foundation for the whole structure (see Figures 3.2, 3.3). Tradition has it that the cave-like shape of the theatres, with small doors and a low, slanting roof that goes up to a great height at the top, is designed on the one hand to keep out the disturbance of rains and other noises and on the other to hold sounds without dispersion and create splendid acoustic effects, a feature definitely necessary in the absence of any artificial sound amplification systems. Clifford Jones, a theatre practitioner and a scholar of temple sculptures and architecture, endorses this view: “What is significant is that they are acoustically perfect, logical, architectural solutions to the

Figure 3.1 A view of the location of the kūttampalam at the northwest corner (frontright) of the Vaṭakkuṃnāthan Temple precincts Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

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Figure 3.2 The kūttampalam at the Kūṭalmāṇikyam Temple, Irinjalakuda Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

Figure 3.3 A  view of the architectural design of the kūttampalam – side elevation. (From Kanippayyur Damodaran Nambudiripad (Commentary), [Chennas Narayanan Nambudiripad], Tantrasamuccayam: Śilpabhāgam, 94.) Source: Courtesy Panchankam Pustakasala, Kunnamkulam.

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requirements of the theatre tradition which they serve and its cultural and climatic environment” (Jones, 1975, 25). The author’s own experience also vouches for these twin qualities of acoustic excellence and protection from the elements of nature. Though generally considered to belong to the madhyama vikṝṣṭa (medium-sized rectangular) class of theatre buildings as laid down by the Nāṭyaśāstra, on a closer look the dimensions and scale of the kūttampalams tell a rather different story. Even as the rectangular shape is adhered to, the Nāṭyaśāstra’s stipulation of a 1:2 ratio between the breadth and the length of the theatre (see Bharata-Muni, 1951, 19–20) seems to be ignored in almost all the kūttampalams, which seem to follow a design in which the ratio is closer to 3:4 (75:100), with slight individual variations. In fact, it is a particular kind of architectural calculation where there is a transformation of the “squared’ plan to the “rectangular” by the subtraction from one side and the addition to the adjacent side of a measure of length called pada, which is a specific quotient of the side of the square. This reduces the area of the plan even as the perimeter is maintained constant, while at the same time the proportions of the sides are approximated to a 3:4 ratio (see Nambudiripad, 1983, 93; Jones, 1924, 69). For instance, the external dimensions and breadth–length ratios of different kūttampalams are as follows: Vaṭakkuṃnāthan – 19.125 m X 25.155 m (62.746 ft X 82.53 ft) at a ratio of 76:100; Harippad – 11.595 m X 15.885 m (38.04 ft X 52.116 ft) at a ratio of 73:100, Arpukkara – 10.245 m X 13.875 m (33.612 ft X 45.522 ft) at a ratio of 73:100; Panniyur – 19.965 m X 25.275 m (65.502 ft X 82.923 ft) at a ratio of 78:100; Peruvanam – 15.285 m X 20.355 m (50.148 ft X 66.781 ft) at a ratio of 75:100. This alerts us to the fact that they follow a regional tradition of architectural design and calculations that was at variance with the Nāṭyaśāstra and which drew upon texts such as Sreekumara’s Śilparatna, Mayamatam attributed to Maya Muni and Chennas Narayanan Nambudiripad’s Tantrasamuccayam (Nambudiripad, 1983, iii). As Clifford Jones observes, the Kerala tradition at its core [is] an extension, though much modified, of the Dravida śilpa tradition of the 10th and 11th centuries, adjusted to a presumably earlier tradition. It is clear that the Śilparatna as the later text represents the cumulative building tradition in Kerala via the Tantrasamuccaya. (1967, 65) The layout of a typical kūttampalam comprises a raised stage, a relatively small backstage (green room) behind it and connected to it by two doors, a slightly raised audience space4 and aisles running all around the sides of the auditorium (see Figures 3.4, 3.5). The total space is divided into two equal halves, one comprising of the stage and the backstage and the other being 83

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Figure 3.4 A free illustration of the floor plan of a kūttampalam. A – Outer doors; B – Backstage; C – Stage entrance door; D – Stage exit door; E – Miḻāvu (drum) players; F – Stage; G – Actor’s position; H – Lamp; I – Naṅṅyārs (rhythm) players; J – Prime audience area; K – Aisles/lower audience area Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

Figure 3.5 Illustration of a kūttampalam floor plan (From Kanippayyur Damodaran Nambudiripad (Commentary), [Chennas Narayanan Nambudiripad], Tantrasamuccayam: Śilpabhāgam, 94.) Source: Courtesy Panchankam Pustakasala, Kunnamkulam.

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Figure 3.6 Stage at the kūttampalam at Vaṭakkuṃnāthan Temple, Thrissur Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

the audience area. In other words, the space of a kūttampalam is that of two squares or two rectangles of equal dimensions joined together breadth to breadth, with one being the actors’ area and the other being that of the spectators. The stage is a separate square-shaped structure within the theatre, raised 1 foot above the audience level and the front of which reaches exactly to the middle of the auditorium (see Figures 3.6, 3.7, 3.8).5 Pillars support the roof of the stage. The stage ceiling and the brackets around it are ornately carved with floral patterns, figures of gods and heroes and narrative reliefs or motifs from the epics Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābharata (see Figure 3.9).

Ways of seeing in the kūttampalam Generally, the kūttampalams are of three basic sizes: the large, which is 83 ft by 63 ft; the medium, which is 66 ft by 50 ft, and the small, which is 32 ft by 24 ft, all interior dimensions rounded off to the nearest whole figure.6 In such a space, a spectator sitting closest to the stage will be hardly 6–10 feet away from the actor. It is also to be remembered here that some spectators had the right to sit on the stage itself, next to the pillars downstage left and right, 85

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Figure 3.7 Stage at the kūttampalam at Kūṭalmāṇikyam Temple, Irinjalakuda Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

Figure 3.8 Stage at the kūttampalam at Śrīkrsna Temple, Guruvayur   Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

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Figure 3.9 Carvings on the stage ceiling of the kūttampalam at Lakṣmaṇa Temple, Muzhikkulam Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

making them even closer to the actor (see Figure 3.10).7 With the space itself being divided into two equal halves, and the with the front of the stage coming to the lengthwise middle of the space, even in the largest of the kūttampalams, a spectator sitting at the farthest end of the audience space will be at the most 35–40 feet away from the actor. If one were to discount the aisles around the space and take only the raised audience space, this will come down to a range of 25–30 feet. In smaller kūttampalams, this distance would be even less and will come to approximately 15–20 feet. In short, the usual distance between the actor and the spectator in any kūttampalam will be in a range of 6–30 feet, with a remote possibility of it being extended to a maximum of 40 feet. A fair idea of this space can be deduced from Figure 3.7, which shows the raised audience space, and Figure 3.11, which shows the audience space as seen from the stage. Needless to say, the number of spectators that can be accommodated into such a restricted space is also fairly limited; if filled to its capacity, even the kūttampalam at the Vaṭakkuṃnāthan temple, Thrissur, which is one of the largest, can hold only around 150 people. That the kūttampalam brings the actors and spectators to meet in a small, circumscribed space, the length of which is between 6 and 30/40 feet, is undoubtedly its most vital feature. When the distance between the actor and the spectator is so reduced, the specific modalities of seeing on the part of 87

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Figure 3.10 An uncredited, undated photograph, probably from the 1930s, of members of the audience sitting on the stage during a performance of the Vidūsaka, at the kūttampalam at the Vaṭakkuṃnāthan Temple, Thrissur 

the spectator which unfold in that space will be significantly different from those in other larger spaces. It will be a “close, proximal viewing” which enables certain ways of seeing that are possible only in that particular space. In being so near to the actor, the primary intended object of viewing, the spectator will perforce be involved in an intense kind of seeing that focuses almost exclusively on the object of his intention and effectively removes from sight all other objects that may enter into it by their peripheral presence. It is a manner of seeing where the actor is not merely the focus or centre of the seeing, but one where the actor is almost the only one intentionally seen. Such a viewing which demands a high degree of close attention and concentration is of a radically different kind from the viewing that occurs in larger spaces. For instance, if one were to watch a performance of Teyyam8 or of other large open-air forms, say, in the sprawling paddy fields that have been recently harvested or on the large grounds of a temple or a shrine, the eyes, the face or the fingers of the Teyyam figure who is at a distance of 200 feet or more will never come into the field of our attention. On the contrary, it will be the huge and ornately decorated head-gear, the bold and brightly coloured costuming and the vivid colours of the painted face, all made even more dazzling in the swaying, shimmering light of flaming 88

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Figure 3.11 A  view of the audience space from the stage, at Vaṭakkuṃnāthan Temple, Thrissur Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

torches – in short, the imposing figures and the intense colours – that will capture our attention and occupy our field of seeing. At the same time, if we are to watch a dance performance, say, Mohiniyattam or Bharatanatyam, in a more restricted indoor space, we tend to see in much greater detail the facial expressions of the dancer, the movements of her eyes and hands, the mudras made by her fingers, the steps assayed by her feet, all aspects that we failed to see  – or chose not to see, or were effectively prevented from seeing  – in the performance of Teyyam. Here, in a smaller space, with a more proximal kind of viewing, the performer seen, as well as the nature and features of that performer, alter significantly. The difference is not just that it is a different performance form with a different set of presentational priorities but that it is a different space which orients our viewing and seeing in a manner that is best suited for the specific performative nature of the particular form. The example given in Chapter 1 of a painting seen at close range offering up details – such as minute brushstrokes and fine transitions of colour – that would not have been perceptible at a greater distance may be remembered here. What happens in the kūttampalam is proximal viewing at its closest and most intense; the result being that the spectator’s seeing in Kutiyattam is focused not only on the eyes, face and hands of the 89

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actor but even on the most minute movements and actions of each of those. In short, the proximal viewing enabled by the small space of the kūttampalam is one that enables, and demands, a “microscopic seeing” of minute details and actions, and even more, one that focuses pointed attention on them.9 It is here that the oft-quoted remark by Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, the 20th-century doyen of Kutiyattam, that he “performs for the lamp on the stage” acquires significance. On one level, it is a clear suggestion of the sorry plight of most Kutiyattam performers who, at least until quite recently, had to perform in front of very few, or even no, spectators. Due to dwindling audiences they ended up performing quite often with only the stage lamp as the sole witness. On another level, it is an indication of the seriousness and devotion, akin to prayer, that Kutiyattam performers showed – or were expected to show – to their art, the lamp being seen as the presence of divinity.10 However, even more importantly, in positing the lamp as the primary spectator for whom he performs, there is also a veiled suggestion of the ideal spectator of Kutiyattam. In conceiving of the stage lamp that “watches” the performance all through without even a momentary blink and makes the actor visible by continually providing light as the “spectator par excellence,” Ammannur metaphorically reveals the alert, attentive and meticulous viewing that is expected of the Kutiyattam spectator. The lamp also contributes significantly to the circumscribed spatiality of the kūttampalam and the proximal ways of seeing of the spectators. Traditionally, the only source of lighting for performances at the kūttampalams was a single bell-metal lamp, four feet in height, with three wicks burning, one towards the audience and two towards the stage, generating a limited, clearly demarcated circle of light in which all performance took place (see Figure 3.12). The only exception to this was in the case of the entrances of major characters and scenes of battle, when stagehands holding lighted torches and hanging lamps accompanied the actors as they advanced to centre-stage. It goes without saying that electric lights were completely out of question in the day and age that Kutiyattam developed.11 The crucial feature of the single lamp is that its twin flames offer a small circle of light which delimits the area of prime visibility to a defined arc downstage centre, steeping everything outside the arc in relative darkness (see Figure 3.13). In a sense, the light of the single lamp provided the spectator with a pin-hole vision, in which only an area of a small circumference is properly visible, the other areas outside being pushed into non-visibility and the border areas between the two appearing in a hazy penumbra. With only the actors in the circle of light and everything else in a hazy penumbra, the other occupants of the stage  – the Naṅṅyārs keeping the rhythm on the cymbals at stage right and the miḻāvu players sitting upstage centre – will be only indistinctly visible, that too in the form of dim, shadowy figures, the rhythmic movements of whose arms and hands appear as blurry outlines in the semi-darkness. This leaves the actor standing 90

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Figure 3.12 The stage lamp with the three wicks in performance; with Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar as Sugrīva in Bālivadhāṅkam of Abhiṣēkanāṭakam Source: Courtesy Kunchu Vasudevan.

Figure 3.13 The small circle of light created by the stage lamp; with Kalamandalam Sangeeth Chakyar as Rāma and Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar as Śūrpaṇakhā in Śūrpanakhāṅkam of Āścaryacūdāmani   Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

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downstage centre to receive the full glow of the lamp and to be seen with heightened clarity, thereby compelling the spectator to focus wholly on the actor’s body and actions. And, as the performance progresses, the frame of the stage and the other partially visible presences on the stage, at first seen as vague shadows, will gradually recede from the audience’s attentive awareness, fully foregrounding the actor and focusing on him the entire attention of the audience. In other words, for the spectator, the entire stage is compressed into the body of the performer; the performer becomes the performance. Along with this, certain other features of the light from the single lamp also deserve mention. In our daily lives, we are used to seeing the world and its objects in light that streams down from above – particularly sunlight. Consequently, in our quotidian ways of seeing we are visually acquainted primarily with the upper surfaces of things; we know them as figures lighted from above. In the case of human faces too we know them as lighted from above; hence what we see and remember are the forehead, the eyebrows, the eyelids, the upper curves of the cheeks, the bridge of the nose, the upper lip, the upper chin and the tops of the ears, while the other parts of the face – under the eyebrows, under the eyes, the nostrils, the underside of the jaw and the upper part of the neck – appear in relative shadow. However, the crucial aspect of the light from the single lamp is that it is in the opposite direction – streaming up from below – and in its glow the actor’s face receives an extraordinary, nonworldly quality that sets it apart from the visages of everyday life. Not only that, the entire upper figure of the actor is enhanced and enlarged in vision and assumes a larger-than-life quality. Together with this, as the soft amber tone of the light from the flames imparts further depth and splendour to the yellow, green, red and golden hues of the actor’s costumes and make-up, the little quivers of the flame and the subtle ebbs and rises in its intensity provide it with a moving three-dimensionality. The result is an ethereal, larger-thanlife quality to the actor’s figure, which commands the undivided attention of the spectator.

Ways of doing in the kūttampalam As we saw in Chapter 1, the actor and spectator are bound together in an intentional mutuality with the consciousness of the other’s presence and intentionality determining their actions and perceptions and establishing an intercorporeal relationship between the bodies of the performers and spectators. The performer’s sense of the self is neither self-enclosed nor self-constituted but comes into being through an active sense of how she/ he is perceived by the spectators. With the performance itself progressing through the intersubjective interaction of the actor and the spectator, both the actor’s ways of doing and the spectator’s ways of seeing, made possible by the particular theatrical space in which they meet, constitute each other and are implicitly inscribed in one another. This creates feedback/forward cycles between the two that constantly anticipate, respond to and reinforce 92

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one another. The recurrence of these feedback cycles results in the establishment of certain structures of performance and response that in due course become definitive of a particular performance form or style. In the case of Kutiyattam, the circumscribed space of the kūttampalam and the delimited circle of light from the single lamp on stage has generated not only certain proximal, microscopic ways of seeing on the part of the spectator, but also in its wake certain specific ways of doing on the part of the actor(s). As a result, a culture of performance has evolved in Kutiyattam that has come to influence almost every aspect of the actor’s craft and practice. First, in the case of āhārya, the costuming and make-up of the actor(s), it can be seen that the upper part of the actor’s body is profusely decorated with ornately fashioned headgear; elaborate facial make-up with a cuṭṭi (the rice-paste rim); several bright ornaments on the neck, chest, ears and arms and colourful costumes (see Figure  3.14). However, in complete contrast

Figure 3.14 The make-up and costume of a pacca (green  – heroic) character; Kalamandalam Sangeeth Chakyar as Rāma in Śūrpanakhān kam of  Āścaryacūdāmani  Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

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to this, the āhārya of the lower body, comprising the lower costuming and the adornments of the legs and feet, is so simple as to be called scanty. The primary rationale behind such an imbalance is that the upper part of the actor’s body is the area where the attention of the spectator is primarily focused, being the part that is lighted up properly, while the lower part is in relative darkness, making any adornments there visually unnecessary. Even the practice of making linear white marks with rice paste on the actor’s legs and feet follows the same logic – the objective is to indicate their presence and make them relatively visible even in dim light. When we move from the āhārya to the actual physical practice of the actor, we find that the small circle of light provided by the single lamp has had a significant impact on the acting modes of Kutiyattam, imposing on it a considerable spatial restraint. The acting is primarily centred on the upper body of the actor, vigorous movements and dance are relatively less, and the general span of the actor’s movements and stage practice is limited to within a small circumference. At the same time, even with this constriction, a different kind of enablement of the actor seems to take place. With the light being circumscribed to a small area, larger movements are effectively curtailed, and the actor is generally fixed to one location. However, this stasis, this lack of motion, enables another kind of fine movement. Coupled with the proximal viewing of the spectator, it opens doors for the enactment of subtle detail through eye movements, facial expressions and minute variations in hand gestures, all of which are possible to execute and become perceptible to the spectator’s eye only when there is relative lack of larger movement and a slowing down of the tempo of enactment. Concepts such as meyyotukkam (body limit) or māṟotukkam (chest limit), which all actors are trained to observe and which requires that the actor control the confines of his gestures, actions and movements to within the compact span of his body (the shoulders to be more precise), speaks volumes about this spatially controlled mode. This naturally instituted a restrained mode of acting, in which suggestion and evocation were of primary importance. Even more, the prominence accorded to solo acting segments in Kutiyattam’s performance culture is again bounden to this fundamental spatial and visual constraint. The development of elaborative performance sections such as the nirvahaṇam, employment of the solo acting mode wherever opportunity so provides, the almost imperceptible withdrawal of all other actors/characters from the stage whenever there is a situation that provides the possibility of extended solo acting on the part of one actor/character, should all be seen in this context. The oft-repeated ironic statement that “there is very little kūṭi-āṭṭam (combined acting) in Kutiyattam,” indicating that situations in which more than one actor is present on the stage are rather few and far between, suggests not only the importance of solo acting but also the latent culture of proximal viewing that tends to focus on a single, solo figure on the stage. 94

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At a more structural level, in response to the development of a way of seeing that is attentive to minute details, a mode of acting – a way of doing of the actor – that is complementary and corresponding to it has also d ­ eveloped in Kutiyattam. It fully caters to the microscopic ways of seeing of the spectator by utilizing all the potentialities offered by the solo, upper-body-centred presentational system and relies primarily on the subtle actions of the face, the eyes, the hands and the fingers. It is apparent that, in the presence of a way of seeing that diligently follows even the most subtle shift of emotion on the actor’s face, the slightest movement of his eyes and the smallest gesture of his fingers, an acting method that makes consummate use of each of the aṅga-pratyaṅga-upāṅgas (the main, secondary and subsidiary parts of the body) and invests their actions with meaning and aesthetic significance must have gradually evolved in Kutiyattam. That is, the culture of microscopic viewing of the spectator had come to so influence and constitute the actor’s practice that the actor was stimulated to adopt a method of acting that relies on the detailed presentation of any content that offers such possibility. Thus, for instance, when presenting an object, presenting in fine detail its size, shape, movements and whatever other features contribute to its identity, became a part of the very culture of Kutiyattam. To put it differently, in response to a microscopic way of seeing, a microscopic way of doing evolved, wherein every phenomenon that is featured in the acting came to be magnified and its fine details revealed as if viewed through a microscope. This microscopic method of acting is undoubtedly the primary cause and motivation for Kutiyattam’s culture of elaboration, which in the parlance of the form is known as vistarikkal (to elaborate). Starting with the actor’s bodily practice, it is apparent that it came to be extended into other areas of performance until it became a major constitutive feature of its performance culture. Thus, along with aspects of the actor’s craft – such as gestural acting, facial acting, presentation of emotional states, etc. – elements of the play narrative, such as the dramatic situation, the events and actions that led to it, the play text and the figures of speech in it, the portrayal of character, the description of objects and places, the telling of situational narratives, all came to be affected by it, and in all of them a system of elaboration evolved in which details upon details came to be accumulatively appended in their presentation. Since explanation and interpretation go hand in hand, most often we also see explanations taking on the logic and tasks of interpretation too. For instance, as part of explaining the connotations and metaphorical implications of the play text, we see the actor engaging in different interpretative strategies and arriving at various elucidations, almost as if he is a critic. The result is that sometimes we have the same passage enacted repeatedly and differently to bring out its diverse meanings and figurative suggestions, with little concern for the progression of the action. At such junctures, it is almost as if the dramatic time and its forward movement is 95

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held in suspension and the actor enters a lateral time-space of elucidation/ interpretation, to return to the dramatic time again once the interpretative segment is completed. Altogether, this led to a system of acting which is elaborative and interpretative at the same time and where the actor is not constrained by his presentational entity as a character or by the narrative demands of taking the action forward.

Performance procedure It will be worthwhile here to provide a brief summary of the procedure of play presentation in Kutiyattam to indicate the junctures and occasions where elaboration is resorted to and the modalities and strategies employed for such elaboration. As mentioned earlier, entire plays are never presented, only single acts are, spread over several nights. There are five primary segments in the performance of an act: pūrvaraṅga (pre-play rituals and activities), puṟappāṭ (entrance of characters), nirvahaṇam (exposition of events that lead up to the situation at the start of the act), kūṭi-āṭṭam (performance of the actual play text), muṭiyakkitta (concluding rituals). Pūrvaraṅga The pūrvaraṅga comprises several sections. First is the set of preparations of the actor(s), which includes the purification of his body and his lighting of two wicks of the stage lamp from the flame of the lamp at the sanctum of the temple. Following this, in the green room, the regular sacred thread he wears as a sign of his caste is removed from over his left shoulder and placed around the waist, and another sacred thread for the purpose of performance is worn over the left shoulder and across the body. Then, he dons a ceremonial red band on his head, smears his face with clarified butter and starts his make-up and costuming. The belief and custom is that once the actor has donned the headband, he is effectively removed from the quotidian world and assumes the identity of the actor, in which state he is unaffected by any of the usual prohibitions or pollutions that may otherwise affect him, such as death in the family. Such pollutions would affect him only when he removes his headband after the performance is concluded entirely. In this sense, it is a temporary rite of passage from one status to another and from one group to another. Having disassociated from the everyday world, he has entered the world of performance as an actor, an entry that will be reversed only at the end of the performance with the muṭiyakkitta.12 It is also of note that the actor replaces his regular sacred thread with another one for the performance. Coupled with the fact that Brahmins, and only Brahmins, were allowed to sit on stage during performances, the action can be read as the investiture of a temporary “Brahmin-hood” on the Cākyār, purely for the time of performance.13 While on the one hand this can be seen as the 96

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ascription of sacredness to the stage and the performance, on the other it is also a sign of the appropriation of the form into the Brahminical ritual system and a declaration of the Brahmins as its ultimate patrons and owners. The second segment of the pūrvaraṅga is the preparation of the stage by the Nampyār, the miḻāvu player, who decorates the front casing of the stage with banana trees, coconut leaves and fruits; places a niṟapaṟa (a full measure of rice) and aṣṭamaṅgalyam (eight auspicious items on a platter) next to the stage lamp and lays the cloth for the Naṅṅyārs, the female singers and keepers of the rhythm on cymbals, on stage right. After this, as the performance is about to start, he lights the third wick of the lamp and sits at the drums and plays an invocatory rhythm. Following this, the Naṅṅyār enters, sits on the cloth spread for her and accompanies the drumming with the cymbals. Then she sings the akkitta, a series of rhythmic, invocatory verses dedicated to Lord Gaṇapati (Gaṇēsa), Lord Śiva and Goddess Sarasvati, in between which the drummer plays intricate rhythmic sequences, which are called gōṣṭi. Finally, the drummer conducts araṅṅutaḷi (sprinkling the stage with purificatory water), recites a maṅgaḷaślōka (an invocation for the unhindered and safe conduct of the performance) and then returns to the green room. This entire pūrvaraṅga is invocatory in nature, common to all performances and not part of the performance proper of the act. Puṟappāṭ The primary function of the puṟappāṭ is to establish in clear detail the situation at the beginning of the act along with the nature and emotional state of the characters figuring in it. However, if it is the first act of a play that is being performed, the first puṟappāṭ will be that of the Sūtradhāran (stage manager), which is invocatory in nature, followed the next day by a scene with the naṭi (actress), the purpose of which is to announce the play and the playwright. In all other cases, the puṟappāṭ (along with the nirvahaṇam) will be that of the characters appearing in the act in the order of their appearance. As the puṟappāṭ begins, a red curtain is held by stagehands downstage, and the actor will enter the stage through the door upstage left. Behind the curtain, facing the drummers sitting upstage centre, he performs maṟayilkriya, which literally means “action done behind the screen” and is a series of dance steps to the rhythm being played by the drummer. After this, he turns around, does the pañcapadavinyāsa (five steps in a specific order), and pays his obeisance to the lamp. All this is done in the actor’s identity as an actor per se. From this point, he begins assuming his role and transitions to the type and mood of the character through postures, movements, steps and sounds that are set by convention. Then, the curtain is removed, and the actor appears to the audience in his identity as a character. An introduction is then enacted through gestures to the situation occurring in the introductory text of the act, most often aided by verses that are not 97

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part of the play text but are imported from campus which have been composed for the purpose of the performance.14 These verses are sung by the Naṅṅyār, and the actor accompanies it with gestures for the key words and appropriate facial and bodily expressions of emotion. Then, the first part of the play text is enacted with recitation followed by gestural acting, with an interpretative elaboration of the text through stories that provide more detail on the situation and persons appearing in it. The puṟappāṭ concludes with the nityakriya (literally, everyday action) which is a sequence of pure dance steps with accompanying gestures, some accompanied by singing by the Naṅṅyār, that are performed to please certain deities, after which the actor retires and the performance comes to an end for the night. For example, Rāvaṇa’s puṟappāṭ in Aśōkavanikāṅkam (The Aśōka Grove Act), the fifth act of the Āścaryacūdāmaṇi (The Wondrous Crest Jewel), follows the initial interlude and is staged on the fifth day of performance. The dramatic situation is that Rāvaṇa has abducted Sīta and brought her to the Aśōka Grove. Beset by lovesickness, he is on his way to propose to her, wondering how to overcome her recalcitrance. The scene opens in the play text as follows: (Then, the lovesick Rāvaṇa enters with his retinue.)

RĀVAṆA (SHOWING THAT SOMETHING IS TOUCHING HIM): Varṣavara

(Chamberlain), What reason is there for the Sun, whom I had banished long back, to come back to Laṅka? Quickly summon my minister Citrayōdhi. VARṢAVARA (TO HIMSELF):  Aho! The severe love-madness of my lord. [Verse]  He does not realize that what touches him with its rays, pleasant as snowdrops, is the cool-rayed moon of the night, a delight to the eyes, who rocks the waves of the sea. RĀVAṆA:  Why do you delay? VARṢAVARA:  As Your Lordship commands. RĀVAṆA (THINKING AND THEN LOOKING UPWARD):  This is not the Sun. This is the Moon to whom I have given protection. [Verse]  While both have thousands of rays and torment those in love who cannot distinguish between the Moon and the Sun, the mark of recognition for the Moon is a spot, dark as an emerald.15 In performance, the puṟappāṭ is briefly as follows: After the maṟayilkriya behind the curtain, the actor playing Rāvaṇa makes his entrance with both hands on Varṣavara’s head, in the suitable aspect and posture for the character. As the curtain is removed he produces the “gvā-gvā” sound (a sound which is like a roar and is associated with katti characters). Then, on cue from the actor, the Naṅṅyār recites a ślōka (verse) that describes Rāvaṇa’s pensive state oscillating from one emotion to another in his overwhelming desire for Sīta.16 The actor accompanies each key word in it with 98

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suitable emotions such as thoughtfulness, sorrow, amour, happiness and distress, and actions such as deep breathing, expanding of the chest, shaking of the head, and smiling. Following this, as Rāvaṇa, he enacts Sīta’s kēśādipādam (head-to-toe beauty), and his suffering from the arrows of Kāmadēva (the god of love); he then looks despairingly at the Moon, unable to suffer the “heat” of its beams and the soft touch of the breeze. Then, he wonders whether it is the Moon or the Sun who is troubling him, and assumes that it must be the Sun. At this point, in a state of anger, slapping his thigh, he gestures the pravēśakam (indication that the text is about to start). Then, to accompaniment of gestures for each word, he delivers his first line of the Act, which is directed at the Chamberlain: “Varṣavara, what reason is there for the Sun, whom I had banished long back, to come back to Laṅka?” Following this, breaking the line into two segments, the first segment is recited and enacted with gestures as, “Varṣavara, there is no reason for the Sun to appear in Laṅka,” followed by the questions “Why so?” and “Why is Āditya (the Sun god) so?”17 In response, the second segment, “I had banished him long back,” is recited and enacted with gestures as, “Because of his drying up the trees in my garden, it has been long since I banished him from Laṅka.” Then, the question, “How did that come to be?” is asked in gestures alone, and in response he embarks on the story of how one day a long time back, on seeing the trees in his garden all scrawny and weak, and finding the Sun responsible for it, he decided to kill the Sun and advanced on him. Then, when the Sun fell at his feet and begged for forgiveness, he had ordered him never to appear above Laṅka and had dismissed him. After remembering that story, angry that the Sun has disobeyed him, he vows to kill him and seizing his sword advances on him. However, he stops midway, realizing that more thought is required before such a precipitous action. Then, the rest of the conversation with Varṣavara is performed, with Rāvaṇa reciting his speech and following it with gestures, and Varṣavara’s speech is delivered by another actor who comes to the stage covered by a cloth. Subsequently, Rāvaṇa gazes at the Moon, and on seeing the marks on it, realizes that it is indeed the Moon, and recites his next speech with gestures. “I know, it is not the Sun. This is the Moon to whom I have given protection.” This is followed by the question “Why so?” and in response the next verse is enacted purely through gestures, ending again with the question “Why so?” With this, the text-related part of the puṟappāṭ comes to an end, and the last part is nityakriya, after which the actor retires and the performance ends for the night.18 99

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Nirvahaṇam The nirvahaṇam (exposition or retrospective) begins the night after the puṟappāṭ and has three components to it. The first is the aṉukramam, which means “following the order,” though it is actually in reverse. In it, continuing from where he left off the previous night, the actor asks a series of questions that progressively travels back in narrative time from the play’s present (the point at which the play and nirvahaṇam start) to the earliest point to be recollected in connection with that particular character in that particular act. Following this is the saṃkṣēpam, which starts from even further back in time, often from the very creation of the world, and moves forward in huge strides – or brief recounting – until it reaches the point of time at which the aṉukramam had stopped. From here starts the nirvahaṇam proper, in which the actor enacts in linear chronology all the incidents referred to in the aṉukramam, as well as related ones, from the earliest point to the dramatic present, through the mode of gestural acting. It develops into a detailed chronological narration/enactment of the previous events of the story, especially the events of the previous acts, with explanations and extended digressions into sub-stories from the perspective of the character. Most of the content for the nirvahaṇam is provided by verses drawn from the previous acts and a few which are not part of the play text which, as in the case of the puṟappāṭ, are borrowings from campus, maṇipravāḷam compositions that were a mixture of Sanskrit and Malayalam and of verse and prose. The difference from the play proper in the use of these verses is that if in the enactment of the actual play, the verses are recited by the actor himself/ herself before the gestural enactment, in the nirvahaṇam they are recited by the cymbal-playing Naṅṅyār, that too following the enactment. Together, the aṉukramam and nirvahaṇam serve to establish the nature of a character, his/her previous experiences and his/her situation at the beginning of the act. All the major characters of the act do the puṟappāṭ and nirvahaṇam one after the other and elaborate from their individual perspectives the events leading up to the act. Together, this will take several nights to complete, only after which the actual play text will be enacted. It may be safely said that the nirvahaṇam is the one component that is most responsible for the protracted stretching out of Kutiyattam performances. Since the nirvahaṇam of each character will last several nights, even a brief description will be too space consuming. Hence, a short recounting of some major aspects of Rāvaṇa’s nirvahaṇam in Aśōkavanikāṅkam is attempted here. After the initial stage ceremonies, the actor enacts the aṉukramam as follows: So, how did Rāvaṇa, born to the clan of Pulastya, on seeing the moon think that it is the Sun? Before that, in what manner did Rāvaṇa set off to see Sīta? Before that, how did Rāvaṇa bring Sīta to 100

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Aśōkavanika and make her sit at the foot of the śiṃśipa tree? Before that, how did Rāvaṇa reach Laṅka after chopping off the wings of Jaṭāyu and crossing the ocean, on his way back after stealing Sīta and making her board his chariot? Before that, in what manner did Rāvaṇa assume the form of Māyā Rāma (the fake Rāma) and set off with Sīta on his chariot? Before that, how did Rāvaṇa send Mārīca as a golden deer? Before that, in what manner did Rāvaṇa start from Laṅka in his chariot, accompanied by his charioteer and Śūrpanakha?19 These questions refer primarily to events of the immediately previous acts of the play, namely, Māyāsītāṅkam (The Act of the Fake Sīta) and Jaṭāyuvadhāṅkam (The Act of the Killing of Jaṭāyu).20 Following this is the saṃkṣēpam that goes much further back in time from where the aṉukramam ended and proceeds forward: And so, long back, while Rāvaṇa, born to the clan of Pulastya, was happily living in Laṅka, he started off to the nether world to take on the nāgas (serpent beings) in battle. As he was fighting the nāgas, he inadvertently struck at and killed Vidyujjihva, the husband of his sister Śūrpaṇakha. On seeing Śūrpaṇakha being sad as a result of this, Rāvaṇa tells her, “O! Śūrpaṇakha! Whichever man it is that you desire in all the three worlds, you may take him as your husband,” and sends Khara, Dūṣaṇa and fourteen thousand rākṣasas along with her to help her. Following this, as he continued to live happily, one day Śūrpaṇakha came and fell in front of him wailing loudly, and with her ears and nose chopped off. From her he heard of her disfigurement, the killing of Khara and Dūṣaṇa, the valour of Sri Rāma and the amazing beauty of Sīta. Overcome with desire for Sīta, on hearing of her amazing beauty, Rāvaṇa reaches the hermitage of Mārīca, sends him off in the guise of a golden deer (to Pañcavaṭi).21 In the nirvahaṇam proper, the questions of the aṉukramam are answered, weaving a continuous narrative enactment from the perspective of Rāvaṇa, starting with the events referred to in the first question and ending with the ones in the last question. For the sake of brevity, the events narrated/enacted are stated here in telegraphic fashion: Battle with the Nāgas in the nether world  – the inadvertent killing of Śūrpanakha’s husband Vidyujjihva – the permission given to Śūrpanakha to find a husband of her choice – Śūrpanakha’s w ­ ooing of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa  – her rejection and her arrival back in

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Laṅka with her nose and ears chopped off – the decision to abduct Sīta in revenge – the sending of Mārīca in the form of a golden deer to attract Sīta – setting off with Śūrpanakha and the charioteer – the vow to kill Rāma – deciding against such action because Sīta may not choose to live after that  – bad omens being observed by the charioteer – the first seeing of Sīta – being bewitched by her beauty – thinking that no woman is as beautiful as her – the battle among Rāvaṇa’s heads to get a glimpse of Sīta – the apportioning of each part of her body for each head to gaze at and enjoy – the first seeing of Lakṣmaṇa – the first seeing of Rāma and being frightened – the charioteer’s statement about Sīta’s chastity  – the dismissal of the charioteer’s statement on the basis that women are naturally fickle – the dream of Sīta willingly accepting Rāvaṇa’s overtures and visiting dēvalōka (the abode of the gods) with her – seeing Lakṣmaṇa and Sīta and their argument, as Rāma chases the golden deer – Sīta’s insult of Lakṣmaṇa and Lakṣmaṇa’s departure – Rāvaṇa taking the form of Māyā Rāma – enticing Sīta to board the chariot – on the chariot, the desire to touch Sīta and the inability of the hands to do so – finally touching Sīta – Sīta’s discovery that it is not Rāma – the return of the true form of Rāvaṇa – the arrival of Jaṭāyu and the fight with him – the killing of Jaṭāyu – the return to Laṅka –­ leaving Sīta at the foot of the śiṃśipa tree in Aśōkavanika – Rāvaṇa’s preparations to visit Sīta in the grove – seeing Sīta and describing her unparalleled beauty – inviting her to be his main consort – Sīta’s silence – commanding the dēvas to do a cascade of fragrant flowers, the breeze to blow gently, the spring to arrive in the grove and the full Moon to rise, to create a change of heart in Sīta.22 Most of these events are narrated/enacted in some considerable detail, following the verses in the previous acts, which are sung by the Naṅṅyār immediately following their enactment. At the same time, in this linear narrative, there are several points at which there are digressions into sub-stories of an even earlier past in the form of explanation or elucidation. For instance, to explicate the statement that no woman is as beautiful as Sīta, Rāvaṇa’s exploits with women are described in detail – how he imprisoned all the women of dēvalōka after its conquest; how he happened to see the celestial maidens in his prison, including Sacīdēvi, the consort of Indra; how, on his return after the conquest of the three worlds, he is obstructed by Kailāsa, the mountain abode of Lord Śiva, and how he lifts the mountain and juggles with it; how, at that point, Pārvati, who was in a love quarrel with Śiva and was leaving in a huff, was stopped in her tracks because of the mountain shaking and how Rāvaṇa saw her in a state of dishevelment (see Venugopalan, 2009, 380–383). Again, the segment of Rāvaṇa’s heads

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quarrelling with one another to get a glimpse of Sīta and the apportioning of different parts of her body for each one of them to gaze at, called pānāt rūpa rasāyanam (drinking the elixir of Sīta’s beauty), after the first words of the verse concerned, is enacted at some considerable length, depicting the antics of each of the ten heads in a thorough fashion (see Venugopalan, 2009, 384–386). Still again, when narrating Sīta’s fear on discovering that it is not Rāma beside her and Rāvaṇa’s attempt to tempt her with statements about his own greatness, there is a protracted enactment of his battle with the diggajas, the celestial elephants protecting the eight directions, and how with his bare hands he was able to beat the powerful elephant into submission (see Venugopalan, 2009, 398–399). More such instances can be quoted, but the primary quality of all these digressions is that they are extended, detailed and full episodes that can stand alone as separate pieces of enactment almost without any reference to the larger narrative in which they are embedded. In Aśōkavanikāṅkam, Maṇḍōdari has puṟappāṭ and nirvahaṇam lasting four days, Rāvaṇa eight days and Citrayōdhi two days. After all this, it is only on the 15th day that the actual text of the play is enacted. Kūṭi-āṭṭam23 (performance of the play text) After all the nirvahaṇams are completed, the enactment of the play text commences with two or more characters on the stage. The enactment of the text follows a clear fourfold pattern: first, the speech of each character is recited to the accompaniment of gestures for each word; second, the speech is rendered in gestures without the recitation of the verbal text; third, the text is broken down into separate segments in the proper grammatical order and each segment is recited and enacted with gestures at a slower pace, all the while emphasizing the facial expressions appropriate for the emotion associated with each word, and finally the last part of the dialogue is repeated to the accompaniment of gestures again, almost like a cue to the other actors. In addition, at crucial points in the gestural enactment in the third part, there will also be further elaboration or interpretation in the form of explanations or digressions through gestures to provide a more comprehensive picture of the situation, the character or the action. At such junctures, the other actor(s) imperceptibly exit the stage leaving it entirely to the actor elaborating and returns only when the final words of that particular segment of the text are spoken. An instance in the second day’s kūṭi-āṭṭam of Aśōkavanikāṅkam may be cited here as an example of the elaboration undertaken while enacting the text. The situation is of the minister informing Rāvaṇa that on Rāma’s orders the army of monkeys are searching all over for Sīta. On Rāvaṇa’s contemptuous dismissal of the news, the minister reminds him that, though

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the monkeys may be scorned, Rāma cannot be because he is famed as a great warrior whom no one can defeat. MINISTER:  Well, perhaps the monkeys are laughable, but – RĀVAṆA:  Speak! What is it? MINISTER:  They say that Rāma is invincible among bowmen. RĀVAṆA:  What, what? They say that Rāma is invincible among



bowmen? Consider: To me, before whom when I am in action Indra is not able to stand, whose arms were employed against the mountain on whom Śiva abides, by whom the planets were defeated and humiliated, to me, that personage, you mention this human being as an enemy! Ah, you are indeed a poor laughable creature! (Jones, 1984, 66)

The first day’s performance concludes with the minister’s statement that Rāma is invincible. The second day starts with Rāvaṇa entering the stage alone and, acting as if the minster is present there and has just spoken, enacts his speech after reciting it. In elucidation of the statement, “whose arms were employed against the mountain on whom Śiva abides,” he enacts the story of the lifting of Kailāsa thus: Once, when I  was residing in Laṅka happily, Vaiśravaṇa sent a messenger to me whom I promptly killed. Then, with the army of rākṣasas, I  marched on the court of Aḷaka, defeated Vaiśravaṇa and captured the Puṣpaka Vimāna.24 Boarding the vimāna with the army, I was on my way back when the vimāna stopped. I asked my ministers, why is the vimāna not moving? What? Did you say that Mount Kailāsa was obstructing the path? How can Kailāsa obstruct my path? Ask it to move away. What? Did you say that Kailāsa is no mean mountain and that it is the abode of Lord Śiva? So what if it is the abode of Lord Śiva? How can it obstruct my path? Ask it to get out of the way. What? Did you say that even after many requests, it has not moved a bit? Alright then, see. (Gets off the stool, as if alighting from the vimāna. Gazes at the mountain.) This mountain is not insignificant at all. How is it? (The huge size of the mountain is enacted, with its mounts, branches, bulges, upper plateaus, lower valleys, caves, grottos and streams, and the mounts cracking and gushing water. Then, the trees are enacted, portraying in detail their branches, twigs, their swaying in the wind, fresh sprouts, leaves, buds, flowers, fruits, vines, and the way in which birds perch on the branches and bees suck honey from the flowers.) I have never seen such a mountain. Then, see. (Jumping up, tying the scarf around his waist, gets ready for battle, securing the midriff 104

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and the head. Punches the mountain and makes holes. Makes the holes even bigger with further punches. Then sitting on one knee, inserts all twenty hands into the holes in order to lift the mountain.) No, it is not moving. (Gets up and taking hold of a branch, rotates the mountain. Again sitting on one knee, inserts the hands and lifts the mountain and places it on the chest. Shakes arms to alleviate the stress. Takes the mountain in the hands, throws it up and catches it four or five times. Then throws it with much greater strength and looks up.) The mountain has disappeared among the clouds and can’t be seen. (Then, sitting on the ground, starts drinking wine and playing dice. After a while, looking up, sees the mountain coming down, anxiously gets up, kicks the dice with the feet and catches it. Again, the mountain is thrown up and juggled. Then, untying the scarf, sits on the stool.) I am he who has thus pulled up and juggled Mount Kailāsa, the abode of Lord Śiva. (see Venugopalan, 2009, 426)25 The āṭṭaprakārams and performances of Kutiyattam are rife with such instances of interpolations into the enactment of the text. In fact, as mentioned earlier, they are so integral to its culture that many a time, days of performance that feature such extensive enactments are identified by the first words of the verse so enacted (Himakaram, Aṃbāstanyam, etc.) or the action performed (Kailāsōddhāraṇam, Śikhinīśalabham, etc.). Muṭiyakkitta The last part of the performance is the muṭiyakkitta, or concluding rituals, which are performed when the staging of the entire act comes to an end. After all the characters have exited the stage, the drummer plays a particular rhythm, which indicates that it is time for the final rituals. The main actor returns to the stage without his headgear but with his red headband on, carrying purificatory water in a kiṇṭi (beaked vessel). Coming centre-stage, he washes his feet and face and ritually drinks from the water thrice, then touches his ears, eyes, nose, chest and head with his fingers (in a fashion similar to the Brahmin ritual of purification, the ācamanam). Then, uttering a prayer, he splashes water on himself in a ritual bath and sprinkles water on stage and towards the audience. After this, with the two sticks he has brought with him, he collects burning strands from each of the three wicks on the stage lamp, joins them into one and, holding it up, does a vertical circulatory motion with it and drops it on the stage. He salutes the gods, asks for atonement for any faults committed during performance and exits. The performance comes to an end here. The inclusion of the muṭiyakkitta at the end of each act is clear evidence of the institutionalization of the single-act system in Kutiyattam. Certainly a 105

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result of the culture of elaboration, it indicates that the focus of Kutiyattam had shifted from the totality of the play narrative to a performative narrative that strings together a series of episodes and narratives. At the same time, when read together with the rituals undertaken by the actor as part of the pūrvaraṅga, the use of the purificatory ācamanam can be seen as a sign of the actor’s imminent departure from the state of being an actor and from the attributed Brahmin-hood that he enjoyed as long as the performance lasted. His ritual atonement for any errors committed during the performance suggests that what was committed on the stage ends on the stage, and that their effects are not being carried back into his regular life. The customary clapping of hands by the audience as the actor walks off the stage after completing the muṭiyakkitta is also significant. Though modern audiences tend to take it as applause and as a sign of appreciation, it partakes more of the culture of the ritual clapping that happens at funerals and death anniversary ceremonies. It is a sending back of the actor from his station as an actor to his real-life station, an ejection from his temporary Brahmin-hood to his original caste status, the ritual death of one kind of existence and the return to another.26

Features and conventions of elaboration The brief description of the procedures of performance and the examples given clearly demonstrate Kutiyattam’s culture of elaboration, which exploits almost every possibility within the text and the pre-story for interpretative acting. A little suggestion in the text is all that is necessary for the interpolation of a previous story and an extended acting segment that can exhibit the theatrical virtuosity of the actor. The linear progression of the play narrative seems to take a back seat and a performative narrative that focuses on individual episodes assumes priority. In the process, digressions and detours seem to acquire a centrality in performance, almost as if they are the primary object of the actors’ (and spectators’) attention. Further, the prominence accorded to solo acting by the spatial and visual constraints imposed by the light from the single lamp, which is one fundamental cause for elaboration, has been further accentuated by the demands of such elaboration, so much so that they turn out to be mutually reinforcing compulsions, leaving only a small fraction of the total performance time for actors to perform together. Probably the most striking of the solo segments is the nirvahaṇam, which has been primarily instrumental in extending the length of performance to the extent that it is today. In the Aśōkavanikāṅkam, for instance, 14 days are devoted to the puṟappāṭ and nirvahaṇam of the characters, while the actual performance of the act takes only four days. Ostensibly, this exposition is intended to update the audience with the relevant previous events of the story to set the scene at the beginning of the act, as also to establish the primary nature of the characters and their condition at the beginning of the 106

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act. However, far from such focused aims, the convention has developed and expanded to become an elaborate series of story-tellings and enactments from plural perspectives, occupying the lion’s share of the performance time and the actors’ onstage routines. How such a development has come about is certainly a fundamental question. Historically, the origins of the practice can be traced to Kulasekhara Varman and his treatise Vyaṅgyavyākhya, which advises the inclusion of pūrvasaṃbandha (relating the present to the past), in the form of retrospection by the main character at the beginning of the performance. The commentary on Subhadrādhanañjayam demonstrates a fruitful employment of the device. The play starts with a stage direction that follows the regular pattern in Sanskrit drama, “Tatha praviśati dhanurbāṇapāṇiḥ Dhanañjayaḥ” (Then/ After that, enters Dhanañjaya, with bow and arrows in his hand). Taking the “tatha” (then/after that) as the cue – because it almost begs the question “After what?” – the commentary suggests that there should be a narration of previous events to reveal the state of mind of the main character. To that end, a short series of events are narrated from the time the Pāṇḍavas arrived in Hariprastha with Draupadi. It includes Nārada’s arrival; his advice that each of the Pāṇḍavas should take one-year turns to live with Draupadi, during which time no one else should approach her, and that anyone who violates the rule should go on a year’s pilgrimage; Dhanañjaya’s inadvertent violation of the rule and his setting off for pilgrimage; the year-long pilgrimage and his love exploits with a Nāga and a Pāṇdya princess; his impatient wait to come back to Hariprastha; his hearing of Kṛṣṇa’s sister Subhadra’s love for him; his going to Dvāraka and resting on the Raivataka mountain; and his love-sickness at the thought of Subhadra. It then ends with the action indicated in the stage instruction (Paulose, 2013, 76–88). Given this, it cannot be denied that the tendency for elaboration  – or at least for the inclusion of extra-textual matter  – had begun even with Kulasekhara and that it is not something that ensued purely from the entry to the temple theatres. However, the differences between the pūrvasaṃbandha as detailed by Kulasekhara and the nirvahaṇam as it is practised, offers a more nuanced picture. For one, the pūrvasaṃbandha is considerably shorter and less detailed. Concerned primarily with the state of mind of the main character, it enumerates only those events that expressly serve to throw light on it. In contrast, the nirvahaṇam, even as it is apparently for the purpose of revealing the state of mind of the character, includes many more events and much more detail than is actually essential for the purpose. In one sense, it seems to have taken a life of its own, quite unconnected with the text of the play or the character whose circumstances it is expected to uncover. Second, the Vyaṅgyavyākhya recommends pūrvasaṃbandha only for the main character, while nirvahaṇam is undertaken for all the major characters appearing in an act. Third, there is no aṉukramam, the series of questions in reverse chronological order, in the pūrvasaṃbandha. Fourth, if the pūrvasaṃbandha 107

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is primarily concerned with the internal state of mind of the character, such a focus is absent in the nirvahaṇam, which seems to revel in an accumulation of diverse narratives and enactments, most of which are primarily to do with previous incidents and external action rather than internal states. It is apparent here that Kulasekhara’s primary intention was to bring to light the inner workings of the mind of the character, in such a way as to draw out the underlying motivations behind the action of the play. Seen together with the rest of the Vyaṅgyavyākhya, his aim was to bring out the vyaṅgya, the connotative suggestions of the text, in performance, particularly in connection with the main character. Whether it was an attempt to apply Anandavardhana’s theory of poetic dhvani,27 the “aesthetic suggestion,” to the practice of performance is a matter of conjecture. No doubt, there is a veiled reference to Anandavardhana, as the inspiration for both the plays and the commentaries: “Wise men say that poetry endowed with suggested sense is commendable. Hence I  wrote two plays pregnant with inner meaning. I  will take the role of an actor and show you how it is represented on stage” (Paulose, 2013, 41). However, a closer reading of the two commentaries seems to indicate that they are concerned less with aesthetic suggestion and more with hidden or additional meanings of the dramatic text, such as ślēs.ārttha (double-entendre), or with drawing out the internal motivations of characters. That notwithstanding, it was certainly a laudable effort to bridge the gap between the literariness of the text and the corporeality of performance and turn the body of the performer from being a vehicle solely for the actual verbal meaning of the play text into one that can communicate not only its implied levels of meaning but also the inner states of the characters’ minds. However, the later development of the nirvahaṇam belies the aims of the royal playwright. Was it because the Cākyārs could not properly comprehend his aims or were unable to develop an adequately powerful internalized system of acting that could do justice to the implied sense of other play texts? Though it may be well-nigh impossible to come up with an adequate answer to these questions, one thing is apparent: the tendency for elaboration implicit in Kulasekhara’s pūrvasaṃbandha came to take a different, more external, route that focused primarily on previous events and the semantics of the text. It can be argued that such a development was occasioned by the fact that only single acts came to be presented, which required that spectators had to be informed about what had happened in the previous acts. However, such an argument can very well raise the classic chicken and egg conundrum because it can also be argued in reverse that it is the elaboration and extension of the nirvahaṇam that primarily led to only single acts being performed. Steering clear of such contestations, if one were to look at structural causes, it would be evident that without a compelling internal logic of elaboration at work within the performance context such a process would not have been possible in the first place. It is here that 108

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one connects both, the development of the detailed nirvahaṇam as well as the culture of single act performances, to the space of the kūttampalam, its systems of microscopic seeing and doing, and the culture of elaboration that grew out of them. In this light, they appear as twin phenomena, spurred by the dynamics of elaboration, working in a coincident and mutually reinforcing manner. One more historical fact should be noted here. As indicated earlier, many of the verses employed for the puṟappāṭ and nirvahaṇam are drawn from the campus.28 These campus, such as the Rāmāyaṇam Campu and the Bhāratam Campu of Punam Nambudiri, which are prime sources for the Cākyārs, were written mostly in the 15th and 16th centuries (Paniker, 1998, 27). At the same time, the prabandhams29 of Melpattur Narayana Bhattatiri, another major source for the Cākyārs, were composed in the late 16th century or even the first part of the 17th century (Paniker, 1998, 31). In other words, it was after the limitation of Kutiyattam to the kūttampalams that these verses were composed, presumably in answer to a need that arose then, suggesting that the real force behind the expansion of the nirvahaṇam was indeed the space of the kūttampalam. A noteworthy aspect of the solo acting segments is the convention of one actor, even as he is playing one primary character, assuming the roles of all the other characters who figure in his narratives. Called pakarnnāṭṭam (literally, “transferred acting”),30 this convention that provides for “multiple impersonation on the part of the actor without change of make-up and costumes” (Paniker, 1995, 9) is what makes possible such extended solo acting segments. To quote Sudha Gopalakrishnan, Pakarnnāttam is a unique device perfected in Kutiyattam, which gives immense scope for the actor to call upon his histrionic and imaginative faculties. The actor during the course of his acting steps out of her/his role and through the stream of consciousness of the protagonist assumes the roles of all the other characters imagined by that person and elaborates the context/scene according to his/her skill and imagination. (1999, 4; emphasis in original) At such junctures, the actor, who plays the character from whose perspective the scene is being rendered, not only describes the actions of other characters but also takes their parts and acts them out. This “denotational flexibility” of the actor as a theatrical sign (Elam, 1980, 12), and the interchangeable relationship between the actor and the characters mean that the actor, while substantially representing one character, can freely become another one and thus enrich the action by providing it with an altogether different character angle. Again, as in the case of the nirvahaṇam, one can trace this practice too to the Vyaṅgyavyākhya. In Subhadrādhanañjayam, Dhanañjaya’s opening 109

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speech shows him to be in two minds. After a year-long pilgrimage, as he is about to return to Pāñcāli and his brothers, he comes to hear of the beauty of Subhadra and her love for him. Torn between his love for Pāñcāli and his desire for Subhadra, he vacillates, unsure whether to return or to go to Dvāraka where Subhadra is. Though he fervently wishes to be with Subhadra, he also fears that he might invite Pāñcāli’s ire. The Vyaṅgyavyākhya suggests that the actor playing Dhanañjaya switch to the role of Pāñcāli and back in the course of the enactment of this situation (Paulose, 2013, 92–94). Even as it is a very short piece, it is evident that this switching of roles is a proto-form of pakarnnāṭṭam. However, there are a couple of aspects that deserve mention. First, it is not clear in the Vyaṅgyavyākhya whether it is a full-fledged transformation to the other character and a comprehensive āṅgika (gestural) system of acting that it recommends or only a momentary verbal shift to the other character. Second, it is also important to note that the whole situation is one that unfolds in Dhanañjaya’s mind and that the Pāñcāli of the narrative is one who appears in his imaginative vision. As in the case of the pūrvasaṃbandha, here too the focus is on the internal workings of the character’s mind. On the other hand, pakarnnāṭṭam involves the portrayal of extended situations of external action and full transformations into other characters who figure in that action. Here, one needs to address the actor–character dynamic in Kutiyattam. It may be remembered that when the actor enters the stage for the puṟappāṭ, he does not arrive as the character but as the actor per se and that he assumes the character only after the maṟayilkriya. Again, for the customary rituals, such as the nityakriya and the final muṭiyakkitta, the actor appears in his capacity as the actor, having shed his identity as character. In fact, throughout the performance, there are several occasions when subtle changes are made to the costume to indicate when the actor is an actor per se and when he is a character. In his identity as a character, the thick red-and-black scarf with a flower-like formation at each end is placed around his waist, and the ends of his lower garment are tied together. On the other hand, while being an actor and performing the ritual actions he wears the scarf over his left shoulder and across his body, and the ends of his lower garment are left untied. Further, even when in character, when transitioning from the primary character to another one, the left end of the lower garment is raised and tucked into the waist band, and the actor shifts his position, posture and direction of sight from one side to the other. Equally importantly, in the nirvahaṇam, even as it is that of one character, the actor does not refer to that character as the self, but by name. For example, in Rāvaṇa’s aṉukramam quoted earlier, the questions posed are all as if Rāvaṇa is a third person: “So, how did Rāvaṇa, born to the clan of Pulastya, on seeing the moon think that it is the Sun? Before that, in what manner did Rāvaṇa set off to see Sīta?” and so on. The aspect of the character is assumed only when that character is depicted as saying or doing something. 110

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All this points to a significant facet of Kutiyattam’s performance culture: there is no one-to-one identification between actor and character in it. “The actor is a vehicle or medium; he is never totally identified with any one role or single character” (Paniker, 1995, 9). All the characters are in quotation marks, making it possible for the actor to move easily from one character to another or from one set of quotation marks to another. Pakarnnāṭṭam, as a convention and as a device, is the highest expression of this non-identity between the actor and the character, as also a demonstration of the fundamentally non-realistic and flexible nature of the Kutiyattam theatre. As I have written elsewhere, In Kutiyattam, the actor always maintains his or her distinct identity and never fully becomes the character. The actor is the ground on which a character is placed and constructed, the neutrality of which is always preserved in order that it can be revisited and other characters constructed at the same site, with the possibility of alternation between characters. In other words, the artifice of the ­theatre – the fact that it is an actor playing the role of a character – is never forgotten in Kutiyattam and in many instances is even foregrounded, leading the way to the full exploitation of such artifice and generic conventions. (Narayanan, 2006b, 140) There is no fixed identity at display in the performance, except that of the actor. The actor is ultimately a narrator in costume who quotes not just the words but also the actions of different characters. What we have as a result is a series of identities interwoven together, with the transition from one to the other mediated by different performance markers. Another salient feature of the elaborative mode is the recurrent use of the question-answer format. It is featured not just in the aṉukramam but practically in every part of the performance. In the nirvahaṇam proper, questions such as “Why so?” “Why is it so?” “How is it so?” “How did that happen?” and “In what manner did it happen?” are posed almost like self-directed cues to indicate that a digression is about to begin in the form of an answer to the question posed. In the kūṭi-āṭṭam too, where more than one character appears on the stage, solo segments embedded in the interaction with other characters commence with such questions. Along with these, questions such as “What?” “What did you say?” and “Did you say. . . ?” are also raised in situations of interaction where others characters are assumed to be present but are not physically there. This convention of kēṭṭāṭal (listening and acting), where the primary character acts as if the second character is present even as she/he is absent on the stage and responds to her/him after ostensibly appearing to have heard and repeated what that character has said is employed both in the nirvahaṇam, where different characters appear as part 111

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of the narrative, and in the kūṭi-āṭṭam, where the accompanying character withdraws from the stage as the solo segment commences. An interesting aspect of the question-and-answer format is that if in the kūṭi-āṭṭam it can be assumed that these questions and answers are directed at the co-character, who is virtually present, in the nirvahaṇam, with no other character present on the stage either physically or virtually, it can only be directed at the audience. Such communication with the audience is possible only for the actor, and not the character, which is primarily why the actor many times refers to the character he represents not as “I” but by name, as if he is a third person. Undoubtedly, this is a further reiteration that Kutiyattam is far from realistic and that it literally lays bare its own theatricality. At the same time, the question-and-answer method also has deep connections with the traditional pedagogic systems of Sanskrit in Kerala, an aspect that will be taken up for detailed consideration in Chapter 6. The flexible relationship between the actor and the character and the actor’s freedom to detach himself from the character and assume his actor identity is further instantiated in the unique practice of providing different interpretations for the same verse. In contexts where different meanings are possible for a phrase or a line, they are expressed one after another when the verse is being rendered in gestures. For instance, in the fourth day’s kūṭiāṭṭam of Aśōkavanikāṅkam, known as Valiya Udyāna Pravēśam (The Big Entry to the Grove), on entering the Aśōka Grove, Rāvaṇa describes how he has single-handedly created it: ētē svargavibhūṣaṇam viṭapinō mandākinī rōdhasō/ dhīram paśyati dēvabhartari mahīm nētum mayōnmūlitāḥ// (Venugopalan, 2009, 440) (Here are trees which are an ornament to heaven and which, even as the Lord of Heaven was looking on, I uprooted from the banks of Ganga to bring them to earth.) (Jones, 1984, 70) While performing this verse, after the initial recitation, the first segment is enacted through gestures thus: “All these trees have been uprooted and brought here by me.” Then, in answer to the gestured question – “How are these trees?” – the second segment is recited in the form of a single phrase – “svargavibhūṣaṇam” (adornments of heaven). Three different interpretations are then given for the phrase. First, it is uttered as a single compound word – svargavibhūṣaṇam – and interpreted as “ornament of heaven”; second, it is broken down into three particles –svar-gavi-bhūṣanam – and the meaning is delivered as “ornaments for both heaven and earth”; and, third, broken down differently – svarga-vi-bhūṣanam – and the meaning given as “decorated by the birds of heaven.” This semantic interpretation of one 112

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particular phrase through a morphological analysis that throws up different kinds of word compositions and syllabic units is probably the best exemplar of the particular route of elaboration that Kutiyattam had taken.31 Far from Vyaṅgyavyākhya’s aim of bringing out the internal state of mind of a character to reveal his springs of action, elaboration has here become almost an end in itself, or a means to display the virtuosity of the actor, which would perhaps impress a linguist or a grammarian but which contributes little to dramatic interest. Obviously, it is the actor and not the character who engages in this play of semantic analysis, as an opportunity for the exhibition of his linguistic prowess, thus further reiterating the actor’s freedom in Kutiyattam to remove himself from the character and be an independent entity on stage. With such a digressive, episodic structure, the linear progress of the play narrative is broken time and again. Not only that, the narrative of the plot is pushed into the background and made subservient to a narrative that unfolds in/through performance or, to be more precise, to a narrative of performance. To put it differently, the play text and the plot are turned into mere resources that can offer occasions and situations for the launch of elaborate performative segments. The play text is a starting point, and the performance text, far from being a realization/manifestation of the play text, takes on a life of its own that is much more and much larger than the play text. Place, people and events not even referred to in the play text make their appearance in the performance text, especially in the segments of elaboration, so much so that the play text seems to provide only a skeletal framework upon which the performance text constructs itself into a full-fleshed entity. On a closer look, it will be apparent that this system is invariably one that offers great scope for the actor’s performative and histrionic skills. That this privileging of the actor’s craft has become an integral, if not paramount, element of Kutiyattam, governing the responses of audiences too, is vouched by the fact that, rather than sections that take the play narrative forward, it is the segments of elaboration that lay onus on the physical performance prowess of the actor that enjoy the greatest acceptance and popularity and considered as veritable high points. In a sense, it is a victory of performance over narrative. What rules is not narrative interest but performative interest. And with the primary attention of the spectator being on the actor’s practice, on the objects, figures, scenes and moving images that are sculpted by the actor’s body, veritably, it becomes a performance of the body. Kutiyattam then is primarily an actor’s theatre. Even as the foundational level of its performance culture is the proximal viewing of the spectator, what such a viewing opens to the actor is the possibility to explore and display the entire potentialities of his own practice. When even the play text becomes almost a pretext for the exhibition of the actor’s prowess, every other aspect of dramatic interest is subordinated to the claims of the actor’s prowess; the actor becomes the performance, so to speak. The customary 113

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practice of identifying each day’s performance not by the names of the plays or of the acts presented but by the names of the significant segment that are featured in each day’s performance, as in Kailāsōddhāraṇam, Śikhinīśalabham, Aṃbāstanyam, etc. acquires a different import here. Even as they signify the episodic structure of the Kutiyattam performance, they are also statements of significant displays by the actor, and an acknowledgment of the primary centrality of the actor in Kutiyattam. In the subordination of the play narrative to the performance narrative, or of dramatic interest to interest in the actor’s craft, one more aspect of the larger culture in which Kutiyattam developed is of importance. With a fixed repertoire of a limited number of plays, drawing primarily upon the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, the stories and even the specific plots were well known to the audiences. There was no question of narrative suspense or the need to know the story through the performance, making the story itself largely redundant. In such a situation, the larger interest was not on what the story is but on how it is presented. It was the audio-visual experience of performance, its finer presentational aspects, and the dexterity of the actors in presenting it that captured the attention and interest of the spectator. Kutiyattam’s departure from the aims of Kulasekhara and its development into a system of elaboration that centres not on the implied suggestions of the text or of the internal life of the character, but on events, descriptions and physical enactments, appears in a different light here. Far from the Cākyārs’ improper comprehension of his aesthetic aims, or their inability to develop an internalized system of acting, as suggested earlier, it appears to be a case of the Cākyārs wresting to themselves a position of greater significance in the scheme of performance. An interesting feature that would support this argument is that there is no reference to the author or the names of the plays (only the names of the acts are mentioned) in any of the āṭṭaprakārams or kramadīpikas. They are texts that are fully dedicated to the cause of the actor, never for once pondering over the question of the author’s intentions or objectives. Even further, there was also the practice of mixing and performing acts that belonged to different plays written by different playwrights, with little respect for the integrity and totality of individual plays, suggesting a complete disregard for the intentions of the authors, if there were any. For example, at the Pūrnatrayīśa Temple at Tripunithura, the 21 acts of Saktibhadra’s Āścaryacūdāmaṇi, and Bhasa’s Pratimānāṭakam and Abhiṣēkanāṭakam used to be performed sequentially with the acts following not the order in the plays they belong to, but adhering to their place in the larger order of the narrative of Rāmāyaṇa (see Venugopalan, 2009, 51). In light of this, it could be said that if, as a playwright, Kulasekhara accorded privilege to the play text and the characters, thereby affirming his adherence to the principle of a “playwright’s theatre,” the subsequent history of Kutiyattam, especially since its incorporation into the space of the kūttampalam, 114

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is one in which that position of privilege was arrogated by the actors, turning it into a stage for the exhibition of their talents, skill and expertise, and for the assertion of the practice of an “actor’s theatre.”

Haptic vision and diegetic space In trying to understand the full implications of the aspects of embodiment and intercorporeality in the relationship between the actor and the spectator in Kutiyattam, particularly in the ways of microscopic seeing and doing, the concept of “haptic vision” that has arisen of late in the humanities and the social sciences is of significance. Derived from the Greek words “hapticos,” which means “able to touch or grasp,” and “haptein,” which means “fasten,” the term “haptic” signifies “of or relating to the sense of touch” (OED). It expresses the perception of touch through other sensory, experiential means, such as vision, sound and taste, without the actual involvement of physical touching. As an extension of the same, the term “haptic visuality” has come to be popularly associated with the perceived experience of touch while viewing.32 Vivian Sobchack’s work has been crucial in this development; in approaching the practice of cinematic viewing in terms of the phenomenology of perception, she brought up some key issues such as embodied perception, the spectator’s bodily experience while viewing the moving image, and the materiality of the media. Drawing on MerleauPonty, Sobchack asserts that “the body is both agent and agency of an engagement with the world that is lived in its subjective modality as perception and in its objective modality as expression, both modes constituting the unity of meaningful experience” (Sobchack, 1992, 40). Hence, film experience consists of “film and its spectator as two active and differently situated viewers viewing in intersubjective, dialectical and dialogical conjunction” (Sobchack, 2009, 443). And, since the “primacy of perception is always also a primacy of expression, the latter articulated as the visible gesture of the former” (Sobchack, 1992, 41; emphasis in original), the spectator is an active, embodied co-producer of the film whose perception is a latent form of expression. Following Sobchack, Laura Marks addressed the question of haptic vision in intercultural cinema, in which vision is brought as close as possible to the image, thus converting vision to the experience of touch.33 In thus conceiving of a kind of viewing that invokes the sense of touch, Marks critiques a culture of vision that has become customary with mainstream cinema, which objectifies the image and attempts to wield power over it. This “optical vision,” as she calls it, looks at an object from a distance and grasps its totality. The object seen is attributed with a completeness that does not require the spectator’s involvement and is offered up to cognition as an object to be analyzed, deciphered and known. By presenting an object in its totality, distinct from other objects and placed in a clearly distinguishable 115

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space, optical vision draws attention to its representational qualities and its possible structures of meaning. Such a vision, according to her, is “a sort of instrumental vision that uses the thing seen as an object of knowledge and control” (2000, 131). Working as an undercurrent in her conception is a critique of the Cartesian logic of vision and objective knowledge, opposed strenuously by phenomenology, which refocused attention on the mutuality/inherence of embodied consciousness and the world. In opposition to the objectivist “optical vision,” Marks puts forward the idea of haptic vision as one “that yields to the thing seen, a vision that is not merely cognitive but acknowledges its location in the body” (2000, 132). When seen from close proximity, most often the fullness of the object is not immediately evident, making it difficult to identify what it is, but the contours of its surface, its texture and its physical qualities are made accessible to sight in such a manner as to invoke the experience of touch. In thus foregrounding the materiality and physical qualities of the object, vision here becomes a route to the awakening of the senses, especially the tactile, with which that materiality can be experienced. Quite distinct from the optical vision, which is disembodied, haptic vision is thus embodied and brings into play the sensorial, experiential field of the body. Such embodied vision will necessarily be culturally specific because sensorial experiences are organized and understood by each spectator in terms of her/his particular contexts and structures of culture, society and history. Such “forestructures of assumptions” or “horizons of potentialities” ensure that the viewer’s cultural organization of the sense experience and the cinema’s own organization of the sense experience interact  – or even conflict  – with each other, raising the possibility for a revelatory political vision. It is not incidental that the employment of haptic vision is mostly found in intercultural cinema. As Marks observes, in intercultural cinema, the appeal to senses like taste, smell and touch that cinema cannot technically represent, is an attempt to recreate an archive of cultural memory that can provide the impetus for the assertion and resistance of identities different from the majority (see 2000, 129). Continuing from Marks, Jennifer Barker defined film viewing as a multifaceted tactile experience and extended the idea of touch to include different sites/parts of the body, such as the skin, the musculature and the viscera. The skin is a category of touch that “moves horizontally along the surface of the (film’s and viewer’s) skin rather than into depth,” in a mode of viewing that elicits the experience of “caressing, flaying, pricking or piercing, shock and texture.” In musculature, the viewer experiences different modes of physical movement, like “gripping, grasping, holding, clenching and leaning forward in one’s seat or pulling away and being physically startled by images.” The viscera evokes an experience that goes deeper into the body in both the film and the viewer, inducing “internal rhythms like heartbeat, breathing” (2009, 21).

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Though lacking the distinctive political flavour of intercultural cinema, the possibilities of haptic vision are manifest in the performance culture of Kutiyattam too. We have already seen that Kutiyattam lays store for a microscopic mode of acting where an object’s form, shape, movements and emotional aspect are presented in fine, elaborate detail by the actor, and a proximal method of viewing in which the actor’s practice is followed with close attention by the spectator. When the distinctive aspects of each object or phenomenon is elaborated as if looked at through a microscope, what comes into vision are features of its materiality that may not be otherwise apparent in ordinary vision, such as the fine details of its form and shape, its texture, the subtleties of its movement and so on. Further, different from cinema, where the objects themselves are presented in close detail, in Kutiyattam it is through the embodied practice of the actor  – as experienced in/by his body – that the materiality is presented. In response, what comes into play in the spectator’s viewing is not merely an optical vision but an embodied vision, in which the experience is itself multi-sensorial, invoking especially the tactile. If one were to follow Barker’s categories of tactile experience, it would be apparent that two modalities are consistently present, viz. skin, which elicits the felt experience of caressing, flaying, pricking, piercing, or texture, and musculature, which evokes physical movements, like gripping, grasping, holding, clenching, leaning forward, pulling away and being physically startled. Even as the modalities of the haptic vision is present to various degrees throughout the Kutiyattam performance, especially in its descriptions of objects, people and nature, it is in certain extended segments of physical enactment that it is manifested most powerfully. One such example would be the famed episode of Kailāsōddhāraṇam (the lifting of Mt  Kailāsa), which appears in shortened form in many acts, but is presented in its fullness in Tōraṇayuddhāṅkam (The Act of Battle at the Tower Pillars) in Abhiṣēkanāṭakam (The Coronation Play). By way of recounting his exploits, Rāvaṇa describes his lifting and juggling of Mt Kailāsa, the abode of Lord Śiva, on his way back from the conquest of the three worlds. The segment proceeds as follows: on finding that his way has been blocked by Kailāsa, Rāvaṇa alights from Puṣpaka Vimāna, his aerial chariot. He looks long and intensely at the mountain, assessing its huge size, by moving his eyes from left to right and back, and from down to up and back, to the farthest possible extents. In the process, a virtual image of the massive mountain is constructed. Following this, he describes in detail the landscape of the mountain, with its peaks, branches, plateaus, valleys, caves, streams, the wind, the clouds, the trees, the birds, the animals and so on. Then, after punching holes into its base, he kneels down, inserts all 20 of his hands into them and tries to lift the mountain, fails in the first attempt, and tries with renewed vigour again. With great effort, he slowly lifts the mountain and

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places it on his chest, giving a rest to his arms, after which he throws the mountain up and catches it repeatedly.34 To state an obvious fact, as with any other object represented on the Kutiyattam stage, Kailāsa is also not represented materially but through the bodily actions of the actor. It is a virtual creation of the actor in the empty space of the stage. After having created a sense of the immensity of the mountain through the movements of his eyes, and the accompanying postures, the actor proceeds to simulate the enormous strength and effort required to lift it through the actions of his upper body, especially his arms, shoulders and face. The simulated physical effort of the actor is experienced by the spectators not merely through the eyes, or through an optical vision, but as an embodied experience, through a felt effort in their own limbs. During performances of Kailāsōddhāraṇam, the sight of spectators heaving with their bodies in empathy with the actor’s effort, and even grunting in the process, though a matter of some embarrassment to those who catch themselves doing so or are caught by others, is not an entirely uncommon sight. Here, the kinaesthetic empathy of the spectator for the actor and the intersubjective engagement between them are experienced by the spectator almost as if he/she herself is involved in the act of lifting the mountain, in a haptic mode that brings into play its musculature aspect. Erika Fischer-Lichte’s observation about some post-1960s experimental performances in the West applies here equally: “The spectators do not merely witness these situations; as participants in the performance they are made to physically experience them” (2008, 40). This leads to a kind of role reversal between the actor and the spectator and contributes to the creation of “feedback loops” between the spectators and the actor. At the same time, in the initial part of the segment, where the size of the mountain is created by the actor through postures and the movements of the eyes, the actor effectively becomes the first spectator, and it is through his eyes that the spectator comes to see the mountain. In such situations, the difference and distance between the actor and the spectator is reduced to such an extent that their roles take on aspects of the other’s; the spectator acts as he sees, the actor sees as he acts, in what can be called a prime instance of seeing and doing getting inscribed in one another. Kutiyattam is replete with such instances of the actor/character virtually creating phenomena on the stage through his bodily actions and the spectator perceiving it in an embodied, haptic vision, especially in descriptive segments.35 At the same time, the practice of the spectator being invited to see phenomena through the eyes of the actor and thereby construct an image of it in his own mind, or of the actor becoming the first spectator and passing on to the spectators his/her experience of such vision in an embodied manner, is also a major performance convention in Kutiyattam. The best examples for this would be the battle scenes in Prathamadvitīyāṅkam36 and Ūrubhaṅgam,37 the former being between Rāma and Rāvaṇa and the latter between Bhīma and Duryōdhana. In both these scenes, the battle is not 118

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shown directly onstage but is shown as being seen by Vidyādharas who have descended from heaven to be witnesses. That is, the battles unfold before the spectator, as seen through the eyes of the witnesses, through their descriptions, through their responses to the event. The salient feature to be noted in these is that a physical representation of these battles on the stage is not only extremely arduous but also prone to failure because the battle between Rāma and Rāvaṇa, and between Bhīma and Duryōdhana, are not like any other battle. They are the crucial, definitive battles of Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata, and through the ages, through countless retellings, and through different oral and literary versions, they have come to inhabit the minds of the spectators as the greatest of battles, unparalleled and unequalled by any other. If they are physically represented on the stage, they would not only turn out to be like any other battle but also totally fail to match up to the spectators’ imagined ideas of them. To the contrary, with the battles being described by three witnesses, with not only the description but also their reactions to what they are witnesses to being enacted physically, the spectators’ memories of what they know of the battle and their creative imaginations can be evoked to create an unfolding picture in their minds of the grandest of battles. There are four interconnected, but distinct, processes taking place in such presentations. One, when the actor/character assumes the role of a spectator, thereby permitting the practice of the spectator to enter the stage, the distinction between the space of the actor and the space of the spectator – indeed, between the actor and the spectator – is reduced and there is a merger between their seemingly different functions. Second, the spectator’s mind becomes a virtual stage. Without a material representation that can be visually apprehended, the scene is constructed in the mental realm of the spectator through the descriptions and responses enacted by the actors. Third, the spectator becomes a co-producer of the scene. He/she is not a passive onlooker, but an active presence engaged in an imaginative construction of the scene in his mind by resort to his memories of stories and descriptions that he has heard and read. Fourth, it is through the physical responses of the actors/characters that the spectators experience the ferocity and violence of the battles. When the actor/spectator responds as if the movements and actions of the battle are falling on his body, that he is physically experiencing it, the spectators too receive it with/in their bodies, through the transferred sensory perceptions of their bodies. Thus, a union of both the minds and bodies of the spectators go into the making of a complete performance experience. Another aspect of the battle scenes in Prathamadvitīyāṅkam and Ūrubhaṅgam is that along with the actors’ bodies becoming the medium through which the audience gets to see the unseen, they also create an offstage fictional space, which is referred to by the actors, with the actions taking place there being suggested by their own responsive actions. This offstage space, which is also a diegetic space because it is not shown but 119

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“described” through the body language of the actors, is effectively a space that comes to be formed in the minds of the audience and hence is a purely conceived space. As Bowler observes, it is in the creation of such diegetic spaces that theatre overlaps with poetry or fiction: It could be argued that this kind of mental seeing is no different to what we see when reading for example a novel, and that purely fictional space is not an intrinsically theatrical form of representation but rather an area of overlap between theatre and other types of fictional world-making, including poetry and film. (Bowler, 2015, 29) The creation of such diegetic spaces is a feature that one finds throughout the performance of Kutiyattam, especially in the solo sequences, where without any kind of representational devices, the actor constructs elaborate alternate spaces to be imagined by the audience purely through his gestures and bodily actions. To borrow the words of William Gruber, such sequences, like the messenger scenes in many plays, “stimulate a mental seeing of a somewhat different and more complex order” (Gruber, 2010, 31). At the same time, even more curious is that such diegetic spaces are created in Kutiyattam sometimes even without the actor’s involvement but specifically through their absence. A good example would be the battle scene between Bāli and Sugrīva in Bālivadhāṅkam (The Act of Bāli’s Killing).38 As the battle progresses on the stage, to the accompaniment of vigorous percussion on the miḻāvu, at one point both the actors exit the stage through the door upstage right locked in battle and are not seen for a while, even as the battle drumming goes on without a break and cries of battle are heard from offstage. After a while, they re-enter the stage through the door upstage left, still locked in battle. They then cross the stage battling and exit again, only for them to reappear through the other door after a while. The same process is repeated several times. It is almost as if the battle is spread over a huge circular space, with the space on the stage being only a small segment or sliver of a vast landscape, and as they go out and come back, again and again, the audience gets short glimpses of their epic battle. What they actually get to see is much less than what they don’t get to see. However, based on what is offered to their sight, the audience constructs the offstage space – the diegetic space of battle – and the battle taking place there in their imaginations, with the length of the characters’ absence from the stage becoming indicative of the vastness of the battlefield. Imagination is the key here, and what happens on the stage, or is absent from the stage, is a doorway to another space, another world, that the audience is invited to construct in their own minds as best they can.

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In light of the previous discussions, if one were to go back to the fundamental question of Kutiyattam’s culture of elaboration, one more vital element of that culture becomes apparent, viz. its conscious acceptance of its own theatricality. There is a constant performative reiteration of the knowledge that Kutiyattam is theatre, whether it is in the flexible relationship between the actor and the character, where the actor always maintains his identity and moves from character to character, as if they are in quotation marks; or in the convention of questions and answers, where the actor seems to be communicating directly with the audience; or in the episodic structure, where the play narrative is subordinated to the performance narrative and there are extensive digressions; or in providing different interpretations of the same verse; or in the use of haptic vision, where the audience’s embodied, sensorial participation is elicited, or in constructing absent phenomena through the bodily practices of the actor and drawing upon the spectators’ imaginations and knowledge to make them active co-producers of the performance. There is no attempt at any point to simulate or imitate real time or space, or to bring in verisimilitude to any aspect of performance. The distinction between the onstage and offstage worlds are clearly marked, and there is not even the slightest attempt to make what happens on the stage appear as if it is in real life. In thus continuously affirming its own theatricality, its artifice, or in being completely truthful to/about its own status as performance, Kutiyattam has been able to make full and constitutive use of all the possibilities of theatre, a feature that, in the final analysis, has also to be located in the space of the kūttampalam that enabled the culture of elaboration.

Notes 1 This does not include the kūttampalams built in the modern day or in nontemple premises, such as the ones at Kerala Kalamandalam, Cheruthuruthi, and at Vyloppilly Samskarika Nilayam, Trivandrum. It may also be mentioned that though they are called kūttampalams, their plans and designs depart considerably from the traditional one in temples. 2 Since the temples of Kerala are all oriented in an east–west direction, with the sanctum facing either east or west, the kūttampalams are either in the northwest or southeast corner of the temple precincts, which also happens to be the location of the kalaśattaṟa, the floor for purification rites. In temples where there are no kūttampalams, the kalaśattaṟa is located at that spot, and in temples where there are kūttampalams, the kalaśattaṟa is either inside or the kūttampalam is turned into a site for purification rites. 3 Though all that remains of the kūttampalam that stood at the Mahādēva Temple at Chengannur is its foundation, it appears to be an exception to the rectangular design because the foundation is apparently oval in shape. 4 Not all kūttampalams have raised audience spaces. For instance, at Muzhikkulam and Irinjalakkuda, the audience space is at the same level as the aisles around it.

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5 In being a structure within a structure, the kūttampalam stage is remarkably similar to the stages in the Noh theatres of Japan, which are also separate structures within the larger structure of the theatre. 6 These dimensions are based on the measurements of the Kuttamapalams at the Vaṭakkuṃnāthan Temple, Thrissur, the Kūṭalmāṇikyam Temple, Irinjalakkuda, and the Śrīkṛṣṇa Temple, Guruvayur. 7 Nampūtiri Brahmins, by virtue of their superior status in the caste hierarchy and in their capacity as the managers of the temple, had the right to sit on the stage. It also meant that they were prey to the biting sarcasm of the Vidūṣaka, who could indirectly but pointedly make fun of them, to which they could respond only in silence or by laughter. 8 Teyyam is a popular ritual art form of Northern Kerala. Comprising of dance, mime and music, it is performed in front of village shrines, in groves, on empty paddy fields and in the precincts of houses as part of ancestor worship. 9 The example given by Edward Ballard of the Japanese film Woman in the Dunes in his discussion of the perception of distance is of relevance here. According to Ballard, in the film, the camera is brought so close to the body of the actor that only a bit of sand-covered flesh is visible, so much so that the identity of the individual personage became ambiguous, remote and finally lost. In its place, something else was brought near and made clear (see Ballard, 2004, 38). In much the same way, in Kutiyattam, even as the totality of the stage recedes from view, something else – the actor’s body, especially the upper part – is brought closer and stands out in high relief. 10 The customary practice is that the stage lamp in the kūttampalam is lighted from the flame of the lamp in the sanctum sanctorum, making it a replication of the lamp placed before the figure of the deity, thereby investing the stage with the quality of being an extension of the sanctum and setting the performance as an offering, a visual sacrifice, to the presiding deity. 11 However, nowadays, there is a growing tendency to light up the stage with brighter electric lights, the effects of which will be discussed in the Conclusion. 12 In earlier days, there used to be the practice of actors staying in the temple premises during the entire duration of performance of an act, thereby ensuring that they remain in a state of purity, disassociated from the outside world. During such times, they are not informed even if polluting events, such as death or birth, happen in their family. 13 It is of significance that similar practices of attributing temporary Brahminhood can be seen in other instances too associated with the temple culture. For instance, when temples were being built, the carpenter and the brazier working on the sanctum sanctorum were given the right to wear sacred threads, which otherwise they were not permitted to do because of their lower-caste status. 14 Campus are maṇipravāḷam (a mixture of Sanskrit and Malayalam) compositions that use verse and prose alternately. 15 Translation drawn from Jones. (Ed.). 1984. The Wondrous Crest-Jewel in Performance, 64–65, with minor changes and additions, to bring out the full content of the text in Sanskrit. 16 As with most of the ślōkas used in the puṟappāṭ and nirvahaṇam, this puṟappāṭ ślōka is not part of the play text but is an addition for the purpose of performance, drawn from campus. 17 This follows a system of construing and ordering of Sanskrit text in the correct grammatical order, which shall be discussed in more detail in Chapter 4. 18 In this description, I have relied on three texts, the manuscript of the āṭṭaprakāram of Aśōkavanikāṅkam (1–7) in Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar’s possession,

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Venugopalan, 2009, 370–373 and Jones, 1984, 134, to ensure that a full representation is given of the procedures. 19 Drawn from the manuscript of the āṭṭaprakāram of Aśōkavanikāṅkam (8–9) in Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar’s possession, and Venugopalan. 2009, 373. The nature of these questions, especially the question form eṅṅane (How did/In what manner), clearly indicate that they are not merely cues to tell the previous story but self-invitations to enact the process/actions of previous events. 20 Though, generally this is the span covered in the nirvahaṇam, the kramadīpika does state that if needed it can go back up to the origins of the rākṣasa race (see Venugopalan, 2009, 376). Of course, this also means that Rāvaṇa’s nirvahaṇam will be much longer than the eight days it usually takes. 21 Drawn from the manuscript of the āṭṭaprakāram of Aśōkavanikāṅkam (8–9) in Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar’s possession and Venugopalan. 2009, 374. 22 Drawn from the manuscript of the āṭṭaprakāram of Aśōkavanikāṅkam (9–68) in Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar’s possession and Venugopalan. 2009, 374–402. 23 This variation of spelling – kūṭi-āṭṭam – is employed here to indicate that it refers to the enactment of the text by two or more actors together and that it is different from Kutiyattam, the name of the form. 24 Puṣpaka Vimāna is the aerial chariot that belonged to Vaiśravaṇa. 25 Some features of the discourse of the āṭṭaprakārams are worth mentioning here. First, they are in the form of instructions to the actors and primarily comprise imperative sentences and phrases. Second, there is no distinction drawn between the actor and the character, so much so that the actions and time frames of the two are also not distinguished. The rationale for this is that the āṭṭaprakārams are ultimately manuals that detail the physical and verbal actions of the actor in the linear order of their appearance in performance. Third, almost as if in support of the second feature, the subject is not mentioned in many instructions, only the action/verb is. Fourth, the words of the character and his actions are both presented in the same discursive modality, with the minor difference that for actions the descriptor “kāṭṭi” (is shown) is added. (Here, in this translation, however, to avoid confusion, the actions are placed in parenthesis.) 26 I am indebted to Killimangalam Vasudevan Nambudiripad, scholar and connoisseur, for this insight. 27 Anandavardhana (c. 820–890 CE) was the author of Dhvanyālōka, (The World of Suggestion), a work articulating the philosophy of “aesthetic suggestion” (dhvani, vyañjanā). For him, dhvani was the soul, or essence, of poetry. 28 Prabandham kūttu, the allied verbal narrative form that tells stories from the purāṇas and is performed by Cākyārs, also use verses from the campus. In fact, textual evidence, such as references to the stage and to audiences, indicates that many of the campus were composed for the express purpose of performance (see Freeman, 2003, 476–477). 29 Prabandhams are either cantos within the campus or shorter compositions that follow the same style as the campus. 30 David Shulman terms it “exchanging roles,” which, though not an exact translation, catches the substance of the convention (see Shulman, 2012). 31 The roots of such an interpretative method can be traced to the pedagogic systems of Sanskrit as practiced in Kerala, particularly in the ōttu śālais of the temples, which had a tremendous influence on the acting methods of Kutiyattam, as also the fact that most of the audience in the kūttampalam comprised people trained in such ōttu śālais. This aspect is addressed in much greater detail in Chapter 6.

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32 The word “haptics” was earlier used in psychology and linguistics to refer to the study of touch and tactile sensations as a means of communication. The 20thcentury discussions of haptic in art and art history have their origin in the writings of Alois Riegl, an Austrian art historian, who tried to develop a method of thinking about art based on the spectator’s relation to works of art, and Walter Benjamin’s ideas on the mimetic faculty which saw imitation as a form of invoking sensuous similarity or correspondence between one’s body and the world ([1999] 2005, 720). By the last decades of the 20th century, the concept of the haptic came to be more widely employed as part of what has come to be called the “sensorial turn” in anthropology, sociology, art history and particularly film studies, which partakes of an underlying phenomenological approach that views experience and perception as primarily embodied. 33 Marks refers to the short film, I Wet My Hands Etched and Surveyed Vessels Approaching Marks Eyed Inside by Roula Haj-Ismail, an artist from Lebanon. Depicting the war experiences of the artist and her grandmother, a Palestinian, it attempts to give form to the inner scars of both the artist and the artist’s grandmother by exploring the visible scars on people and buildings. However, this film does not show destroyed buildings or huge debris, as most other war films do. On the contrary, Haj-Ismail’s camera treats them “like bodies,” getting very close to every gunshot mark on the walls, “caressing the buildings, searching the corners of shutters and stone-latticed windows like folds of skin.” These “exterior scars” are then juxtaposed with “the close up of a woman’s fingers, her red-enamelled nails, repeatedly pressing into her caesarean scar” (Marks, 2000, 157). Here, two kinds of tactile experience are invoked and paired. One is a direct sense of touch through the fingers of the artist and the act of pressing them against the scar of her body. The other is a sense of “touching with the eye” the marks on the building through a tight close up shot. As Marks states, they “appeal to embodied memory by bringing vision as close as possible to the image; by converting vision to touch.” (Marks, 2000, 159). 34 For a detailed description of the scene, see Iyer, 1995, 199. 35 Another famous example would be Śikhinīśalabham, a segment of the first act of Subhadrādhanañjayam by Kulasekhara Varman, where Dhanañjaya describes the calm and peaceful atmosphere of a hermitage through a poetic image in which even the flies are said to be unhurt by the flames as they flit around the fire (see Unni and Sullivan, 2001, 136). The actor elaborately enacts the movements of the flies, first solely with the movements of his eyes and then afterwards through gestures, to the accompaniment of eye movements and facial expressions. 36 The interlude act in Abhiṣēkanāṭakam (The Coronation Play), attributed to Bhasa. 37 Depicting the final battle between Bhīma and Duryōdhana, and Duryōdhana’s death, Ūrubhaṅgam [The Shattered Thigh] is considered the only tragedy of Sanskrit drama. 38 The first act of Abhiṣēkanāṭakam (The Coronation Play), attributed to Bhasa.

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4 PERFORMANCE TIME Digressions and dissonance

Theatre is implicated in time. It comes into being in time, exists in time and disappears into time. All the while, when a theatre performance is on, there is the abiding knowledge that its “only life is in the present” (Phelan, [1993] 2005, 146), that it must come to an end, that it shall cease to be, that it can never be repeated and that if and when it does return, it will never be the same again. This fact of “liveness” is the source at once of the enduring charm of theatre and also of its greatest sorrow. At the same time, beyond all differences of culture, language and geography, all theatre is also about time: what happens in time, the inexorable passage of time and the inevitable changes that time brings in its wake. Though unambiguously about the now, it is also about what has been and what is to be. Situating itself in a particular present it reaches out to diverse pasts and futures; its presence is inescapably inscribed by the times that have elapsed and the times yet to come. With this intricate interplay of past, present and future, the theatre is also the site for the most subtle and complex employments of time and its varied representational possibilities. Probably more than any other form of art or expression, theatre is host to the most elaborate kinds of play with time effects, such as shifts in pace and tempo, flows and suspensions, leaps forward and backward, condensation and extension, repetition and rewinding and so on. All these varied “time-games” arise by virtue of the presence and interaction in theatre of different time frames that, even as they co-exist, are in divergence from one another and sometimes even in conflict. The gaps, overlaps and interstices between these different time frames are what theatre thrives on to turn itself into a meeting ground for different time worlds and time schemes. In this sense, it may not be amiss to say that, just as theatre is implicated in time, time is implicated in the theatre too.

Time frames in theatre Even as there have been several classifications of time frames in theatre, at the most fundamental level, it is generally accepted that there are two 125

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primary time frames operative in any theatre: chronological real time and fictive dramatic time. The first – the objective, real time – is the one in which the actors and audience come together and make the theatrical event possible. It is the time of general human activity and is based on the clock; a time that inexorably moves forward; the pace, tempo and course of which cannot be adjusted or altered in any manner through human intervention. It is in this time that a theatrical event begins, proceeds, and comes to its inevitable end. It is a time that can never be returned to or repeated; it is the time of the present that dies even as it takes life and disappears into the misty shadows of the irrecoverable past. One may carry a memory of it or even a recording, but it is a time that can never be brought back into life again. At the same time, it is in this real time that the actors and spectators are located, in their primary ontological state. As such, it functions as the underlying foundation for all the other time frames and time schemes in theatre, providing them with their distinctive identities by virtue of their correspondence with it or their difference or divergence from it. The second, the fictive dramatic time, is the time frame in which the story unfolds and the characters exist and engage in their actions. It is a time that can be similar or even identical to the objective real time, as in the case of plays that are about contemporary life or completely different from it as when the play is situated in another time in the past or the future. Whether identical to or different from real time, unlike real time, the course of fictive time can move forward or backward and at a pace and tempo that may correspond with that of real time or is at variance from it. There may be jumps and leaps as well as condensation or extension as the situation requires. These traits of fictive time are made possible by the fact that, as Brian Richardson observes, there are effectively two time schemes within fictive time itself, in terms of the “analytical foci” assumed, viz. “story time” and “text time” (1987, 299–309). While the first refers to the specific historical or mythic time of the overall narrative and the course of that time, the second denotes the way in which the story time is represented in a particular play text, whether it is part or whole, following the same order of events in the story time or altering it, or pursuing the same forward course or punctuated by backward detours, and so on. Richardson also writes of a third time scheme, “stage time” (1987, 308), to indicate the actual duration of a play in objective, real time, say, the two and a half hours that it takes for a usual realistic play to be enacted on stage, or the several nights over which a Kutiyattam performance unfolds. However, this stage time is best considered as a subset of objective, real time because it is that time that is shared by the actors and spectators in a common, mutually fulfilling pursuit and makes theatre possible. As Wilshire suggests, However strange or remote be the “time” of the play’s world, it can be enacted only within the time in which the actors and audience agree to be gathered together within the theatre’s space, that 126

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is, only within the world’s time. “Time” and time, “world” and world, actors and audience, must intersect. This is the encounter which is theatre. (1982, 22) Parallel to and distinct from the previous two primary time frames, there is in theatre another crucial structure of temporality that manifests itself in the actual phenomenon of performance. This is the “theatrical” temporal frame which is based on and builds upon the dramatic time, but which at the same time is distinct from it in that it is not a time structured by the text of the play but a time that unfolds on the stage in and through the actions of the actors/characters. It may also be termed as “performative time” not only because it comes into being in the concrete context of the performance but also because, as Mathew Wagner so rightly points out, this time is “cast in terms of its performative mechanics” (Wagner, 2012, 21). It is the procedures, conventions and techniques of performance, more than those of the text, which makes this distinct time possible along with the particular time schemes and variations that appear as part of it on stage. It can be seen that performative time is a special deployment of dramatic time, more specifically the text time, whereby the sequence, succession, pace, speed and tempo of dramatic time is manipulated and made to appear different from both objective, chronological time as well as the fictional, dramatic time. It is almost like another time frame within dramatic time but which is at odds with it; a “time that is out of joint” (Richardson, 1987, 299). In some instances, it holds the dramatic time in suspension so that journeys can be made to other times and spaces. In other instances, it extends, spreads out, or stretches a segment of the dramatic time to impart greater visibility and added significance to an event, scene, or action that may otherwise not receive such attention. In yet other instances, it condenses the dramatic time to a fraction of its length and increases the pace of its course to several multiples. However, irrespective of the variation that performative time engages in, clock time (and dramatic time) is always present as an invisible layer underneath it, and it is with reference or comparison to it that the performative time appears to be condensed, extended, discordant, faster, slower or “normal,” as the case may be. This, in fact, is the source of the dual nature of theatrical time; while on the one hand theatrical, performative time constitutes the primary experience of theatre both for the actor as well as the spectator, on the other its particular quality and tenor is experienced in terms of an implied, but intensely felt, reference to real time. There are several techniques through which the theatrical, performative time marks itself different from both chronological time and dramatic time. Probably the most prevalent method, and the one common to almost all forms of theatre, are the twin techniques of condensation and extension. On a preliminary level, it will be apparent that in most theatrical cultures, given the 127

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limited – most often culturally prescribed – time available for the staging, it is in the nature of performance to condense the events and the actions represented for the sake of brevity and aesthetic focus. When, from within a large series of possible, random events available, a specific set of events and actions are culled out and brought together in terms of an internal logic of interrelationship and progression, an obvious compression – even abbreviation – of time is inevitable. It is to this feature of theatrical condensation that Bert O’States refers when he observes rather poetically, “A play plucks human experience from time and offers an aesthetic completion to a process we know to be endless. The play imitates the timely in order to remove it from time, to give time a shape” (1985, 50). In a more prosaic tone, Irwin Smith also refers to the unequal ratio between the duration of the events on the stage and the duration of the events to which they refer, by citing Dr Alfred Hennequin’s general rule of thumb that “the supposed duration of events upon the stage is about five or six times as long as the actual period occupied by the representation.” Even as Smith admits that there are cases which exceed this 6:1 ratio, Shakespeare’s plays being an instance, he also recognizes that “some acceleration of time is, of course, an inevitable and desirable attribute of theatrical representation, even in the most realistic of modern plays” (1969, 65). While this is largely true with most of the Western dramatic tradition, it must also be acknowledged that along with variations in this ratio there are exceptions as well, where the ratio may indeed be the other way around, especially in some non-Western traditions. In the case of Noh-gaku and Kutiyattam, even as condensation is a necessary feature of the text time and story time, when it comes to performative time, it will be evident that most often it is extension at work, if not over the entire length of performance, at least in segments, where the actual period taken for the stage representation may indeed be much longer than the supposed duration of the events to which it refers. Either way, whether it is condensation or extension, speeding up or slowing down, the variable pace of time in theatre makes the experience of theatre also a manifest experience of time, or as Wagner puts it, “it presences time” (2012, 26) in such a manner that time is made opaque and its passage is made to be palpably felt. Two further features of theatrical, performative time, as Wagner points out, are dissonance and thickness. In dissonance, “the commonsensical conception of time as linear receives some pointed challenges,” and the established uni-directionality of chronological time, the mundane acceptance that it inexorably flows forward along a singular line, is quite often problematized, and performative time comes to be structured in non-linear, multidirectional manners (Wagner, 2012, 26). Even as there are several forms of temporal dissonance, the technique of flashback profitably employed in many theatre traditions – and in some rare instances, the flash forward too – is probably the most manifest demonstration of non-linearity and dissonance in performative time. Here, within the present of the dramatic time, 128

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a different time scheme is introduced, that of the past or the future, which even as it is situated in the dramatic time functions as a scheme within a scheme and works according to an entirely different logic of space, direction and pace. It is also usually a subjective time, in that it is brought in through the agency of a character, as his/her experience, in the form of memory, imagination or even fantasy. These forms of temporal dissonance, where two distinct times are juxtaposed with each other, “giving both past and future more of a ‘presence’ in the immediate now of the stage event” also alerts us to what Wagner terms the “amplified thickness or density” (2012, 28) that characterizes theatrical time. The presence of both past and future in the immediate now of the stage event, or in other words the overlaying of the stage present by both the past and the future, imparts theatrical time with a multi-layeredness, a greater density, wherein the three phases of time move out of the sequential linearity that imprisons them in chronological time and assume a simultaneity that inscribes both the earlier and the later within the “now” of the stage. Even as there are variations and play in the fictive and theatrical time frames as seen earlier, since these three primary time frames  – objective/ chronological time, fictive/dramatic time and theatrical/performative time – unfold parallel to one another in any theatre performance, there is also an inherent tendency in most theatrical cultures to make them correspond to one another and to the spectator’s general sense of real time and its normal pace of progression. The much-criticized notion of the “unity of time” is a clear expression of this tendency. It is this opposite pull towards what may be called a “day-to-day sense of time” that seems to function as a check on the manipulation of theatrical time and restrains it within certain accepted limits established by convention and culture. At the same time, a closer look will also evince that theatres and performance forms in which there is greater onus on the actor’s craft and larger potential for him/her to engage in the histrionics of the stage, there is a greater scope for the performative time to be discordant, both in its course as well as its pace, with both the objective and the dramatic time. The fact that in operatic forms, where there is much greater presence of music and dance, the performative time tends to be much more protracted and its pace much slower than that of normal time is evidence to this. What is of crucial significance here is that the apparent impression of verisimilitude is less a result of the faithful depiction of objects and actions of real life than a faithful reproduction of a pace and tempo of action that appears to correspond closely to the sense of real time of the audience. The more realistic a performance is, the closer it will be to the tempo of day-to-day life; even the most faithful reproduction of a real life action, if carried out at a pace that is at radical variance from that of real life, will appear to be non-realistic. And, as a corollary to the earlier discussion, it also obtains that it is in those performance forms in which verisimilitude is less of a concern and there is greater emphasis on the diverse 129

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potentialities of performance that we get to witness a greater presence of temporal discordance, dissonance, thickness and so on.

Time in phenomenology The subjective, dissonant and thick nature of performative time clearly situates it within the paradigms of the phenomenological understanding of time. Even at the risk of repetition, if one may recapitulate what was stated in Chapter 1, theatre and performance are the proper provinces of phenomenology, being spheres grounded in conscious experience. It is not what things really are but what they appear to be that is important in theatre, and the “the world as given in experience” quality of theatre and performance makes them natural candidates for phenomenological analysis. Still more, that phenomenology itself is a “theatrum philosophicum” (Haas, 2003, 73), which considers the perception of the world to be an act or a series of acts, and that from Husserl to Merleau-Ponty there is a recurrent tendency to look at theatre and the theatrical experience as resources for the phenomenological enterprise only adds to the relevance. It then comes as no surprise that there is a close affinity between the temporal practices of the theatre and the ways in which temporality is understood in phenomenology. For phenomenologists, especially Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, the present was not separate from the past and the future. They rejected the objective view of time based on clocks and calendars, institutionalized in the objective sciences and linear historiography, which saw time as a unidimensional, linear row of “nows” that stretch backward and forward to infinity and through which one can move only in one direction: forward. Time, in such a view, is an empty receptacle that is filled, or can be filled, by a series of unconnected, atomistic moments. In this common-sense conception, the past is that which has ceased to be present (the “no-longer-now”), the future that which is yet to be present (the “yet-to-be-now”), and the present itself a momentary slice of time that irrevocably slips into the past the very moment it manifests itself. However, this Newtonian view of time as a series of past, present and future moments considered as “things” or as containers for “things,” or as sequential points on an imagined “timeline,” is rejected by Husserl (1991, 52). For Husserl, the present, past, and future are modes of appearing or modes by which we experience things and events as now, as no longer (past) or not yet (future). It is consciousness that makes the present “present,” and it is the work of consciousness that brings together a number of separate, unconnected moments – “nows” – into a continuity and imparts connections among them. In other words, there is no objective, autonomous present – or time – apart from the consciousness of it, it is only through conscious perception that the present becomes the present. One knows time only as present, and it is as two dimensions/states of the “living present” that one comes to know of the past and the future. It 130

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is by retention – the keeping hold of that which was perceived immediately before – and protention – the anticipation of what is about to be perceived – and by joining them with the primal impressions of what is perceived now that a continuity is constructed by consciousness within the past, present and future (Husserl, 1991, 30–32). As Robert J. Dostal succinctly describes this view: We experience time primarily as the present “now.” Yet it is important to see how fundamentally significant for Husserl is the rejection of the “objective” view of time as a punctilinear row of “nows” that stretch both back and forward to infinity and constitute a one-dimensional line, the objective time line. In contrast with this one-dimensional view, Husserl offers us a three-dimensional view. The present, for him, is not the non-dimensional point of the instantaneous now. Rather, we might say that the present is “thick” to the extent that, within the present, we find both the past and the future; that is, we find all three dimensions of time. Any present moment, according to Husserl, has what he calls “retentive” and “protentive” aspects. In other words, any moment is what it is in virtue of what it retains of the past (retention) and what it anticipates of the future (protention). (1993, 146) At the same time, it also needs to be pointed out that, though he does refer to protention and the anticipation of future perception, Husserl’s primary emphasis was on retention and the perception of the past. In this, he draws a structural distinction between memory and retention when he discusses the perception of things that are no longer now. The former is an active, mediated, objectifying awareness of a past object, while the latter is a passive, immediate, non-objectifying, conscious awareness of the just-elapsed phase of conscious experience. While memory provides a “consciousness of the [instant] that has been” (1991, 339), retention “designates the intentional relation of phase of consciousness to phase of consciousness” (1991, 346), that is, a “consciousness of the past of the [experience]” (1991, 336) and thereby the instant of the object that has been. In other words, memory is an act of presenting something as past, as absent, whereas retention attempts to account for the perception of an object over time and constitutes an intuition of that which has just passed and is now absent and thus becomes an act of presenting something as a unity in succession. Husserl actually identifies three different levels of temporality: world time or objective time, immanent or subjective time and the consciousness of internal time. World time or objective time is the time of clocks and calendars, the time that belongs to worldly processes and events. Objective time is public and verifiable; a clock can be used to measure exactly how long a process takes, and we will all agree on the measurement. The time so measured 131

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is located in the world, in the common space we all inhabit. However, our assessments and measurements at the level of objective time, such as perceiving events as longer or shorter, or things as concurrent or sequential, at the level of objective time is made possible only because we experience a succession of mental states in our subjective conscious life. Our awareness of objective time thus depends upon our awareness at the second level, that of immanent, subjective time. This subjective time has to do with the “duration and sequence of mental acts and experiences, the events of conscious life” (Sokolowski, 2000, 130). Intentional acts and experiences follow one another, and we also call back certain earlier experiences through memory. The way intentions and feelings are temporally ordered, both in regard to one another and in regard to present experiences, takes place in this internal time. There are sequences in internal time, since one activity or experience can be before, after, or concurrent with another, but such sequences and durations are not measured by world time because internal time is not public, but private. The third level is the consciousness of internal, subjective time. “The second level is inner temporality, but this third level is the awareness of or the consciousness of such internal temporality” (Sokolowski, 2000, 131). We are aware of subjective time as a unity across a succession of mental states because, through the acts of retention and protention, the consciousness of internal time provides a consciousness of succession that makes possible the apprehension and unification of successive mental states. Following Husserl, Heidegger also distances his view of temporality from all common-sense notions of time as a series of “nows,” the past as “no-longer-now” and the future as “not-yet-now.” However, departing significantly from Husserl, Heidegger went further and linked not just consciousness, but being – Dasein – to time. The right question according to him is not “What is time?” but “How does time come into existence?” or “How does time act?” For Heidegger, Dasein is being in the world, a being with goals and projects towards which it comports itself or towards which it stretches out. This practical aspect of being makes it necessary for it to engage in actions such as perceiving, moving, doing and so on. First, the fact that Dasein is “thrown into a world” and is characterized by certain prior dispositions implies a “pastness” to being. Second, that it projects itself in goal-driven actions implies a futurity to being. And, thirdly, since Dasein is busy with the world in the effort to fulfil the present tasks required by the goals that define the projects, it implies a “presentness” to being (Blattner, 1999, 103). However, at the same time, since such projects towards which it stretches itself are what ultimately define Dasein, it is fundamentally futural in its intentional directedness toward the world. These practices or projects not only define each moment of the life of being, but each such moment – or the lived experience of it – comes into being in them. Hence, according to Heidegger, there is no time that is outside or beyond us, and “time is not something that occurs somewhere externally as a framework for worldly 132

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occurrences” (Heidegger, 1985, 442). On the other hand, it is through being that time comes into existence, and hence, being itself is temporal: “Dasein, conceived in its extreme possibility of being, is time itself, not in time” (Heidegger, 1992, 19; emphasis in original). The crucial difference between Husserl and Heidegger is that while the former underlined the retentional side of the life of consciousness because the primary question on which he focused was that of cognition which builds up over time, the latter emphasized the protentional or futural side of the subject because his attention was principally on being and its goal-driven practical activity. With Merleau-Ponty, even as he enlarged upon both Husserl’s and Heidegger’s postulations on the relation between time and subjectivity, he attributed a special quality to that relationship in keeping with his focus on the embodied subject. Developing Heidegger’s notion of Dasein as “beingin-the-world,” Merleau-Ponty posited the being as its bodily comportment and saw the body as an essentially intentional element of the time-related subject. By thus attributing intentionality to the body itself, he construes time and the embodied subjectivity as being indivisibly interconnected. Time then ceases to be an external phenomenon and an object of our knowledge pursuit. On the contrary, time is an aspect of our very being, and we can neither place time inside the subject nor the subject inside time. Hence, according to him, it is not that “time is for someone” but that “time is someone,” and that “we must understand time as the subject and the subject as time” ([1962] 2005, 490). Equally importantly, not only in acceptance of Husserl’s ideas but also by virtue of his understanding of time as the embodied subject, Merleau-Ponty also rejects the common-sense notion of an autonomous, sequential time that is external to us, and establishes a notion of time in which the past and the future are co-present in the present. As he states, Time is, therefore, not a real process, not an actual succession that I am content to record. It arises from my relation to things. Within things themselves, the future and the past are in a kind of eternal state of pre-existence and survival; the water which will flow by tomorrow is at this moment at its source, the water which has just passed is now a little further downstream in the valley. What is past or future for me is present in the world. . . . Past and future exist only too unmistakably in the world, they exist in the present. ([1962] 2005, 478) Further still, he argues that just as the past and future exist in the present, the present is an undeniable dimension of past and future and that the present exists equally in the past and the future: each present reasserts the presence of the whole past which it supplants, and anticipates all that is to come, and by definition the 133

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present is not shut up within itself, but transcends itself towards a future and a past. . . . There is a temporal style of the world, and time remains the same because the past is a former future and a recent present, the present an impending past and a recent future, the future a present and even a past to come. ([1962] 2005, 488–490) The relevance of these phenomenological theories of time for the theatre cannot be overstated. The phenomenological definition of time as subjective and relational and hence non-sequential and non-linear, and its understanding of the present as “thick” with both past and future are germane to the very practice and experience of theatre. As Wagner puts it succinctly, temporal dissonance  – two distinct times juxtaposed with each other – underlines the beginning (past) and end (future) of theatrical performance, giving both past and future more of a “presence” in the immediate now of the stage. . . . (T)he theatre sharpens our retentive and protentive faculties: we retain more of the beginning of the theatrical world, and are instructed to anticipate more of its end. (2012, 29)

Time frames in Kutiyattam When we come to Kutiyattam, the different time frames and schemes, as well as the variations and manipulations of time in them, are so intrinsically linked to the space of performance, the kūttampalam, and the culture of proximal viewing and the elaborative method of acting that has evolved in it, that it would be no exaggeration to state that time becomes an aspect of space in Kutiyattam. In other words, time and space become part of the same experiential continuum; they are interdependent and mutually reinforcing in Kutiyattam. The objective, real time in which Kutiyattam performances take place is governed primarily by the contextual location of the kūttampalam, which is the temple complex. The ritual structures and timetables of the temple dictate to a great extent when the performances take place. On a preliminary level, with regard to calendrical scheduling, or the days/dates on which performances are fixed, it needs to be noted that there are three types of performances: aṭiyantarakkūttu, vaḻipāṭukūttu, and kāḻcakkūttu (Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, 1995a, 33). The first, aṭiyantarakkūttu, or obligatory performances, are regular annual affairs held according to a prefixed schedule in the annual calendar of temple activities, whereby 134

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certain dates of the Malayalam year1 are allotted for the performance of Kutiyattam, prabandham kūttu, the allied verbal narrative form in which the Cākyār tells stories drawn from the epics and the purāṇas, employing the role, conventions and techniques of the Vidūṣaka of Kutiyattam, and Naṅṅyārkūttu, the sister form which features solo performances of Naṅṅyārs. Most often they coincide with the festival season of the temple concerned and extend from as short as 3 days to as long as 41 days. Usually, there will also be an established convention by which plays are selected each year, with some temples having only certain specific plays being performed and some others according certain plays more importance. For instance, at the Kūṭalmāṇikyam Temple at Irinjalakuda, every year performances will commence from Tiruvōṇam day in the month of Iṭavam (May–June), with there being 28 days of prabandham kūttu first, then 12 days of Aṅgulīyāṅkam, followed by the enactment of a Kutiyattam act that may last up to 9 days. In the same manner, at Tirumūḻikkuḷam Temple, performances start at the time of saṅkramaṇam2 in the month of Vriścikam (November–December) with the puṟappāṭ, followed by Bālacaritam for 9 days, and from the 11th day the Kutiyattam of an act of a play as decided by the chief priest of the temple will be enacted until the 41st day (Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, 1995a, 35). The second type, vaḻipāṭukūttu, comprises votive offerings to the deity most often in prayer or thanksgiving for some auspicious event, such as a wedding, issue of progeny, etc. When such offerings are made by devotees, performances are held on the earliest days convenient to both the temple and the performers. In temples where Śiva is the man deity, Mattavilāsam, Mantrāṅkam and Aṅgulīyāṅkam are usually performed, while in temples where forms of Vishnu are the main deities, prominence is given to Aṅgulīyāṅkam. A  notable feature of vaḻipāṭukūttu performances is that, unlike regular performances, they usually commence in the morning and end at night, with some special attendant features. The third type, kāḻcakkūttu, or performances for seeing, as the name suggests, are not part of the annual calendar or a votive offering, but specially commissioned performances primarily for the sake of viewing by audiences. Usually, they coincide with the festivals of temples, but not necessarily, and hence whenever such a commission is given the dates are fixed taking into account the convenience of both the temple and the performers (see Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, 1995a, 33). In addition, there used to be a practice of performing all the three Rāmāyaṇa plays – Āścaryacūdāmaṇi, Abhiṣēkanāṭakam, and Pratimānāṭakam – together, with their acts intermingled and strung together in sequential fashion in the chronological order of their position in the story. Altogether, 21 acts had to be performed, and it took an entire year to complete the entire performance. In such instances, an auspicious day is fixed for the start, and the performances then continue for the whole year (see Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, 1995a, 34). 135

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As for the time of day when performances are conducted, it is usually at night when the main part of the temple is closed to devotees and there are no ritual services at the sanctum. Stagings usually start around 10 p.m., after the attāḻa pūja (“the supper offering” – the final ritual service of the day) is concluded, and they are of variable length, differing from night to night, depending on the sections to be transacted each night as laid down in the āṭṭaprakārams. However, the length of each night’s performance as stipulated in the āṭṭaprakāram is also ruled by the consideration that they should end before the temple opens in the wee hours of the morning for its first services for the next day. In a similar manner, performances of prabandham kūttu are conducted during the afternoon, in the interim between the afternoon and the evening services. No doubt, this temporal arrangement of performances is part of the general pattern of sequential scheduling of events in the temple, with no event encroaching into the time of another, especially of the ritual practices connected with the deity and the sanctum, as also an indication of the scheme of priority among the events, with the daily ritual services of the temple being of the highest precedence. At the same time, there is also a common belief in the lore of Kutiyattam that, with the stage of the kūttampalam always facing the sanctum, the resident deity is also a silent spectator, a witness, to the performance, which naturally leads to the scheduling of performances to those hours of the night when the deity is not otherwise occupied. There are also some exceptions to the general rule, but which again are bounden to the locational aspects of the performance. As mentioned, vaḻipāṭukūttu are usually held during the day, from morning to night, coinciding with the time that the sanctum is open to devotees. This is primarily because of the ritual practice of the Cākyār, playing such roles as that of Vidūṣaka in Mattavilāsam and Hanumān in Aṅgulīyāṅkam, having the right to leave the kūttampalam after the puṟappāṭ on the day of commencement of the performance, go to the temple accompanied by the Nampyār holding a kuttuviḷakku (hand-held hanging lamp) in his hands and the Naṅṅyār, climb the steps to the sanctum, ring the bell hung outside its door, and pray directly to the deity. This extension of a privilege usually reserved only for Brahmins, particularly the priest at the temple, is yet another aspect of the “investiture of a temporary ‘Brahminhood’ on the Cākyār, purely for the time of performance” mentioned in Chapter 3. As for the stage time, the actual duration of a play in real time, there are effectively two levels at which this operates. First is the time taken for performing an entire act of a play, which as we have seen is spread over several nights, with different acts taking different time lengths depending on the material to be enacted in each. For instance, in the play Āścaryacūdāmaṇi, the first act, Parṇaśālāṅkam takes 16 days to complete, Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam takes 7, Māyāsītāṅkam takes 15, Jaṭāyuvadhāṅkam takes 7, Aśōkavanikāṅkam takes 18, Aṅgulīyāṅkam takes 12 and Agnipravēśāṅkam takes 13. If the play were to be staged in its entirety, it would take a total of 89 days to 136

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complete. The second level is the duration of a single night’s performance, which again, as we have seen, ranges from one to six hours. This protracted length of performance is undoubtedly a direct result of the culture of elaboration that has evolved inside the kūttampalam. At the same time, it is also related to the culture of leisure that defined the life of the temple community in general and its Brahmin leaders in particular, an important facet of the performance culture of Kutiyattam which will be examined in detail in Chapter 5 on the cultural space of the kūttampalam. As we have seen, the fictive or dramatic time, the time frame in which the story unfolds and the characters exist and engage in their actions, have two aspects to it: the story time and the text time. Since a large majority of plays in the primary repertoire of Kutiyattam draws upon Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata or the purāṇas, the story time can be generally described as mythic or purāṇic time. For instance, Pratimānāṭakam (The Statue Play), Abhiṣēkanāṭakam (The Coronation Play), and Āścaryacūdāmaṇi (The Wondrous Crest Jewel) are based on Rāmāyaṇa; Subhadrādhanañjayam (The Wedding of Subhadra and Dhanañjaya), Kalyāṇasaugandhikam (The Auspicious Flower), Tapatīsaṃvaraṇam (Tapati and King Saṃvaraṇa) and Abhijñānaśākuntaḷam (The Recognition of Śakuntaḷa) are based on Mahābhārata and Bālacaritam (The Story of Childhood [of Kṛṣṇa]) draws upon Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Even the exceptions in the repertoire, such as Svapnavāsavadattam (The Vision of Vāsavadatta), Pratijñāyaugandharāyanam (The Minister’s Vow) and Nāgānandam (The Joy of Snakes), partake of a similar culture of mythic, purāṇic time because they draw their stories from Bṛhatkatha (The Great Narrative), an ancient Indian epic composed by Guṇāḍhya in the 3rd century CE or earlier and considered to be the source for several later works, such as Somadeva’s Kathāsaritsāgara (Ocean of the Streams of Stories) and Kshemendra’s Bṛhatkathāmañjari (Collection of Great Stories) of the 11th century. Only the satirical farces Mattavilāsa Prahasanam (The Farce of the Drunken Monk) and Bhagavadajjukīyam (The Sage and the Harlot) belong to a different structure of story time since they deal with a time of contestation between Brahminism and Buddhism, but even they are situated in a past distant enough to be termed quasi-mythical, if not purāṇic. This temporal distancing and the mythic quality of the story time, which characterizes almost all the plays of Kutiyattam, are of immense import for its performance culture. The fact that the characters and themes are of a different, higher order from that of the spectators and the actors, reflected visually in the emblematic costumes and make-up characterized by their exaggerated colours and shapes, makes the plays fundamentally non-realistic and other-worldly. Functionally, the story time frame draws a clear distinction between the ordinary, mundane world of the spectators and the world represented on the stage, thereby evoking awe and acceptance of even the most fantastic situations and the most improbable of actions. 137

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The text time of Kutiyattam – the particular manner in which the story time is represented in the play text, along with its order and course of events  – is a more complex affair. The observations made in the previous chapter regarding the shift from a playwright’s theatre to an actor’s theatre and, as a consequence, the play text becoming a pretext for the exhibition of the actor’s prowess are both of deep import to the text time. With the onus primarily on the actor’s craft, there is little respect shown to the time frame and time schemes of the play text as conceived by the playwright. Such liberties are taken with the text and its time schemes that the text time is almost entirely usurped by the performance time. At the very outset, the move away from the play as a totality and the staging of individual acts as stand-alone pieces constitute a fundamental rejection of the larger time frame of the play as a whole as conceived by the playwright. Coupled with this, the convention of the nirvahaṇam, the exposition of the pre-story where all the events that preceded the beginning of the act are enumerated from the perspectives of different major characters in both reverse chronological and chronological orders, including not only the events that are featured in the previous acts but also those that are from much earlier pasts, subverts not only the integrity of that particular section of story time that is represented in the text but also the order and course of events that it follows. Though the text time of the particular act being staged comes into bearing in the kūṭi-āṭṭam, the part of the performance procedure where the actual play text is enacted, even there the textual time schemes get challenged and undermined due to the culture of elaboration. With the actors being at liberty to elaborate and prolong any segment, event, or textual feature that provides them with an opportunity to exhibit their performative skills, interpolations in the form of descriptions, elaborations, explanations and interpretations become the order of the day, subverting not only the form of the text time but also the course and pace of its progression. As a result, condensation, which is generally a facet of almost all theatres and indeed also of the play texts of Kutiyattam, is generally rejected in practice, and the performative emphasis comes to be laid almost exclusively on extension. The inevitable consequence is that the stage representation may actually turn out to be much longer than the supposed duration of the events and action referred to, a feature that will be further discussed in the next section in connection with the manipulations of performance time.

Performance time in Kutiyattam It is when we come to performance time, the time that unfolds on the stage in and through the actions of the actors/characters, that we witness the most manifest temporal effects of the unique space and ways of seeing of the kūttampalam. It is also this experiential time that imparts to the Kutiyattam 138

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performance its hallmark quality and distinguishes it from most other performance forms and styles. The first thing that a newcomer to Kutiyattam will invariably notice is the pace of its performance: the exceptionally slow, unhurried manner in which the performance progresses. This, more than anything else, is a direct result of the circumscribed space and the proximal ways of seeing that unfold in it. When looked at from very close quarters it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the same pace of actions as in real life. Since, in proximal viewing, it is not easy to follow quick movements and visually capture them with clarity, even the most ordinary, daily-life actions, movements and gestures will have to be performed at a deliberately slow pace that makes them visually graspable. When the pace of action is so slowed down, what it opens is the opportunity, even necessity, to bring out those finer, minute aspects of each movement and gesture that may go unnoticed and even unperformed at a faster pace. As explained in Chapter 3, with the light being circumscribed to a small area, larger movements are curtailed and the actor fixed to one location. Coupled with the proximal viewing of the spectator, this lack of motion opens doors to the enactment of subtle detail through eye movements, facial expressions, and minute variations in hand gestures, all of which can be executed by the actor and perceived by the spectator only when there is relative lack of larger movement and a slowing of the tempo of enactment. In fact, time is being stretched or extended here. Just as, when looked at through a microscope, a particular area is magnified and those aspects of it that are latently present but cannot be seen in ordinary sight comes to be offered up to sight, time is magnified and expanded in proximal viewing, and those minute features of actions that would otherwise go unseen at the normal speed of ordinary life come to be performed and seen with clarity. Though about a vastly different technical and aesthetic context, Walter Benjamin’s comment on the device of the slow motion in movies is of tremendous relevance here: With the close-up, space expands; with slow motion, movement is extended. The enlargement of a snapshot does not simply render more precise what in any case was visible, though unclear: it reveals entirely new structural formations of the subject. So, too, slow motion not only presents familiar qualities of movement but reveals in them entirely unknown ones. (1992, 236) When considering this magnification of time, with its associated microscopic mode of acting, it may not be amiss to draw a parallel with the convention of rāga ālāpana, the melodic improvisation that introduces and develops the musical scale of a rāga prior to the singing of a composition in that rāga, in both Carnatic and Hindustani music. Detached from the tālām (rhythm)  139

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and its pre-fixed regimen of a strict time frame and its associated measures of singing speed, the ālāpana is a detailed, arrhythmic, wordless exploration of the features of a rāga, in which the scale of svaras (notes) that defines a rāga is taken segment by segment and each of them is elaborated, focusing particularly on the different possibilities thrown up by the passage through the scale and the conjoining of different adjacent svaras. In Kutiyattam, likewise, when time came to be magnified under the pressure of proximal viewing, and the actions and movements of the actors came to be deliberately decelerated, it was not a mere slowing down that occurred; it also brought up the requirement to explore, enrich and enhance each action, each movement, with such fine detail and features that would make them aesthetically and formally compelling at that slower pace. In its continued inhabitation of the kūttampalam, these mutually complementary tendencies of deceleration and enhancement must have become a performative imperative for all aspects of acting in Kutiyattam, culminating finally in the slow, deliberate pace of performance time and the enactment of fine detail that we see as its defining features now. Even as the performance time gets magnified, a crucial point to be noted is that the text time that is referred to through performance does not undergo any change. Just as when looked at through a microscope, an area appears to be larger but is not really enlarged in actuality, and still continues to retain its original dimensions and area, so it is with time here. Similar to an area of 1 x 1 being magnified to an apparently 10 x 10 area, here the duration of each particular situation – it may be the sight of an object, an event, the enactment of an idea or particular phrase or the experience of a character – is expanded and stretched out with the aid of elaborate enhancements and is made to appear in experience to be several times its actual length. What actually changes is the experience of time through performance, and not narrative time or the referred text time of the play. In the background, the text time remains as it was and may be returned to at any point when so needed. When, as a result of proximal viewing, more detail is appended to each action, the frame of performance time effectively gets disengaged and made free from the other time frames, such as objective time and dramatic text time. A major sign of such disengagement is the separation of the vācika (verbal) and āṅgika (gestural) components of acting in Kutiyattam. As we have seen in Chapter 3, the procedure of enactment of the text follows a threefold pattern. First, each dialogue is recited to the accompaniment of gestures for each word; second, the text is broken down into separate segments in the proper grammatical order and each segment is first recited and then enacted with gestures at a slower pace accompanied by fine detail, emphasizing the facial expressions appropriate for the emotion associated with each word, and finally the last part of the dialogue is summarily repeated to the accompaniment of gestures again, almost as a cue to the other actors. 140

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In addition, at crucial points in the gestural enactment in the second part, there will also be further elaboration or interpretation in the form of digressions through gestures to provide a more comprehensive picture of the situation, the character or the action. In the case of the nirvahaṇam, each ślōka is first presented in the form of gestures and detailed physical enactment interspersed with elaborations and digressions, and then at its conclusion the ślōka is again presented in both āṅgika and vācika together. Far from mere repetition, the employment of these different levels of enactment is a consummate technique designed to aid in the shift from one time scheme to another and also to provide the space for elaboration. When the verbal and gestural aspects of acting come together, the gesture for each word must accompany it at the same pace as the word is being uttered, thereby instituting strict limitations to the duration and function of each gesture. In such segments, the performance time follows the same pace as that of the text time as well as of objective time, there being clear real-life bounds to the length of time that can be taken for the utterance of a word. However, when the gestural is disengaged from the verbal, the actor’s body is freed from the pace and tempo of linguistic speech and of ordinary life and provided with the opportunity to employ a different tempo and speed to its actions, or in effect to function to a different time scheme altogether. In such segments, the extension of performance seems to be the rule, wherein events are stretched out and providing with very minute detail in presentation, which makes the duration of the theatrical representation far in excess of the supposed duration of the event. It is almost as if time is brought under a microscope. It is in such purely gestural segments that the disengagement from the frames of text time and objective time occurs and elaborations and digressions that belong to other time schemes are undertaken. It is important to note that it is the miḻāvu (the drum) that provides the structural framework and support for these shifts in time frames and time schemes. Through shifts in the tāḷām (rhythm) and the gati (tempo), the sounds of the miḻāvu function as cues to both the actor and the spectator of shifts from one time scheme to another or from one temporal pace to another. Here, performance assumes a significant self-consciousness – that it is performance and not life or even the text – and that consciousness gets expressed through the medium of the actor’s and drummer’s practice. The disengagement of performance time from other time frames also lays the ground for some specific techniques of temporal manoeuvring that aid in the practice of elaboration. If one were to return to the analogy of spatial magnification, when one looks at an area through a microscope, it is not the entire area but only those specific sections that fall within the visual range of the microscope that come to be magnified, and as the microscope is moved, other sections that fall within its sights come to be magnified one after the other. Much the same way, in the Kutiyattam performance, the text as well as the text time is taken section by section, and each is magnified and 141

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elaborated one after the other with suitable embellishments and enhancements. Here, it needs to be noted that even as the basic structure and order of the text time is maintained, each segment within it is taken separately and elaborated in what may be termed a “temporal digression.” The result is that the linearity and forward progression of text time is effectively disrupted in performance, and as each segment is being presented, the general text time and space of action are held in suspended animation, so to speak, unmoving and still for the duration of that particular digressive segment but open to be returned to and revived when the enactment of that section is over. Not only that, it also opens up the possibility to vary the rate and extent of elaboration – to present some sections with extensive elaboration and some others with less or no elaboration – depending on the performative potential offered by each. The temporal and spatial processes involved in such digressions may be graphically represented as below:

Figure 4.1 Temporal/spatial digressions in performance Source: CourtesyMundoli Narayanan.

The elaborations of Kutiyattam are all undertaken through such sojourns into a different scheme of performative time. In such digressions, the fictional, dramatic time is brought to a stop and its progress held in check, and another time scheme is introduced there. It is as if the actor is stepping out of the fictional time frame with its particular pace and speed into another one, which even as it is situated within the fictional and performative 142

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time frames, is yet a scheme within a scheme and functions according to an entirely different logic of space, speed and progression. Whether it be a detour to another time and place to explicate a situation, a verse or a character, or to describe in detail a particular object or happening, or switching from character to character to present multiple perspectives on the same situation, this system of stepping into another time scheme can be seen to be operative throughout the Kutiyattam performance. A question that would naturally arise in this context would be regarding the agency of these temporal detours: who undertakes these elaborations in performative time, the actor or the character? Given that the actor in Kutiyattam retains the privilege to remain an actor per se in many segments of the performance without the need to “become” the character, there is certainly some ambiguity as to who assumes the subject position in these digressions. It may be seen that in some instances the elaboration is undertaken in the aspect of the actor, but in some it is the character that seems to be involved in the elaboration, while in some others there is alternation between the actor and the character. In the case of digressions where the character is in the subject position, it is most often a flight into the past to explicate a present situation. An apt case in point would be the episode of Kailāsōddhāraṇam (the lifting of Mt Kailāsa) of Tōraṇayuddhāṅkam (The Act of Battle at the Tower Pillars) in Abhiṣēkanāṭakam (The Coronation Play), elucidated in the previous chapter. While recounting how he came to receive the divine sword candrahāsa from Lord Śiva, Rāvaṇa describes his lifting and juggling of Mt Kailāsa, the abode of Lord Śiva, on his way back from the conquest of the three worlds. He relives that past experience, enacting in fine detail everything that happened, including the actions and reactions of the other persons involved in the incident. Another example would be the short but pertinent digression assayed by the character Subhadra in the second act of Subhadrādhanañjayam. On hearing of Dhanañjaya’s (Arjuna) great valour and prowess as an archer, Kṛṣṇa’s sister Subhadra had fallen in love with him even without seeing him and had vowed to accept only him as her husband. In the play, when she is abducted by a demon and carried away through the skies, Dhanañjaya, having arrived in Dvāraka in disguise as a hermit, rescues her and catches her when she falls from the sky upon being released by the demon. Finding herself in the hermit’s arms, she is attracted to him and exclaims that she is being turned into a bandhakī (harlot) – kulata in Malayalam (see Unni and Sullivan, 2001, 80, 139). To explain the  term “bandhakī/kulat a,” there is a short digression in which she delves back  into her past and explains how she had given her heart to Arjuna long ago upon hearing about him from her brother Kṛṣṇa, how all those years she had been wearing a shawl on which was inscribed the thousand names of Arjuna and how she had vowed to wed none other than him. Not realizing that the hermit is Arjuna himself, Subhadra feels that she is betraying her love for Arjuna in being attracted to the hermit and thereby becoming an unchaste woman.3 143

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In all such instances, the performance time breaks away from the text time, but it remains largely within the ambit of the story time itself. Whether in explicating a comment or a description in the text, or in explaining the circumstances of an action, what happens in such digressions is that the character goes back to an incident or event in the past. It may be a past incident that is drawn from the previous acts of the play, or it may be one that belongs to the same time frame as that of the previous acts of the play but is not featured in them, or it may be one that goes even further back to a time earlier than the beginning of the play, but effectively it is a past that is part of the larger mythic or purāṇic time frame of the story. It is a different time scheme in operation here, one that can be called memory time, since it is like that of a memory or a thought unfolding in a person’s mind. Even as she/he continues to function in real time, the memory is at dissonance with it and follows an entirely different logic and pace. It is also a mental journey into another virtual space, even as physically one continues to be in the same space of the present, and to which the mind also returns after the memory has been revisited. The most important attribute of such memory time is that a century can be encapsulated into a moment, an extensive experience of the past relived in the matter of a few seconds, and after its completion one can return to the present. The opposite is also possible; a past experience that had lasted only a few moments can be relived in a protracted manner, focusing on each of its micro-moments and lingering on each of its details. In other words, it is highly selective not only in what is remembered but also how it is remembered. It is not a question of what really happened but how it was experienced by the subject and how it is recalled in a particular circumstance. In that sense, it is in effect a manifestation of what Husserl calls “internal, subjective time,” which has to do with the “duration and sequence of mental acts and experiences, the events of conscious life.” Through intentional acts and experiences that follow one another and through the recall of certain earlier experiences through memory, it reveals the “way intentions and feelings are temporally ordered,” both in regard to one another and in regard to present experiences. What it brings out is not an objective recording of events but a subjective, partial rendering of the same, prompted by the needs of the subject in a particular present. It is a past that comes into being in the present, a past that is called into existence by a present in which it is embedded. At the same time, the subjectivity in operation here is not singular, it is also subject to change; even as the memory is that of one character, it also gives voice/body to the other persons/characters who figure in that memory through the medium of pakarnnāṭṭam or transferred acting, so that the different perspectives of different characters are brought into play. It suggests that there is no homogenous, singular time but that it is necessarily plural, multiple, and governed by the experiences of each individual character. 144

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In the case of digressions where an object or an idea that figures in the dramatic text is elaborated upon, it would appear that it is the actor who is undertaking the elaboration. A great example of this would be the celebrated segment of Śikhiniśalabham (Flies in the Fire) in the first act of the play Subhadrādhanañjayam. The dramatic context is the verse that describes the calm and peaceful atmosphere of the hermitage where the action is set: śikhiniśalabhō jvālācakrēn vikriyatē patan pibati bahuśaḥ śārdūlinām stanam mṛgaśāpakaḥ / spṛśati kalabhaḥ saiṃhīm damṣtrām mṛṇāḷadhiyā muhurnayati nakulam nidrātandrīm lihannahipotaḥ// (Flies hovering over fires are not burned; Young deer often drink the breastmilk of a tigress; Elephant calves often smite a lion’s fangs, mistaking them for lotus stalks; And a young serpent licks a lazy mongoose slowly to sleep.) (Unni and Sullivan, 2001, 77, 136) In elaborating the poetic image of the flies not being singed or hurt by the flames as they flit around the “wheels of fire,” suggestive of the meditative tranquillity of the ashram, the actor proceeds to enact that visual scene with all its subtleties  – the leaping, swaying flames of the fire, the flies flitting around and weaving their way in and out of the flames, and how instead of burning them, the flames only caress and comfort the flies. First, the movements of the flies are presented purely through the movements of the actor’s eyes, and then afterwards through gestures, to the accompaniment of eye movements and facial expressions. In the process a consummate performative representation of the poetic image of the fire and the flies are constructed through the body of the actor, in a segment that lasts nearly half an hour. Though in dramatic terms, this image is only one of several elements in the description of the hermitage that provides the setting to the action that is to follow, and hence only a minor aspect of the larger textual narrative, the possibility that it holds within itself of performative elaboration, especially through the āṅgika acting of the actor, is fully exploited here. To put it differently, the demands of the textual narrative is completely superseded by a narrative of physical performance in which the focus is entirely on the performative virtuosity of the actor. Somewhat similar, though of a different order, is the interpretative elaboration of the phrase svargavibhūṣaṇam in Rāvaṇa’s description of the Asoka Grove in Aśōkavanikāṅkam, referred to in Chapter 3. Though the words are indeed Rāvaṇa’s, it is obvious that the elicitation of three different meanings to the phrase, through a process of morphological analysis that throws up different kinds of word compositions, is not undertaken by the character but the actor, who for the duration 145

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of that segment detaches himself from the character and returns to his actor’s self. When the actor so steps out of the character, it also means that he is also stepping out of the fictional dramatic time. Consequently, what is created on stage at such moments is another time and space that is indeed performative but belonging to neither the story time nor the text time, both of which are subsets of the dramatic time. In other words, the time-space so created within the performative time is an actor’s time-space, where temporarily released from the identity of the character and unburdened by the considerations of the fictive time the actor communicates directly with the audience. Even as Kutiyattam is replete with such instances of the employment of the actor’s time-space, which to a great extent forms a major basis for its elaborative culture, it is during the presence onstage of the Vidūṣaka, the clown character, that the greatest exploitation of the possibilities of this actor’s time-space happens, thereby offering greater insight into its nature. His usual role being that of a companion to the hero in romantic comedies, based on the aesthetic convention prevalent in Sanskrit drama that hāsya (humour) is the companion rasa to śṛṅgāra (erotic love), the Vidūṣaka is indeed a character in the play. However, whenever he is on stage, he translates, parodies, interprets, and comments on the words and actions of all the other characters who are there on the stage with him, as if he is outside the play. He is also free to make veiled remarks that seem ostensibly directed at the audience, which appear to make fun of them, question them or refer to events and persons of their time. The audience, however, is prohibited from talking back to him and are limited to passive actions such as laughter or sounds of appreciation, clearly indicating that though he appears to be conversing with them, in reality he is not, and that he does not belong to the same time-space as they do. As I have observed elsewhere, In a sense, the Vidūṣaka inhabits a time/space matrix between that of the play and that of the audience and functions as a link between the two worlds. . . . Through translation of the protagonist’s dialogues into the local language, Malayalam, and through the parodic repetition of verses, comic interpretation, and humorous elaboration, the Vidūṣaka makes the content of the play, especially the part of the protagonist, accessible to the audience by providing an on-the-spot commentary on the protagonist’s travails and statements. He is also a link between the time of the story and the time of the audience: through remarks that reflect contemporary states of affairs, comic extrapolations of current events and persons, and direct comments to members of the audience, interwoven into and connected to his narration, the Vidūṣaka brings the time of the performance closer to the time of the audience, bringing the play and the spectators closer together, blurring the boundaries between the 146

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two, sometimes even seemingly erasing and dissolving them with his presence, all the while covertly reinforcing their differences. (Narayanan, 2006b, 146–147) In other words, the actor’s time-space that the Vidūṣaka inhabits during his humorous perorations is a liminal time-space, one that belongs neither to the dramatic time-space nor to the audience’s time-space, but one that connects the two and in the process elucidates aspects and features of the play for the audience. No doubt, it is a challenging task to hold these three time-space matrices – the dramatic, the actor’s and the audience’s – in balance, weave in and out of them, seemingly blurring the boundaries but all the while maintaining the three separate and intact.4 It is least surprising then that the Vidūṣaka’s role is usually reserved for the most experienced and senior of actors, not only indicating the consummate skill required for it that can be attained only through years of experience, but also implying that the role captures to the fullest the essence of the Kutiyattam actor’s craft and his juggling of different time-spaces. Though the actors playing the other characters do not have the same freedom as the one who plays the Vidūṣaka, their movement into the actor’s time-space also partakes to a great extent of the same principles that govern the Vidūṣaka’s move. Though they cannot address the audience seemingly directly as the Vidūṣaka does, underlying their actions in the actor’s timespace is, however, an implicit address to the audience. At the same time, there is also ambivalence; even when they step out temporarily from the guise of the character, they can never really enter the audience’s time-space, though they seem to communicate directly with them. In other words, it is again a liminal time-space that they occupy, between the text time and the audience time, and the primary function of the actions in this time-space is the elucidation of the features of the text or the narrative, essentially a function like that undertaken by the Vidūṣaka but different in that it is not parodic, but serious. Needless to say, the subjectivities of the character and actor are not mutually exclusive, nor are the digressive modalities that assume these subjectivities. Within the digressions where the character is the subject, it will be quite natural to find frequent occasions where the actor’s subjectivity comes to the fore and the actor’s prowess is exhibited, or the other way around, wherein characters appear in what is essentially a digression on the part of the actor. The nirvahaṇam is one such extended instance where both character and actor appear alternately with the one embedded in the other and vice versa. It is a flight into the past, the narration of a long story that is spread over a vast period of time prior to the beginning of the act, and which then returns to the present of the act. Though performed in the costume of a character, the nirvahaṇam is essentially an actor’s performance. The story is told in the third person, and it is within the incidents related by the actor that the 147

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character(s) make their appearance. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the aspect of the character is assumed only when that character is depicted as saying or doing something. In this sense, it may not be entirely amiss to term the nirvahaṇam as the exposition of the larger memory of the play, as recounted by the actor, within which are structured the memories of individual characters. And, within those segments where a character assumes his identity, again the actor resurfaces wherever there is opportunity to exhibit his performative virtuosity. In other words, what we have in the nirvahaṇam is a complex multilevel layering of different time schemes all at dissonance with the real time and the textual time, one folded into another, which is in turn embedded in yet another and so on. Generally, as a rule, it is the past that is so represented through these flights of memory and digressions, primarily because with the performance time being tethered to the textual time and having to return to its present after each digression, a foray into the future – or in other words, a journey into what is going to happen in the progression of the text time (or of story time) – will compromise that progression and is rather rare in Kutiyattam, as in most drama. This is not to suggest that suspense and anticipation is an integral part of the performative aesthetic of Kutiyattam, which as we have seen earlier are not, given the fact that the story being enacted is already well known and that the play is never enacted in its entirety. At the same time, since the thread that connects the different performative segments is that of the textual narrative, an exposure of what is to come later in that narrative will have grievous effects on the progression of the performance. However, there are a couple of instances in performance in which the future is represented, as if it is something that has already happened or is already implied or present in the present. One instance is that of Sugrīva’s “praśnam vekkal” (fortune telling) in Bālivadhāṅkam of Abhiṣēkanāṭakam, where the future is not directly represented but is revealed in suggestive or metaphorical fashion. The situation is that of Sugrīva, the son of the Sun God and the brother of Bāli, taking refuge on Mount Mālyavān, after running around the whole world in fear of Bāli, who has vowed to kill him due to a misunderstanding. Sitting on the mountain, a place Bāli could not approach due to the curse of a hermit, he ponders over his sorry plight. The segment that ensues in performance is described in the āṭṭaprakāram thus: After exclaiming, “Oh! God! Don’t I  have anyone to help me in this sad state?” he proceeds to enact his pitiable condition. Without even a roof over his head, he has to suffer the extreme heat in the summer when the sun rises high and its rays shine brightly; he is drenched in the rainy season when the clouds filled with water fill the skies and there are heavy downpours, along with thunder and lightning; he has to suffer the bitterly chilly wind and snow 148

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in the cold season. Exclaiming again, “Oh! God! Will there be no end to this misery?” he looks around and decides to see what the future holds for him through a traditional method of fortune telling in which a leaf is tossed up and the omens it offers are read when it falls to the ground. Plucking a tender leaf, he throws it up, and when it falls on the ground, he reads the omen as indicating, “Friend there is none, foe there is.” Overcome by sadness at this, he looks around and sees a deer roaming around and eating grass. Suddenly, jolted by the sound of the string of a forest dweller’s bow being plucked, the deer takes fright and runs to hide in a clutch of creepers, only to find a tiger sleeping there. Fearing that the sound of the bow string will awaken the tiger, the deer cowers in the bower, afraid of both the hunter and the tiger. Sugrīva realizes that his condition is reflected in that of the deer. He then plucks another leaf, throws it up and when it falls to the ground, reads the omen. This time it is, “Friend there is, and foe too.” Then he sees a snake crawling on the ground. Suddenly, there appears an eagle hovering in the sky above, and the snake slithers into a hole and takes refuge there, afraid but safe. Sugrīva then thinks that help may be arriving for him too. Once again, he plucks a leaf, throws it up and reads the omen. This time it indicates, “Friend there is, foe there is none.” Then, he sees a peacock spreading its feathers and dancing in joy. However, its dance is cut short on seeing a forest fire advancing from all sides. Scared, it takes shelter on top of a rock, and then the rains come and the forest fire is put out. Happy in being saved, the peacock spreads its feathers and dances again. Then, Sugrīva observes a glow in the forest adjacent to the river Pamba, and sees that there are two humans approaching. Turning to Hanumān by his side, Sugrīva tells him, “O! Hanumān, Don’t you see two humans approaching slowly through the forest? Who would they be? They are carrying bows. What kind of bows are they? They are ones that instil fear in everyone. They make my heart tremble. Find out who they are.”5 The two men approaching are actually Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, who would later help Sugrīva to defeat Bāli and kill him. Here, the idea is that of a future that is pre-ordained but which at the same time is reflected in the events of nature unfolding around Sugrīva in the present. In a sense, it is a future that is implied in the present, just as the past is, and is represented in a metaphorical manner through the travails of the animals around, which seem to be in sympathetic resonance to the fate of Sugrīva himself. Thus, the long span of Sugrīva’s life, extending from years back in the past to years ahead in the future, is encapsulated into a short span of the present time and represented through both the omens and the situations of the animals, 149

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thereby hinting at the implied presence of the past and the future in the present. At the same time, it may also be noted that the real seeds of that future are already apparent in the present through the protentive appearance of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, which immediately follows the metaphorical representation of the forecast, “Friend there is, foe there is none.” Another instance is one that is unobtrusively tucked into the performance narrative of the Rāmāyaṇam Saṃkṣēpam6 but which is fully enacted in Aṅgulīyāṅkam of Āścaryacūdāmaṇi, where, in the third day of the nirvahaṇam of Hanumān, Jāṃbavān is presented as telling the entire story of Rāmāyaṇa to Sampāti, the brother of Jaṭāyu. The dramatic situation is that of the vānaras, led by Aṅgada, Hanumān and Jāṃbavān, reaching the southern end of the land in their search for Sīta. Having failed to find any clue of Sīta’s whereabouts and afraid to return to Sugrīva empty handed, they are exhausted and depressed and decide to fast unto death. However, when none of them die even after three days, Jāṃbavān informs them that it is because of the sins they have committed and starts telling them good stories to alleviate their sins. As he is doing this, Sampāti, who is residing in a cave in the Vindhya mountains, hears him and arrives there. In the Rāmāyaṇam Saṃkṣēpam, what follows is presented in a condensed form: “as Jāṃbavān was telling (the vānaras) good stories, there arrived Sampāti, for whom Jāṃbavān told the story of Rāmāyaṇa, at which time Sampāti told them the news of Sīta residing in Lanka” (Venugopalan, 2009, 705). In Aṅgulīyāṅkam, however, the whole segment is acted out in great detail, with the actor, in the guise of Hanumān, alternating between Jāṃbavān and Sampāti through the technique of pakarnnāṭṭam. The enactment of that segment [editing out the performance instructions in the āṭṭaprakāram] is as follows: Then, Sampāti said to Jāṃbavān thus: “O! Jāṃbavān! Please narrate the story of Rāmāyaṇa for my ears. Then, I will sprout wings.” Jāṃbavān thought a while and replied: “O! Sampāti! I shall tell the story. Please listen.” Then, Jāṃbavān told the story of Rāmāyaṇa for Sampāti, enacting the [Rāmāyaṇam] Samkṣēpam from, “So, a long time ago, the Sūryavamśa came to be,”7 to “Jaṭāyu died.” After listening to the story, Sampāti says “Wait,” then goes to the sea shore, does the death rites for Jaṭāyu, and returning to Jāṃbavān, says to him, “O! Jāṃbavān! Please tell me the rest of the story.” Then Jāṃbavān, tells the story from, “Jaṭāyu died,” to “On reaching the shores of the southern ocean, the story of Rāmāyaṇa was told to Sampāti.” Sampāti then tries to shake his wings and finding that he cannot move his wings, asks Jāṃbavān, “O! Jāṃbavān! I have wings now, but cannot move them. What is the reason for that?” At that time, Jāṃbavān replies, “O! Sampāti! You have not heard the whole Rāmāyaṇa story. It is only if you hear the entire 150

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story that your wings will start to move. Hence, I shall tell the rest in your ears. The vānaras should not hear it.” Then, when the rest of the story, starting from “Sampāti, who had sprouted wings, told them the news of Sīta” up to the ascent to heaven of Rāma, is told by Jāṃbavān, as in the Samkṣēpam, Sampāti pecks at his wings,  after paying his respects to Jāṃbavān spreads and moves them, and flies high into the air and shone there. (see Venugopalan, 2009, 485) Here, the events of the future are not revealed for all but only for Sampāti, in whose ears the story is told, out of earshot of the other vānaras. If we look at the segment closely, two crucial features become apparent. One, the future is not a dark, unknowable domain of the yet-to-be-now, but one that is implied in the present and can be elicited if one has the proper perception required to bring it forth and give it existence. Second, given that Sampāti sprouts fresh wings on hearing the Rāmāyaṇa story, and acquires the ability to move his wings and fly only on hearing the whole story, particularly the part that is yet to happen, the future seems to be at work in the present, affecting and shaping its events and course. Performatively, too, there is a clever ruse at work in telling the future parts of the story secretly in the ear of Sampāti. Through this, the other characters of the story – the vānaras – who are engaged in actions that lead to that future are ostensibly kept in the dark and prevented from coming to know of it. In effect, the future is told without it really being told to all, so that the progression of the dramatic plot and the structure of the text time are not affected by it. At the same time, the audience is made privy to it (without which the segment itself would not have been possible), unambiguously indicating that the performance time and real time are of two different orders, that what is applicable in one is not applicable in the other, and that the performance is based on the knowledge that the audience knows the entire story already and there is little purpose served in holding it back from them. In other words, the earlier detailed idea that Kutiyattam is fully aware of its own identity as a performance and makes no attempt to camouflage that is further affirmed here, in terms of its full acceptance of the different orders of time that are at work in its performance. At the same time, such forays into the future, based on the knowledge that the future is not something that is yet to happen but is an aspect of the present that seems to be unapparent and can be made to be apparent with the right kind of perception, are part of the narrative culture of the Rāmāyaṇa itself, to which Kutiyattam may have taken recourse here. While there are several instances in Rāmāyaṇa of such complex plays of time, the one in the Uttarakāṇḍa, where it is clearly stated that the entire Rāmāyaṇa has been already written by Sage Valmiki is of particular value here. Lava and Kuśa, the sons of Rāma, arrive in Ayōdhya at the time of the Aśvamēdha (horse 151

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sacrifice) and as instructed by Sage Valmiki, sing the Rāmāyaṇa in the court of Rāma. Highly impressed by both the poem and the recitation, Rāma asks the boys who had composed it, and the boys reply: The blessed Valmiki . . . is the author of the poem in which thine whole life is told. Twenty-four thousand verses and a hundred upakhyanas [episodes] have been used by that ascetic, the son of Bhrugu. Five hundred sargas [sections] divided into six Kandas [chapters], together with Uttarakanda, O King, have been written by that magnanimous Rishi, our Guru. Thy conduct, thy circumstances, thy entire life is unrolled with its vicissitudes. (Valmiki, 1959, 613)8 That the Uttarakāṇḍa is already written even as the events that figure in that chapter are unfolding and even as some of the most crucial episodes of the narrative – Sīta’s taking refuge in her mother, the Earth, Rāma’s ascent to heaven and so on – are yet to happen can be taken, as indeed it most often has been, as an indication of Sage Valmiki’s clairvoyance and his divine poetic ability to predict the future. However, such explanations, even as they may satisfy the faithful, do not do justice to the complex play of time that so defines the narrative here. That Rāma’s entire life is already written, committed to words, even before it has reached its end – “tava caritam sōttarāṇi kṛtāni” (your history, along with the Uttarakāṇḍa – which is to come afterwards – has been written) as the text says – is, on the one hand, a clear sign of assigning supremacy to the text over reality and suggesting that ultimately Rāmāyaṇa is a narrative, a universe constructed through the text, and that there is no escape from its textuality. On the other hand, equally importantly, the real-life notion of the future as something that is yet to happen and the past as something that has already happened is rejected here. On the contrary, time becomes a construct of the text, and the future is something that has happened because it is already written and a thing of the present too because it is evoked in connection with the events that are in the process of taking place. In other words, the linearity of time and the notion of a progression from the past through the present to the future, which is the staple of commonsensical notions of temporality, is abandoned here, and an implicit understanding of time is presented in which, if one were to borrow a Husserlian term, the present is “thick” with both the past and the future, with both regarded as being implied within it. The close parallel between this concept of time and Kutiyattam’s flexible employment of time in which both the past and the future become aspects of the present leads one to conclude that it is undoubtedly the culture of the Rāmāyaṇa narrative that has functioned as a model for Kutiyattam in its approach to performative time, owing also to the fact that the Rāmāyaṇa plays enjoy a great deal of importance in the Kutiyattam repertoire. 152

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An interesting feature of the Sampāti episode in Aṅgulīyāṅkam is that it appears to be part of a local narrative tradition. There is clear mention of Jāṃbavān telling the whole Rāmāyaṇa story to Sampāti in Rāmāyaṇa Prabandham, a Sanskrit caṃpu of unknown authorship, which has been found primarily in circulation only in the Kerala region and on which the Cākyārs rely greatly for their explicatory narratives. Rāmāyaṇa Prabandham draws ślōkas and prose passages from several Sanskrit works covering a large spectrum of Sanskrit poetic and prose literature, and its description of the Sampāti episode appears to be an almost verbatim reproduction of the same episode in Rāmakatha, another Kerala Sanskrit text attributed to Vasudeva of the 15th century (Pisharoti, 1930, 797–799). However, it is intriguing that the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, which one should assume has been the primary source for the three Rāmāyaṇa plays of the Kutiyattam repertoire, does not feature such a detailed telling of the entire Rāmāyaṇa story or a narration of the future to Sampāti, in the particular situation and in the form found in the performance of Aṅgulīyāṅkam (see Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Kiṣkindā Kāṇḍam, Sargas 56–63; Valmiki, 2002a, 144–155). In fact, in Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, it is Aṅgada who tells Sampāti about Rāma and Sīta, Rāvaṇa’s abduction of Sīta, Jatāyu’s valiant attempt to stop Rāvaṇa, and the vānaras’ search for Sīta until that point (Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Kiṣkindā Kāṇḍam, Sarga 57, Verses 4–16; Valmiki, 2002a, 145–146). At the same time, Sampāti also reveals that he has been told the story of Rāmāyaṇa by Sage Niśākara too, in the form of a prophecy that he will regain his wings fully when Rāma’s envoys arrive at the southern coast in search of Sīta and Sampāti tells them about her whereabouts. The story thus told is a brief narration of events prior to Sampāti’s meeting with the vānaras, such as the birth of Rāma as the son of Daśaratha, his going to the forest on orders of his father, the abduction of Sīta by Rāvaṇa, Sīta’s travails in Laṅka and the vānaras coming in search of Sīta on Rāma’s orders (see Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Kiṣkindā Kāṇḍam, Sarga 62, Verses 2–11; Valmiki, 2002a, 153–154). It is reported by Sampāti as told to him by Sage Niśākara, when on meeting the vānaras he tells them his story and how he came to be stranded wingless on the Vindhya Mountain. What is most interesting about the narrative is that, in terms of the time at which it is reported, that is, when Sampāti meets with the Niśākara, only the events prior to that time are narrated, and none of the events subsequent to it are told. In other words, in terms of the time of narration, only the past is stated and not the future. Further, as soon as Sampāti completes telling the vānaras the whereabouts of Sīta and his own story, true to Niśākara’s prophecy, “his wings spring up” (Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Kiṣkindā Kāṇḍam, Sarga 63, Verse 8; Valmiki, 2002a, 155). Similarly, Ezhuthachan’s Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇam, in Malayalam, following the model of Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, does not mention such a narration of the future by any of the vānaras. It is only the specific story of Rāvaṇa’s abduction of Sīta and Jatāyu’s challenge that is being told, that too by Aṅgada, not Jāṃbavān. Further, Sampāti sprouts fresh wings as 153

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soon as he tells his own story and the prophecy of Sage Niśākara (Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇam, Kiṣkindā Kāṇḍam, Lines 1843–2142; Ezhuthachan, 2012, 334–345). Again, the Kamba Rāmāyaṇam, composed in the neighbouring Tamil region, also follows the same pattern as Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa and does not include a full narration of the Rāmāyaṇa story. Interestingly, in it, in keeping with the prophecy, it is the mention of Rāma’s name by the vānaras that leads to Sampāti regaining his wings: “Seeing me fall, the generous god of the sky said in his mercy, ‘When the monkeys who come searching for Janaka’s daughter recite the name of Rāma, you will get back your wings’ ” (Kamban, 2002, 146). Curiously enough, it is only in Kṛttivāsa Rāmāyaṇa, the Bengali Rāmāyaṇa composed in the 15th century by Krttibas Ohja, that there is a mention of the future parts of the story being told. In it, Hanumān narrates the entire story of Rāmāyaṇa: In the Ādyakāṇḍa the birth of Rām, the marriage of Sīta, In Ajōdhyākāṇḍa, dwelling in forests, renouncing all that was regal. In the Āraṇyakāṇḍa the abduction of Sīta, The slaying of Bāli in Kiṣkinda. The building of a wonderful bridge in the Sundarkāṇḍa, The annihilation of Rāvaṇa’s clan in the Laṅkākāṇḍa. The seven kāṇḍas fall to an end with the Uttarakāṇḍa, And the essence of Rāmāyaṇa can be found in the Uttarakāṇḍa. Kāṇḍas seven of Rāmāyaṇa Hanumān so told, And with it the bird Sampāti’s wings reappeared. (Ojha, 1928, 256–257)9 When Hanumān starts his narration, Sampāti’s wings sprout, and by the time he is done Sampāti has a new pair of wings. Interestingly, much in the manner of the Uttarakāṇḍa of Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, the future that is evoked in Krttivāsa Rāmāyaṇa is also a textual future and the notion of  is primarily as a text with different chapters. Though such the Rāmāyaṇa an emphasis on textuality  – or performativity  – is absent in the Sampāti episode in Aṅgulīyāṅkam, the similarity in detail – especially the generation of a fully effective pair of wings on hearing the full story, particularly the parts that are yet to happen – is too striking to ignore. Given the fact that the Krttivāsa Rāmāyaṇa is in Bengali and came to be translated into other  languages only by the 20th century, it is somewhat inconceivable that Kutiyattam could have drawn from it. The issue then is whether it was an imaginative interpolation on the part of the Cākyārs, based on the terse mention in the Rāmāyaṇa Prabandham, or whether there was some extant narrative tradition – even an oral one – of the Rāmāyaṇa story that may have functioned as an alternative source. Taking into account that the narrative segment is found in two versions geographically and linguistically quite distant from one another, it may have been a pan-Indian one or one that circulated 154

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along the coastal regions. However, it is a question that shall remain moot, until further evidence is unearthed that will assist in addressing it properly. Coming back to the discussion on digressions, the time of such episodes is also essentially a subjective, experiential time – phenomenological time as Husserl puts it – because what it presents is the subjective experience of a character or an actor of events, people, objects and phenomena. It is a time scheme that is at dissonance with both the real time and the textual time and can be termed to be the internal time of the actor/character. It is that of the character because it is his/her subjective experience that is the content of the different time scheme, it is also that of the actor because it is through the performative actions of the actor that the content is presented and the nature of the time scheme – its pace and tempo, and the relative form of the action – is actualized. The relative fastness or slowness, the details and fine aspects structured into it, the interpretative or elaborative strategies employed, are all realized through the actions of the actors/characters, so much so that a moment of the dramatic time can be extended to an hour, or broken up into several segments, or seen as a succession of segments from different perspectives, so much so that the same moment becomes extended, layered over and multiple. Furthermore, the experience of the spectators themselves is one which is modulated by the experience of the actors/characters and structured in terms of the time scheme and strategies of elaboration employed by them. It can in effect be called an experience of an experience in the sense that the subjectivity of the spectator in receiving the performance and responding to it is one that is dictated by the subjectivity of the actor/ character, which essentially means that the spectator’s experience is also one that is disassociated from the frames of reference that are to do with real time or text time. This opens the possibility for the spectator to immerse himself in the embodied experience of that performative time, without being held in check by the considerations or constraints of his real time or even that of the text time. In other words, the spectator is also liberated from the restrictions of pace, progression and course of time as experienced in real life and enters fully into the alter space of performance with its different time frames and schemes. Further, the co-existence of the past, the present and the future, or the simultaneous presence of the past and the future in the present, in the internal time of the character/actor and in the experience of the spectator is reminiscent of Husserl’s notion of a present “thick” with the past and the future, and of Merleau-Ponty’s idea that time is not “for someone” but that it “is someone” because it arises from a subject’s relation to things, and hence that “past and future exist only too unmistakably in the world, they exist in the present.” At the same time, with regard to the structure of the Kutiyattam performance, these digressions hold great implications for its temporal totality. Irrespective of whether the subject of the digression is the character or the actor, and whether it is a foray into the past or the future, or the explanatory 155

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elaboration of a textual feature, the present of the play – or text time – is held in suspension as the whole digression unfolds. What it accomplishes is the entry into an alter space with another time scheme, even as the forward progression of the text time is temporarily stopped, only for it to resume once the detour is over. In this manner, the performance turns into several different but interconnected episodes that have different time schemes being strung together, with the textual narrative providing the thread that connects the different digressions and the text time providing the launching pad from which diversions into other time schemes and frames are facilitated. Breaking out of all practical limitations and constraints that rule the process of time in real life, the actor thus acquires the freedom to move backward and forward in performative time, even as he is anchored to a particular performative present. To all purposes, any semblance of verisimilitude or adherence to apparent reality is totally eschewed in the process. We had seen earlier that it is when performance time, text time and real time coincide in their tempo and pace that the apparent feeling of verisimilitude (and it is primarily a feeling) is induced. However, here, when performance time is effectively detached and freed from real time and text time, and when forward and backward movements through time become the order, it is a totally non-realistic, conventional mode of performance that comes to be established. Many times and places appear in performance one after another, with no linearity or temporal continuity among them. The performance becomes a series of digressive episodes strung together, with each of them being singular units that have an internal logic, are complete in themselves and enjoy relative autonomy as independent, stand-alone segments. The total performance thus comes to veer away from any semblance of narrative unity or cohesion; there is no sense that it is enacting a single, internally coherent story or dramatic plot. On the contrary, it turns into the presentation of several stories, situations, or episodes that have some connection (which at times can become very distant or even tenuous) with the central narrative. This episodic structure is the primary source not only for the exceptional length of performances but also the arrangement of presentation wherein one or two major episodes are featured in each night’s performance. At the same time, this episodic structure also has deep connections with the culture of story-telling of the epics, particularly Mahābhārata, and its technique of disparate time frames, an aspect that will be examined in greater detail in Chapter 6. Even further, the episodic structure that eschews adherence to the dramatic plot also institutes a culture of performance in which, as we have seen earlier, the narrative that unfolds is primarily a narrative of performance. To explicate this further, we may return to the analogy of viewing a painting to which we referred in Chapter 1. When looked at from afar, we see the painting in its totality. It is after so grasping the whole of the painting that we move closer to it, and as we move in, we come to see more and 156

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more details that were not perceptible earlier. However, as we thus move closer in our eagerness to grasp further fine details through proximal viewing, our perception of such fine details is conditioned and modulated by our understanding of the totality of the picture. It is within our knowledge of the picture as a whole, and in terms of it, that our perception of the fine details comes to be located. Such a process occurs also in the viewing of the Kutiyattam performance. As far as an initiated audience is concerned, they already know the totality of the play, its story and its plot. It is on the basis of this knowledge that they come to view each performance. As in the case of the oft-quoted dictum about spectatorship in Kathakali, here too the knowledgeable spectator “sees the performance, with full knowledge of the story” (kathayaṟiññu āṭṭam kāṇuka). In such a situation, the larger story of the play becomes somewhat irrelevant or taken for granted, and the emphasis in performance shifts from the question “What happens (next)?” to “How does it happen?” In other words, the focus is not on knowing the story (which is already known) but on how it is presented. No doubt, the attention of the spectator then comes to bear primarily upon the audiovisuality of performance, its finer aspects and the virtuosity of the actor(s) in presenting them. This is where we are once again prompted to say that what unfolds in Kutiyattam is a narrative of performance and that in the final analysis Kutiyattam is not a playwright’s theatre but emphatically an actor’s theatre.

Notes 1 The Malayalam Calendar, or Kollam Era, is a solar and sidereal Hindu calendar used in Kerala and some parts of Tamil Nadu in South India. The origin of the calendar has been dated as 825 CE, and it follows the naming convention of the Sanskritic Sauramāsa (solar month). Thus, Ciṅgam, the first month, which falls from mid-August to mid-September on the Gregorian calendar, is named after the corresponding Sanskrit solar month, the Siṃham (the lion), and so on. 2 The time when the Sun moves from one to another of the 12 constellations, which correspond to the signs of the zodiac. 3 This elaboration was introduced into performance by Painkulam Rama Chakyar in the 1970s, a pointer to the fact that the tendency to elaboration continues to work in the performance culture of Kutiyattam, encouraging performers to discover fresh situations for elaboration and to introduce new digressive segments. 4 In this context, one is reminded of a performance of Ammannur Parameswara Chakyar (popularly known as Kuttan Chakyar), one of the senior-most actors of Kutiyattam today, when he played the role of the Vidūṣaka in Act Two of the play Abhijñānaśākuntaḷam on 9 July  2010 as part of the “Gurusmarana 2010 – Vidūṣaka Festival” at the Chachu Chakyar Gurukulam, Irinjalakuda. Appearing at the beginning of the act, as the companion of King Duṣyanta, the hero of the play, the Vidūṣaka bemoans his sorry plight in having to accompany the king and his entourage on a hunt. Having had to chase animals in the midday heat from jungle to jungle, drink foul water from mountain streams, eat tasteless spit-roasted meat, spend sleepless nights due to aching joints and so on, the exhausted Vidūṣaka is totally fed up with the hunt and only wants to

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return to the comforts of the palace. However, being averse to making such a request directly, he decides to “pretend that his arms and legs are broken” in the hope that the king himself on seeing his sorry state will offer him respite and allow him to return. At one point in the peroration, on reaching the word “pretend,” Kuttan Chakyar launched into an extensive discussion lasting nearly half an hour on the meaning and implications of the word. After establishing that “pretence” effectively means “giving someone else an impression that one is in a state that one is really not in,” he connected it to the art and craft of the actor, namely abhinaya (acting). Thereupon, there was a discussion on the different aspects of abhinaya, how to make it successful and pleasing, and the training needed for it. On the mention of training, he began to speak of his own kula (clan), the illustrious ancestors who were masters of the art, and how despite all the training he had been given by them, he himself has never been able to excel at it. When he was thus speaking self-deprecatingly about the self, on the one hand, it was the self of the Vidūṣaka to which he was referring, who as the companion to the king is expected to know the art of pretence and pleasing, but on the other hand, it was also a veiled reference to Kuttan Chakyar’s own lineage, with such celebrated performers as Ammannur Chachu Chakyar and Ammannur Madhava Chakyar as his ancestors and his gurus. That veiled reference was not lost on anyone, given also that the institution in which the performance was taking place was named after the former and the festival itself was in memory of the latter. It was an exhilarating exhibition of verbal virtuosity, a balancing act between two parallel worlds – one that of the Vidūṣaka and the other that of Kuttan Chakyar himself, which was at the same time closely linked to the world of the audience – unfolding side by side through each word, but never for a moment letting one encroach upon or penetrate the other. 5 For this description, I  have drawn on the manuscript of the āṭṭaprakāram of Bālivadhāṅkam in the possession of Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar. According to him, this segment was originally introduced into the performance by Painkulam Rama Chakyar, his teacher, on the basis of whose broad hints the āṭṭaprakāram was written by Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar himself and popularized on the stage. This is again another instance of a recent introduction of an interpolation that has become an integral part of performance, accepted and performed by almost all performers doing the role of Sugrīva. 6 The Rāmāyaṇam Saṃkṣēpam is a concise narrative of the entire Rāmāyaṇa story, from the origins of the Śūryavamśa, the clan of the Sun God, to the point where Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, along with Sīta, return to Ayōdhya after killing Rāvaṇa and crowning Vibhīṣaṇa as the king of Laṅka. Structured in such a manner as to provide the basic content for the nirvahaṇams of the different characters of the three Rāmāyaṇa plays, Āścaryacūdāmaṇi, Abhiṣēkanāṭakam and Pratimānāṭakam, the Rāmāyaṇam Saṃkṣēpam is an essential component of the traditional training curriculum of Kutiyattam. It not only provides a condensed version of the story as it appears in all the Rāmāyaṇa plays, it also functions as a comprehensive text for training in mudras, since practically all the concepts and features that are to be depicted in gestural acting are featured in it. 7 This is the very beginning of the Rāmāyaṇam Saṃkṣēpam. The Śūryavamśa, the clan of the Sun God, is the clan to which Rāma was born. 8 The original Sanskrit passage is as follows: saṃnibaddham hi ślōkānām caturviṃśatsahasrakam / ˉ tapasvinā / upākhyāna śatam caiva bhārgavēṇa ādi pṟabhṟti vai rājan pañcasaṟgaśatānica / kāṇḍāni ṣaṭ kṛtānīha sōttarāṇimahātmanā /

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kṛtāni guruṇasmākamṛṣiṇa caritam tava // pṟatiṣṭā jīvitam yāvathāvatsaṟvasya vaṟtatē // (Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa. 94.25–27; Valmiki, 2002b, 225) 9 Since a reliable English translation of Kṛttivāsa Rāmāyaṇa is unavailable, this particular section was translated on my request by Sutapa Dutta, Gargi College, University of Delhi. The whole section is as follows: Kāṇḍas seven of Rāmāyaṇa Hanumān narrated, Listening to which the bird Sampāti’s wings sprouted. In the Ādyakāṇḍa at an auspicious moment Rām was born, Ajōdhyā rejoiced at the birth of their Lord. Śri Rām, Lakṣmaṇ and Bharat, Śatrughan, The King was overjoyed to beget four sons. Viṣvāmitra visited the city of Ajōdhyā, Got Śri Rām married at Mithila. Having got his four sons married happily, The King ruled Ajōdhyā in harmony. When the King desired to make Rām his heir, The devious Kaikēyi began scheming for her share. Rām left for the forests to honour the vows of his father, Accompanied by his wife and Lakṣmaṇ his brother. In the Ādyakāṇḍa the birth of Rām, the marriage of Sīta, In Ajōdhyākāṇḍa, dwelling in forests, renouncing all that was regal. In the Āraṇyakāṇḍa the abduction of Sīta, The slaying of Bāli in Kiṣkinda. The building of a wonderful bridge in the Sundarkāṇḍa, The annihilation of Rāvaṇa’s clan in the Laṅkākāṇḍa. The seven kāṇḍas fall to an end with the Uttarakāṇḍa, And the essence of Rāmāyaṇa can be found in the Uttarakāṇḍa. Kāṇḍas seven of Rāmāyaṇa Hanumān so told, And with it the bird Sampāti’s wings reappeared.

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5 THE TRAINING SPACE The body as live archive

A manifestly obvious aspect of the performance culture of Kutiyattam is that, as it came to be incorporated into the temples, it became not just a castebased occupation but a family-based one too. It was not individual practitioners but families of Cākyārs who were associated with various temples and the virutti, payment in terms of land and money for their services, was bestowed upon the family as a hereditary right and passed down through successive generations. Inevitably, as was the case with most other caste communities engaged in different professional activities within the temple economy, with the Cākyārs too there was continuity among their identities related to caste community, family and profession. In keeping with this, it is said that originally there were 18 Cākyār families engaged in the profession and attached to various temples, but that number has today dwindled to eight (Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, 1995b, 127). A major feature of the family-based system is that each family had accumulated experience, and hence expertise, in the performance of certain acts/plays, depending on the ritual traditions associated with the temple(s) to which they are attached and the performances considered necessary or important in those temples. This meant that each family had a repertoire of plays in which they specialized, and they would be experts in the specific conventions, practices and performative portions associated with those plays. As a result, different families had different areas of strength; some were considered good at acting, some at verbal skills and so on. The most important consequence of the family-based system was that the Cākyār families functioned as both performing companies as well as training schools. Training invariably took place inside the family, at the maḍham, the home of the Cākyārs. Ammannur Madhava Chakyar’s statement – “maḍhah chātrādi nilayaḥ” [the Cākyār’s house is a pupils’ abode] (1995b, 141) – captures the idea that the maḍham is a kind of school where training takes place in a year-round fashion. With the Cākyār families following the method of matrilineal descent and until recently adhering to the joint family system, the training of young Cākyārs was carried out by the seniors of the family  – the uncles and the grand-uncles  – who were 160

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experts generally in the art as well as in the specific areas in which the family’s reputation lay. If, due to untimely deaths and the absence of elders, such expertise was unavailable in the family, the young student may go and reside with another Cākyār family to which he is related and undergo year-round training there.1 Whatever be the case, until the establishment of public institutions of training, such as Kerala Kalamandalam, Ammannur Chachu Chakyar Gurukulam, Margi, etc., in the later part of the 20th century, it was an inflexible rule that Kutiyattam training took place in families. Spatially, this meant that the family space was also the training space, and training became a natural extension of the day-to-day life of the family, done in spaces and taught by people that were closely familiar to the young student. The inevitable result of this system was that training in the initial instance proceeded through an informal culture of immersion where the student lived and breathed Kutiyattam. As students, their environment would be suffused with the culture of performance. They would be surrounded by the texts and manuscripts related to performance and be privy to the discussions on the art by their elders, which at first may appear incomprehensible to them but would over the course of time start to make sense and build in them familiarity with the terms and concepts connected with the art. They would be watching their senior brothers and cousins being given advanced training even as they were receiving elementary training, and as they grew older they would be given charge of supervising the practice sessions of their juniors. They would also accompany their elders to performances and assist them in make-up and costuming, or chip in as stagehands during the performance. They may even get to play a minor role or two, and needless to say they would watch the performances from the sidelines of the stage, imperceptibly learning the conventions and practices associated with different acts, plays or performances. In addition, the kūttampalams and their performance spaces become extensions of the familiar family space, with the novices getting to know them and behave in them, accompanied by their elders and other members of the family. In effect, this achieves in bringing about an unconscious familiarization with the very spaces in which they would later perform as adult actors. In other words, there would be constant and never-ceasing exposure to the culture of performance throughout their waking hours, through which they would inevitably acquire the necessary forestructures of knowledge required for a performer, without their being overtly conscious of the learning process they were undergoing.

The training process It is to the background of informal learning acquired through immersion that the formal training of a young Cākyār takes place. Traditionally, with the education connected with his caste occupation being the only one in which he engages, the student’s training starts at a very tender age, around 161

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five or six years, and continues uninterrupted until he is around 20 years of age. The first few years are spent in learning the fundamentals of the Sanskrit language and the techniques of reciting ślōkas, even as the student undergoes rigorous physical training to prepare his body and for him to acquire the skills required to undertake his life vocation of performance. It is to be noted that even when conducted at home, the actual physical practice takes place in a space that is a remarkable replication of the stage space of the kūttampalam, in terms of its dimensions and orientation, with the āśān (teacher) seating himself at a spot that equates to the first row of spectators. According to Mani Madhava Chakyar, the daily training schedule starts at 3 a.m. and continues literally until bedtime the following night, and it goes through eight distinct segments. In the morning session, the students go through each of the following, completing them by 8 a.m.: (1) recitation of ślōkas from the plays in their specific rāgas (or svaras, as they are known in Kutiyattam); (2) practice of movements of eyes, eyebrows and cheeks; (3) practice of the basic stance or posture called tāṇu nilkkuka (“lowered stance”); (4) reciting ślōkas in the basic stance, along with rotation of hands; (5) practice of nityakriya (the daily conventional actions), after the learning of which the kriyas (conventional actions, movements) associated with specific plays such as Aṅgulīyāṅkam,2 Mattavilāsam, etc. are practiced; (6) the practice of iḷakiyāṭṭam, where the reciting of ślōkas are accompanied by mudras,3 along with conventional movement sequences such as cavuṭṭi cāṭuka (stamping and jumping), paratti caviṭṭuka (stamping and sliding the feet), and other such actions of the body and feet and (7) special āṭṭams – conventional acting sequences – such as puṟappāt (entrance), kēśādipādam (head-to-feet description), kōppaṇiyikkal (decking up with ornaments), parvatavarṇana (description of a mountain), vṛkṣavarṇana (description of a tree), pakṣistōbham (simulation of a bird’s character and actions), etc., all of which involve the concerted and synchronized use of gestures, facial expressions and actions of the torso and the limbs. The eighth segment is taken up around noon, when the students memorize the ślōkas, plays and āṭṭaprakārams through recitation, according to the level they have reached. Later, at night, the movements of the eyes, eyebrows, cheeks and hands are repeated, after which, as the final exercise of the day, the ślōkas memorized during the day are once again recited (1995, 48–49; [1973] 1996, 134–138).4 If we are to look at the differing natures of these training practices, it will become apparent that they fall into two broad areas of competence. The first is the domain of verbal skills necessary for theatrical communication, addressed primarily through the learning and memorization of the ślōkas and the texts of the plays, and their repeated recitation in tonal/melodic patterns required for their delivery on stage. The second is the sphere of physical skills of acting, imparted through training in mudras (hand gestures for the communication of words/ideas based on the Hastalakṣaṇadīpika)5; eye 162

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and facial movements (for the expression of bhāvas, or emotions) and bodily postures, stances, steps and rhythmic movements of the limbs (including kriyas as well as conventional movement sequences that are to be employed in specific dramatic situations). To describe it differently, the training practices are designed to inculcate in the student competence in two of the four basic aspects of abhinaya (acting) – vācika (verbal) and āṅgika (physical). A major part of the training is the learning of the kriyas. A set of conventional movements that do not denote any specific meaning, unlike gestures, facial expressions and movement sequences used at specific dramatic points, kriyas are part of āṅgika, physical action. Students learn the kriyas in the first two years of their training. Ostensibly in the initial instance, it is as preparation for their debut performance, which is by convention the Sūtradhāran puṟappāt in Bālacaritam, in which as in the puṟappāt of all other characters the nityakriya is a major component. However, there is one substantial difference in the learning and practice of the kriyas, and movements of the eyes and the face, on the one hand, and the rest of the components of training, on the other. Training in all other aspects – such as mudras, iḷakiyāṭṭam, conventional movement sequences such as kēśādipādam, memorization of texts and verbal skills – follow an incremental mode, where there is a steady progression from basic to more advanced levels, as well as a building up of lessons learned earlier. This essentially means that these aspects, once learned, are not repeated but are the grounds upon which further studies proceed. In stark contrast to this is the case of kriyas. Students learn them at the very beginning of their training but continue to practice them as a matter of daily routine throughout the training period and ideally even afterwards. In this regard, Mani Madhava Chakyar’s observation is pertinent: “It is necessary to practice nityakriya every day” (1995, 48). Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar affirms the same and states that nityakriya was practiced every day during his training under Painkulam Rama Chakyar at the Kerala Kalamandalam. Most interestingly, he goes even further and says, “We were also advised to continue practicing them even after the training period was over.”6 This regular, repetitive regimen that is associated with the kriyas and their compulsory nature indicate that there are some crucial objectives structured into them that are ultimately to do with the very practice of actorship in Kutiyattam. The most obvious objective, as most actors would vouch,7 is the toning of the body and the acquisition of physical stamina in preparation for the long periods of time that the actors are required to be onstage and the intense activity that they must undertake there. In this sense, they are physical exercises employed at the time of actor training through which the actor acquires the physical fitness required for his vocation and which he is supposed to continue with to maintain the same levels of fitness throughout his career. They also serve to loosen the actor’s body, especially the joints, removing what in the parlance of training is called the keṭṭus (knots/ 163

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stiffness) of the body, thereby making it supple and pliant enough for the smooth and graceful execution of the movements of performance. At the same time, introduced as they are at the very beginning of the training period and repeated throughout, the kriyas and the other movement sequences provide the basic rhythmic frame within which the mudras, the movements of the eyes and the eyebrows, the facial expressions, and even the vācika segments are to be executed. Rhythm is most crucial because everything done on the Kutiyattam stage is to the accompaniment of percussion on the miḻāvu and the beat maintained by the Naṅṅyārs on the cymbals; each gesture, movement and word assayed on the stage must be synchronized to the rhythmic patterns unfolding on them. Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar states this succinctly: Yes, there is the tāḷām (rhythm). In Kutiyattam, more than anything else, it is the practice of kriyas that unite (the actor’s activity) with the tāḷām, or make it based on the tāḷām. It (tāḷām) enters the student as if by itself, it enters him without his knowing. It is to be noted that while the other aspects are initially learned separately with the student sitting on the floor, it is after the kriyas are learned and are being practiced regularly that they are brought together and joined with the conventional standing posture and the movements of the limbs. What is important in this system is that even as all the other aspects of acting are first learned as individual stand-alone skills, it is through the framework of rhythm provided by the kriyas that they are brought together into an indivisible whole. In other words, kriyas are the medium though which a sense of rhythm is instilled into the students, and it is this sense of rhythm that gives the student an intuitive idea of where to start a mudra and where to end it, how long to maintain a facial expression, how many beats of the rhythm a word or an utterance should last, and so on. If one were to bring in a linguistic analogy, it would appear that while the mudras, the eye movements, facial expressions and verbal skills form the alphabet and vocabulary of the performative language of Kutiyattam, the systems of rhythm and movement acquired through the kriyas bring them together into meaningful performative sentences. In other words, the kriyas are the source of the structure – or grammar – of the performative language of Kutiyattam. Since this performative language is one that gets articulated in space, it is again the practice of the kriyas that provides a clear sense to the actor of the spatial coordinates of the actual acting space, within the larger space defined by the lamp in front, the miḻāvu frame behind, the Naṅṅyār sitting on the right and the pīḍham (stool) on the left. According to Rama Chakyar, this sense is created in the student by the āśān (teacher) though suggestions and cautions while the kriya is being done, most often delivered in a jocular, but sharp, manner to inscribe them in the minds of the students. From his 164

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training days he still distinctly remembers some of those comments of Painkulam Rama Chakyar, his teacher: “Do not go and jump on their (the miḻāvu players’) heads; if you go so far back, where will they go?” “Is this how you leap? Let the leap appear large, but land close to where you were before; otherwise you will end up outside in the cuṯṯampalam (the courtyard outside the kūttampalam).” “Do not jump like a grasshopper.” “Do not prance around like a newborn calf.” Obviously, the comments serve to set in the mind and the body of the student the spatial limits and boundaries to the movements as well as the smooth and flowing manner in which they are to be executed. Starting as they do from the basic posture (tāṇu nilkkuka), assumed at the centre of the acting space, the kriyas thus create in the student a sense of the space in terms of his own body – or as measured by the span of his body and limbs – and the extents (to all the four sides as well as upwards) to which it can move in action. In other words, a relationship develops between the body of the actor and the space of acting in terms of actual physical practice, which enables not only the controlled positioning of that body but also its regulated movements at different rhythms and tempos within that space. An analogy can be drawn here to the bodily sense that a tennis or badminton player develops of the area of the court and its boundaries, which gets established in his mind through prolonged practice within it and to which he takes recourse, for instance, when deciding whether a shot from the opponent is going to fall inside the court or outside even without looking down at the line. Similar to this, the Kutiyattam actor develops an embodied mental mapping of the space through the training in the kriyas, by which a certain optimal structure of movement in space is slowly infused into the student, which in turn comes to affect all his actions and movements.8 Repetitious practice of the kriyas, as we have seen, is considered essential, primarily because it is through repetition that the sense of rhythm and space, and the relationship between the body and space, is systematically instilled into the student. The repetition aims at a process of embodiment through which the actor’s body acquires a facility to move in certain prescribed ways that do not require the active involvement of the mind. Rama Chakyar speaks of how, “after some time, the regular doing of the kriyas every day felt like a chore, and it became so ‘boring’ that we started to do it without much application of mind, without thinking.” That, however, is the whole idea behind the regimen: that the movements become automatic and the student is able to execute them without thinking, almost as if they are inscribed on his body. To put it differently, the body is trained to such an extent that not only do the movements become second nature to it, but 165

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they also set certain prescribed, predefined channels through which alone it is able to move. It is as if the actor’s body is so shaped and moulded that it can only move thus and not in any other manner. In this sense, at the time of training, the kriyas are a set of bodily actions, or exercises, that are not invested with communicative potential but are primarily directed towards the creation of a suitable body, a body that is appropriate for performance. Through daily and incessant repetition/reiteration, a rhythmic, spatially regulated language of performance is inculcated in the body. Repetition holds the key here because it is primarily a means to culture the body; the aim is not merely to learn the postures and movements, which can probably be done in a few days’ time, but the purpose goes beyond that to inscribing on the body certain patterns of movement that cannot be avoided or evaded, that become second nature almost. It will not be out of place to call it a consummate rewriting of the body. All bodies are always already cultured, invested as they are with patterns of movement, gestures and actions that partake of and define the particular culture to which they belong. What the Kutiyattam training – especially the practice of the kriyas – does is to super-scribe on this already cultured body another set of patterns that turns it into a rhythmic performative body that is suited to the performance of Kutiyattam. These patterns will later become the effective structural frame of the performance, linking and uniting all the other aspects of acting into a harmonious whole, as well as providing a distinct aesthetic which includes a unique style of posture and stance, a culture of movement and a method of performance, all of which set it apart not only from the movements and practices of everyday life but also from those of other forms. In this sense, these patterns come to define the very audio-visual identity of the form as well as the idea of beauty associated with it. It is little wonder that Rama Chakyar says, “Kriyas have a great role in moulding the actor’s body. If they are not learned and practiced properly, his rhythm won’t be good, his actions won’t be good, and it won’t be good to see too.” One also finds in the practice of the kriyas the institution of a seamless continuity between the training space and the performance space. This is not only because the training space is a replication of the performance space in terms of design and dimensions but also because the full realization of what was learned in the kaḷari (training space) comes to happen only on the araṅṅu (stage). As Rama Chakyar states, It is only after a few performances that these instructions start making full sense and you realize the limits of what you can do in the actual space of the stage. This is because the kriyas are done in the kaḷari. Doing them again and again makes it impossible for him (the student) to go out of the spatial limits set by them; he is held fast to them. 166

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Unaware of what his āśān (teacher) had said in this regard, Kalamandalam Sangeeth Chakyar in a separate conversation echoed the very same sentiments: It is through the kriyas that one learns of the space to be used when performing and the connection between the lamp, the stage and the milāvu. The frequent corrections by the āśān about how far ˉ not to move, how to give the impression of making large and how movements even when the movement is actually small – all of which is usually done (by the student) without much awareness of why it is done, and sometimes even with a little resentment – all of that acquire sense only in the concrete context of the stage. It is only there that one realizes the value of the training. Reflected in both these statements is the idea that as the training progresses the student unknowingly develops a sense of his own body and its relation to the space of action and that it becomes a conscious knowledge only when he reaches the actual stage and goes through a few performances there. Rama Chakyar made a very perceptive remark that captures this idea succinctly: “During the training, the teacher is the student’s mirror; once the training is done, the mirror is the student’s own mind.” In other words, a sense of his own body, or a “body mind,” as Philip Zarrilli calls it, develops in the student, with which he is able to instinctively know if his posture is correct, if his actions are within the limits and if he is doing them correctly or not (2004, 661). In the actual event, the kriyas, when executed at the beginning of an actor’s performance, serve as warm-up exercises that not only reawaken in him the structures of his training but also reorient him to the spatial and rhythmic structures within which he is to perform. They aid in refreshing the patterns of posture, movement and spatial practice that define the performance. At the same time, since they are also a series of movements that he has learned to do by rote, his passage through them will inevitably serve to put him and his body at home in the space in which he performs. In fact, coming as they do at the beginning of performance, they could be seen as exercises for his body to familiarize itself to each new space of performance, a method for acclimatizing himself to it and thereby making it his own. A similarity that can be drawn here is with the lines and marks drawn on stages in modern theatre to guide actors in their positions and movements. Effectively, these graphic patterns, when carried from stage to stage, serve to recreate every stage – however different they may be and wherever they may be located – in the design of the rehearsal space in which the play was made. Much in the same manner, through the kriyas executed at the beginning of the performance, each actor carves out with his body a performative space, within the given stage space, that is in accordance with the space in which 167

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he has trained and thereby physically sets the coordinates of his movement within it.9 To briefly recapitulate, the training process of Kutiyattam is aimed at a variety of objectives, including the creation of a culture of physical fitness and stamina necessary for performance, and the inculcation of a sense of rhythm within the broad framework of which all gestures, movements and verbal perorations are to be executed. Equally importantly, with the training space being effectively a copy of the performance space in the kūttampalams, in terms of its physical dimensions, the training was also aimed at the generation in the student of a sense of the performance space and his bodily relationship with that space, initially in the context of specific segments of physical practice and later as a general bodily knowledge. Needless to say, all of this led to a natural continuity between training space and performance space, and between training routines and performance routines, spatially, culturally and performatively.

The body as live archive Two features are crucial in the traditional training programme of the Cākyārs. The first is what may be called a stringent “economy of effort and practices” by virtue of which no action or aspect of training is complete in itself but is turned into an item in a repertoire of actions that is drawn from at different stages of the performance. As John Sowle notes, “In Kutiyattam practically everything learned is used in performance” (Sowle, 1982, 51). Unlike many other theatre cultures, especially of the modern variety, where exercises most often used in training are limited to the training sphere alone, in Kutiyattam, the same movements, or doings, are imported to the stage and reused as part of the performance in the invocatory phase as well as at other junctures. Whether it is a gesture, a posture, a movement, or a set of actions, no part of the training is directed unto itself or employed purely for the purpose of training. Even as they may have relevance as part of culturing the body, or for the creation of a sense of rhythm, or the generation of a bodily knowledge of the performance space, everything learned in the process of training will also have a functional utility at a later point and will be redeployed as part or routine of specific performances. What this ensures is that no action or training is wasted or made redundant; the same set of actions is turned into a repertoire that can be drawn from to be used at different stages in the performance. This recycling of actions not only institutes a seamless continuity between the training and performance, as we saw earlier, but it also economizes on effort and methods by reusing as an aspect of performance a training practice that served to create a performative body. A comparison with Kathakali may be in order here because, being a later form and one which is not implicated as Kutiyattam is in the culture of the temple or its religious/ritual practices, some clarity may be obtained from a scrutiny 168

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of its training practices and their links with performance. A major part of the training in Kathakali is the set of the meyyuṟappŭ aṭavus (movements to firm up the body) which are practiced everyday, like the nityakriya is in Kutiyattam training. Again, the meyyuṟappŭ aṭavus are never ends in themselves. Their components are later used as part of the puṟappāṭ (invocation) and performative segments, such as kalāśams (terminal dance sequences), that indicate the transition from one stanza to the next, from one padam (verse sequence) to the next and at high points of the action. Here, too, one sees a culture of recycling, where actions and exercises initially employed for training and culturing the body are later redeployed as transition elements in performance, thereby ensuring an optimization of effort that precludes any surplus or wastage. In effect, the presence of such a strategy in both Kathakali and Kutiyattam, and the fact that Kathakali draws upon the martial practice kalarippayaṯṯu for most of its systems of training and body culturing, points to the existence in general culture of an approach that lays store for economizing on effort, especially in the pedagogy and performance of practices that are based primarily on bodily skills. At the same time, it may even be possible to see this as a reversal of the linearity of the learning process whereby the outcomes/results of the learning process are themselves turned into its processes/practices, so much so that that there is complete identity between the process and the product of the training. The second aspect is the process of embodiment that is central to the very methodology of Kutiyattam training. Repetition is key to it; even as the training focuses on different parts of the body, such as the aṅga (the main parts), pratyaṅga (the secondary parts) and upāṅga (the minor parts), certain patterns of gesture, movement and physical practice are inscribed on the body of the novice through repetition, turning it into a performative body that can function without any active involvement of the mind. Along with the creation of a sense of rhythm and space, and the relationship between the body and space, the repetitive regimen aims at an embodied knowledge in which the actor’s body acquires a facility of its own to move in certain prescribed ways and in those ways alone. These movements become second nature to it and through them a suitable body, a body that is appropriate for Kutiyattam performance, is created. In effect, the incessant repetition/reiteration inscribes a rhythmic, spatially regulated language of performance – or an “alphabet of performance” – on the body of the trainee. As has been stated, this constitutes nothing less than “a consummate rewriting of the body,” super-scribing on the already cultured body of the novice another set of patterns that turns it into a rhythmic, performative body fully suited to the performance of Kutiyattam. These patterns shall become the effective structural frame of the performance, providing a distinct aesthetic which includes a unique style of posture and stance, a culture of movement and a method of performance, all of which set them apart not only from the movements and practices of everyday life but also from those of other forms. 169

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Taken together, these two aspects of training, namely, the economy of practices and the embodied language of performance, are directed towards making the actor’s body a structured repository of performance techniques and systems. In other words, through the process of training, the actor’s body is turned into a live archive of performance practices and conventions from which elements can be drawn out at will as and when required. Every aspect of performance, including the physical knowledge of rhythms, the tonal melodies, the structured movements, the different gestures and their specific renderings, the facial expressions, the eye movements, the embodied understanding of the performance space, as well as the felt knowledge of the relationship between the body and that space, all become part of this live archive. In a sense, it may not be too wide off the mark to state that even the play texts and the ślōkas for enactment are also part of this bodily archive because they exist less as part of the conceptual, mental memory of the actor and more as part of his bodily memory, in the form of rote-learned sounds emanating from the mouth and the vocal cords in specific manners as demanded by convention, and to the accompaniment of gestures that go with each word. It is in connection with this aspect of the Kutiyattam actor’s body being a live archive that one needs to place one of the most unique features of Kutiyattam – the existence of elaborate acting and performance manuals.

Āṭṭaprakārams and Kramadīpikas – manuals of performance and production A unique feature of Kutiyattam, probably one that is singularly exceptional and not found associated with any other dramatic tradition in the word, is the culture of performance and production manuals  – the āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas – which faithfully document in the form of verbal instructions practically everything pertaining to performance. Basically speaking, the āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas are instructional manuals for the actors. Until recently, inscribed on palm leaves, as most scholarly texts used to be, these manuscripts were zealously guarded and preserved by the Cākyārs, along with the play texts themselves, rarely allowing access to them to anyone other than the members of the respective families. This secretiveness had to do with the specific repertoire of plays and conventions associated with each Cākyār family; the manuals were written records  – repositories – of the family’s specialized knowledge in the field and could be made available to others only at the risk of compromising their distinct artistic identity and surrendering their specific expertise. Probably the most remarkable indication of this secrecy is that the 13 plays attributed to Bhasa, the texts of which had been long considered lost but which all through had been in the possession of the Cākyārs along with their āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas, came to be 170

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discovered by Ganapati Sastri and made available to the world at large only in 1912. The āṭṭaprakārams – loosely translated as “actor’s manuals,” but the literal meaning of which is “acting method” (āṭṭam being acting and prakāram being method) – are comprehensive guides to performance from the performer’s perspective. They are extensive, elaborate statements of the entire process of performance as well as the technical aspects of each play presented on the Kutiyattam stage. They describe in fine detail everything that the actor is expected to do as part of the performance: the preparatory actions in the green room, the initial invocatory actions on the stage behind the curtain, the entry of characters, then the entire process of performance, including the nirvahaṇam of each character, followed by the enactment of the play text, with the words, the rāga in which they are to be recited, the gestures, the postures to be adopted, the movements, the tālam (rhythm) to be followed in each segment and the final ritual actions. They also explain in detail how to interpret and enact the prose and verse passages of the plays, provide verbal texts for the gestural extrapolations that are undertaken as part of the elaborations and outline the verbal interpolations of the Vidūṣaka. The kramadīpikas, on the other hand, usually called “production manuals” but which literally means “guides to the order” of the plays (krama being “order” and dīpika being “guide”), on a first look appear to be condensed versions of the āṭṭaprakārams. They define the general structure of performance; the make-up and attire of the different characters appearing in the act; the modes of entrances and exits of the different characters; the points of the performance at which each of these is to be carried out; the specific order in which they are to be carried out; the beginning and end of each day’s performance; the beginnings and ends of the anukramam, nirvahaṇam and saṃkṣēpam and so on. The kramadīpikas also contain information about what material is to be collected and prepared for each performance, who are responsible for procuring each of these materials, as well as any other information that may be of importance to the conduct of a performance, such as specific rituals to be conducted, particular elaborative segments to be enacted, etc. They are also of great historical import because at least some of them give indications of the payment to be made to the performers, thus providing possibilities for historical dating. For instance, the kramadīpika of Parṇaśālāṅkam, the first act of Āścaryacūdāmaṇi, starts thus: This is [the set of] twenty-one aṅkam (acts).10 For it, the payment is three thousand three hundred paṇam,11 if it is (presented) for kings.12 If it is done for Brahmins, then [the payment is] one thousand five hundred paṇam. Expenses are extra.13 To enact the Laḷita14 and Maṇḍōdari, the payment is one hundred paṇam, if it is an associated Naṅṅyār.15 171

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If it is another Naṅṅyār,16 the payment is to be met from the expenses. Same is the case for the Nampyār. (Venugoapalan, 2009, 51–52) It then proceeds to detail each and every head of expense and the payment to be made for each. In most instances, the kramadīpikas do not come separately but as texts that accompany and intermingle with the āṭṭaprakārams. It is an oft-repeated commonplace that these manuals of performance are comprehensive documentations; that is, they are texts that faithfully record in language the onstage practices of these forms. This partial misconception arises from the fact that the kramadīpikas and āṭṭaprakārams, on first appearance, seem to be detailed statements or descriptions of the activity taking place on the stage or the performative process as such. Even as this is true to a certain extent, further scrutiny will evince that there is much more at stake in them, especially in terms of their philosophical and aesthetic significance, their status as link texts between training and performance, their value in maintaining and preserving the systems and structures of performance across time, and their linguistic notation of the practices of the actor’s body and its uses of space. Taken together, the āṭṭaprakārams and the kramadīpikas are comprehensive guides not just to performance but to training too. They are essential texts in the training process, with the performance of each and every act and role being entirely based on them. The student is expected to faithfully copy the āṭṭaprakāram and kramadīpika of the act that he is about to start learning from his āśān’s (teacher’s) manuscript, keep it as his personal possession, first memorize it and then follow it faithfully as he is being trained and refer to it whenever needed. The copying by hand of the āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas is considered an important part of the student’s formal training because it not only builds first-hand familiarity with the processes of the performance but also furnishes a deep steeping in the culture, language and terminology of the form. In this sense, these guides are also links between training and the performance. After training is completed, these texts remain precious possessions that no performer can do without. Even mature performers with several years of onstage experience invariably refer to these guides the morning or evening before a performance, though they may have performed that role and that act innumerable times. Even as these āṭṭaprakārams function as curbs on the actors, requiring them by tradition to adhere to them strictly, they are also texts that do not remain static and unchanged. They do come to reflect the subtle and slow changes that come over the form over generations. When the student first makes a copy from his āśān’s āṭṭaprakāram, no doubt, it will be an exact and verbatim copy, but later on in his career, when he makes further copies there will invariably be additions and amendments, reflecting the stage experience he has acquired and the subtle changes that he has brought to the acting processes inspired 172

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by that accumulated knowledge, which then gets passed on to his students, when they in their turn copy the guides in preparation to learning from him. In this sense, it may not be entirely amiss to term them “live” records of performance because if one were to take a series of interconnected, successive āṭṭaprakārams belonging to a lineage of actors, they will undoubtedly reflect not only the existing systems of performance at any given point of time in history but also the alterations that have sequentially come over the tradition over a period of time spanning several generations of actors. A significant aspect of the manuals is their incremental inter-textuality, which indicates that they are not only an integral part of the training process but also reflective of the total design of the training curriculum. In other words, the āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas are structured in accordance with the progression of the curriculum and consistently follow a chronologically linear, incremental pattern by referring to ones that came earlier in the training procedure of the students. So, for instance, when a particular practice  – be it a movement, a description of a natural scene, or a particular sequence of conventional enactment like kēśādipādam or pañcāṅgam – is first taught to the student as part of a particular act, it is described in fine detail in that āṭṭaprakāram or kramadīpikas. However, for subsequent appearances of the same in other acts and other situations, the practice is not described in detail in their manuals, but its original description in the earlier manual is referred to with the instruction that the same may be replicated in these instances too. Thus, the manuals of acts that come later in the curriculum refer to the ones of those that were taught earlier and the conventions that have already been described in them. One will come across any number of instructions, like “Subhadrādhanañjayattilētu pōle ceyyū” (Do as in Subhadrādhanañjayam), “Jatāyuvadhāṅkattilētu pōle āṭu” (Perform as in Jatāyuvadhāṅkam), “śēṣam kriya okke Śūrpaṇāṅkattile Śrīrāmaneppōle” (the rest of the kriyas are to be done as done by Sri Rama in Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam) (Venugopalan, 2009, 224), “Māyāsītayil Rāvaṇane kaṇakke kriya” (Do the kriya as done by Rāvaṇa in Māyāsīta [Māyāsītāṅkam]) (Venugopalan, 2009, 346), etc., all of which refer to acts/performances that appeared earlier in the chronology of training/performance. In this manner, the total corpus of āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas reflects and expresses the modalities and structure of an incremental way of learning. In the process, they come to comprise an inter-textual network or a cross-textual web in which no manual stands alone but only in relation to and in continuation of other manuals. This inter-textuality, or cross-referentiality, also ensures that the practices and acting conventions are preserved and cannot be changed arbitrarily since a change in the performance of one act, and hence its manual, will have a roll-on effect on the performances and manuals of other acts as well. On the one hand, this guarantees that changes are relatively resisted and the culture of performance preserved as much as possible. On the other, if a change indeed gets accepted, it comes to affect not just one act or one 173

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manual but all the others connected to it and hence the entire culture of performance. A close look at the āṭṭaprakārams will vouch that they feature three interconnected performative discourses – the textual, the physical and the spatial. On the first level every āṭṭaprakāram primarily instructs how a particular play text is to be enacted, and hence that text undoubtedly comprises its core. At the same time, as part of the enactment of that text, all other textual materials that come into play – ślōkas for the nirvahaṇam drawn from previous acts and other sources, such as the campus, verbal texts for the gestural extrapolations that are undertaken as part of elaboration and interpretation of the text, the verbal interpolations and interpretations of the Vidūṣaka, etc. – are given in fine and meticulous detail. Secondly, the entire process of physical enactment, including the entries and exits, the ritual actions, kriyas and other conventional actions, the postures and stances, the gestural text to be enacted in elaboration of textual passages and as part of the nirvahaṇam, the movements and steps to be executed at specific junctures and the tāḷas (rhythm) to be used for them, the rāgas (melodies) in which ślōkas are to be recited, etc., are also laid down with precision. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, these written texts in language are precise statements of the stage space and stage time and their usage in performance. In the descriptions of the different kinds of movements, steps and bodily actions that are to be undertaken as part of the performance, what we find clearly inscribed are established patterns of space and the ways in which the body moves in that space, as well as the time required and the timing of those movements in terms of the tāḷam that is stipulated for each segment. If, for instance, one were to take at random a short set of instructions, this aspect will become amply clear. In Māyāsītāṅkam of Āścaryacūdāmaṇi, on the 15th day of performance, the puṟappāṭ of Lakṣmaṇa is described as starting thus: atinnu Lakṣmaṇan aṇiññu kūṭi maṟayil kaḷappuṟattu naṭannŭ mukhattu nīru taḷiccu kaḷiyam veccu tiriññŭ araṅṅattu kālu nīṭṭi irunnŭ dḥukhiccu koṇṭu puṟappāṭ. (Venugopalan, 2009, 297) (For that, Lakṣmaṇa enters after his make-up, and behind the curtain “walks on kaḷappurattu,” sprinkles water on his face, turns “keeping the kaḷiyam,” sits on the stage with his legs stretched straight, and in a sad aspect does the puṟappāṭ.) First, in terms of the space, the instruction makes it clear with the word “maṟayil” (hidden) that Lakṣmaṇa enters (through the door upstage left) as the tirassīla (curtain) is held downstage and that all the actions described in it takes place behind the curtain. Additionally, though not specifically stated, it is also implied that, when he assays the actions described and 174

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finally when he sits on the stage, the actor’s position is on a straight line directly behind the lamp. Furthermore, the two directions, “kaḷappurattu naṭannu” (walk on kaḷappuram)17 and “kaḷiyam veccu tiriññŭ” (turn after keeping the kaḷiyam)18 are both specialized, technical terms which denote distinctive sets/sequences of steps/actions/movements. These terms are exclusive to Kutiyattam, do not make sense outside of its parlance and are hence basically untranslatable. They would make sense only to a performer who knows how to execute them and maybe to a spectator who has seen the actions so many times that he has a visual image of the concert of movements. If one were to ask a performer to explain what they mean, he may try to describe the actions with words, but at some point in the process he will start demonstrating them physically because ultimately they are physical/ spatial actions that are best shown/done and not described in words. And, of course, the actor’s knowledge of them is an embodied knowledge which has been acquired not through the mediation of the mind or language but through a repetitive physical regimen and hence one that is best expressed with the body. One can come up with several such examples from the manuals, of which the kriyas discussed earlier are probably the best ones. What thus informs the āṭṭaprakārams is a latent understanding of the performance space, its divisions and the relationship between that space and the actor’s body, as well as a structured conception of performance time and the ways in which the actor’s body relates to it, both articulated in terms of movement in time and space. In effect, what the āṭṭaprakārams evoke in the actor is that embodied sense of space and time and his body’s relationship to them that he has acquired during the training process. To put it differently, the āṭṭaprakārams are performance scores which lay down the entire process of a performance – the words, the actions, the gestures, the movements, the entries, the exits and the spatio-temporal structures within which all these are to be undertaken – through what can only be termed as “performance notations” carried out through the medium of words, wherein bodily and spatial practices are illustrated in language. Just like musical scores, they are not ends in themselves; they attain realization only in the concrete act of performance or of training. Coming back to the earlier question about whether these manuals are documentations, it may be said that there may indeed be an element of documentation in them in that they partake of the culture of experience that each performer has acquired and the performances he has seen and performed. However, if in a strict sense documentations are records of that which has happened, the āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas are not mere records of performances that have occurred; on the contrary, they are statements of – or, more precisely, instructions about – what should happen on stage and how they should happen. In that sense, even as they are based on the performances of the past, they are ultimately to do with the performances of the future, prescribing how they are to be conducted. It is also of 175

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utmost importance that the acting manuals are not self-contained or even complete in themselves; they are reminders of, or devices for drawing out, the knowledge already embedded in the body of the actors. Probably the most important aspect of these texts is that they presuppose and are premised upon a certain performative knowledge – a knowledge that is inscribed in/on the body of the performer  – that can be acquired only through the intensive routines of training that the performer has undergone as a student. They draw upon this embodied knowledge of gestures, actions, movements, rhythms and performative space, all interwoven with the attendant discourses of text, percussion and music, and refer back to it in terms of shorthand cues, phrases and incremental cross-references. They are at one and the same time reminders of the training process and what the actor has learned then, as well as pointers to how they are to be used in performance. In this sense, more than documentations, they are mnemonic texts that function as devices for the elicitation of the embodied memory of the actors. They contain keys/notations to a specific language of performance and space and open/awaken bodily memories of mudras, actions, movements, timing patterns, usage of space, etc. which were learned at the training stage and comprise the enactment of a particular segment or sequence. These notations themselves are built layer upon layer, from those learned earlier to those learned later, and cross-referenced in a progressively condensed manner in which subsequent texts always refer to earlier ones in short hand that gets more and more telegraphic as we progress through them. Inevitably, what they communicate to a layman, to a spectator and to a performer are radically different from one another. To a layman, it may give a general idea of the narrative that unfolds in performance, to a spectator it is a statement of what shall be seen and heard on the stage, but to a performer it is a set of detailed reminders to his body of the actions and articulations it shall undertake as part of a specific performance. In other words, if to a layman the āṭṭaprakāram offers a narrative text, to a spectator it offers a narrative cum visual text, and to a performer a narrative cum visual cum bodily text. In this sense, for the performer, they are link texts that connect training and performance as well as and one performance and another. They awaken and maintain the live archive of his performing body through specific cues/ keys that evoke segments/sequences/processes within that archival network. Going further, it may be said that the āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas are themselves textual archives of mnemonic keys that evoke the “live archive” of the performer’s body, inscribed as it is by the experiential paradigms of learning/teaching and performance/reception. Even as the āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas are a support system for specific performances and specific acts of training, it is pertinent that the manuals do not refer to any specific performance(s) that have occurred. Nor do they ever present themselves as “production notes” for a specific performance that is expected to happen at a particular place at a particular 176

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time, as is often the case with the production notes of contemporary plays. To the contrary, what they try to capture is the sense of an ideal performance, a performance as it ought to be, which can happen at any time and at any place. They offer templates that transcend time and place and remain unadulterated by the specificities of a particular performer or performance, even as they can incorporate aspects of specific performances and the contributions of specific performers, converted into the structures of the general and the ideal. Unlike attempts at documentation which can only succeed in recording a certain performance on a certain day and at a certain place, which cannot be repeated or reconstructed, built into the very structure of the āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas are the objectives of repeatability and reconstruction, irrespective of where, when and by whom the performance is undertaken. In other words, if documentation is that of a specific body (bodies) performing in a specific time and space, the āṭṭaprakārams envisage an ideal body that is neither limited by the particularities/peculiarities of specific bodies nor located in a specific spatial/temporal frame. In this manner, the manuals succeed in transmitting through generations an ideal/pure form unadulterated by the specific corporeality or historical situatedness of particular bodies. Taking a cue from linguistics, it may be said that the manuals thus refer to the langue of Kutiyattam – an abstract, pure system that encompasses all the possibilities of the performance language – and that each performance is an instance of parole, an actual utterance, a concrete expression or a specific manifestation of that langue. Specific performances are thus partial repetitions or reconstructions not only of the abstract, ideal performance but also of specific parts and aspects of other performances that have gone into the making of the ideal. There are primarily two implications for this system. First, the āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas constitute a comprehensive method for the protection and preservation of the performance conventions and practices of the form, functioning as mediums not only for their unadulterated transmission but also for the delimitation of unrestrained inventiveness on the part of the performers. Especially in the context of the form becoming attached to temples, thus requiring a sustained discipline and a standard performative culture, the manuals are texts/acts of authority that ensure that nothing enters into the form that is contrary to the basic culture of the form and of the temples. The second consequence is that even if a play or an act has not been performed for a long period of time, and even if it has effectively disappeared from the stage, it is entirely possible to reconstruct its performance as long as there is an āṭṭaprakāram or kramadīpika for it and there are trained performers who have embodied knowledge of the performative language of the form. There have been several instances even in the recent past of such reconstructions/revivals of acts that had not been performed for decades, even centuries, based on āṭṭaprakārams that had survived in the possession of some Cākyār families. Here, in fact, we get a 177

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glimpse of how Kutiyattam has endured the vicissitudes of time over several centuries, in an act of survival that by any criterion of artistic longevity verges on the historically miraculous.

Notes 1 A major recent instance is that of Painkulam Rama Chakyar, the renowned modernizer of Kutiyattam, who stayed with the Ammannur Cākyār family and was trained by Ammannur Chachu Chakyar, who also happened to be his brotherin-law, though vastly older in years. 2 Known as the “nāṭyavēdam” of the Kutiyattam actors, Aṅgulīyāṅkam is of crucial importance in their curriculum because it brings together several aspects of the training. Apart from the kriyas that are part of it, which as we shall see will form a major component of the physical training of the actors, it comprises a recapitulation of the segments of Rāmāyaṇam Saṃkṣēpam, though not in the order as they are found in the Saṃkṣēpam but serving nevertheless to provide a stronger grounding in the knowledge of the mudras as well as the culture of emoting through the learning of the specific bhāvas associated with each mudra or situation. 3 The Rāmāyaṇam saṃkṣēpam is the primary text followed for the learning of mudras. 4 Ammanur Madhava Chakyar also gives a less-detailed but essentially similar account of the training process that used to be followed in his family (see 1995b, 141–146). 5 Hastalakṣaṇadīpika is a manual of performance gestures of Kerala origin but of anonymous authorship. Believed to have been composed before the 10th century CE, it describes the practice and use of the hand gestures detailed in Nāṭyaśāstra. Several print editions of the work, with explanations and interpretations in Malayalam have come out, with the earliest being that of Katattanattu Udayavarma Tampuran in 1892 (see Tampuran, 1892). 6 This, as well as other statements of Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar quoted in this section, is from a recorded telephonic conversation on 29 August 2019. 7 Kalamandalam Sangeeth Chakyar, a young actor and disciple of Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar, emphasized this aspect and maintained that without daily practice of the kriyas, it would be nearly impossible to last without exhaustion the entire duration of some lengthy performances. He highlighted especially how the regular practice of kriyas helps in attaining the ability to control the breath during segments of intense physical activity. (This, as well as other statements of Kalamandalam Sangeeth Chakyar quoted in this section, is from two recorded telephonic conversations on 29 and 30 August 2019.) 8 Merleau-Ponty’s idea of the “body image,” referred to in Chapter 1, is of crucial significance here because it provides the basis not only for organizing bodily movements but also for the body to relate to the world in terms of the tasks that it can undertake, and is thus “finally a way of stating that my body is in-theworld” (2005, 115). Further, the body image is not merely a set of associations accrued through actual experiences but a total awareness of a subject’s “posture in the intersensory world.” Taking the case of typing, he explains that through familiarity a person implicitly knows in his hands and anticipates where the letters are on the typewriter, just as he knows where his limbs are, in terms of the movements and touch of the fingers (2005, 167).

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9 A detailed discussion of the cultural significance of kriyas and the question of their ritual nature is taken up in Chapter 6. 10 The three Rāmāyaṇa plays  – Saktibhadra’s Āścaryacūdāmaṇi and Bhasa’s Pratimānāṭakam and Abhiṣēkanāṭakam – used to be presented in a combined fashion in temples like the Purnathrayisa Temple in Tripunithura. For such a presentation, which comprises 21 acts in all, the Parṇaśālāṅkam is the first act and its kramadīpika, starting with the Sūtradhāran’s puṟappaṭ, is written as the introductory kramadīpika for the entire set of 21 acts. 11 An older denomination of money that was in circulation in Kerala. Four paṇams made a rupee. 12 Presentation done as a ritual offering made by Kṣatriyas, the princely caste. 13 The actual expenses incurred for the performance is to be paid in addition to the remuneration for the performers. 14 The benign, beautiful form of Śūrpaṇakha in Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam. 15 A Naṅṅyār belonging to a family that had performance rights in the temple in which the performance is to take place. 16 If the Naṅṅyār is from a family that does not have performance rights in the temple in which the performance is to take place, her payment will be less and will have to come from the performance expenses. 17 Vigorous, choreographed movements to the three corners of the stage with a flourish/wave of the legs and turning back. 18 Preliminary steps facing the miḻāvu, in which the actor takes one step forward toward the miḻāvu then turns around with one step backward and faces the curtain.

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6 THE SOCIO-CULTURAL SPACE Structures of ideology and knowledge

In a most evocative observation on the connections between architectural spaces and social ideology, Henry Lefebvre asks rather dramatically in his Production of Space: What is an ideology without a space to which it refers, a space which it describes, whose vocabulary and kinks it makes use of, and whose code it embodies? What would remain of a religious ideology – the Judaeo-Christian one, say – if it were not based on places and their names: church, confessional, altar, sanctuary, tabernacle? What would remain of the Church if there were no churches? (Lefebvre, 1991, 44) Lefebvre indicates here that no space is innocent or pure, that all spaces are inscribed through and through by societal ideology, that every society produces certain spaces, its own spaces, which define and describe that particular society and its specific set of social relations. Even more, since it is in/ through such spaces that the particular set of social relations find their tangible expression, every society has its own architectural culture, wherein built spaces are not merely practical or aesthetic structures but function as spatial representations of its attitudes, preferences, hierarchies and priorities. The theatre is no exception to this. As in the case of any other architectural space, theatre too is part of a social system that produced it and for which it is produced. Inevitably, it also partakes of and reflects the ideology and cultural vocabulary of the society to which it belongs. The awareness of this led Panill Camp to state, “Of course, theatre architecture is not an ideal structure; it is a material product woven into history” and that “ideological, political, and historical circumstances affect the architectural conditions of performance” (Camp, 2007, 627, 617). As a space for a particular kind of social activity, the theatre exists not in isolation but as part of the larger spatial practices of that society. In its status as a “material product woven into history” (Camp, 2007, 627), the architectural space of the theatre reflects the ideology of the society of which it is part, even as 180

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it provides the space for the enactment of a variety of expressions of that ideology. The theatre thus is not only a space for performance; it is also a space that performs. Just as it is a place for representation, it is also a place that represents. Being a space that is both lived and live, it plays a part in the specific theatrical performances that takes place inside it and also in the larger performative processes of society that takes place outside it. Through its location, form, shape, size, internal divisions and other physical aspects it becomes a site for the expression of the inherent cultural and political dispositions of that society, in terms of various features such as methods of design and material, associations/continuity with other spaces, structures of exclusion/segregation, spatial formulations of hierarchy and precedence and so on. At the same time, being part of the larger social/spatial practices of a society, and a place where members of that society converge in their capacity as both performers and audiences, there is an inherent continuity in the theatre of the attitudes and ideology that is operative in the larger society at any given point in time. As Ubsersfeld observes, theatre space (lieu théâtral) is that which “brings together actors and spectators in a relationship which depends essentially on both the physical form of the auditorium and the form of social organization” (Quoted in McAuley, [2000] 2003, 19). Further, as we saw in Chapter 1, inscribed within the intentionalities of both the performer and the spectator and their intersubjective engagement are their enabling conditions in the form of past experience, which include familiarity with the practices of theatre and performance in particular social and cultural contexts and a shared language of social and cultural values. It is this “horizon of potentialities” as Husserl terms it, or the “forestructure of assumptions” as Heidegger phrases it, that directs the spectators’ experience of the theatrical event and helps them to make sense of it through particular concepts, thoughts, ideas, images, etc. derived from their past experiences and aids in the construction of the specific cultural meanings, manifest or implied, of the performance. Such a “forestructure of assumptions” and a “horizon of potentialities” that enable the practice of theatre are conditioned by the discourses and practices of other spaces that are co-temporal to it, and the systems of perception – of doing and seeing – that characterize that society at large. As Susan Bennett puts it, “The horizon(s) of expectations brought by an audience to the theatre are bound to interact with every aspect of the theatrical event” (Bennet, 2013, 167). In other words, the knowledge systems and structures of rationality that define a society are inherently implied in its theatrical practices because the theatre space is as much a social, cultural and political space as it is a space for performance. To be more precise, the ways of seeing and the ways of doing that unfold in any theatre are deeply inscribed by the particular historical, social and cultural concepts that define that theatre space as well as the other spaces of that society. 181

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It is this duality of the theatre space – that at one and the same time it is an architectural space that offers a structural representation of the ideology of its society as also a performative space for practices that are overlaid and inscribed by the socio-cultural assumptions of that society – that Michael Hays points to when he writes, It is, in fact, the choice of location which first announces the conceptual as well as the spatial structure of the theater event, since the position, size, and shape of the place determine the physical and perceptual relationships between the participants as well as their number. Temporally, visually, and conceptually, the theater itself provides us with an initial glimpse of the way in which the lived experience of the performance is organized as a structural whole. And it is also this theater space which first allows us to propose a connection between the ordering principles of the theater event and those of society at large. (Hays, 1981, 3) Usually, these connections and lines of influence are rather implicit and remain camouflaged under structures of architectural design that are seemingly autonomous on the one hand and configurations of performance that appear to be essentially theatrical on the other. This is because, most often, with both the performer and the spectator being fully embedded in the particular social formation of which the theatre is part, the forestructure of assumptions operative in its spatial practices remain largely unconscious and transparent. It is usually when one is not part of that social order or does not share the same forestructure of assumptions that the spatial practices of a theatre become opaque and noticeable, leading one to raise questions about their sources in societal ideology. In the case of Kutiyattam, the dual nature of theatre spaces – as an architectural space that represents the ideology of its society and as a theatrical space for performative practices that are intertwined with the socio-cultural values and knowledge systems of that society – is manifestly evident in its structures. As we saw in Chapter 2, Kutiyattam was brought under the sole patronage of the temples by the 15th century and, with kūttampalams – theatres located in the temple precincts – being built shortly afterwards, it came to be performed exclusively in them.1 For the following five centuries it was completely restricted as a temple art, prohibited from being performed elsewhere, until the 1950s when under the initiative of Painkulam Rama Chakyar it was brought out of the temples and came to be performed in secular venues. Since the milieu which surrounds a theatre is always ideologically encoded and has a determining effect on the systems and approaches adopted by the theatre, this prolonged location in the precincts of the temple and its continued association with the culture of the temple society has 182

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inevitably had a huge impact on the form, affecting many aspects of its performance culture. Even further, with the powers of patronage fully vested in the temple society and with its members being the sole spectators, its attitudes and practices have also been systematically incorporated into the procedures of Kutiyattam, with suitable variations and revisions to suit its particular performative context.

Theatre space and structures of milieu and ideology As we saw, kūttampalams began to be built on the precincts of Kerala temples in the 15th century. According to H. Sarkar, Kerala saw three major phases of temple building, viz. the early phase (800–1000 CE), the middle phase (1001–1300) and the late phase (1301–1800) (Sarkar, 1978, 97). The building of the earliest kūttampalams coincided with the third phase and was done in accordance with the conception of pañca-pṟākāra,2 in which the structures of a temple are arranged within five successive enclosures that form concentric rings.3 Accordingly, the kūttampalams are located in the outer-most periphery (the bāhyahāra), to the front-right of the sanctum, on an axis parallel to that of the sanctum. This means that the orientation of the kūttampalams is opposite to that of the sanctum, with the stage facing the sanctum. Since the temples of Kerala are all oriented in an east–west direction with the sanctum facing either east or west, the kūttampalams are either in the northwest or the southeast corner of the temple precincts. That the kūttampalam came to be considered an integral component of the temple complex, especially of the mahākṣētrams (the great temples), is vouched by the fact that the Kerala vāstu-śāstra (architecture) texts, such as the 15th-century Tantrasamuccayam by Narayana, and the 16th-century Śilparatna by Sreekumara, both treatises on temple architecture based on earlier established traditions,4 contain detailed instructions on the design, construction and consecration of kūttampalams. Moreover, the primary measurement scale of the kūttampalam is based upon and related to the scale of the central prāsada (the sanctum), thus making the kūttampalam not only subject to the structural principles of the temple but also an adjunct to the sanctum, so to speak (see Nambudiripad, 1983, 93). In addition, the site of the kūttampalam to the front-right of the sanctum also happens to be the location of the kalaśattaṟa, the floor for purification rites. In temples, where there are no kūttampalams, the kalaśattaṟa is located at that spot, and in temples where there are kūttampalams, the kalaśattaṟa is either inside them or the kūttampalam is itself turned into a site for purification rites whenever so required. The stage of the kūttampalams, as we saw in Chapter  3, is a structure within a structure, a separate construction within the theatre, raised 1 foot above the audience level, with pillars supporting the roof of the stage. The ornate carvings of floral patterns, figures of gods and heroes and narrative 183

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reliefs from the epics on the stage ceiling and the brackets around it display the general ideological and narrative milieu associated with the temples. At the same time, the floor and the ceiling of the stage are also believed to be the seat of the gods of the different quarters/directions (dikpālakas), with Brahma being installed at the very centre. The social structure The incorporation into the temple complex also created connections at a deeper structural level, whereby the kūttampalam effectively became a physical/spatial representation of the structure of temple society and the hierarchical relations within it. We saw in Chapter 2 that the establishment and proliferation of the temple-centred agrarian villages from the 8th to the 12th centuries had led to the ordering of society into groups and classes that matched the various functions related to an agrarian economy, and that the groups thus formed had gradually become separate and distinct castes with specific roles and positions within the hierarchy of the temple society and with rights to virutti (leases on temple-owned land). In this hierarchy, the Nampūtiri Brahmins were the most powerful and enjoyed the highest socioritual status. They were leaders of both the economic and ritual domains: they were the proprietors of the village, custodians of the temple wealth, in charge of the Vedic rituals as well as the priests of the temple. In effect it was an oligarchy of Brahmin landlords that came to be established, and as the historian Kesavan Veluthat observes, “With such Brahmanical [sic] control of land and the population dependent on that land, it is not surprising that Kerala came to be known as brahmakshatram, or where the Brahmanans [sic] wielded the power of Kshatriyas” (Veluthat, 2001). Next in the order on the social ladder were the temple servants, groups closely associated with the affairs of the temple and with the Brahmins. These comprised caste communities such as Potuvāḷ, the intermediaries between the custodians of the temple and the devotees; Vāriyar, the members of the temple committees; Puṣpaka, the group responsible for procuring and preparing flowers and other material needed for ritual offerings; Mārār, the drummers; Cākyār, the dancers and actors. (Narayanan, 2005, 32) These communities, generally known as antarāḷa-jāti (intermediate castes), became hereditary professional groups by virtue of their rights on the temple lands, and “due to their improved economic status and their association with the Brahmins in the affairs of the temple, they distanced themselves from the rest through rules of marriages and inter-dining to constitute endogamous caste groups” (Gurukkal, 1994, 399). At the same time, most 184

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of the temple lands and individual Brahmin holdings were leased out to nonBrahmin groups, among whom the caste which later came to be known as Nāir (caste of soldiers and farmers) was the foremost. The temple having become the central determining presence in society, shaping all aspects of life and occupation, the ritual status of these different caste communities within the scheme of religious hierarchy of the temple coincided not only with their social status but also their economic status within the agrarian system. This resulted in a vertical stratification of society in terms of higher and lower groups based on the ritual/social/economic status accorded to each caste/sub-caste. Further, “ritual status, coupled with complex notions of purity and pollution, determined the levels of proximity permitted to the members of each caste to the presiding deity in the temple” (Narayanan, 2005, 33). The Nampūtiri Brahmins, being of the highest ritual status and hence also the priests of the temple, had access to the sanctum sanctorum and had close contact with the figure of the deity, while the others had to remain farther away according to a graded scale of diminishing access. This effectively created a spatial rendering of the caste hierarchy, defined by “concentric circles of purity” moving outward from the deity, with each outward circle occupied by a caste/sub-caste lower than the one occupying the previous one. This formation of a spatial spectrum with purity at one end and pollution at the other also meant that castes below the level of the Nāirs were considered untouchables and not given entry to the temples.5 This social structure had a deep impact on the theatre space, with the size and design of the kūttampalam reflecting the nature and structure of the temple community from which it drew its audience. First, as far as the size is concerned, we have seen that the kūttampalam at the Vaṭakkuṃnāthan temple, which is one of the largest, will be able to hold only 150 people if filled to its capacity. The small size of the auditorium is primarily indicative of the exclusivity of Kutiyattam, with only a limited number of people who belonged to the temple community being the customary audience. If we are to look at the demographics of spectatorship, it will be apparent that only upper-caste members of the temple community – Brahmins, temple servants, members of the princely castes and the Nāirs – had the right to enter the temple and hence also to enter the kūttampalam. Even among this small group of people, only those with a working knowledge of Sanskrit and the complex language of gestures could aspire to understand and appreciate the Kutiyattam performance, thus further reducing the prospective audience. In addition, with women being effectively prohibited from public spaces through customary rules of behaviour and notions of morality, it was invariably an all-male audience, thus even further diminishing the size of the spectatorship. To cap it all, the rules of purity and pollution also ensured that a few more members of the prospective audience were routinely prevented from attending the performance due to births, deaths and 185

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other polluting events happening in their families. All in all, Kutiyattam was accessible only to a select few, and the kūttampalam space fully reflected this selectivity. That Kutiyattam saw itself as an exclusive theatre catering solely to these sections is vouched by the fact that in the puruṣārtthakkūttu, the perorations of the Vidūṣaka in which the four puruṣārtthas, the aims of life, are comically rendered as part of his nirvahaṇam, only the different temple-related castes are satirized and their weaknesses mocked, while there is little mention of any other caste community that do not belong to the temple dispensation. When we come to the performers, we find similar, but even stricter, structures of exclusivity at work. Traditionally, only two temple servant castes, the Cākyār and the Nampyār, are involved in Kutiyattam performances. The men of the Cākyār community are the actors, the men of the Nampyār community the percussionists and the women folk of the Nampyār community – the Naṅṅyārs – are the actresses and singers. Legend has it that the Cākyārs are the descendants of sūtās, the court bards who also drove the chariots of the kings (Nair, 1996, xxvi).6 At the same time, as mentioned in Chapter 2, there is also a view that they could have originally belonged to the Buddhist fold because the term Cākyār is considered to have been derived from the term śākya, a member of the Buddhist community, who were the earlier settlers of Kerala (Rajendran, 1989, 8; Madhu, 2002, 26). There was also the practice of absorbing into the Cākyār fold those Brahmins and their descendants who had been ostracized from their community for moral turpitude (Nair, 1996, xxvi).7 Originally, there were 18 families of Cākyārs engaged in the performance of Kutiyattam and the related narrative form kūttu; however, over time many had gone extinct or merged with others, leaving hardly six now (see P. R. Chakyar, 1995b, 127). In accordance with the system of temple patronage, each temple where Kutiyattam was performed regularly had a Cākyār family among its servants having the sole right of performance at that temple. In return for their services, they were rewarded with money and land leases by the temple, usually by royal edict or temple award. When one comes to the internal design of the auditorium, one discovers that the same spatial/architectural imaginary that had gone into the design of the temple was at work there too because, much in the same manner as the temple, what it offers is a spatial representation of the structure of temple society and the hierarchical relations between the different caste communities in it. There were clear demarcations in the internal space, with different castes of people being allotted different spaces, in keeping with the vertical hierarchy of the caste structure. The raised audience level was reserved for the Brahmins, the kṣatriya aristocracy and the intermediate castes of temple servants, while the Nāirs could only sit or stand in the aisles around the audience level. A close look at these demarcations will make it clear that the design of the audience space was one in which the spatial representation of 186

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caste hierarchy in the temple space, with its structure of concentric circles of diminishing purity moving outward from the figure of the deity at the centre, was here being adapted to the spatial context of the kūttampalam in terms of its specific rectangular structure with the stage at the centre. The raised audience level of the kūttampalam corresponded to the area of the inner temple ending at the first step to the sanctum sanctorum, where the members of the temple servant castes could enter, while the aisles around the auditorium corresponded to the outer area of the temple, which was the closest the Nāirs could get to the deity. In kūttampalams where there was no raised audience level, as in Muzhikkulam or Perumanam, the same essential principle was followed. As Govardhan Panchal points out, “In days gone by, the front of the stage, raised or not, was always reserved for the brahmanas and the rest was used for the standing or sitting of the common people” (Panchal, 1968, 22). Here, the word “brahmanas” should perforce be understood as the upper castes, the castes that wear the yajñōpavīta (the sacred thread), which in this instance includes not only the Nampūtiri Brahmins but also some of the temple servant castes. At the same time, the Nampūtiri Brahmins had an added privilege that they could sit on the sides of the stage, closest to the action. There were two aspects to this convention. First, the implicit idea was that the stage corresponded to the sanctum sanctorum of the temple and could be entered only by Brahmins. The conventions, discussed in Chapter 3, of the Cākyār going through purification rites before the performance, wearing a different sacred thread at the time of performance and of the clapping of hands by the audience at the end of the performance, all of which indicate the investiture of a temporary “Brahmin-hood” on the Cākyār purely for the time of performance, are pointers to this idea. Along with this, the presence of Brahmins on the stage was also a case of social display and a statement of power and patronage. A quick parallel that one can draw is to the Elizabethan theatre where there was the custom of gentry being seated on the stage or over the stage, as well as the members of the aristocracy occupying boxes on the gallery either directly opposite the stage or to one side quite close to the stage (Chambers, 1923. Vol. I, 534–537).8 These positions were not primarily intended to facilitate better possibilities of seeing for the persons concerned, but for them to be better seen by others in the audience. Theatre, in that sense, is a place “to be seen as well as to see,” a place not only for observation but also to be observed (Chambers, 1923. Vol. I, 537). There are multiple cultural values attached to the idea and practice of theatre-going, such as those associated with notions of culture, learning, taste, social status, economic status and of course power and privilege. And, within this larger cultural semiotic, where you sit in a theatre, or to be more precise, where you are seen sitting in a theatre, is not an innocent matter; it is a loaded statement of your status, power and privilege. In these terms, the right of the Brahmins to sit on the stage was at once a social display of precedence as 187

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well as a declaration of ownership over the space, the performance and even the performers. It was a parallel performance, so to say: the performance of power and patronage; in effect a live, embodied performance of social hierarchy in a space that was engaged in an architectural performance of the same. Even as in this manner the kūttampalam became a site for the expression and display of the ideology and hierarchy of the temple society, it also remains that in performative terms the form and design of the theatre space facilitated the particular ways of seeing and doing that became determinant in the evolution of the performance culture of Kutiyattam. The presence of spectators right at the foot of the stage and on the stage, in close proximity to the actors, must have turned out to be the crucial turning point in the development of a culture of intense, proximal viewing on the part of the audience and a concomitant culture of elaborative, microscopic acting on the part of the performers. In effect, it was a process in which the social constitution of the theatre space contributed ever so much to the development of the very form of Kutiyattam. Ritual and belief structure It is probably within a century of the delimitation of Kutiyattam to the temples that the first kūttampalams came to be built. This structural incorporation of the theatre space into the architectural complex of the temple must have gone hand in hand with the theatrical practice taking place inside it coming to acquire an inalienable place and significance within the corpus of traditional practices of the temple. A good reflection of this significance can be found in the established belief that the prime deity of the temple is himself/herself a silent spectator of the performance, with the stage facing the sanctum and with performances usually being scheduled at those times when the temple is closed to the devotees and there are no other ritual services going on.9 This belief is further accentuated by the fact that in temples where there are no kūttampalams, such as Vennimala and Velloor, performances usually take place in the valiyampalam, the front part of the nālampalam, the surrounding cloister of the inner enclosing structure of the temple, facing the sanctum just like the kūttampalam. Another belief that suggests the assimilation of the form into the larger belief structures of the temple society as well as the attempt to sacralize its practice is the notion that the three wicks of the stage lamp symbolize the trimūrtis (the three principal deities), Brahma, Viṣnu and Mahēsvara (Śiva). With the incorporation into the systems of the temple, performances in the kūttampalam also came to be vested with ritual significance. Practices such as the performative lamp being lighted from the flame of the lamp in the sanctum, the miḻāvu being accorded the status of a Brahmin with elaborate upanayana (initiation rites) being done when it is newly commissioned and 188

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installed in the kūttampalam and samskāra (funeral rites) being conducted when it is finally decommissioned, the custom of the head priest announcing the performance and offering the Cākyār kūṟa and pavitṟam (cloth and ring made of darbha grass), regular schedules being assigned to performances in the annual calendar of the temple in the form of aṭiyantarakkūttu (obligatory performances), performances being offered as votive offerings (vaḻipāṭukūttu) to the deity and the Cākyār having the right to go to the sanctum in his performance costume and offer prayers to the deity during vaḻipāṭukūttu all came to be associated with the performances. Further still, there also developed the fixed association of certain plays with certain temples, with some temples having only certain plays being performed and some others according certain plays more importance. In such instances, there were/are clear strictures regarding what plays should be played and when, with some plays/acts being considered essential in some temples. For example, Bālacaritam was a requisite for 9 days every year at the Thirumuzhikkulam temple, Aṅgulīyāṅkam for 12 days at the Kūṭalmāṇikyam temple at Irinjalakuda and Mantrāṅkam at the Perumanam temple. In some other temples, such as Vennimala and Velloor, both in Kottayam district, a series of different days’ performances belonging to different plays/acts were performed in a particular sequence each year (see Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, 1995a, 34).10 In some other cases, performances also came to be closely interwoven into the belief systems associated with the temples. For instance, for performances at the Perumanam temple, a member of the Mūsat11 community should sit on the stage on a special stone or pedestal from start to end, without which the performance could not commence. The belief behind this custom is that in the olden days the presiding deity himself used to come and witness the performance, sitting on the stone, and that in one instance when he had to leave he asked a member of the Mūsat community to sit there and hold his seat until he returned. The legend goes that to date the Lord has not returned and the Mūsat has to continue sitting there whenever there is a performance. If, in this case, the deity is considered to be (or to have been) an active member of the audience, there is also a case of an even greater embedding of the deity into the performance where he is considered a character in the performance. At the Vennimala temple, Lakṣmaṇa’s role in Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam was never enacted because the presiding deity being Lakṣmaṇa it was assumed that he was a virtual presence in the performance. As a result, in the scene where Lakṣmaṇa cuts off Śūrpaṇakha’s nose, the actor playing Śūrpaṇakha would go to the sanctum, stand in front of it and enact it by himself, followed by the scene of niṇam (blood bath), right there at the heart of the temple. This practice is of importance also because it signals an extension of the performance space beyond the kūttampalam and the spilling over of performance into the general precincts of the temple, whereby the temple at large becomes the stage. This phenomenon can be seen in the performance of Bālivadhāṅkam too at Velloor, in which on 189

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the final day of performance when the scene of the killing of Bāli is enacted, the Nampyār places his miḻāvu in front of the gōpura (the main gate tower) and sounds it like a trumpet, signifying Sugriva’s calling of Bāli to battle. Here, with Sugrīva’s challenge coming from just outside the main entrance of the temple, the whole temple is taken to be the virtual scene of the battle to come. The regimen of purity and pollution of the temple, with its strict system of rules and regulations, was equally applicable to the kūttampalam. One added aspect that made it somewhat more important than the rest of the temple was that, as we have seen, the site of the kūttampalam is also the site of the kalaśattaṟa, the floor for purification. This gave it a position effectively equivalent to the sanctum sanctorum, meaning that if the kūttampalam were to be polluted it would be tantamount to polluting the sanctum of the temple, and extensive purification rites would have to be undertaken. Pollution could happen in several ways: the occurrence of death, birth or defecation inside the precincts, the entry of people belonging to the “lower castes,” people who have not performed the customary acts of purification before entering the temple, people who have had births or deaths in their families within a stipulated number of days, menstruating women, or the bringing in of material deemed unclean or polluted. (Narayanan, 2005, 36) These regulations generally had two upshots. First, people of the lower castes had no entry into the kūttampalam, thereby limiting the audience to the upper-caste members of the temple community. Second, there were severe limitations on the material that could be used for performance. Leather or other materials drawn from dead animals were strictly forbidden. Generally, only material fashioned out of trees, plants and other natural sources were used for costumes and make-up: fresh flowers, cotton cloth, wood, vegetable and natural dyes, rice paste, lime, etc. The only exception to this was the leather used for the miḻāvu, the drum, but which went through initiation/purification rites similar to the initiation rites of a Brahmin before it was installed in the kūttampalam; it was also given a proper burial with all attendant rituals when it was finally decommissioned. As I have observed elsewhere, It may not be entirely off the mark to surmise that this limitation on usable material may have contributed in some measure, along with other theatrical and cultural contexts, to the establishment of a stage which was generally free of props and scenery. This, in turn, led to the characteristic performance mode of Kutiyattam, which

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rejects verisimilitude in any form, whether it be in costume, setting or acting, and which lays emphasis on the exploration of the possibilities of the “body in space” and the full exploitation of the communicative potential of the human body. (Narayanan, 2005, 36) It is in this larger context of purity and pollution that the rites of purification and preparation undertaken by the actors as part of the pūrvaraṅga and the onstage pre-play and post-play rituals, such as araṅṅutaḷi and muṭiyakkitta, described in Chapter 3, have also to be seen. They involved the “investiture of a temporary Brahminhood on the Cākyārs,” the accordance of sacredness to their performative practice, and making it akin in seriousness to the other ritual practices of the temple. It is a little disguised fact that the incorporation into the temple economy, and the associated conferment of regular wages and leases on temple land to the performers, has played a crucial role in the survival of Kutiyattam through the centuries. As with all other communities, the patronage and support of the temple was always conditional on their conducting without fail the duties assigned to them. As Ammanur Madhava Chakyar states, If by some chance the performance was defaulted, the temples reserved the right to take back the property from the family. This obligation to perform the annual kūttu and Kutiyattam made it compulsory for the family to reserve the male members of the family to devote themselves to the study of the arts. (1995b, 141) Needless to say, this has undoubtedly worked as a guarantee for the continuance of performances because the very survival of the community depended entirely on the proceeds received from the temple for several centuries. Alongside this economic compulsion, of particular note is also the value of aṭiyantarakkūttu, the practice of having regular, annual performances as part of the temple calendar, and the award of that right to a particular family of Cākyārs. This bestowal of a duty considered sacred and as a family’s hereditary function, and through it the inclusion into a compelling system of intangible economy, has contributed in no small measure to the continuation of the performance tradition. Stories abound among Cākyārs of how, even against the greatest odds and in the most inimical of circumstances, the tradition was sustained and performances conducted, sometimes in a drastically reduced or purely nominal form, but conducted nevertheless, because it was an obligation they could ill afford to ignore, defining as it was for the very identity of the members of the community.

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The limits of ritual In light of the previous discussion, some questions are bound to be raised: does the presence of rituals in association with the performance of Kutiyattam turn the entire performance into a ritual? Or, to put it differently, is Kutiyattam, first and foremost a ritual? These questions are crucial especially because the presence of rituals in the performance of Kutiyattam has led to a tendency to exaggerate the claims of ritual and to define the identity of Kutiyattam as a ritual per se, almost totally overlooking its value as performance. As I had indicated in an article a few years back, this idea of primary ritual significance must be treated with some amount of caution (see Narayanan, 2006b, 136–153). If one were to summarize the arguments presented in that article, it would be as follows: aided by a rather erroneous understanding of the term cākṣuṣa yajña (visual sacrifice) as one that applies primarily and entirely to Kutiyattam, this tendency towards over-ritualization found in several Western studies of Kutiyattam is part of the strategies of Orientalism and an attempt at the exoticization of the East. Even as it is obvious that the notion of visual sacrifice, which is drawn from a verse in Kalidasa’a Māḷavikāgnimitram, is one that applies to drama in general, not Kutiyattam in particular, and aimed at providing it with a gravity that distinguishes it from other mundane activities, there are three major problems with this approach. First, it does not distinguish between two general types of rituals, namely, self-contained rituals, which are “stand-alone rituals not associated with or dependent on any other practice/ activity and conducted for some specific purpose that is built into the structure of the ritual itself,” and associative rituals, which are conducted “in connection with other practices/activities and performed primarily for the successful conduct and completion of those particular practices/activities.” Even as associative rituals add value to the practices to which they are attached, they do not turn the practice into a ritual because the “native functional quality of the practice is always maintained, without which the practice itself would become redundant.” In the case of Kutiyattam, what we find is the presence of associative rituals, which do not turn it into a ritual per se, but only emphasize the functionality of the practice and its importance to the people engaged in it. Second, the exoticist approach also does not factor in the role of rituals in what may be described as an intangible economy that contributed considerably to the legitimization and maintenance of the real economy and social structure of traditional societies. In the case of the temple society to which Kutiyattam was connected, this intangible economy ran parallel to its real economy, an agrarian one based upon caste vocations, imparting to the “different vocations, occupations, and life practices associated with each caste” with “a ‘sacred value,’ as services to a divine principle that transcended the realm of the human and the social.” Third, it also overlooks the fact that most often in Kutiyattam, the 192

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rituals, especially the temple-related ones, are appended to the beginning and the end of performance as a method of bracketing it off, of placing it under the quotation marks of temple patronage, of providing it with the aura of sacredness as a temple-related practice, while the main body of performance remained intact retaining almost all of its original systems, techniques, and conventions and with little “internal continuity between them and the plays, in either nature or content.” This clearly points to the fact that the rituals were a later addition, a kind of ideological packaging that placed on Kutiyattam the stamp of ownership and patronage of the temple society and are thereby implicit markers of the historical process through which Kutiyattam came to be incorporated into the structures of temple patronage (see Narayanan, 2006b, 136–153). That similar tendencies still abound is vouched by some interpretations attributed to the larger role of kriyas in Kutiyattam. In the previous chapter, we saw the part played by kriyas in the processes of actor training. However, as dance sequences that do not appear to communicate a specific set of discursive meanings that are part of the fictional world of the play, are used at the beginning and end of performance as well as, in some instances, in the middle of performance and are most often performed by the actor in his capacity as actor, and not as character, kriyas have been interpreted as purely ritual actions. To this effect, Virginie Johan, a French scholar, states that the Kūṭiyāṭṭam performer so to say “dances the ritual”: dances are called kriyas, which literally means “action”, which is firstly, in India and in the terminology of the Kūṭiyāṭṭam performers, the ­ritual action. Dance is thereby endowed with a ritual role and power. (2017, 61) The apparent lack of signification is, for her, the essential quality by which kriyas assume the status of ritual: “Here, steps and gestures do not have any discursive signification – this apparent lack of meaning being a general property of ritual” (2017, 67). On the basis of these arguments, Johan goes further and asserts that kriyas are indicative of the “globally ritual” character of the Kutiyattam performance (2017, 71). Even as one agrees partially to the identification of kriya as dance and as ritual action, the basic difficulty in thus assigning kriya almost exclusively to the realm of ritual is that it would then effectively end up ignoring the wider significance of kriyas, not just in terms of their value in training but also in 193

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terms of their multiple implications for performance and the onstage language of communication. Equally importantly, such singular accounts will also conceal the value of kriyas as indicators of the latent social drama of unequal relationships among the communities associated with Kutiyattam. Further still, such an interpretation will also negate the composite culture of Kutiyattam, wherein every domain and every component are connected to the others as in a tightly interwoven web, and there is a multiplicity of uses and significance – in fact, a multi-layeredness – that informs most of its practices, which aids primarily in maintaining a remarkable economy in its effort and practices. To unpack the wider significance of kriya, we will need to start with probably the most fundamental question: what is the primary meaning of the word, kriya? Is it first and foremost ritual action? Such a question assumes importance because even a cursory scrutiny will demonstrate that there is a vast multiplicity of meanings attached to the word. According to Amarakōśa, the famed Sanskrit thesaurus,12 ārambhō niṣkṛtiḥ śikṣā pūjanam sampradhāraṇam/ upāyaḥ karma cēṣṭā ca cikitsa ca nava kriyaḥ// (Beginning, undertaking, study, worship, disquisition, means, act, bodily action and remedy are the nine [meanings of] kriya.) (Sardesai and Padhye, 1940, 131) In actual usage, there are even more meanings associated with the word, such as doing, performing, action, activity, work, exercise of the limbs, verb, the general idea expressed by any verb, medical treatment or practice, a religious rite or ceremony, sacrificial act, rites performed immediately after death, obsequies, purificatory rites, religious action, judicial investigation, atonement and expedient, to mention a few (see Monier-Williams, [1899] 1960, 320). However, the most crucial aspect of these diverse possibilities is that in language and grammar, “kriya” denotes the verb or the general idea expressed by any verb. In this light, it becomes fairly obvious that the primary meaning of the word is act, doing, action, activity, etc. and that the other meanings associated with it have come up as semantic extensions in terms of the specific functional situation in which the act or doing is done and the discursive context in which the word is employed. It then naturally follows that kriya is certainly not ritual action primarily or even firstly, but only so when the specific context warrants so, as in cases where it is used in a ritual situation in association with worship, religious sacrifice, initiation, wedding, death and the like. This is not to deny that in popular parlance, kriya is generally understood to be ritual, primarily because the general acquaintance of the public with the word is mostly in connection with rites of passage and ritual-related situations that occur in their regular life, such as in carama kriya (death/funeral rites) seṣa kriya (rites after the 194

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death of a person) vivāha kriya (wedding rites) and so on, thereby leading to an assumed natural association between the word and ritual. However, such popular semantic expectations can hardly be taken as a reliable gloss for the practice of Kutiyattam, precisely because of its specialized nature and its deep connections with the knowledge discourses of Sanskrit. As far as the practice of kriya in Kutiyattam is concerned, there is another meaning that assumes importance in terms of the specific nature of the action involved. Kriyas are dances that involve the movement of the entire body, and in that sense they are bodily actions, as opposed to verbal, gestural or facial actions. In other words, they are actions that involve the whole body or several different parts of it simultaneously, not just one part or component. The crucial attribute of such bodily action is that it cannot be limited or reduced to any one purpose or objective. For instance, if one were to take an action, such as a circular movement of the arm in space, in its elemental form it is just a physical action like scores of others where a part of the body is engaged in a movement/action within the spectrum of possibilities offered by the particular form of the human body, its bone structure and its musculature. Functionally, in real life, it can be employed as an action (or, as part of one) that has a specific purpose, such as swatting a fly or grinding rice. It could also be a communicative action, such as when waving at someone at a distance or asking someone to turn a wheel. Even in the absence of such a direct and specific functionality, the same action can be employed for a variety of other purposes too. For example, it can be used as part of an exercise routine to tone up the body, develop muscles, strengthen the arm and other such things. However, when one reaches a performative context, where such functional purposes are of less import, it can assume a totally different set of objectives. It can be attempted with the aim of creating a movement that is aesthetically pleasing to a beholder, it can be employed as part of a concert of movements that together constitute a ritually significant action or it can be used in a representational fashion as part of a set of movements that indicate a state of mind or an idea. In other words, an action can be attempted for a variety of reasons and purposes ranging across a large spectrum of possibilities: the functional, the aesthetic, the ritualistic, the semantic, the emotive and so on. It is in this context that one needs to ask, where and when kriyas make their first appearance in the performative culture of Kutiyattam. In fact, as we have seen in Chapter 5, it is as part of the training process that kriyas are first introduced to the students, that too at the very beginning of their training. At that juncture, the use of the word kriya as nomenclature for the dance movements is no doubt in accordance with its earlier detailed meaning as bodily action. However, in the specific training context, the word also carries another shade of meaning, that of study or instruction. This is a meaning that has been conventionally associated with the word, as vouched by innumerable such usages in some of the most canonical texts of Sanskrit. 195

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For instance, the Artthaśāstra has this to say about who is an appropriate and deserving student: kṛtakaḥ svābhāvikāśca vinayaḥ/ kriyāhi dravyam vinayati na-adravyam// (Kautilya, 2009. 01.05.03–04, 4) (Discipline is of two kinds: artificial and natural; for instruction [kriya] can render only a docile being conformable to the rules of discipline, and not an undocile being.) (Shamasastry, 1929, 9) Further, in a context that is remarkably akin to that of actor training in Kutiyattam, Kalidasa uses the term in Māḷavikāgnimitram to describe the training of dancers: śliṣṭā kriyā kasyacidātmasaṃstam saṅkrāntiranyasya viśēṣa yuktā/ yasyobhayam sādhu, sa śikṣakānām dhuri pratiṣṭhāpayatavya ēva// (Kalidasa, 1924, 18) (Personal performance of an action is excellent in a certain person, whereas in another, the power of imparting his knowledge to others is remarkable. He, in whom both are present, is rightly to be placed foremost among teachers.) (Kalidasa, 1949, 85) This verse that appears in the context of a contest between two teachers of dance in the royal court, where the parivrājika (itinerant female mendicant), who is to judge the contest and decide who is the better teacher, describes the qualities of an ideal teacher of dance, is a clear instance of how the word kriya is used in the context of performance training to denote instruction or the imparting of knowledge. It accrues that for Kutiyattam, kriya is initially bodily action used as/for instruction. If indeed kriyas are thus part of the instruction or a means of instruction, the questions arises as to what role they play in the training and what their purposes are. From the discussion in Chapter 5, it is clear that kriyas are part of āṅgika, physical action, as opposed to vācika, or verbal action. Even within the ambit of āṅgika, kriyas are different from gestures, facial expressions or movement sequences used at specific dramatic points in that they do not have a specific meaning within the dramatic system of communication. The repetitive nature of the practice of kriyas in training indicates that their primary objectives are the toning of the body, the acquisition of physical stamina and the infusion of grace and suppleness to movements. We also saw that the kriyas provide the basic rhythmic frame 196

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within which the mudras, the movements of the eyes, the facial expressions and the vācika segments are to be executed. Further, their practice provides the actor with an embodied sense of the acting space and assists in the development of a relationship between the body of the actor and the space of performance. The kriyas also inscribe on the body of the performer a set of physical patterns that turns it into a rhythmic performative body suited to the performance of Kutiyattam. These patterns also provide the effective structural frame of the performance as well as a distinct visual aesthetic to Kutiyattam that sets it apart not only from the practices of everyday life but also from other performance forms. Finally, we also realized that an economy of effort and practices is in operation in Kutiyattam whereby no action used in training is made redundant; the same set of actions is turned into a repertoire that is drawn from for use at different stages in the performance as performative actions. Kriyas figure prominently in this recycling of actions which minimizes the effort and methods required for performance and helps create a seamless continuity between the training and the performance. To put it succinctly, kriyas are an integral element of the training process of Kutiyattam, facilitating the creation of a physical culture essential for performance and functioning as a bridge between the training space and the stage. Notwithstanding, a set of questions naturally arise with regard to the value of kriyas in performance, especially in light of the fact that they are primarily dance sequences that do not apparently communicate a specific semantic content. Within the total structure of a performance, what role do kriyas play? Are they part of the fictional world of the play? If they are not, do they automatically become rituals and rituals alone? Or, do they have a more complex significance? These questions acquire importance because the general assumption that the kriyas are not part of the fiction is taken to be indicative of these dances being ritualistic in nature, based on a simple binary opposition drawn between fictional elements and the non-fictional. There is an implicit assumption that everything done on the stage has to be part of the fictional world of the play and that if they are not they automatically become part of ritual action. Such a generalization loses sight of the fact that in performance there is always a surplus over and above the fictional content, especially of elements that are primarily performative in nature, all of which cannot be reduced to the single category of ritual unless severe interpretative violence is inflicted on them. An action, or an aspect of it, can be undertaken for purely aesthetic reasons, or it can be initiated as part of the process of performance to mark certain specific junctures, stages or passages in it, or it can be attempted as an exhibition of the performer’s virtuosity (which, as we have seen, is a vital consideration in Kutiyattam). An example from a different theatrical tradition will suffice to prove the point. At the Cambridge Theatre Festival in 2001, there was an open-air production of The Tempest in which, in the absence of a curtain, scene 197

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changes were indicated by the actors clapping their hands in a particular rhythm. Though the claps were not part of the fictional universe of the play, they were definitely part of the performance, indicating the transition from one scene to the next. Not only that, but the slow rhythm was also so compelling that after one or two scenes the audience too started joining in, until finally, at the end of the performance, the sustained applause from the audience followed the same rhythm through several curtain calls in an ascending beat until it culminated in loud, unrestrained clapping. It will not be entirely amiss to state that in this instance the clapping had become not only a device to communicate the structural divisions of the play but also an aesthetic means to institute an empathic relationship between the actors and the audience. In other words, the clapping was instrumental in creating a closely knit community during the duration of the performance. Sad it would be if someone were to interpret the clapping to be a ritual on the basis that it was not part of the fictional universe of the play; but mercifully such an eventuality is rather remote, probably because there is no convenient religious establishment nearby or because it is a Western performance, which due to obvious cultural reasons is seldom associated with ritual. In light of this example, it should be obvious that foisting singular explanations upon the practice of kriyas will do immeasurable violence to their complexity and the multiplicity of their deployment in performance. Even a quick look will demonstrate that kriyas are used with different values at different junctures of performance. In some instances, they are like punctuation marks that mark the beginning or end of one phase of performance or the passage to another. Sometimes, they are invocatory dances which are also at the same time warm-up exercises for the actor. In some cases, they are performed by the actor in his entity as the actor; in others, they are associated with the character. It is here that one finds the discussion on kriyas in Naṭāṅkuśa, the 15th-century critique of Kutiyattam which launched a scathing criticism of the performance practices of Kutiyattam, crucially important. The first significance of the work is that it indicates the existence in the 15th century of a culture of appreciation which saw Kutiyattam primarily as a performance form that conveyed a story. Its many criticisms of the practices of Kutiyattam are based primarily on aesthetic, theatrical and logical considerations. Even where there is a consideration of the aspect of ritual, especially in terms of invocatory practices, it is seen as something that, though necessary, stands separate and apart from the main body of the performance, which is the enactment of the play. In that sense, it can be considered almost an anticipatory reply to contemporary interpretations that are inclined to attribute ritual significance to every conceivable aspect of Kutiyattam. More specifically, coming to the question of kriyas, even though the author of Naṭāṅkuśa refutes all the arguments that can be marshalled in their defense, it is important to look at the nature of these arguments because they give an indication of the multiple kinds of significance 198

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of kriyas. In keeping with the conventions of logical argument in Sanskrit treatises, at the outset, he proposes four possibilities for the use of kriyas in performance as pūrvapakṣa (the opponent’s view), and systematically proceeds to rebut and disprove them one by one, in a seeming debate with an implied actor who represents the opposite point of view. The four possibilities so enumerated in the section kriyānṛttanirūpaṇaprārambha (initial overview of kriya dance) are as follows: 1 kathāśārīraikadēśa – element or part of the story 2 devatāprītisādhanam – means to please the gods 3 anukāryasvabhāvacēṣṭa – element indicative or expressive of the natural actions and dispositions of the character 4 kathābhinayāṅkam nṛttam – dance that is part of the acting of the play (Paulose, 1993, 6, 102–103) Following this, the author systematically addresses each one of them with counter arguments and establishes that none of these possibilities stand the test of relevance or rationality and thus dismisses the use of kriyas in performance as an unnecessary appendage brought in by the actors. The first argument that kriyas are part of the story is summarily dismissed on the grounds that they have “no connection with the story.”13 Though some people attribute thematic significance to them because they sometimes appear in the middle of the enactment, they are in fact “self-contained and complete”14 (see Paulose, 1993, 6, 103). The second contention that they are means to please the gods is disputed on the grounds that the play itself is so, relying on Kalidasa’s verse in Māḷavikāgnimitram that describes nāṭya as cākṣuṣa yajña – visual sacrifice,15 and that there is no need to have a separate action for the same purpose in the course of the performance. To the actor’s submission that it is a special kind of invocation, the author-critic’s reply is that if that is the case it can be done only at the beginning of performance. Even then, it will become a needless repetition of the nāndi, which anyway involves invocatory actions for the removal of impediments and for the smooth conduct of the performance (see Paulose, 1993, 7–8, 103–104). Next, the author takes up two questions related to the fact that the kriya is sometimes performed neither at the beginning nor at the end, but in the middle of the enactment of the story. First, taking the specific situation in Aṅgulīyāṅkam, where the kriya is performed after Hanumān’s arrival at the Aśōka Grove, he raises the question whether the kriya is performed by the actor or the character.16 Then, he asserts that it cannot be the actor dancing to please the gods because he has already given up his identity in having become Hanumān. On the other hand, it cannot be Hanumān too because it doesn’t stand to reason that Hanumān would dance to please the gods at that point of the story. If Hanumān wanted to pay homage to the gods for having made it possible for him to reach Lanka, he should have done that before he 199

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embarked on the narration of his adventures in Lanka. Contrary to this, the kriya is performed during the course of his narration, which according to the author is the height of impropriety.17 To the actor’s argument that kriya is performed there as an expression of wonder, his reply is that there are other situations in the act, especially the point at which Hanumān exclaims “aho! rākṣasanagarasya parā lakṣmiḥ” (The city of the Rākṣasas is so prosperous), in which the emotion of wonder is more pronounced, and asks why it is that kriya is not performed there (Paulose, 1993, 8, 105). The confusion whether it is executed by the actor or the character is compounded again, according to the author in the case of “sakalasurāsuragaṇanamitam,” the salutary verse that accompanies the kriya. He points out that, though the musical verse gives the appearance of an invocation and hence can only be done by the actor, the physical movements are suggestive of them being done by a monkey-character18: “Alas! . . . If it is to please the gods, why do it through the medium of a monkey, and if it is through the medium of a monkey, how can it be to please the gods?”19 The further argument by the actor that kriya is performed in association with the verse “pampāpañcaka” because there is a shift at that point from the text of the playwright to the text of the ācārya (the preceptor) is again countered with the question why kriya is performed even where there is no such shift, as also why it is not performed in other places where there is a similar shift (see Paulose, 1993, 8–9, 105–106). The third possibility that kriyas are indicative of the natural actions and dispositions of the character is rejected on the grounds that if these physical movements are indicative of the natural behaviour of the character, then they should be consistently employed from beginning to end. In other words, the kriya should be performed throughout since the movements, along with the character’s costumes, define his nature. If it is not done so, the kriya will give the impression that the actor, while imitating the original character, is at that juncture imitating someone else because it is out of tune with his so-far-established general behaviour. The counter argument from the implied actor that kriya is a mixture of invocation and actions imitative of the character of a monkey is met with a further assertion of the same logic that its limitation to particular occasions contradicts its claimed value as the characteristic behaviour of character. As for the fourth rationale that kriya is dance that is part of the acting of the play, the author contends that it can be so only if it is helpful in “bringing out the form of the enactment of the story”20 or if it assists in the “attainment of the final goal of performance”21 which is the enjoyment of the audience. However, according to him kriya is neither, because on the one hand it never coexists with the enactment of the story and on the other it ends before it can add anything to the aesthetic enjoyment of the spectator (see Paulose, 1993, 10, 107). As the argument progresses, it becomes patently clear that the authorcritic of Naṭāṅkuśa and the actor-opponent implied in the text occupy two 200

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diametrically opposite philosophical/logical positions. On the one hand, the author is a firm adherent to the principle of singular uses and singular significances. His rejection of all the expressed rationales for kriya is based upon the logic that there can be only one cause for a phenomenon and only one primary outcome for a cause, and that the presence of any other cause or any other outcome compromises and defeats the very purpose and rationale of the phenomenon. Hence, for him, kriya can be for only one purpose, and if that purpose is served, no other purpose can be entertained for the phenomenon nor any other action allowed to be admitted for that purpose. For instance, if kriya is an invocation then it can be nothing else, and if nāndi is the primary invocation then it is inconceivable for kriya also to be invocatory. In other words, his arguments are governed by a particular logic characterized by a method which takes each single cause in isolation and the rationale for that cause is rebutted by the presence of other causes, all the while refusing to entertain the possibility of multiple causes. The author of Naṭāṅkuśa is thus a deliberate exponent of the fallacy of single cause, also referred to as causal reductionism or the reduction fallacy. It assumes that there is a single, simple cause for an outcome when in reality it may have a number of jointly sufficient causes. Another feature of this fallacy is the single motive aspect, which ascribes a phenomenon or an outcome to a singular motive, even as there would often be multiple motives or reasons causing various issues. The author-critic of Naṭāṅkuśa takes this fallacy to its highest pitch by insisting that if kriya in performance is to be validated, not only can there be only one singular cause for the use of kriya but also that kriya has to be the sole outcome for that cause. At the same time, in insisting that kriya cannot have features that it shares with other performance conventions, he also commits the fallacy of exclusion by ignoring how a given quality can be common to many groups of phenomena, not just one, and how it may not be just one given quality that describes a particular object or phenomenon. The implied actor on the other hand, in keeping with the actual practice of Kutiyattam, subscribes to a notion of multiple uses and multiple significances for kriya. For him, it can be variously an invocation to please the gods, an expression of wonder, an indication of the textual shift from the words of the dramatist to the words of the preceptor, an action indicative of the disposition of a character, an enchanting ornament to the acting of the story, and so on. The most crucial aspect of this multiplicity is that, for the actor, none of these uses are exclusive, and some are even concurrent and co-existent with others at certain junctures. In effect, the way the actor rationalizes the use of kriyas, they appear to take on the quality of punctuation marks that denote certain stages in the larger discourse of performance. They indicate beginnings and endings of the performance at large, as well as of states and phases within the performance; they denote the passage from one segment of performance to another, from one kind of text to another or 201

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even from one emotion to another. In this sense, they have semiotic value; probably not in a verbal or discursive sense, but certainly in a performative sense. Far from being devoid of meaning, they carry distinct performative meanings that seem to alter from context to context. In other words, they are punctuation marks in the performative language with different contextual significations; the actions executed may be formally the same, but their significance varies from situation to situation and from location to location. Here, if we return to the original question of the ritual significance of kriyas, it will be apparent that the implied actor in Naṭāṅkuśa is at pains to explain that they have such significance, especially when they are used as salutary invocations or as means to please the gods. However, such employment is not in exclusion of, or in contradiction to, their other uses in actual practice, such as that of being performative punctuation marks or of being actions indicative of features of character or of emotional high points. Further still, it is also not in denial of their value as devices for training, culturing the body and attaining a sense of space and time that is essential for any performer. What the discussion in Naṭāṅkuśa thus demonstrates is that, however much the author-critic may refute or ridicule it, to the actor, the kriya is a composite performative/training device that encompasses several purposes and rationales that can never be reduced to a single exclusive purpose, cause or motive, and that it is upon this principle that the Kutiyattam performance is formulated. Seen in this light, the case that the presence of the kriyas invests the entire Kutiyattam performance with a “globally ritual” character appears to be somewhat difficult to sustain. First, the very postulation upon which such an argument is based – that kriyas are exclusively ritual – has been shown to be untenable, with kriyas having multiple significances and multiple deployments in performance and training of which the ritual aspect is only one. Second, even the claim that the kriyas “do not have any discursive signification – this apparent lack of meaning being a general property of ritual” has been seen to be unfounded, especially with them having clear contextual, performative significations. Third, even in their partial aspect of being ritual, to claim that they invest the whole of the performance with a ritual quality is again to reduplicate the fallacy referred to earlier of not distinguishing between associative rituals and stand-alone rituals. The simple fact in relation to this is that rites may punctuate an activity or the passage from one state/ phase to another in it; however, the presence of such rites does not turn either the activity or the particular state or phase into a ritual. Wedding rites, for instance, mark the passage from bachelorhood to wedded life, and imparts social recognition and seriousness to the state of being married. However, they hardly turn the entire wedded life and everything that happens therein into a ritual (unless, of course, it is stated so in an ironic manner). Much in the same manner, even at the risk of repetition, it cannot but be emphasized that kriyas do play the role of ritual in some instances, but even then they 202

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do not turn the whole Kutiyattam performance into a ritual. Finally, there is an inherent contradiction in so attributing a global ritual quality to Kutiyattam because the premise – the “lack of meaning being a general property of ritual” – would inevitably lead to the conclusion that Kutiyattam itself is without any perceptible meaning because it is globally ritual. At this point, it will be worthwhile to look at the historical and cultural subtexts present in the use of kriyas in performance as well as in their discussion in the Naṭāṅkuśa, not only because they can provide us with an understanding of the social tensions that were associated with the practice of patronage when Kutiyattam came to be incorporated into the temples but also because they can offer interesting insights into the connections between scholarship and cultural power, even in the contemporary world. As we have already seen, even as the implied actor in Naṭāṅkuśa sees several distinct and interrelated significances to the use of kriya in performance, the author-critic considers it as an appendage unnecessarily added to the body of the performance by the actors. His critique of kriya clearly indicates that they were later additions, over and above the invocations stipulated by Nāṭyaśāstra, in effect, interpolations that came to be introduced into performance after its incorporation into the temples. His objections that they are neither germane to the plays nor a feature approved by Nāṭyaśāstra primarily serve to situate the employment of kriyas in performance not only as a practice unsupported by a higher literary critical tradition that bases itself on established texts and treatises but also as one championed by a lesser performative tradition that is defined by the oral and physical practices of actors and performers. Substantiating this are the justifications of the implied actor whose major line of defense is through recourse to the principle of established practice and convention. He is quoted as saying, “ācaryate iti ētadeva paryāptam iti hētu” (“That it is customarily practiced is reason enough [for the kriya]”) (Paulose, 1993, 17). To which, the authorcritic’s reply is: ācārasyōpalabdhyaiva na sādhutvam vyavasthitam/ kim tvāgamēna yuktyā vā lōkēcchālabdhajanmanā// (Paulose, 1993, 17) (“Acceptance is not established by mere customary practice. Customary practice gets accepted only when it is supported either by the scriptures or by a rationale brought about by the strong desire of people at large.”) In other words, what we have in the Naṭāṅkuśa is a confrontation between the claims of two rival traditions: one, a canonical, textual tradition that lays down what can be done and what cannot be, as represented by the author-critic, and the other a reiterative, embodied tradition of customary 203

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practice followed generation after generation, as represented by the implied actor. Concerned as it is with questions of authority and legitimacy, this debate is undoubtedly a particularized version of similar debates that figure quite prominently in several fields of knowledge in Sanskrit on the conflicting claims of authority for the śrutis, the smṛtis and such canonical texts on the one hand, and for customary practice that turns actions into conventions through reiterative adherence to them on the other. However, in the Naṭāṅkuśa, the text–practice debate gets an added twist by being connected first to questions of who has authority over what is done on the stage, and from that to issues of social precedence and power, particularly in the context of patronage and the unequal relationship between the patrons and the patronized. The underlying social drama comes out at a later stage in the text where the author-critic takes up the question of who has precedence in deciding what should be presented or not presented on the stage, whether it is the playwright or the actor, and whether the actor has any right to make a call on this against the stated intent of the playwright as expressed in the text of the play. His answer is brusque and unambiguous: “tatra kavērabhimatam anusaraṇīyam” (“You [the actor] have to follow the opinion of the poet”) (Paulose, 1993, 28). Then, he goes on to explain exactly what is meant by this injunction: viśēṣēṇa prayōtkṛṇām prabandhagatiḥ āśrayaṇīyā/prabandhānusāri khalu prayōgaḥ nāṭakam prayujyatē iti vyāvahāradarśanāt/ (Paulose, 1993, 29) (In presenting on stage, the way – direction – of the text in particular has to be followed. The presentation should be in accordance with the text, since the play is the visual presentation of the text.) The author-critic then proceeds to enumerate the four defects in the practice of Kutiyattam as a result of the actors not diligently following the design of the playwright: tyaktagrahaṇam svīkṛtahānam samkṣiptavistarōnyatvam/ prathitasyacēti doṣamracatvāro nāṭakaprayōgēṣu// (Paulose, 1993, 29) (Including that which is omitted by the poet, omitting that which is included by the poet, elaborating that which is presented briefly by the poet and vice versa [condensing that which is elaborated by the poet] are the four defects that can be avoided in the practice of drama.)

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Needless to say, the defects are all the result of the actors refusing to accede to the playwright his superior status as the final authority on what is to be admitted onstage and consequently taking needless liberties with the text of the play. Though he calls himself a friend of the actors and his criticism as one arising from that friendship – suhṛttaivam itiśikṣayatē svayam (“Being a friend, I criticise them [the actors]”) (Paulose, 1993, 23) – it is patently clear that the aim of the author-critic of the Naṭāṅkuśa is to curtail the freedom of the actors and show them their proper place – which according to him is a secondary one – in the larger scheme of things. Two more instances in the text make this amply evident. First, in discussing the possibility of the actors attempting actions that are not expressly stated in the play text or specifically enjoined in such situations by the Nāṭyaśāstra, the implied actor suggests that the actor can also play the role of a commentator or interpreter onstage: “nanu bhavatu vārtikakāravad anugrāhitṛtvam prayōktuḥ /” (“In practice, let [the actor] be a commentator”) (Paulose, 1993, 21). Without any hesitation, the author-critic dismisses the suggestion forthwith: “na ca nāṭakē nyūnamadhikam pradarśayitum śakyate yēna vārtikakārayēt prayōktā/” (“In drama [the actor] cannot show less or more [than in the text]; how can then he be a commentator?”) (Paulose, 1993, 21). Second, the detailed set of arguments with which the author-critic rejects the practice of pakarnnāṭṭam, the technique wherein one actor takes on a number of different roles who figure in his narration sequentially, again indicates that he was totally averse to the actor deviating in even the slightest manner from the text of the play or to him taking any initiative that may better display his virtuosity and acting prowess (see Paulose, 1993, Sections IV.6 to IV.10, 32–48, 124–138). In Chapter 3 of this work, it was observed, If, as a playwright, Kulasekhara accorded privilege to the play text and the characters, thereby affirming his adherence to the principle of a “playwright’s theatre,” the subsequent history of Kutiyattam, especially since its incorporation into the space of the kūttampalam, is one in which that position of privilege was arrogated by the actors, turning it into a stage for the exhibition of their talents, skill and expertise, and for the assertion of the practice of an “actor’s theatre.” (114–115) It is fairly obvious that it is this culture of the actor’s theatre, and the actor establishing his authority over the stage, to which the author of Naṭāṅkuśa so strenuously objected. By subscribing to what may be termed “authorial authority,” his endeavor is to return the actor to his originally secondary and subservient position as a mere imitator or carrier of the playwright’s

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words and designs. The implications of the word “aṅkuśa” in the title becomes amply clear in this context; aṅkuśa is a sharp, hooked, metallic instrument used to control and tame elephants, to make them obedient and willing to take orders. Here, the attempt of the author is to control and tame the actors and bring them into a culture of subservience, fully submissive to the authority of the playwright. In this light, the employment of kriya in performance and the entire discussion on it in Naṭāṅkuśa take on a new aspect altogether, as indicative of the fault lines within the Brahmin-dominated temple society and the social tensions in it between the patrons and the artists receiving patronage. We have already seen in Chapter 3 how the actors wrested ownership of the stage and performance from the playwright by turning them into venues for the untrammeled display of their own powers of interpretation and elaboration. In a somewhat similar vein, what we can see in the employment of kriyas is the expression of a covert subversive motive, though the target here is the Brahmin patrons. Given that they were under the patronage of the temple society on which they depended for the practice of their art and for their livelihood, the Cākyārs had little option but to follow the directives of the temple authorities and accordingly accept the introduction of rituals into performance. As we have seen, the rituals so introduced were primarily at the beginning and end of performance, almost like placing the whole performance under quotation marks and bracketing it off, thereby making a statement of the temple society’s ownership of the form, the stage and even the performers. It must have been as part of these rituals that kriyas came to be introduced in performance. It is noteworthy that any number of other actions that were already connected with ritual behavior or with the ritual regimen of the temple community could have been used for the purpose, especially since they were readily available and there are instances of such usage.22 However, on the contrary, that the Cākyārs chose to adopt and adapt the movements of their own training regimen as a major part of the onstage ritual action is of great relevance. The use of kriya then assumes the value of a veiled riposte to the statement of ownership, an act of camouflaged social retaliation, with the actor inducting into performance the modes and methods of his own training, even without adequate performative reasons for that. In effect, under the guise of ritual, they were exhibiting their own bodies, their physical skills, their training practice, and the ways by which they became who they were. In other words, even as they were apparently engaged in ritual activity, where they submitted themselves to the greater power of the temple society and the Brahmins, the mode that they adopted for it was one in which they themselves and the process of their evolution were being foregrounded. In effect, it was a move by which even when they were submitting to Brahmin authority and power, they were still subverting it from within by inducting a content that was essentially rooted in their own bodies. One also must read this alongside the 206

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Vidūṣaka’s articulations in the puruṣārtthakkūttu, as well as other perorations, where even as all the communities that are part of the temple society are ridiculed, the most biting satire is reserved for the Brahmins. Later, when kriya came to be attached to a variety of junctures in performance, as punctuation marks to denote the passage from one segment of performance to another, from one kind of text to another, or even from one emotion to another, it was almost as if the actor was surreptitiously asserting his identity, exhibiting his own process of evolution as an actor, thereby indirectly subverting the temple’s/Brahmins’ authority over his performance and staking his own claim on it. It was literally a flaunting of the actor’s body, a display of its physical aesthetic, with little consideration if it had dramatic or thematic relevance. The author and the patrons are ignored, and the actor occupies the stage as himself, as his body, and as the process of how he came to be what he is. There is little wonder then that the author of Naṭāṅkuśa, who despite his anonymity is reliably considered to be a Brahmin, spared no effort whatsoever and marshaled every argument that he could muster to discredit the use of kriyas. It is also no surprise that the critique of the kriyas occupy the major part of the work because to the author they represented the most potent statement of the Cākyār’s refusal to accept the authority of the Brahmins, even as he enjoyed the benefits of their patronage and even paid lip service to it. The acerbic tone and tenacious logic that describe the arguments of the author only go to prove the high stakes of caste and community interests that, though unspeakable in as many words, were writ large in his critique. In that sense, Naṭāṅkuśa is an elaborate attempt at exerting Brahmin power in all its different manifestations – textual, scriptural and authorial – over the Cākyārs, the actors, who in their stealthy but performative manner tried to subvert that authority even as they were constrained to accept its patronage. In this light, when singular, exclusivist interpretations of kriya surface in contemporary scholarship, one cannot help but wonder if there is within them the play of a different kind of cultural power that places them in a position somewhat similar to that of the author of Naṭāṅkuśa, albeit in a contemporary global context of privileges and exclusions.

Structures of knowledge of the temple society With the second aspect of the dual nature of theatre spaces, namely, that of being performative spaces for practices that are deeply intertwined with the socio-cultural values and knowledge systems of that society, we come to the “forestruture of assumptions” and the “horizon of potentialities” that define the intersubjective engagement between the actor and the spectator in any particular space. In other words, we are in the realm of those particular concepts, approaches, attitudes, etc. that are conditioned by the discourses, the practices and the systems of perception that characterize that society at 207

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large and contribute to the construction of the specific cultural meanings of performance. As Panill Camp so aptly remarks, The historical dimension of theatre architecture responds to shifts in theatre practice and dramatic theory, but it also reflects and engenders philosophical discourse. In accounting for what Susan Bennett calls the “ideology” of a theatre building, one must extend the domains of inquiry to include the metaphysical and epistemological. (Camp, 2007, 633) The search then must necessarily address itself to the philosophical assumptions and knowledge systems that provided the over-arching umbrella under which the procedures of performance evolved, proceeded and made sense to the performers and the audience alike. As we saw earlier, it is probably within a century of the delimitation of Kutiyattam to the temples that the first kūttampalams came to be built in the 15th century. The structure of the kūttampalams and their physical configurations were an architectural embodiment of the performative techniques and practices that were gradually evolving in an embryonic form in the centuries since the 10th or 11th and which got fully established and institutionalized in the spaces offered by the kūttampalams. It is when we consider that the kūttampalams were indeed the architectural realizations of an organization of space that was most suitable to the techniques that were developing in Kutiyattam that we are constrained to ask if there were particular philosophical and epistemological approaches in the larger culture of the time that inflected and determined the development of such techniques and perceptions in the performative domain. Did the systems that developed in the kūttampalams have deeper connections with the broader epistemological/philosophical systems prevalent in the society of the time and which definitively impacted upon the cultural and intellectual practices of the time? Or, to put it differently, were there approaches/methodologies in other aspects of culture or other fields of knowledge that were similar in their premises but were expressed differently in terms of the specific discursive modalities and circumstances of each field? In such an enquiry, several features of performance of Kutiyattam which reflect very distinctive epistemological and philosophical preferences invite our attention, in terms of the question of whether they have parallels or corresponding features in other areas of cultural practice. To enumerate them in no particular order, they include a proximal/microscopic way of seeing that brings out the details of any phenomenon, an attention to minutiae that quite often displaces the totality or the larger picture, an episodic approach to narrative, a method of narrative framing where stories are structured within stories, a digressive modality where other times, spaces and events are repeatedly ushered into the main narrative, the question-answer method 208

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for narrative and performative progression, the same speaker/actor assuming different character roles, the propensity for translation, the tendency towards detailed interpretation at all possible levels including the semantic and so on. Even such a straightforward enumeration of features brings up in its wake striking parallels and similarities in methods and approaches with certain institutions and practices of the temple society that suggest the existence in it of some epistemological and philosophical structures that may have wielded constitutive sway over several, if not a majority, of its practices and discourses. In this light, the culture of the Mahābhārata and the institution of the Bhārata Bhaṭṭar, the tradition of training in the Vēdas and the institution of the caṭṭar, the methods of Sanskrit pedagogy and the institution of the ōttu śālai (centres connected with temples for the teaching of Sanskrit and the Vēdas), the tradition of hermeneutics and incisive interpretation associated with Buddhist–Brahmin contestations and certain other prevalent schools of philosophy, the translational bilingualism that characterized the general literary culture, etc. are some of these institutions/ practices that we need to look into in greater detail. Bhārata Bhaṭṭar and the culture of the Mahābhārata Like other parts of South India, one of the most important institutions connected with major temples in Kerala was that of the Mahābhārata Bhaṭṭar, known in local parlance as Bhārata Bhaṭṭatiri (the particle tiri being a honorific tag), or in its shortened form as Bhārata Paṭṭēri. It suggests that the temple was as much a centre for scholarship and cultural practice as it was for religious and ritual practice. As M. G. S. Narayanan observes, It was a common practice to appoint a learned Brahmin (Bhaṭṭar) in temples for the purpose of reciting and explaining the Mahābhārata to the common people. It shows the way in which the great epic was made part of the life of the people by means of deliberate and continuous propaganda. ([1996] 2013, 348) Several inscriptions and records, such as those at Trikkadithanam temple (dated to 991 CE) and the Kollam Rameswaram temple (dated to 1099 CE), refer to the institution of Māpāratam and the expenses required for it (see Narayanan, [1996] 2013, 348, 360). The records also indicate that the support for it came not only from the temple committees but also from royal sources. There are also literary references to the institution and the high esteem in which it was held. The poet Vasubhatta, in the preface to his poem Yudhiṣṭhiravijaya, states that he was the disciple of a certain “Bhārataguru” named Paramēśvara, a pious and learned contemporary of King Kulasekhara, and that he was inspired to compose the 209

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poem on having consumed the “nectar” of Bhārata (Mahābhārata) (see Narayanan. [1996] 2013, 348, 360). Kulasekhara himself is referred to as one “who has collected the nectar of knowledge by churning the ocean of Mahābhārata with the Mount Mandara of his mind” (Unni and Sullivan, 2001, 75, 133; Sastri, 1912, 4–5). That the practice of such recitation in the temples and the institution of the Bhārata Bhaṭṭar continued in Kerala for many centuries is vouched by the reference to it in the 15th-century epistolary poem Uṇṇunīli Sandēśam, in which the messenger is told by the speaker of the poem that he will be able to listen to the reading of the “cāru māvāratam” (the beautiful Mahābhārata) in the early hours of the morning at “īṭikkūṭum dvijapariṣadē” (place where the Brahmins congregate in large numbers, meaning the temple), on his way to Katuthuruthi, where Uṇṇunīli resides (Anon, 1955, Part I, Sloka 90, 56). A further piece of evidence that the institution became part and parcel not only of the cultural but also of the economic life of the region is the presence even today in the Malayalam language of the word pāṭṭam, which means tenant’s dues. As Narayanan remarks, It is likely that it is derived from the Sanskrit Bhaṭṭa, meaning the property of the Bhaṭṭa or learned Brahmin. Thus Pāṭṭam and Paṭakāram are probably having [sic] a common source. The Pāṭṭam denoting Brahmin property might have developed the meaning of the payment for Pāṭṭam; i.e. tenant’s dues payable to the Brahmin, as formed in the Cēra inscriptions. (Narayanan, [1996] 2013, 332) The previously mentioned historical and literary records also indicate that the period in which the Mahābhārata enjoyed wide popularity clearly coincides with the time that Kutiyattam was developing into a distinct form with its own unique performance systems, at first outside the temples, but from the 15th century on within the temples themselves in close proximity to the discursive practice of the Bhaṭṭas. It is then only natural to expect that the culture of the Mahābhārata and its recitation, in terms of its universe of stories, its epic mode and the practices of explication associated with its recitation, have had some bearing not only on the general cultural imaginary of Kutiyattam but also on its specific performative practices, albeit modified and relocated to a theatrical context. Even a cursory look will evidence that such an expectation is entirely justified. It starts with Kulasekhara, both of whose plays are drawn from the Mahābhārata and who is described in the preface to Subhadrādhañjayam as one who has churned the ocean of Mahābhārata and collected the nectar of knowledge from it (Sastri, 1912, 4–5). Further, at a much more fundamental level of narrative structure, we find that most of the features and techniques of the epic narrative, as they are found in the Mahābhārata, figure very prominently in Kutiyattam 210

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too, adapted of course to a theatrical context. In a very succinct but highly perceptive essay on the Vidūṣaka figure in Kutiyattam, Killimangalam Vasudevan Nambudiripad has traced these lines of narrative influence and has come up with a highly original suggestion about the evolution of Kutiyattam. According to him, The importance of verbal narrative, the question-answer structure, the prevalence of sub-stories used as examples (with a prefatory remark such as ‘There is an old story that is told as example for this . . .’), the narrator himself speaking as different characters, and the frequent shifts from the narrative time to the past and back are all aspects of the narrative form of the epics. It must have been a particular branch of this that must have developed through the bhāṇa into the daśarūpakas.23 All these features of narrative can be seen in the solo, verbal form kūttu too.24 It must have been that they were later transferred into gestural acting and the multi-actor form of drama. In Kutiyattam, the techniques of nirvahaṇam and pakarnnāṭṭam, a system of acting that follows the question-answer mode to deduce the word order and thereby interpret the text, the use of sub-verses, and so on, all show a greater indebtedness to the methods of storytelling. (2001, 37) There are three important aspects to this observation. One, it traces the lineage of Kutiyattam equally to the narrative form of the epic as to the theatrical tradition of multi-actor drama.25 Two, it accounts for the still continuing preponderance of the solo actor system in Kutiyattam by tracking its roots to the solo narrator form of the epic. Three, it inverts received historical precedence, in that prabandham kūttu, conventionally considered a narrative offshoot of Kutiyattam, is deemed to be its predecessor and, being a quasi-narrative/quasi-dramatic form, a bridge between the epic and Kutiyattam. In continuation to this, by virtue of his role in the prabandham kūttu, it also attributes to the Vidūṣaka, “the status of the original character, the fountainhead of Kutiyattam” (Narayanan, 2006b, 149). The provocative ingenuity of Nambudiripad’s observation apart, it is undeniable that there are deep inscriptions in the performance modalities of Kutiyattam of the epic narrative culture that so defines the Mahābhārata. A  comparison of two narratives, one a verbal narrative from Mahābhārata and the other a performative narrative from Kutiyattam, will serve to illustrate the close similarities or intersections in the narrative cultures of both. The first example is probably the most celebrated of Indian stories – the story of Śakuntaḷa, immortalized by Kalidasa in his play Abhijñānaśakuntaḷam (The Recognition of Śakuntaḷa). This tale of 211

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the love between Duṣyanta and Śakuntaḷa and the trials and tribulations faced by them in the course of that love is told in the Śakuntalopākhyāna, in the Ādi Parva of Mahābhārata. In one particular segment of the story, Śakuntaḷa narrates the circumstances of her birth to Duṣyanta, on his enquiry about her lineage and origins. As she narrates her story, she reports the words of her adoptive father Sage Kaṇva in the very manner he spoke to her. Within Kaṇva’s speech, he reports the speech of Indra, the Lord of the gods, to the apsara (nymph) Mēnaka. Now, if we realize that Śakuntaḷa’s narration of the circumstances of her birth happens within a narrative told by Sage Vaiśampāyana to King Janamējaya on his enquiring about his family line, which narration itself is embedded in Ugraśrava’s narration of the entire Mahābhārata to Śaunaka, we realize the multiple levels at which the narrative is structured and how there is a complex culture of narratives within narratives. The second example, from Kutiyattam, is the story of Sampāti in Aṅgulīyāṅkam of Āścaryacūdāmaṇi, discussed in detail in Chapter 4. As part of the nirvahaṇam of Hanumān, wherein he narrates the entire set of events prior to his arrival in Lanka to meet Sīta, the actor playing Hanumān narrates the story of the vānaras reaching the southern end of the land, in their search for Sīta. At that juncture, within that narrative, the actor takes on the aspect of Jāṃbavān and starts telling the vānaras good stories to alleviate their sins. Hearing Jāṃbavān, Sampāti arrives there and requests him to tell the story of Rāmāyaṇa so that he can get his wings back, and Jāṃbavān proceeds to tell him the entire story of Rāmāyaṇa. Even a quick look will vouch that several features are shared by both these examples, such as a system of multiple-level narrative framing where narratives are structured within narratives, stories giving rise to sub-stories and to yet more sub-stories in a series of inward-moving narrative cycles, an interlocutory dialogic system of story-telling that proceeds through various levels of questions and answers, one narrator/character taking on the aspects of a number of narrators/characters appearing in his/her story, a sustained digressive method which features repeated and sequential shifts of time and place through different levels of frame narratives, an episodic approach to narratives wherein as a sub-narrative is being told/acted the larger narrative in which it is embedded appears to recede from attention and there is a temporary, microscopic focus of attention on the details of the sub-narrative and so on. At the same time, as James Hegarty has pointed out, as far as the Mahābhārata is concerned, “we are dealing with more than simply the placing of stories within stories. At a more micro-textual level, the Mahābhārata is extraordinarily fond of making characters within stories in the Mahābhārata report the speech of other characters” (Hegarty, 2012, 65). Hegarty connects this feature of the Mahābhārata to Mikhail Bakhtin’s analysis of the phenomenon of reported speech. According to Bakhtin, it is

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a very complex affair with deep implications for both subjectivity and point of view: the speech of another, once enclosed in a context, is  – no matter how accurately transmitted  – always subject to certain semantic changes. The context embracing another’s word is responsible for its dialogizing background, whose influence can be very great. Given the appropriate methods for framing, one may bring about fundamental changes even in another’s utterance accurately quoted. (1981, 340) As Hegarty explains, “What Bakhtin means by ‘dialogizing background’ is the capacity for someone who reports the speech of another to subtly alter its meaning by means of such features as tone, selection of materials and manner of delivery” (Hegarty, 2012, 65). In other words, since the narrative within a narrative is told by a narrator/character appearing as part of a dialogue or narrative by another narrator/character, he/she and his/her story are not free-standing or independent but are the products of the subjective, dialogic imagination of the narrator/character in whose narration they appear. Not only that, since “whatever was originally said or done, once it is enclosed in an encompassing story, is connected to all sorts of other materials” (Hegarty, 2012, 65), the reporting of a story pries it loose from its original context and makes it serve purposes of a radically different nature and a vastly different time. When one comes to Kutiyattam, the effect of this dialogizing background of the Mahābhārata can be seen perceptibly in the technique of pakarnnāṭṭam, where even as there is a shift from one character to another, the trace/vestige of the first character can be clearly discerned in the depiction of the second. In other words, the second character is in quotes and is represented through the particular subjectivity of the first. At the same time, this narrative of the past is interjected into a particular present, as an explication of a particular aspect of it. It gives rise to what we saw in Chapter 4 as the “subjective, experiential time” of digressive episodes since it is a past evoked through narration and disclosed in terms of the specific needs and requirements of the performative present, thus producing a present “thick” with both the past and the future. All this goes to prove that a culture of narration and a discursive imaginary of the time, as they were defined and instituted by the Mahābhārata, must have been both consciously and unconsciously incorporated into the methods of Kutiyattam, though with adequate emendations to suit its performative culture to facilitate greater understanding and appreciation through a method/system that was already familiar to the audience. At the same time, if we are to consider that these aspects of narrative culture were part of the forestructure of assumptions that the audience of the temple

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society brought to the kūttampalams and from which Kutiyattam and its artists drew to constitute its performance systems, it would be apparent that two more major aspects of the recitational culture of the Bhārata Bhaṭṭas also seem to have had a definitive impact on the performative culture of Kutiyattam. As we saw earlier, the work of the Bhaṭṭas involved not the mere reciting of the Mahābhārata but also explaining it, from which naturally accrued their fame for being learned and eloquent scholars. With the text of the Mahābhārata being in Sanskrit, in a linguistic environment where the vast majority of the audience were either ignorant or only slightly acquainted with Sanskrit, its presentation and explanation would have involved both translation as well as detailed interpretation. Such translation and interpretation, no doubt, would have had to address not only the actual text but also the background material, the implied or embedded stories, the cross-references with other texts, the multiple possibilities of denotative and connotative meanings, the philosophical implications and suggestions and so on. This kind of processing of the Sanskrit text to make it accessible to the people, especially in an environment of bilingualism, must have provided the model for a similar kind of processing of the dramatic text in Kutiyattam. In light of this, Nambudiripad’s suggestion that the structure of the epic provided the template initially for the solo verbal narrative form prabandham kūttu and then through it for the multi-actor form of Kutiyattam drama acquires added significance. With a system of translation and detailed interpretation already being part of the discursive culture of the temples through the recitational practice of the Bhārata Bhaṭṭas, the adoption of such a method for the vācika-dominant prabandham kūttu and then as a natural extension of that for the role of the Vidūṣaka in Kutiyattam, whose forte is again verbal performance, appears to be a logical historical progression. Further, in light of what we have already seen in Chapter  4 that most of the methods of elaboration and the use of alternate time-spaces employed by other characters are modelled on those of the Vidūṣaka’s, albeit with the difference that theirs is primarily gestural and serious while the Vidūṣaka’s is verbal and parodic, the methods of translation and detailed interpretation employed by the Vidūṣaka character must have gotten extended to the enactment practices of the other characters as well, taken on a gestural nature and in due course become the very modalities that defined the culture of elaboration of Kutiyattam. The caṭṭars and the Vedic systems of the temples Along with the culture of the Mahābhārata, the temples of the time were also centres for scholarship and training in the Vēdas, the Sanskrit language, different schools of philosophy, priesthood and military service. In such capacities, the temples were institutions of teaching and learning that contributed to and maintained the principal knowledge systems of the society 214

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of the time. Perhaps the best exemplar of this culture of learning was a set of Brahmins called the caṭṭar, also known as cāttirar or chātra, who were associated with institutions called śālai attached to the temples. Several records, such as those of the Tiruvalla, Tirumuzhikkukam and Nedumpuram temples, refer to the arrangements made for providing food to the caṭṭar (see Narayanan, [1996] 2013, 348–349). However, it is the Parthivapuram copper plates that provide us with a clear indication of the real nature and functions of the caṭṭar and the śālai to which they were affiliated. They indicate that the śālai was a centre for teaching and scholarship in the Vēdas and in Sanskrit, as well as for training in military service. For instance, the caṭṭar who joined the Parthivapuram śālai had to belong to any one of the paviḻiya caranam, the taittirīya caranam or the talavakāra caranam, all of which represented different sections of the Vēdas. They were expected to be competent as vaiyākaraṇa (grammarians), mīmāmsaka (experts in the philosophical school of mīmāmsa) or purōhita (priests), they had to possess ōttu (Vedic training) in one of the three kingdoms – Cēra, Cōla or Pāṇḍya – and they had to be conversant with the methods of Vedic recitation (see Narayanan, [1996] 2013, 349). Addressing the evidence provided by the Parthivapuram plates, Kesavan Veluthat observes, “two things stand out clear and unmistakeable: (a) the caṭṭas were essentially brāhmaṇa (Brahmin) students and (b) apart from the Vedic Sastraic lore, military training also formed an important part of their curriculum.” Moreover, he also points out, on the basis of inscriptional evidence, that there were several such śālais spread all over the region, and that “a strong network of these institutions was flourishing in Kerala by the ninth century” (1978, 103) Further, such institutions were not limited to Kerala alone but were a general South Indian phenomenon, with the “ghatikas of the Tamil country and some parts of Deccan” being “such educational institutions par excellence” (1978, 103). Several literary works of the period mention the caṭṭar, though probably not in the most complimentary of terms. For instance, most Maniparavalam works, such as Uṇṇiccirutēvīcaritam, Uṇṇiyāṭīcaritam, Uṇṇiyaccīcaritam and Candrōtsavam, describe them as “frequenting the houses of courtesans, taking to black magic and similar anti-social practices” (1978, 105). Additionally, a quasi-dramatic performance called cāttirakkaḷi or cāttirāṅkam, performed by a section of the Nambūtiris and which included dances with sword and shield in hand and even mock duels, survived until recently as a memorial representation of the military tradition of the caṭṭars (1978, 105). What is of note in the institution of the caṭṭars, as far as our discussion of Kutiyattam is concerned, is that the temple was a centre for the teaching of Vēdas and the Sanskrit language, as well as a site for philosophical contestations and debates. It then stands to reason that, just as in the case of the Bhārata Bhaṭṭas, the discursive and pedagogical practices associated with the learning of the Vēdas and of Sanskrit would have played a substantial role in the formulation of the performance practices of Kutiyattam, 215

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a contention that proves to be true on a closer look. First, there are clear pointers within the discourse of Kutiyattam which indicate that it belonged to the same culture as that of the ōttu śālai and that it was addressed primarily to an audience comprising people who had been trained in such śālais. The most crucial evidence for this is the repeated references in the Vidūṣaka’s puruṣārtthakkūttu – the humorous and inverted depiction of the four puruṣārtthas (aims of life), arttha (wealth), kāma (desire), dharma (righteousness/duty), mōkṣa (salvation) as aśanam (eating, satisfaction of the palate), rājasēva (service to the king), vēśya vinōdam (visiting a prostitute, sensual pleasure) and vancanam (cheating, deception) respectively – to the teachers and students of the ōttu śālai, whose exploits distinctly remind us of the descriptions in the medieval literary texts of their corruption and degradation. Though examples abound, the satirical narration of the ōtikkan (teacher) and the disciples all ending up at the house of the same prostitute, the troubles they go through to hide their identities from one another and the final embarrassing exposure is a prime instance of this internal allusion to the institution of Vedic and Sanskrit teaching, though in a satiric manner. At a more formal level, the impact of Vedic teaching can be perceived in the remarkable similarity between the recitation of the Vēdas that is prevalent even now in Kerala and the intonation patterns used in the recitation of the text in Kutiyattam. The method of reciting the ślōkas in Kutiyattam, termed “svarattil colluka” (recite in svaras) by the Cākyārs, follows a conventional system which is neither like the general style of reciting ślōkas in Kerala nor in accordance with the modalities of singing that one can find in Carnatic music, or even the Kerala style of music, called sōpāna saṅgītam,26 that one comes across in genres like aṣṭapati singing27 or Kathakali music. Though this recitation follows 24 distinct rāgās (or svarās, as they are called in Kutiyattam), the names of some of which resemble the names of rāgās in Carnatic music or Kathakali music (see Ammanur Madhava Chakyar, 1995a, 90), the fact remains that the Kutiyattam styles of textual recitation have very little similarity with Carnatic or Kathakali singing. Even further, it would be more proper not to describe the recitation as singing but as chanting28 and in that sense classify it along with the chanting of the Vēdas. As L. S. Rajagopal has observed, the musicality of the chanting of Vedas lies in the “elongation of notes,” and in that respect, “the recitation of the ślōkas by the Cākyārs may be assigned a place mid-way between the chanting of Ṛg or Yajurveda and that of the Sāma Gāna” (1995, 113). The similarities between the two include the particular tonal musicality of recitation, the unusually elongated manner in which particular long vowels are recited and the structured rises and falls of tone in the delivery of the long vowels. At the same time, even as such general similarities are perceptible, the question as to whether the variations and differences in the svarās, assigned as they are in performance to particular characters, situations and emotions, have any distinct traces of 216

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Vedic culture or of their approaches is a matter that would require deeper study, preferably of an ethno-musicological kind. A related question that has vexed several scholars is whether the mudras (gestures) of Kutiyattam are indebted to Vedic mudras, that is, gestures that accompany the chanting of the Vēdas based on the apparent formal similarities between the two sets of mudras. It is quite possible that at some point after Kutiyattam’s incorporation into the temples, some formal influence of the Vedic mudras may indeed have come to be exerted on the Kutiyattam mudras as a result of the proximity of their sites and the fact that all mudras are ultimately the products of the limited permutations and combinations possible with two hands and ten fingers. However, despite the similarities, the radical differences between the two sets of gestures, in terms of their practices and purposes, cannot be lost sight of. As I had written at an earlier point, On the one hand, the gestures that accompany the recitation of Vedic texts are aids in the exact rendering of the mantras (chants) through their imitation of the formal properties of the sound and intonation patterns required for the recitation. On the other hand, the gestures of Kutiyattam communicate specific meanings that can be rendered in language. In other words, Vedic gestures are formal, Kutiyattam gestures are semantic; the former imitates sounds, the latter indicates meaning. (Narayanan, 2006b, 146) John Sowle makes the difference even clearer: It may be that the use of gesture language in the drama was in part inspired by the Brahman’s use of mudras (gestures) in the learning of the Vedas. An elaborate set of hand gestures is used by Nampūtiris when teaching the Ṛgveda. They indicate the sounds of certain syllables whose exact nature might otherwise not be clear. . . . Some of these mudras are identical to the hastas (hand gestures) used in Kutiyattam and Kathakali, but they are used for an entirely different purpose. They stand for sounds rather than words and ideas. A different set of hand gestures is used by the Sāmavedins. They are more complex than the Ṛgvedic mudras and are used primarily to aid in remembering the svaras of the Sāmaveda. No system of gestures associated with sounds or musical values is used in Kutiyattam. (1982, 172) At the same time, the fact that the gestures of Kutiyattam are very similar, even identical in some instances, to those used by most traditional dance and theatre forms in India, including Kathakali, Bharatanatyam and 217

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Kuchipudi, lends credence to the idea that the primary source for them is the Hastalakṣaṇadīpika, with minor variations brought into its culture of gestures as a result of the passage of time and of local influences which may to some extent have included the formal qualities of the Vedic gestures. The ōttu śālai and Sanskrit pedagogy If the culture of the Mahābhārata was instrumental in introducing an enactment system that based itself on a question-answer method, the prevalence of sub-stories as examples, translation into Malayalam and detailed interpretation, another practice that appears to have accentuated that system, but at a much more fundamental level of structure and language, is the method of teaching Sanskrit employed in the ōttu śālais. As we have seen in the previous section, the teaching of Sanskrit at the ōttu śālais was a major knowledge practice of the temple centres. The community with rights of access to the kūttampalam – that is, the Brahmins and the people belonging to the ampalavāsi (temple servant) castes – had varying degrees of exposure to Sanskrit as well as the pedagogical practices associated with it, ranging from the actual experience of learning Sanskrit to, at its barest minimum, hearing from outside the oral lessons taking place in the ōttu śālai. This would have invariably provided for an environment in which Kutiyattam, to offer better accessibility to its texts and performance through methods that are familiar to its audience, borrowed substantially from the pedagogic methodologies of Sanskrit and adopted them to its own particular performative context. A close look at the systems of Sanskrit pedagogy prevalent in the ōttu śālais will be of help here. In the traditional system of teaching Sanskrit, followed not just in Kerala but practically the whole of India with a few local variations, five common steps are generally adopted for the teaching of prose as well as poetry, as described in the following verse: padachēdōnvayōktisra samāsādivivēcanam/ padārtthabōdhastātparya vyākhyāvayavapanchakam// In their succession, these five steps are: (1) padachēd (word separation), which involves the unravelling of sandhis, that is, the modification  of the form or sound of a word under the  influence  of an  adjacent  word; (2) anvayaḥ (construing), which is the arrangement of words in their natural syntactical order; (3) samāsavigrahaḥ, which entails the dissolution and separation of compound words; (4) padārtthakathanam, which is the explanation of the meanings of words unknown to pupils and (5) tātparyakathanam, the statement of the substance of a sentence, paragraph or verse. In addition, three more steps – parsing of words after padachēd, translation after padārtthakathanam and discussion of constructional aspect 218

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(prayōgvivēcan) after tātparyakathanam – are added at the initial stages of learning and dropped when the students reach an advanced phase (Huparikar, 1949, 341–342). Among these five steps, anvayaḥ, or construing, is the most important step in a literature lesson, and its proper knowledge is indispensable to the study of literature, especially because being a highly inflected language, syntax or word order is of less importance in Sanskrit, especially in poetry, and it is necessary to form a logical order of words to elicit the meaning of a sentence. To be able to construe, a clear knowledge of kriyārūpa, or conjugation of verbs, and kāraka, or the function cases, especially those of the nominative and accusative cases to distinguish the subject and the object, are required. In practice, two distinct methods for anvayaḥ have come to be established as part of traditional Sanskrit scholarship – the daṇḍānvayapaddhati and the khaṇḍānvayapaddhati. Daṇḍānvayapaddhati is an inductive system in which words are arranged in prose order according to their grammatical function and syntactical relation for easy understanding of a verse. The default word order (anvayaḥ) is governed by the verse: viśēṣanam puraskṛtya viśēṣyam tad-lakṣaṇam ̸ kartṛ-karma-kriyā-yuktam ētad anvaya lakṣaṇam ̸ ̸ (Bhagirath, 1901, 10) (Starting with the adjectives, targeting the head word, [moving] in the order of subject-object-verb gives an anvayaḥ, the natural order of words in a sentence.) In this method, questions in the mother tongue, such as “Which is the subject?” “Which is the object?” “Which is the verb?” are asked to bring out the natural order of words in a sentence. As Huparikar observes, “Daṇḍ,” which means a staff with many knots, represents the whole sentence with its various parts or sections (khaṇḍ); daṇḍ is also the vertical punctuation mark used to denote the completion of a sentence. Thus the construing of words in a complete sentence standing between vertical marks is designated as daṇḍānvaya. (1949, 348–349) On the other hand, khaṇḍānvayapaddhati is a deductive system that resembles daṇḍānvaya only in respect of picking out first the principal sentence; it differs with regard to the construing of the remaining words of the whole sentence. Unlike the daṇḍānvaya, in which the subject is generally picked up first and the verb afterwards, in the khaṇḍānvaya, the verb is picked up first and is connected with the subject and the object by framing suitable questions. Again, as Huparikar notes, “In daṇḍānvaya questions 219

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are mainly of a grammatical or formal type; while in khaṇḍānvaya they are principally based on the subject matter or the sense of a literary passage rather than on grammatical function” (1949, 350–352). The questions thus asked address each section (khaṇḍa) of the sentence by focusing on individual words and phrases. In this manner the basic skeleton of a sentence is taken, and the other details are filled in by asking questions. Hence, this system is also called the kathambhūtinī system because it uses the question words kathambhūta (what happened?), kim (why?), kadā (by whom?), kimarttham (for whom?), etc. to elicit the different parts of a sentence. These questions are all centred on the head words (verb, subject, object), seeking their various modifiers. In contrast to the daṇḍānvaya method, the questions in the khaṇḍānvaya system are asked in Sanskrit and not in the mother tongue. This approach is in fact quite close to the system of parsing a sentence showing various dependency (kāraka) relations (see Shukla et al. 2016, 2). Further, khaṇḍānvayapaddhati is mainly used for teaching poetry because in it each word is described in detail, with its formation, derivatives, technical terms, etc. In thus raising continuous questions regarding the verbs in the content of the study, the method leads not only to the uncovering of the full picture depicted in the poem but also to elicit the aspects of rasa, dhvani, alaṅkāra, etc. In both methods, the different units of a sentence are combined and placed in their right order through comprehension of the inter-relations of words by means of mutual expectancy brought out through questions (ākāṅkṣa), compatibility and consistency (yogyatā) and proximity (sannidhi). In this manner, the students are led to the unified and comprehensive meaning or purport (tātparya) of a sentence or passage. However, while the daṇḍānvaya method focuses on questions based on grammatical function, in the khaṇḍānvaya method, the questions are principally on the subject matter. In the former, the subject is generally picked up first and the verb afterwards, while in the latter, the verb is first picked up and then it is connected with the subject and the object by framing suitable questions (see Shukla et al. 2016, 2). It is also important to note that the two systems have different philosophical roots and are inspired by the approaches of different philosophical schools towards the understanding of a sentence and its meaning. While for the nayyāyikas the subject is the principal word in a sentence, for the mīmāmsakas the verbal form is the principal word, and for the vaiyākaraṇas the root meaning of a verbal form is the most important constituent of a sentence. Accordingly, it may be surmised that the daṇḍānvaya method derived from the philosophy of the nayyāyikas, and the khaṇḍānvaya method from that of the mīmāmsakas and the vaiyākaraṇas (see Huparikar,1949, 352–353). The khaṇḍānvaya method is generally considered superior to the daṇḍānvaya, particularly for literary study, for several reasons. First, it is considered capable of facilitating not only the understanding but also the 220

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aesthetic appreciation of a literary piece because it is focused on the subtleties of meaning of a passage under study: Prose order or the regular construing in the daṇḍānvaya mars the beauty of a poem instead of enhancing it; while questions in the khaṇḍānvaya can be so framed as to bring out the emotional content of a poem into prominence and lead the pupils to understand automatically the relations of different words in a sentence. Thus the khaṇḍānvaya helps us to bring out the hidden charm of a poem, heightens our sentiments and creates living poetic atmosphere which is most desirable for the real appreciation of that poem. (Huparikar, 1949, 365–366) Second, the khaṇḍānvaya method elicits greater student involvement and hence greater comprehension, since the predominance of the questionand-answer method in it can serve to arouse their curiosity and maintain continuous interest in the classroom. Third, “since there is direct interaction in the form of questions and answers, this method is more suitable for larger classes, ensuring cooperation between the teacher and the taught where both of them are equal participants in contrast to the lecture method of Daṇdānvaya” (Shukla et al. 2016, 2). Moreover, to situate it in its wider cultural context, the dialogic method inherent to the khaṇḍānvayapaddhati’s ākāṅkṣa system of questions and answers was a method of wider application in most disciplines in Sanskrit that relied on oral teaching. At the same time, it was also a formal discursive method employed in the Upaniṣads, Bhagavat Gīta, Yōgavasiṣt, Mahābhārata, etc., as well as in commentaries on the pañcamahākāvyas and sāśtrās, such as Patanjali’s Mahābhāṣya, “bearing ample testimony to the fact that the method of questions and answers was largely used in expounding a subject” (see Huparikar, 1949, 357). The khaṇḍānvaya method of Sanskrit teaching was prevalent in Kerala almost exclusively until recently and certainly so in the ōttu śālais of the temples during the time Kutiyattam was in its formative stage after incorporation into the temples. Generally known by a term that was a mixture of Sanskrit and Malayalam – ākāṅkṣiccu anvayikkuka (construing through the question-and-answer method) – there was, however, one major difference in the way in which the system came to be established in Kerala. The questions asked were not in Sanskrit but in the local language, Malayalam. Huparikar, drawing from the collective wisdom of the sāśtrīs (the teachers of Sanskrit) over the ages, strictly warns against it: “Construing a Sanskrit poem or a prose passage in the mother tongue is a contradiction in terms, and it is as unnatural as dissolving Sanskrit compounds in the mother tongue” (Huparikar, 1949, 359). However, in practice, the mixture of Sanskrit and Malayalam effectively meant that, since the questions were in 221

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Malayalam, even as the words and expressions drawn out from the sentence addressed were indeed in Sanskrit, the explanations given in the terms of the formations of words, the ideas and stories behind them, the poetic and aesthetic aspects, etc. would all be in Malayalam. This also meant that translation into the mother tongue came to be employed extensively in Sanskrit teaching, though not in a manner one would associate with the grammar translation method. A close look at the system of enacting the text in Kutiyattam will make it amply clear that it follows the same method as that of the khaṇḍānvayapaddhati, albeit adapted and revised to meet the specific requirements and contexts of performance, as opposed to those of learning literature in a classroom. As already described in Chapter 3, the enactment of the text follows a clear fourfold pattern on the Kutiyattam stage: first, the speech of each character is recited to the accompaniment of gestures for each word; second, the speech is rendered in gestures without the recitation of the verbal text; third, the text is broken down into separate segments in the proper grammatical order and each segment is recited and enacted with gestures at a slower pace, all the while emphasizing the facial expressions appropriate for the emotion associated with each word and punctuated with explanations wherever necessary, and finally the last part of the dialogue is repeated to the accompaniment of gestures again, as a cue to the other actors. The third segment of this process is where the anvayam, or construing of the proper word order of the verse, as well as the explication of the different phrases and expressions in it, are undertaken through the medium of questions and answers. An example, in the form of a verse from Jāṭāyuvadhāṅkam, in which Rāvaṇa tells Sīta as he is abducting her that there is no need for her to be sad or afraid because no one in all the three worlds will be able to rescue her from him, is taken here to trace the method in greater detail: nāham bandhuragātri bhīti viṣayastē kim mudha kidyasē/ trātum tvām sasurāsurē tribhuvanē ke vā manaḥ kurvatē// mayyasmin paripanthini prakaṭitakrōdhāndhadigvāraṇa/ sthūlavyāyatadantakōṭi kaliśavyālīḍhavakṣasthalē// (Venugopalan, 2009, 321) (Oh you with lovely body, you should not be afraid of me. Why are you so distressed without knowing the situation? In all these three worlds of Gods and demons, who will think of coming to your rescue when I  am here to ward them off, with my chest that has seen the thrust of the tips of the huge, long, adamantine tusks of the infuriated elephants of the quarters?) (Jones, 1984, 60)

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The enactment of the verse, as detailed in the āṭṭaprakāram, is as follows: “First having recited the verse, and then having gestured it without the recitation, show the anvayam [as follows]: After reciting ‘bandhuragātri aham tē na bhīti viṣayaḥ,’ [show in gestures]29 ‘Oh! Beautiful damsel, you need not be afraid on seeing me.’ Why is it so? Then, after reciting ‘bandhuragātri’ in mūḍhan,30 [do the] pañcāṅgam.31 [Then enact in gestures] ‘Oh! Beautiful damsel, There is no other woman in all the three worlds who has such perfection of beauty as you have. For that reason, you need not be afraid. Don’t be sad in this manner. Come with me and live happily.’ Then looking intently [at Sīta], in the aspect of Rāvaṇa, [enact in gestures] ‘What can be done? There seems no point in telling her. Again, she is weeping in sadness.” Think for a while, signal to stop the drumming,32 recite “kim khidyasē?” and enact, “Due to what reason are you being sad? When you are with me even heaven will yield to you. Why do you cry then?” Then, signal to stop the drumming, recite “mudha khidyasē?” and enact, “There is no point in crying, thinking that your husband Rāma or your other relatives will come and rescue you. That is futile. Why is it so?” Then, signal to stop the drumming, recite “asmin mayi paripanthini tribhuvanē kē vā tvām trātum manaḥ kurvatē?” and enact, “When I am the enemy, who in all of the three worlds will think of rescuing you? Even if the dēvas and the asuras come, they will not rescue you. Forget actual rescuing, they won’t even consider in their mind the thought of rescuing. Why is it so?” Then, signal to stop the drumming, recite, “prakaṭitakrōdhāndhadigvārana sthūlavyāyatadantakōṭi kaliśavyālīḍhavakṣasthalē,” and enact, “I am not an insignificant man. I am one on whose chest there are the marks of the diamond-like, sharp tusks of the elephants of the four quarters. How did that come to be?” Having gestured “the elephants of the four quarters,” as they move to and fro, I’ll go beside them and challenge them for a fight. At that time, seeing the elephants approaching me in anger the sword is put down, and with the hands the tusks of the elephants are placed on the chest and then they are thrown far away. How is that done? In the aspect of the elephants of the quarters, while moving to and fro, hearing being challenged to a fight, go running in, in fury. Then, in the aspect of Rāvaṇa, act as if the tusks are held by the hands, stuck on the chest, and then the elephants thrown away. [Then enact] “In this manner, I am one whose chest is marked by the tusk-ends of the elephants of the quarters. When such a person as I am the opponent, no one shall come to rescue you. For that reason, your

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being sad is if no avail.” Having gestured so, recite the latter half of the verse. (Venugopalan, 2009, 321–322) Several vital features are apparent in this system of enactment of a verse from the play text. In the initial instance, the recitation faithfully follows the text, maintaining the exact order of words as given in the text. Then, as part of delivering the anvayam, or construing, the same words are split into smaller meaningful segments and placed in the subject-object-verb order and recited. Following this, questions are posed to each of these segments and the answers so elicited turn out to be explanations for the action or feature that happens to be the subject matter of each segment. All the questions so posed, as well as the explanations that are given in the form of replies, are in gestures and follow the primary syntax of Malayalam, which is in the subject-object-verb order.33 Equally importantly, the questions (How is that? How did that come to be? What is that? Why is that so?) are all focused on the verb – the active verb of each segment – at first, and then through the answers so elicited they move on to the subject and object words later. In like manner, the details of all the head words in the segment are explained in terms of their meanings and the implications of the adjectives, adverbs and other qualifiers of those words. It will be evident that the translational method is employed throughout, wherein the Sanskrit of the text is implicitly translated into Malayalam first and then delivered in the gestural form, and with the gestural interpolations, in the form of explanations for various expressions and descriptions, also following the syntax of Malayalam. Needless to say, this method is not just similar to the khaṇḍānvayapaddhati, as it was practiced in Kerala with the process of translation added to it, but a veritable performative version of it, adapted to the specific circumstances of the stage and the requirements of a play text. Of particular note here is the nature of the questions raised to elicit the meanings of each segment. Unlike the questions in the khaṇḍānvayapaddhati, which as we saw earlier are kathambhūta (what happened?), kim (why?), kadā (by whom?), kimarttham (for whom?), etc., in Kutiyattam the primary questions raised are the Malayalam queries, atu eṅṅane (How is that? How did that come to be?) and atu entu (What is that? Why is that so?). Even as, in one sense, these queries encapsulate and take the place of all the khaṇḍānvayapaddhati questions in a shorthand manner in transacting the Sanskrit text, it is apparent here that their focus is equally, or more, on the possibilities of detailed enactment that will help in showcasing the virtuosity of the actor. Hence, these queries are invariably directed at those aspects of the sentence from which can be elicited as answers processes that offer scope for detailed gestural and physical acting. The queries atu eṅṅane and atu entu also do justice, in a manner of speaking, to the mīmāmsa roots of the khaṇḍānvaya method because they are adaptations of the question form “kathambhūta” (what happened?) and 224

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pointedly focus on the verbs of the sentence, thereby opening up statements of action that can be physically enacted onstage. In other words, what we see in Kutiyattam is not just the adaptation of a method but the very methodology of Sanskrit instruction – or the pedagogy of language teaching – being adopted for the specific purposes of performance. It stands to reason that in thus adopting a methodology that was relatively familiar to most of the members of the temple community, the aim, at its most elementary, must have been to create continuity between the performance and the practices of learning and instruction that had become habitual to the audience. In other words, the kūttampalam effectively becomes an extension of the ōttu śālai and kūttu a continuation of the ōttu.34 In thus drawing from an aspect of their foreknowledge and making it an integral part of the performance process, the transactions on the stage must have invariably communicated better to an audience for whom the methodology being employed onstage was already quite familiar though in a different domain. Even more importantly, the dialogic method must have also aided immensely in accommodating the audience into the heart of the performance process – with the questions evoking the curiosity and interest of the audience and involving them in an implied dialogue with the actor. The earlier idea of the audience completing the action of the stage receives an added dimension here. Already familiar with the dialogic method through their exposure to the pedagogical systems of Sanskrit language teaching as well as other knowledge discourses of Sanskrit, the members of the temple society must have found their entry into the performance facilitated by a discursive modality of which they had prior knowledge. These interconnected aspects make it possible to see the Kutiyattam performance as one in which systems and methods of pedagogy become not only integral to its approach but definitive of its most fundamental practices of transacting the text and acting on the stage. In this light, it may not be entirely amiss if one were to characterize Kutiyattam as an academic theatre in which pedagogy becomes performance by drawing upon some of the most vital academic and instructional methodologies that defined the cultural and intellectual life of that society. At the same time, the question-answer structure and the method of translation drawn originally from the culture of the Bhārata Bhaṭṭas and buttressed by the systems of Sanskrit pedagogy, which led to the method of addressing each word or expression in a sentence and eliciting its multiple semantic and metaphoric implications, must have also contributed ever so much to the microscopic method of performance that focuses on every minute detail, which was then developing in the kūttampalams by virtue of their circumscribed and limited spaces. In that sense, we find here remarkable continuity between the physical space and the cultural space, with the modalities associated with the intellectual and cultural aspects of the temple space accentuating and strengthening the tendencies thrown up by the physical nature of the temple theatres. The pedagogical systems characterizing 225

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the cultural space of the temple society provided what one might rightly call a methodology for performance – both for transacting the play text as well as for the onstage practice of the actors – that reinforced the systems of proximal viewing and elaborative enactment demanded by the specific physical space of the temple theatres. Translation and bilingualism: how Kutiyattam became Kutiyattam The preceding discussions make it pretty apparent that translation plays a major role in the performance of Kutiyattam. However, due to the predominantly gestural nature of its acting method, this aspect is somewhat camouflaged, effectively concealing what appears to be a latent contradiction in its status as Sanskrit theatre. Ostensibly, it is only the Vidūṣaka who uses the Malayalam language regularly and openly on the stage, translating into and interpreting (and comically misinterpreting) in Malayalam everything that he says, sees and hears on the stage. The only other times Malayalam (or a version of it) is heard onstage is in Śurpaṇakhāṅkam of the Āścaryacūdāmaṇi, where the mutilated Śurpaṇakha speaks in a particular variant of Malayalam that is heavily inflected by the cadences of Tamil and some local folk dialects, and also during the Nampyār Tamiḻ segments, which strictly speaking cannot be considered to be part of the drama proper because it is an external interpolation designed to explicate the transactions of the stage. It may then appear to an untrained eye that the rest of the time Sanskrit is the language of the stage, the vācika segments – the recitations of the dramatic text – vouching for such an impression. However, a closer look will show that except for such specific segments in which the text of the play is recited, the rest of the time the language used for enactment is Malayalam, though rendered in the language of gestures. As seen earlier, the entire series of articulations in gestures comprising the anvayam or the construing of the play text, the questions raised as part of it and the elaborations undertaken in response to the questions faithfully follow the syntax of Malayalam. In fact, it is a process where, in addition to the translation of the play text into Malayalam, all its semantic connotations, metaphoric suggestions and thematic implications are explained and elaborated in gestures and bodily signs that adhere to the syntactical structure of Malayalam. Even further, the entire process of the nirvahaṇam, the exposition of character, also follows the same pattern with the initial questions in the anukramam, the brief narration of a segment of the previous events in the saṃkṣēpam and the final detailed narration of previous events, all following the syntactical structure of Malayalam. In other words, the underlying language of the gestural enactment is Malayalam, not Sanskrit. It is also of note here that the language of the āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas is also Malayalam, indicating beyond any shade of doubt that the language of performance of 226

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Kutiyattam is primarily Malayalam, even as the language of the dramatic text is Sanskrit. There are several implications for this predominance of the translational mode and the presence of Malayalam in the performance of Kutiyattam. First, it becomes apparent that the vācika of the Vidūṣaka is that which provides the significant model for the enactment practices of all other characters. The practice of the Vidūṣaka in translating and interpreting in Malayalam the Sanskrit play text, through a process of questions and answers, appears to be the same process followed by the other characters, with the exception that instead of Malayalam it is the language of gestures arranged in the syntax of Malayalam that is being employed. In other words, if the Vidūṣaka uses Malayalam to interpret and elaborate on the Sanskrit play text, the other characters use a Malayalam rendered through gestures rather than spoken words to do the same. Nambudiripad’s observation that the verbal form kūttu was the template upon which the “gestural acting and the multi-actor form of drama” in Kutiyattam was modelled gets confirmed here. It must be assumed that the method of construing through questions and answers and the associated strategies of translation, explanation and interpretation associated with the character of the Vidūṣaka, as seen in the solo, verbal form prabandham kūttu as well as the Vidūṣaka characters of Kutiyattam, came to be transferred into the modalities of gestural acting of other characters, thus making the method definitive of the very culture of performance of Kutiyattam. Second, a closer look at the Vidūṣaka’s vācika will vouch that what happens in it is not merely translation but a process in which translation itself is in some instances focused upon, problematized, and the tensions between Sanskrit and Malayalam made the immediate subject of the enactment. A  strategy that the Vidūṣaka character often resorts to in order to evoke humour is to engage in deliberate distortions and mistranslations, such as translating a word or phrase in terms of a shade of meaning that is completely inappropriate in the specific linguistic and dramatic context, translation not on the basis of similarity of meaning but on similarity of sound, translations that base themselves on deliberate misconstruing of the structure of the Sanskrit phrases or sentences, tweaking the original word or phrase ever so slightly to elicit a translation that is either totally contrary to the actual meaning or hilariously wide of the mark and so on. The distortions reach their peak in the pṟati ślōkas (counter verses) of the Vidūṣaka, in which twisted and trivialized versions of the hero’s experiences are depicted as happening in the life of the Vidūṣaka too, in a language that is a parodied “translation” of the language of the hero’s verse. In all this, the focus is on the dynamics of translation, especially on the tensions, mismatches and slippages that happen in the transactions between the two languages. The deliberate distortions and “errors” of the Vidūṣaka rely, no doubt, on the audience’s shared knowledge of both languages, evoking immediate 227

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laughter in them. Further, that they enjoyed immense popularity is evidenced by their survival in the repertoire even after the passage of several centuries, indicating that there existed among the audience of the temple society a culture of appreciation that made them keenly receptive to the slippages and conflicts that occur in the transactions between the two languages, Sanskrit and Malayalam. What this suggests is not merely a context of translation but one of significant bilingualism obtaining with the temple society in the period in which Kutiyattam developed in the kūttampalams, which made it open to such linguistic and discursive play. A closer look at the larger cultural context will make it eminently clear that such bilingualism cannot be seen as limited to the ōttu śālai and their practice of Sanskrit pedagogy alone but that it was a significant part of the wider literary culture of Kerala of the time. As seen in Chapter 2, the 12th to the 15th century was a crucially formative time for Malayalam when it was established as a literary language with a corpus of writings that gradually built up its independent literary status. What aided most in the formation of this literary corpus, as with many other Indian languages, was a composite culture of bilingualism and translation involving Sanskrit and the new developing language. On the one hand, there were a number of compositions, such as Cheeraman’s Rāmacaritam, variously placed between the 12th and the 14th century; Kaṇṇaśśa Rāmāyaṇam, Kaṇṇaśśa Bhāratam, Bhāgavatam and Śivarātri Māhātmyam by the Niranam poets, dated between 1350 and 1450; Cherussery’s Kṛṣṇa Gātha of the 15th century and Ezhuttachan’s Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇam and Śrīmahābhāratam of the 16th century, all of which relied on varying degrees of translation and adaptation from corresponding Sanskrit works. Parallel to this was the rise of a “composite literary dialect” which was a “curious mixture of Sanskrit and Malayalam which is referred to as maṇipravāḷam, maṇi meaning ruby (Malayalam) and pravāḷam meaning coral (Sanskrit).” The literature of the elite was composed primarily in this amalgamated language and most importantly, it was “patronized by the upper classes, especially the Nambudiris” (Paniker, 1998, 22). Starting with the Vaiśika Tantṟam, a 13th-century poem in the form of professional advice given to a courtesan by her mother, the early maṇipravāḷam works fall into two basic categories: sandēśa kāvyās (message poems) and accīcaritams (tales of courtesans). Among the first type, modelled primarily on Kalidasa’s Mēghadūtam and Lakshmidasa’s Śukasandēśa, probably the most important is Uṇṇunīlisandēśam, written in the 14th century. As for the latter type, works such as Uṇṇiyaccīcaritam, Uṇṇiccirutēvīcaritam and Uṇṇiyātīcaritam are early examples, written in the form of campus in close imitation of the campus in Sanskrit. The later maṇipravāḷam campus of the 15th century, composed under the influences of the Bhakti Movement, shifted their focus to more epic and puranic themes, of which the most important were Punam Nambudiri’s Rāmāyaṇam Campu and Bhāratam Campu and Mahishamangalam Narayanan Nambudiri’s Naiṣadham and Rājaratnāvalīyam. 228

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This alerts us to the fact that the wider literary culture of the times was deeply etched by the practices of bilingualism and translation, which must have had its inevitable influence on the culture of performance too, given that the audience for both was essentially the same, that is, the literate elite of the temple society. Apart from the indirect influence of the general literary environment, the later campus also had a close connection with performance in that they came to be used by the Cākyārs in their narrative elaboration segments both in Kutiyattam and the verbal form prabandham kūttu (see Bhattatiri, 1933/34; Bhattatiri, 1998). In fact, one of the express purposes for their composition must have been to provide narrative enactment material for the Cākyārs, as is evident in the dramatic monologue form adopted by most of them, which not only relies on an oral narrative tone but also implies the presence of an audience in their very structure. Another major feature of the campus that substantiates such a view is that several passages are common to many of them, as the texts survive today. It would appear that the performers appropriated passages from different campus and mixed them together for the calls of performance with little respect for authorship or the individual integrity of a composition. Further, another remarkable feature that supports the idea of collaboration between the writers of the campus and the Cākyārs is the striking element of humour that marks most of these compositions, revealing in ample measure that they were composed with the implicit aim of being performed by the Vidūṣaka character (see Paniker, 1998, 27–28). In other words, the translational mode and the culture of bilingualism that define Kutiyattam indicate that, far from being removed from the wider cultural space of the times, it was an integral part of the same and thrived on performative renderings of some of the most vital practices and tendencies of that space. Going a step further, it may also be possible to conceive of the general cultural environment and the place of Kutiyattam within it as mutually reinforcing and contributory, whereby Kutiyattam not only partook of but also in return strengthened the bilingual, translational modality of Kerala’s wider literary culture. The substantial presence of Malayalam in its performative structures raises several significant questions about the status of Kutiyattam as Sanskrit theatre. Strictly speaking, it will not be entirely off the mark to ask how Kutiyattam can be called a Sanskrit theatre at all, when the lion’s share of its onstage transactions is conducted in Malayalam. In such a view, would it be more proper to call it a Sanskrit theatre in translation? Or would it be better to term it a hybrid theatre of Sanskrit plays performed primarily in Malayalam? Or, given the predominance in it of the practice of translation, should it be labelled a theatre of translation? While any attempt to arrive at a final answer to these questions would only serve to open a hornet’s nest of contestations, it can be safely gathered that Kutiyattam’s status as pure Sanskrit theatre rests on rather uneasy foundations. Even more importantly, 229

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this particular problem could offer us an insight into the way the very nomenclature “Kutiyattam” itself came to be. As we have seen, the term “Kutiyattam” is generally taken to mean “combined acting” or multi-actor drama. In that sense, the nomenclature indicates anēkahārya, a dramatic performance executed by several people, as opposed to ēkahārya, solo enactment. Even as this is the conventionally attributed meaning, another interesting suggestion has come up recently from Heike Moser, who contends that the term could indicate the merging of two performance traditions  – one a male performance tradition from the Tamil region and the other a female performance tradition that was native to the Kerala region. According to her, there is inscriptional evidence of Naṅṅai (Naṅṅyārs) performing in temples in the area of modern Kerala from 900 CE, while from the Saṅgam period up to the 11th/12th century there is evidence of performing Śākkai (Cākyārs) in the area of modern Tamil Nadu. However, from the 12th century there are no more references to Śākkai in the Tamil region, while from the same time we find inscriptions that mention Śākkai and Naṅṅai together in the Kerala region. Based on this evidence, Moser concludes that performing Cākyār may have spread from Tamil Nadu to Kerala only during the 11th century. Up to then there existed in Kerala some kind of performing art carried out by Naṅṅai. It seems to me that what were essentially two performance traditions joined during the 11th and 12th century to form kūṭi-āṭṭam – performing together. (2011, 176) Further, as for the nomenclature, she asserts, “Even though the standard repertoire consists of classical Sanskrit plays, a Dravidian name may have been chosen for this new kind of performance, because it developed in a clearly Dravidian setting, even including long textual parts in Malayalam” (2011, 177). Notwithstanding its speculative innovativeness, there are some inherent problems with this argument. First, the assumption that there were two distinct traditions specific to region and exclusive in terms of gender, whereby there was a male tradition in the Tamil region and a female tradition in the Kerala region, even when seemingly supported by some inscriptional evidence, is fraught with difficulties, especially when it comes to the performance of Sanskrit drama. There is a long-standing tradition in the culture of Sanskrit drama, right from the time of Nāṭyaśāstra, of according due importance to the female aspect of acting through the pointed incorporation into nāṭya of the kaiśiki vṛtti (the graceful style). The Nāṭyaśāstra states that Brahman himself required that the kaiśiki vṛtti be included in nāṭya and that when Bharatamuni averred that “the style cannot be practiced by 230

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men except with the help of women,” the God of gods “created from his mind nymphs (apsaras) who were skilful in embellishing the drama and gave them over” to Bharatamuni (Bharata-Muni, 1951, 7–8). The significance of this passage is primarily that it reveals unambiguously that far from there being any strictures against the appearance of women onstage there was actually scriptural acceptance, even acclaim, of the role of women actors in performance and that they were indeed considered essential for the attainment of the fullness of dramatic experience. At the same time, it is also noteworthy that there was no customary practice of cross-gender acting – of men playing the roles of women – associated with Sanskrit drama, even as such conventions existed in the case of several other dramatic traditions of India. Had there been such a practice, there would no doubt have been clear references to it in theoretical and critical treatises that appeared through the ages, but such mentions are practically absent altogether. Even more, there is ample textual evidence that there was an abiding female presence in Sanskrit drama presentation, by way of the almost obligatory appearance of the naṭi – actress – with the Sūtradhāra in the introductory segments in most plays. Given this, and given also that there is very little evidence that attests to the contrary in other local discourses of the Tamil region, both literary as well as inscriptional, it would be somewhat farfetched to conclude that in the Tamil country alone there was a tradition of Sanskrit drama that expressly prohibited women from the stage and permitted their roles to be played by men, primarily on the basis that inscriptions mostly refer only to Śākkai and not to Naṅṅai. A significant nuance to be noted in this connection is that several inscriptions referred to in Chapter 2, such as the Śivalōkanātha Temple inscription of 1033 (ASI, 1991. Vol. XIX, No. 434), the Mahalingaswami temple inscription of the 4th regnal year of Parakesarivarman (Champakalakshmi, [1996] 1999, 351), the Gomukteswara temple inscription of 994/995 CE, etc. (Sastri, 1955, 575), refer to the presentation of multi-act dramas, thereby suggesting that they were indeed presentations of Sanskrit plays that run to five or seven acts. Such multi-act dramas cannot be but multi-actor dramas, with the significant presence of female characters, leading to the distinct possibility that the Śākkai referred to in the inscriptions were not solely actors but also managers responsible for the conduct of the performance and that the payment – Śākkai kāṇi – given them is not for their acting services alone but for the entire performance and all the performers involved, which by rule may have included female performers too. The nutshell of all this evidence is that it is extremely improbable that a tradition of Śākkai existed in the Tamil region that excluded and proscribed Naṅṅai or women. By the same token, the contention that there was an exclusively female tradition of performance in the region corresponding to present-day Kerala – that “ ‘Naṅṅai’ seem to have performed in Kerala some kind of Kūttu without any ‘Śākkai/Cākyār’ up to the 11th century” (Moser, 2011, 177) – 231

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is also founded on very tenuous grounds. Even the earliest reference to performance in what is the erstwhile Tamil region actually refers to a place in Kerala and unambiguously mentions a Śākkai/Cākyār. The 28th song of Śilappatikāram, to which Moser herself refers, describes the performance of the koṭṭiccēdam episode of Tṟipuradahana by Paṟavūr Kuttaśakkaiyan, a Cākyār who hails from Paravur, a place near Mahodayapuram, the capital city of the Cēras close to present-day Kodungallur in Kerala. Further, the Thiruvalla inscriptions, dated to around 1027, refer to kāḷiyāṅkam-kūttu (the fourth scene of the play Bālacaritam, depicting kāḷiyamardana, the defeat of the serpent Kāḷiya by Lord Kṛṣṇa) and the honorarium to be paid to the persons who staged the kūttu, again providing evidence that the performance was not limited to female practitioners alone. The fallout of this is that even as there may have been a system in the Kerala region of paying Naṅṅai individually or separately for their performance, it does not necessarily entail the absence of a tradition of Śākkai until the 11th century when the culture supposedly spread from the Tamil region to Kerala. Further still, the idea that the regions corresponding to present-day Tamil Nadu and present-day Kerala were culturally distinct and separate entities prior to the 12th century is also somewhat contrived because most available historical evidence points to the areas falling within today’s Kerala being an integral part of the larger Tamiḷakam and sharing most of its cultural propensities, definitely in the first millennium CE and to some extent in the earlier part of the second millennium too. Second, if indeed the nomenclature kūṭi-āṭṭam arose in response to the merging of two performance traditions in the 12th century, it is only reasonable to expect the name also to have come up, if not immediately after the particular development at least within a reasonably short period following it. However, we don’t find any evidence of such nomenclature even as late as the 15th century in any inscription or writing, either historical or literary. Had such a name been in vogue, one can be reasonably certain that it would have figured in Naṭāṅkuśa, and given as it is to the most stringent critique of anything that smacks of the slightest departure from the canonical systems of Sanskrit drama, such a name and especially its local quality would have invariably invited the brunt of its author’s caustic ire. However, Naṭāṅkuśa shows no cognizance of the existence of any such term, even as it squarely chastises the actors for the adoption of the local language and condemns it as an instance of the tendency of the actor for unnecessary and unrestrained garrulity (see Paulose, 1993, 143). A third problem is the usage of the word āṭṭam. Even if for the sake of argument one were to accept that “a Dravidian name may have been chosen for this new kind of performance, because it developed in a clearly Dravidian setting” (Moser, 2011, 177), one fails to fathom why the word kūttu was not used and a name like kūṭi-kūttu or kūṭṭu-kūttu not coined, especially given that kūttu was the generic name given to most performances in 232

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the Tamil region, and the same was employed for Sanskrit drama as well, as in āryakkūttu or śāntikkūttu. Even more interestingly, if the word āṭṭam had been introduced to indicate the merger of two acting traditions in the 12th century, it begs the question why the temple theatres that came up nearly three centuries later to house the merged performance came to be called kūttampalam and not āṭṭa-ampalam, as they rightly should have been if indeed Kutiyattam had come to be called Kutiyattam as far back as that. All this alerts us to the possibility that there were other processes at play in the matter and that the time scheme involved is a different one altogether. It is here that we return to the context of bilingualism and translation. As already indicated in Chapter 2, the name kūṭi-āṭṭam does not appear in Vyaṅgyavyākhya or any of the earlier inscriptions or texts that refer to performance, all of which employ either the Tamil form kūttu or the Sanskrit word nāṭaka. Again, as already seen, the word does not figure in Naṭāṅkuśa too, suggesting that the nomenclature came up later than the 15th century. If indeed, as the historical evidence points, the nomenclature was adopted only after the 15th century, it indicates a time when performances of Sanskrit drama in Kerala departed substantially from previous tradition through the profuse inclusion of Malayalam. In such a situation, it would stand to reason that the new name was adopted primarily in response to this departure from erstwhile practice and the inclusion of the local language in its performance practices, thereby necessitating a different nomenclature. An analysis of the term kūṭi-āṭṭam will be in order here to throw more light on the matter. A quick look at the use of the root word “kūṭal” (to come together) and its various forms, such as “kūṭa,” “kūṭi,” “kūṭṭi,” “kūṭṭu,” etc., as prefixes of attribution will vouch that most often they are used to indicate the coming together of two phenomena, say, rivers, paths, roads and so on. A cursory enumeration will be enough to throw up nearly 30 such words in Malayalam, currently extant but having histories of several centuries, which are variously employed as place names, house names, family names, temple names and so on. For example, there are several place names, such as Kūṭallūr (a place in Palghat district where the rivers Bharatappuzha and Thootha meet, which has also become the name of a Nampūtiri house), Kūṭal (a place in Pathanamthitta district where two streams come together), Kūṭṭikkal (the name of two places in Kottayam and Kannur districts, both indicating the merger of rivers), Kūṭṭilaṅṅāṭi (a place in Malappuram district where two marketplaces are supposed to have merged), Kūṭṭupuḻa (a small village in Kannur district on the border between Kerala and Karnataka states where two rivers join) or Kūṭṭupāta (the name of two different places in Palghat district where two major roads meet). There are house names such as Kūṭalātṯupuṟam (a Nampūtiri house in Painkulam in Thrisur district, with the term meaning “situated where two rivers meet”), Vaṭakke Kūṭṭāla (the house of the famous Malayalam writer VKN), Kūṭattiṅṅal or Kūṭṭattil. There are also temple names such as Kūṭalmāṇikyam (temple at Irinjalakuda 233

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in Thrissur district, the name indicating the joining together of two rubies) and Kūṭṭumadham (temple at Perumbavoor in Ernakulam district). While all these examples and many more stand testimony to an interesting linguistic process that informs a popular system of naming in Malayalam, a closer inspection of these samples will reveal two particular features that are crucial for our concerns. The first is that different forms of kūṭal are employed as prefix for place/house/family/temple names primarily when the reference is to the merger of two phenomena, but generally not more than two, in which case another prefix particle, such as “mu” (to indicate three) or “nāl” (to indicate four), is added at the beginning, as in Mukkūṭṭutaṟa (a place in Kottayam district where three roads meet and was used in earlier days as a resting place for marching armies), Mukkūṭṭa (a place near Changaramkulam in Malappuram district where three major roads join), Mukkūṭu (a place near Kundara in Kollam district), Mukkūṭṭu Sri Muttappan Kṣētṟam (a temple near Payyannur in Kannur district), Mukkūṭṭil Ampalam (a temple at Tripunithura in Ernakulam district), Mukkūṭṭil Sri Bhadrādēvi Kṣētṟam (a temple near Karunagappilly in Kollam district), Nālkkavala (conventionally a junction where four roads meet but also the name of a place in Kottarakkara in Kollam district), Nālaṅṅāti (meaning four markets, the name of a place in Palghat district) and Nālumukku (meaning a four-way junction, the name of a place in Attingal, Thiruvananthapuram district). Second, there appears to be generally two ways in which these prefixes are employed. The first is where the names indicate the phenomena that have merged, as in Kuṭṭilaṅṅāti (markets), Kūṭṭupuḻa (rivers), Kūṭalātṯupuṟam (streams), Kūṭṭupāta (roads), Kūṭalmāṇikyam (gems), etc.; and the second where the names indicate a place/site where two things that remain unnamed come together, as in Kūṭallūr, Kūṭal, Kūṭathiṅṅal and Kūṭṭattil, all of which refer to a location/space where a merger has taken place without specifying what it is that has merged. In light of this, and taking into account the fact that the name kūṭi-āṭṭam came up only after the 15th century, when Malayalam became a significant presence in Sanskrit drama performance, it may be surmised that the prefix kūṭi, which means “come together” and which has been conventionally taken to indicate multi-actor drama, was employed more as a descriptor of the linguistic nature of performance, and the new nomenclature came to indicate the kūṭal – merger – of two languages at the site of āṭṭam, performance. In other words, kūṭi-āṭṭam came to refer to a dramatic practice in which two languages, Sanskrit and Malayalam, were combined together in performance and came to denote not only its difference from the forms of Sanskrit drama that were prevalent in other parts of the country but also its departure from the precursor form that prevailed in areas that correspond to present-day Kerala.35 Given the fact that generally the different forms of kūṭal describe the merger of two phenomena, and not more than two, as seen in the previous examples, it also becomes manifest that the term could 234

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not have indicated multi-actor drama, as is conventionally assumed. This line of reasoning acquires further strength from the fact that the multi-actor method was not new and had existed for several centuries by the time the new name was introduced after the 15th century, thereby making it rather improbable that it could have occasioned the rise of the new name. The choice of the word āṭṭam is also important because the departure from the established practices of performance must have meant that the word kūttu could no longer be used to denote what had essentially become a different performance form. Āṭṭam was certainly not a new word but one that was almost as old as kūttu in the Dravidian tradition, having been featured in texts as early as Śilappatikāram. However, in its new employment what we see is a case of semantic shift or semantic extension, where a newly risen specialized meaning comes to be associated with an older word, leading to the redefinition of not just that word but other connected words too. If in its earlier avatar the word āṭṭam primarily connoted the physical aspects of performance, such as dance and movement, in its new version it came to suggest a form of performance that was a harmonious blend of the physical aspect of performance with the gestural and the verbal. Two related developments are also important in this connection. First, with the rise of the new connotation for the word āṭṭam, the word kūttu progressively acquired the specialized connotation of verbal performance, as in prabandham kūttu, Cākyār kūttu or puruṣārtthakkūttu, even though the earlier connotation was retained in already established terms, such as kūttampalam, or in referring to some of the earliest performance segments such as Mantrāṅkam or Aṅkulīyāṅkam as Mantrāṅkam kūttu and Aṅkulīyāṅkam kūttu. At the same time, āṭṭam also acquired greater prevalence in Malayalam as time went by and came to be featured in the names of most performance forms that arose subsequently in the Kerala region, almost as a mark of their Kerala origins, as in Kṛṣṇāṭṭam, Rāmanāṭṭam, Mohiniyāṭṭam, Kaḷiyāṭṭam and so on, all of which had the pronounced presence in them of the physical aspect of performance. In addition, the word came to be applied even for some specific types of acting that developed in the Kerala region, such as colliyāṭṭam (the system of acting the verses/text in Kutiyattam and Kathakali, where the verbal and gestural aspects are combined), iḷakiyāṭṭam (a system of acting in Kathakali that features purely the gestural aspect with no verbal element), pakarnnāṭṭam (“transferred acting,” where an actor who plays the role of one character assumes the aspects of the other characters who figure in the story he narrates) and so on. In a sense then the process whereby the performance of Sanskrit drama in Kerala acquired a specific form and nomenclature was one in which, on the one hand, it became progressively localized and over-determined by the presence of the local language, as well as, on the other hand, it contributing ever so much to the formation of a performative culture that came to be distinctively Keralite in its particular blend of the verbal, the gestural and the physical. 235

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The Vidūṣaka and his links with local culture We have already seen in this as well as previous chapters the crucial role played by the Vidūṣaka in Kutiyattam. As we have observed, the vācika of the Vidūṣaka is that which provides the significant model for the enactment practices of all other characters, especially in the translation and interpretation of the Sanskrit play text into Malayalam, through a process of questions and answers that unravels the significance of each important element of the text. At the same time, we have also seen that his methods of translation and bilingualism were also the modalities through which Kutiyattam not only came to be Keralized but also became representative of the most formative processes of Kerala culture and literature at a crucial embryonic stage in their development. Another major cultural significance of the Vidūṣaka is that, with vācika – the verbal aspect of acting  – being his forte, he is the primary mediator between the universe of the play and the universe of the audience and between the performative culture of Kutiyattam and the larger societal culture in which it thrived. This mediation takes place on several levels. First, the Vidūṣaka, in his ludic aspect, is a very familiar figure, being present in various degrees and shapes in numerous local performance forms that evolved in different parts of India, thus linking Kutiyattam not just to the limited circles of Sanskrit drama but to the wider culture of Indian performance. As Kapila Vatsyayan points out, “The vidushaka’s role as communicator between high and low, past and present, provides a strong basis of commonality amongst seemingly heterogeneous forms throughout India” (Vatsyayan, 1980, 26). In the specific context of Kerala, his local costume, his use of the local language, Malayalam, and the parallels with similar figures and conventions in other folk art forms of Kerala, such as muṭiyētṯu, tiṟa, teyyam and so on, provide him with a distinct local colour and habitation that must have contributed in no small measure to the popularity and acceptance of Kutiyattam. Further, it must have been through the vācika of the Vidūṣaka that the dialogic method of questions and answers, which are germane not only to the discursive practices of philosophical contestation – as in the Brahmin–Buddhist disputations that one finds in Mattavilāsam and Bhagavadajjukīyam – but also to Sanskrit teaching methods and to the narrative culture of the Mahābhārata, came to be introduced into the practices of Kutiyattam, thereby bringing in an identity between them and the practices of wider culture. On a more immediate level, through his twin tasks of translation and interpretation, the Vidūṣaka makes the play accessible to the audience and establishes a connection between the world of the audience and the world of the play. No doubt, humour is the key with which this door of accessibility is opened; through parodic repetition of verses, comic interpretation and hilarious elaboration, the Vidūṣaka elucidates the content of the play to 236

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the audience. Folded into this humour is the particular mode of satire that he employs, whereby he not only makes fun of the characters and events on the stage but also makes veiled (and sometimes not too veiled) references to the members of the audience, familiar persons and events of the time. The importance of this particular function cannot be exaggerated because in effect it is what defines the Vidūṣaka and gives him his name, as “one who finds fault in a special manner.” As G. K. Bhatt describes, the Vidūṣaka is “one who has a characteristic mode of fault-finding, or spoiling, with a view to evoking laughter” (Bhatt, 1959, 88). Further, K. P. Narayana Pisharody observes, After all, a Vidūṣaka is one who brings to light the faults of others in a special manner. And, what is this special manner? Through the narration and interpretation of stories and episodes connected to the play, the Vidūṣaka proclaims the faults of the spectators, thereby helping them to become aware of them and correct them. (Pisharody, 1976, 33) The philosophical roots of the Vidūṣaka’s function in Sanskrit drama of being a satirizer or “reviler” have been comprehensively investigated by F. B. J. Kuiper in his classic work Varuṇa and Vidūṣaka. Drawing upon the references to the reviler in Pañcavimśa Brāhmaṇa – “He who finds fault with them, drives away their evil” – and the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa – “The ninditṛ (reviler) takes upon him the impurity of (the one he reviles)” – Kuiper has established that the function of the Vidūṣaka is akin to that of Varuṇa’s function of seizing “that which is badly offered” in yajña (sacrifice), and that like Varuṇa the Vidūṣaka also functions as a scapegoat who can “take away evil and sin” (Kuiper, 1979, 207–208). In other words, far from being a “mere buffoon,” Kuiper discerns in the Vidūṣaka a deeper philosophical function as the impersonation in drama of Varuṇa, the divine scapegoat who consumes and thereby rids the world of its evil. Even as these discussions serve to explain the vital position of the Vidūṣaka in Sanskrit drama in general, the question as to how his function of being the reviler in drama came to assume in Kutiyattam the added dimension of being the reviler also of the audience and of the social evils and corruption of the society in which the play is presented is certainly crucial. In the absence of any manifest evidence, the only possible avenues for answers are deductions based on known historical contexts. Given that in its prehistory, the precursor of Kutiyattam played an important part in the Buddhist–Brahmin religious and philosophical contestations, for which the plays Mattavilāsam and Bhagavadajjukīyam clearly vouch, it is reasonable to assume that this historical circumstance provided the opening for pointed critiques of persons, institutions and conventions associated with each faith/community in the dramatic representations of the other. 237

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Later, when Kutiyattam came to be fully incorporated into the temples and absorbed into the ideological systems of the Brahminical order, the same culture of satirical representation, now bereft of a target in the form of opposing Buddhists, may have come to be directed at the members of the temple society itself. Parallel to this, the tendency for elaboration that led to the introduction of the nirvahaṇam, the exposition of the pre-story from the perspective of each character, may have given rise to pressures to fashion something on similar lines for the Vidūṣaka too. However, unlike the other characters for whom there is invariably a previous history steeped in the epics and the purāṇas from which the play story is drawn, the Vidūṣaka, being primarily a presence limited to the dramatic text and being conceived as a poor Brahmin with a mostly plebeian background and ancestry, has no extensive and noble prehistory to speak of. It is probably in this context that his location came to established as a poor impecunious Brahmin of Anadhītimaṅgalam (the village of the uneducated), ironically referring to Perinchellur, one of the first temple-centred Brahmin settlements, near Payyannur in the north of Kerala, and his history came to be the history of the Brahmin community of the temple society, who had by then become the sole patrons of Kutiyattam. It is here that the puruṣārtthakkūttu – the humorous and inverted depiction of the four puruṣārtthas (aims of life), viz arttha (wealth), kāma (desire), dharma (righteousness/duty), mōkṣa (salvation) as aśanam (eating, satisfaction of the palate), rājasēva (service to the king), vēśya vinōdam (visiting a prostitute, sensual pleasure) and vancanam (cheating, deception) respectively – that is presented as part of the Vidūṣaka’s nirvahaṇam acquires importance. It is manifestly clear that the puruṣārtthas came to be presented in such manner only after the incorporation of Kutiyattam into the temple theatres because the society described in them is undoubtedly the temple society with all its caste divisions and hierarchies and because virtually no individual or community that is not a member of the temple society figures even remotely in this series of detailed satirical representations.36 Within the temple society, with the very people of whom he was speaking (or people who belonged to the same stations) sitting right in front of him in the audience, it must have been only a small step for the Vidūṣaka to appear to start speaking about them and to them as if directly, even as he was only referring to characters in his narrative. That the members of the audience are prohibited from verbally responding to him and can only express their appreciation through laughter clearly suggests that the Vidūṣaka is not actually speaking about or to them and that he belongs to an entirely different realm – a performative realm – that the audience cannot, and should not, enter but at the peril of destroying the necessary illusion of performance and the distinction between the onstage and offstage worlds. At the same time, this prohibition was also a mechanism

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of defence that enabled the Vidūṣaka to attempt social critique without the fear of retaliation. It is here that the Vidūṣaka’s identity as a Brahmin becomes crucial; on the one hand, it provides him with a status for the time of the performance that is equal to that of his patron audience, and on the other, it provides him with a convenient enough pretext for embarking on a pointed discourse of ridicule, which apparently is of the self when considering that it is by the Vidūṣaka as a Brahmin but actually is of the other when taking into account that it is executed by the Cākyār as performer and is directed at the Brahmins as audience. In this sense, the latent social tensions between Brahmins as patrons and the Cākyārs as receivers of patronage that we observed earlier in the chapter must have also contributed ever so much to the construction of the puruṣārtthakkūttu in its pronouncedly Brahmin-targeted manner. In effect, what unfolds in it is a parodical depiction of the life of the temple society, especially that of the Brahmin community, with the degradations and corruption that have come over it receiving maximum attention. The elements of “carnivalesque” and “grotesque realism” as defined by Bakhtin – such as the inversions of the serious and the sublime; the mockery of all that is considered formal or authorized and their replacement by the ridiculous and the ludicrous; the celebration of the body and bodily activities, such as eating, defecation and fornication; the devaluation of the heart, the brain and activities associated with them in favour of the belly, the lower body and their occupations; the highlighting of the grotesque and so on (Bakhtin, 1984, 18–22) – that are so manifest in the puruṣārtthakkūttu opens the possibility that it was an act of subversion that critiqued and ridiculed not just the people of the temple society but the very structures of power and authority that held it together. At the same time, the fact that it was not just tolerated but was positively accepted and encouraged by the Brahmins themselves, who most often would sit with undisguised glee as they themselves were being ridiculed and derided, suggests that it was a sanctioned subversion, a controlled carnivalesque, where critique was permitted as a social safety valve that ultimately serves to preserve rather than destabilize that society and its power structures. This faculty of social critique so defines the Vidūṣaka’s onstage practice that at times it almost overwhelms his status as a character in the play and provides him with a quasi-independent status as a stand-alone figure, which is even more manifest in the associated verbal form prabandham kūttu. At the same time, this aspect of insistent critique and humour must have appealed consistently to audiences through the centuries and imparted to the play, however remote in time and theme it may be, an abiding contemporaneity that connected it to the audiences at a very immediate level of their lives. Undoubtedly, satire has had a particularly crucial role to play in the

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relationship of Kutiyattam with time helping it to endure the vicissitudes of time and society for more than ten centuries. As Kapila Vatsyayan remarks, The secret of the survival of Kutiyattam lies as much in the ability of the Cakyar community to safeguard and preserve traditions of an earlier epoch as in their ability to adapt to new situations, to respond to local and immediate concerns, and to be flexible enough to be able to give their presentation contemporary significance. . . . The innovative flexibility which was provided . . . to the character of the vidushaka through the use of local dialect and the liberty of ridiculing the four sacrosanct Purusarthas must have given the form scope for renewal, re-interpretation and improvisation. (Vatsyayan, 1980, 21) At the same time, as I have said elsewhere, in being a link between the time of the story and the time of the audience . . . the Vidūṣaka brings the time of the performance closer to the time of the audience, bringing the play and the spectators closer together, blurring the boundaries between the two, sometimes even seemingly erasing and dissolving them with his presence, all the while covertly reinforcing their differences. (Narayanan, 2006b, 146–147) In other words, two time frames come together in the Vidūṣaka’s act; as a character in the play he actually inhabits the story time, but he strides over centuries to place his feet temporarily in the present of the audience. He belongs to the past, but when he makes fun of the audience and their contemporaries, he speaks of the present and the present speaks through him, making the present and the past enter into conversation in/through him. In thus inhabiting two time frames, the past and the present, the Vidūṣaka also becomes timeless and a certain guarantee for an uncertain future. He transcends time and place and takes the play with him, imparting to it a relative timelessness that ensures its continuity, its survival, as has been borne out by the experience of the last several centuries.

Notes 1 The only exceptions to this rule were the performances in temples that did not have kūttampalams, two major instances being the Sri Rāma-Lakṣmaṇa Perumāḷ Temple at Vennimala in Kottayam district and the Perumthatta Śiva Temple at Velloor in Kottayam district, in both of which temples performances took place regularly in the valiyampalam, the front portion of the inner courtyard beside the main door to the temple.

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2 As Sarkar states, “The conception of pañca-pṟākāra, was also adopted in some of the temple sites; moreover, large adjuncts like balikkal-maṇḍapam and kūttampalam are products of the same movement” (Sarkar, 1978, 230). 3 The pañca-pṟākāras of the Kerala temple are antar-mand̩ alam (innermost courtyard), which consists of the śṟikōvil (sanctum sanctorum), the namaskāramand̩ ̩ apam (pillared hall in front of the sanctum) and the kokkaṟni (well); the antahāra (inner structure), the enclosing structure in the form of a colonnade on the four sides of the inner courtyard, which is also known in Malayalam as cuṯṯampalam or nālampalam (surrounding cloister); the maddhyahāra (middle structure), the enclosure built closely around the outer wall of the inner courtyard; the bāhyahāra (exterior structure), the courtyard around the maddhyahāra with various structures, such as balikkal-maṇḍapam (the pillared hall raised above the principal balikkal, the stone pedestal on which oblations are placed), the dhvajastambha (flagstaff), dīpastambha (pillar for lamps), the kūttampalam and shrines for subsidiary deities; and the maryāda, the outer compound wall with the gōpura (towered gateway) and ūṭṭupura (dining hall). 4 see Sarkar, 1978. 5. 5 This spatial rendering of the caste hierarchy came to affect not only the proximity that each caste was permitted to the temple deity but also the proximity/ distance that they were expected to maintain with respect to one another. This gave rise to the extremely oppressive systems of toṭal (untouchability) and tīnṭal (unapproachability) whereby a Nāir had to stay 16 feet away from a Nampūtiri, an Īzhava had to stay 16 feet away from a Nāir, a Pulaya had to stay 32 feet away from an Īzhava and a Nāyādi had to stay 32 feet away from a Pulaya (see Gopalakrishnan, 200, 304–305). 6 Associated to this legend is an assumed etymology of the word “Cākyār” as a corruption of the terms “ślāghyar” (commendable ones) and “ślāghya vācikar” (ones with commendable verbal facility) (see Nair, 1995, 15). 7 The adage, “ōttu piḻaccāl kūttu” (if there is a lapse in the reciting of the Vēdas, then the recourse is to take up kūttu), suggesting that those who were found defective in the vocation of the Brahmin – or ineligible to be a Brahmin – were converted into Cākyārs, is an indication of this practice. The Last Caste Inquisition in Kerala: A Victim’s Reminiscences by A. M. N. Chakyar narrates the last instance that such a conversion took place as a result of smārttavicāram (trial on the basis of smṛtis, ancient texts on religious rules) in 1918 (see Chakyar, A. M. N. 1999). 8 See also Harbage, 1941. 109; Ichikawa, 2013, 27. 9 In some instances, this belief is also turned into a significant practice connected with the performance. For example, at the Kitangur temple, the goddess herself is imagined to be the main spectator and to mark this “divine” presence in the audience, the deity is propitiated each day before the beginning of performance (see Nair, 1995, 17). 10 For a more comprehensive listing of such customary performances at temples as part of the aṭiyantarakkūttu, see Johan, 2011, 25–26. 11 A quasi-Brahmin caste/community of temple servants. 12 The Amarakōśa is the popular name for Nāmaliṅgānuśāsanam, a thesaurus in Sanskrit written by the ancient scholar Amarasimha, who is variably placed from the 5th to the 7th century CE. 13 “na kathānupalaṃbhāt” (Paulose, 1993, 6, 103). 14 “paripūṟṇatābhyupagamāt” (Paulose, 1993, 6, 103). 15 “devānāmidamāmananti munayah krāntam kratum cākṣuṣam” (Kalidasa, 1924, 7) [“Sages say that this is to the gods a sacrifice which is peaceful and pleasing to the eyes” (Kalidasa, 1949, 77)]

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16 “kinca, anēna nṛttaviśēṣēṇa kim naṭo dēvatāḥ prīṇayati, uta hanūmān /” (Paulose, 1993, 8) 17 As examples, the author gives three instances of the use of the improper use of kriya in Aṅgulīyāṅkam; first, after the words “samprati hi,” then before the performance of the verse “eṣām pallava,” and during the enactment of the verse “pampāpañcaka” (see Paulose, 1993, 8–9). 18 “kāpēyasaṃbandhāt svabhāvacēṣṭā” (Paulose, 1993, 11) 19 “yadi dēvatāprīṇanam kim kāpēyēn, yadi kāpēyam kiduśam dēvaprīṇanam syāt /” (Paulose, 1993, 11) 20 “kathābhinayasya svarūpaniṣpattau upakārakam” (Paulose, 1993, 10) 21 “artthakriyākāritāyām” (Paulose, 1993, 10) 22 For instance, as we saw in Chapter 3, the muṭiyakkitta, or concluding rituals, includes a series of actions that are similar to the Brahmin ritual of purification, the ācamanam. 23 Bhāṇa, one of the daśarūpakas, the ten forms of drama, is a solo form of oneact drama in which one character presents his/her as well as others’ experiences, with other characters not present but assumed and being made to speak through the one who is present, through their words being repeated as if the character is listening to them. 24 The reference here is to prabandham kūttu, considered the sister form of Kutiyattam, where the Cākyār, in the costume, make-up and manner of the Vidūṣaka, tells stories from the epics and the purāṇas. 25 Nambudiripad is categorical that he is not suggesting that the tradition of Nāṭyaśāstra has not influenced Kutiyattam. On the contrary, the influences of Nāṭyaśāstra and the tradition of theatre described in the Kuṭṭanīmata are quite manifest in the puṟappaṭ, the nityakriya, the cāris (movements), rasābhinaya (emotive acting) and several such features. 26 Literally, “stair/steps music,” which indicates music that is sung, with the singer standing on the steps to the sanctum of a temple. 27 The singing of Jayadeva’s Gītagōvindam. 28 However, the vandana ślōkas (invocatory verses) and akkitta ślōkas (verses for choreographed dance/movement peices) sung by the Naṅṅyār are of a different kind and are strikingly musical in nature. 29 Those instructions that are implied in the text of the āṭṭaprakāram are provided in square parentheses. 30 A svara (rāga) used primarily for rākṣasa characters in situations of śṛṅgāra (see Chakyar, P. R. 1995, 94). 31 A particular dance/enactment segment where the physical beauty of a woman is described through the gestural enactment of the five limbs/parts of her body, viz., the hair, the face, the breasts, the waist and hips and the feet. 32 This is a gesture in which the right hand is brought to the level of the head and swung backwards in an action suggestive of letting go, with which the actor indicates that his gestural acting segment is temporarily over and that the drumming is to stop as he is about to commence with the recitation of the text. The gesture is invariably delivered in tune with the beat of the rhythm and so as to coincide with the end of a rhythmic cycle. Following this, as the actor recites the text, there will be no drumming. 33 In the English translation of the āṭṭaprakāram given earlier, this aspect may not be so apparent because due to obvious reasons, the syntax is primarily that of English, though an effort has been made to get the translation to reflect the Malayalam syntax, in so much as that is possible without affecting intelligibility.

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34 The common adage, “ōttu piḻachāl kūttu” (if there is a lapse in the reciting of the Vēdas, then the recourse is to take up kūttu) referred to in FN 7, is further evidence to this inherent connection between ōttu and kūttu, though with kūttu predictably accorded a status inferior to that of ōttu. 35 According to Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar, the notion that the name of the form was inspired by the merger in it of different languages is a part of the oral traditions shared by Cākyārs, though such a view has not been adequately represented in scholarly circles. In this view, the merger is of three languages – Sanskrit, Malayalam and Prakrit – with the last being spoken by women characters and those of inferior social status. Given that Prakrit was not a new entrant into the scene and was always part of the textual domain of Sanskrit drama, and since kūṭal generally describes the merger of only two phenomena, the accounting of Prakrit as a separate language that played a role in the formative merger is somewhat untenable linguistically and historically. However, the view may be taken as a pointer to a latent awareness among practitioners of the significant linguistic basis for both the nature and name of the form. 36 In diligently following the professional/community divisions and the social dynamics of the temple society, with particular focus on the Brahmin community, there are remarkable similarities between the puruṣārtthakkūttu and the medieval European literary genre of the “estates satire” in which the primary estates or social classes of medieval society, viz., the clergy, the  nobility and the  peasantry, and the different groups within each,  were satirized to expose their corruption and professional degradation.

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The system of Brahmin-dominated, temple-centred, agrarian villages organized based on an extensive network of caste-linked professions and the socio-cultural conditions associated with it continued to prevail in Kerala from the 13th to the 19th century with very few perceptible changes in its larger structures or practices. This was despite the fact that the political domain of Kerala witnessed several small and large skirmishes among the various principalities, invasions by the Mysore Sultans, and the arrival of European traders of various nationalities who lost little opportunity to get involved in political machinations and the local struggles for power to serve their interests of profit and control. In the economic sphere too there were some alterations in the technologies of subsistence which had grave socioeconomic implications as well as a gradual increase in the importance of trade, especially of cash crops. However, as Gurukkal and Varier observe, “all this hardly made any fundamental change in the predominantly agrarian socio-economic relations and the structure based on the caste system” (2018, 239). It was only by the 19th century, after a series of failed rebellions and revolts against their growing supremacy,1 that the structures of British colonialism came to take firm root in Kerala, with the Malabar region in the north under direct rule, and with Cochin and Travancore signing treaties of subsidiary alliance as princely states under British control. This inevitably had a major impact on all aspects of social and political life, including education, law, administration, trade and commerce, public services and so on. It also led to the influx through education and literature of a host of new ideas regarding both the individual and society. Needless to say, all these raised serious challenges to the forms and modes of social organization that had defined Kerala for the previous several centuries. At the same time, from the late 19th century, a series of social reform movements arose in Kerala in connection with various caste communities, which attempted progressive changes in the discriminatory and superstitious practices and beliefs traditionally entrenched in society. In due course they also came up with calls for a radical and humanist transformation of 244

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the entire Brahmin-dominated caste system as well. The efforts of reformers, such as Ayya Vaiukunta Swami,2 Chattampi Swami,3 Narayana Guru,4 Ayyankali,5 Poikayil Appachan,6 V. T. Bhattatiripad7 and so on, and struggles, such as the Cānnār revolt,8 the temple entry movement9 and the resistances against caste practices such as untouchability and unapproachability, to mention a few, led to a radical modernization of society and far-reaching changes in almost every aspect of Kerala life. Perhaps the greatest outcome of the economic and social processes of change, as far as our present work is concerned, is that there was a marked decline and breakdown of the Brahminical order and the caste system associated with it. There was a steady weakening of the temple establishments as economic centres and a rapid dissolution of agrarian temple societies and their system of caste-based professions supported by virutti from the temples. As the process intensified, many temples found their resources drying up and even the continuation of their customary practices being threatened due to increasing lack of funds. To compound matters further, the combined forces of modernization, secularization and urbanization that so characterized the period also ensured that the temples and the traditions associated with them came to have a steadily declining sway of influence in the lives of the people. In fact, the period saw a steady exodus of people from their age-old, caste-based professions and practices to ones that were part of a more modern, capital-based, mercantile economy and from the villages where their families had been resident for centuries to newly forming towns and urban centres. Needless to say, all this had a tremendous impact on Kutiyattam, by way of its economic contexts and structures of reception. In the five centuries from the 15th on, when it came to be ensconced in the temples and performed exclusively in the kūttampalams, protected by the rigid structures of the temple society and its patronage and constrained by the conventions of ritual and religion, Kutiyattam and its practices changed little. With practically no economic or cultural pressures from any outside sources, the physical and socio-cultural space of the temple made possible the full maintenance of Kutiyattam, with all its canons and traditions preserved and protected, and with only such minor changes occurring that were primarily the result of the internal dynamics of performance and the people involved in it, inevitable for a form that is practiced continuously over several centuries. However, from the initial decades of the 20th century, Kutiyattam started facing a serious decline in economic support and patronage. There was a steady attenuation in the rate and number of performances, and many temples had little option but to discontinue performances altogether because their resources were totally inadequate to meet the costs of performance. At the same time, in a few temples where performances were continued, probably due to ritual considerations, the payment for the practitioners failed to do justice to their actual costs of living and performance in a drastically 245

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altered and monetized economic system.10 As a result, in many temples, performances continued only because the performers considered it a sacred duty they had to carry out irrespective of whether they were paid or not. Such performances were usually conducted in a vastly shrunken, “skeletal” form, whereby they “became just a ‘ritual,’ in the unsavoury sense of the term” (Narayanan, 2005, 44). A major consequence of this was that several acts, roles and sections of plays fell into disuse and gradually disappeared from the stage altogether. This is of course not to deny that in some richer temples, such as the Pūrnatrayīśa Temple in Tripunithura and the Vaṭakkuṃnāthan Temple in Thrissur, performances continued unhindered and with the scales of payment keeping pace, to some extent at least, with the changing economic conditions. Aesthetic patronage and viewership also witnessed a drastic decline during the time. Even among the temple-serving castes, with the rise of modern education and the radically different knowledge demands raised by newer professions, the number of people who knew and understood Sanskrit and the gestural language of Kutiyattam dropped steadily. The processes of modernization and secularization also resulted in a devaluation of traditional life and its practices, including Kutiyattam and similar art forms. At the same time, several other forms of popular entertainment, such as musical drama and popular theatre, also entered the scene, which demanded much less investment in terms of pre-knowledge, attendance time or attention. Inevitably, all this led to a drastic dwindling of the audiences for Kutiyattam until, by the 1950s, only a few remained as regular, knowledgeable viewers. It was in this context that, under the leadership of Painkulam Rama Chakyar, a visionary reformer, Kutiyattam was brought out of the temples in the 1950s and came to be performed in secular venues outside, in what can only be described as a heroic endeavour to save the centuries-old form from extinction. Though facing much opprobrium and even direct opposition from traditional sections of society, including those of his own Cākyār community, but inspired by the reformist ideals permeating the larger cultural environment of his time, Rama Chakyar proceeded to initiate performances not only outside the temples but also outside the state of Kerala and even in foreign lands.11 Though slow and gradual in the initial stages, the process of secularization of Kutiyattam gathered momentum as the years went by, until by the 1990s performances at secular venues were no longer a rarity. Even as, in retrospect, it is beyond doubt that being brought out of the temples is the one single act that not only ensured the survival of Kutiyattam but also its world-wide recognition, the fact remains that the move has had grave implications for the form, affecting practically every aspect of its culture. The radical shift in the performance space from the kūttampalams to secular stages in public venues and the corresponding alterations in the various spatial configurations of the form have so impacted the triangular relationship among the space, the actor and the spectator, which had 246

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remained virtually unchanged for nearly five centuries, that practically all its modalities of performance, training and reception have been affected, paving the way for a number of significant changes in each of them. It may be said that generally traditional performances within the kūttampalams tend to adhere more strictly to canonical conventions and practices, given the rigidities of the temple environment, while performances outside have been subject to much greater experimentation and innovation. At the same time, the culture of performances at external venues have also had a reverse effect on the performances within the temples since the practitioners at both venues, with a few exceptions, are largely the same people. Undoubtedly, the most remarkable change has been in the physical performance space. Presentations outside the temple are usually done in public theatres/spaces that are very different from the kūttampalams and are designed primarily for other purposes and other kinds of presentations, raising very difficult challenges for both the form and the practitioners. Most importantly, the performance space and the audience space in the public theatres are much larger and much less intimate than the kūttampalams and with very different spatial and seating arrangements (see Figures 7.1, 7.2).

Figure 7.1 A  performance of Jaṭāyuvadhāṅkam on the proscenium stage at Nāṭyagṛham, Sangeetha Nataka Academy, Thrissur, on 3 January 2002, with a view of the audience Source: Courtesy A. V. Narayanan.

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Figure 7.2 A  performance of Bhagavadajjukīyam at the kūttampalam at Kerala Kalamandalam, Cheruthuruthi, on 31 July 2002 Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

The inevitable result is that the circumscribed spatiality that was the rule in the kūttampalams and the consequent close proximity between the actors and the spectators are not possible in the public theatres. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that given the structure of the proscenium stages in most public theatres, the spectators seated closest to the stage in them will be as far away from it as the spectators sitting farthest from the stage in a kūttampalam. Secondly, the larger space of the regular proscenium stage in the public theatres and their much larger visual frame have contributed to a corresponding visual reduction in the size and scale of the actors’ costumes, make-up and headgear than their customary appearance in the kūttampalams. Compounding this reduction even further has been the use of electric lights (see Figures 7.3, 7.4). Quite contrary to the culture of light provided by the single lamp which offers the spectator a “pin-hole vision,” in which only a small circumscribed area would be properly visible, thereby foregrounding the actor and focusing on him the entire attention of the audience, the electric lights that flood the whole performance space with harsh white light prevent any such foregrounding or focused vision. Even further, if the light from the single lamp in the kūttampalam streams upwards from 248

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Figure 7.3 A  performance of Jaṭāyuvadhāṅkam on the proscenium stage at Nāṭyagṛham, Sangeetha Nataka Academy, Thrissur, on 3 January 2002 Source: Courtesy A. V. Narayanan.

below, and in its warm glow provides the actor’s visage with a larger than life, non-worldly quality, the light from the electric lamps is most often in the opposite direction and produces effects that are quite contrary to that of the lighted lamp. Another major area of change has been that of sound. With much larger auditoriums and the lack of acoustic-friendly architecture in the public theatres, modern sound amplification systems have also come to be used in Kutiyattam performances. While in a sense this is certainly an unavoidable development given the different circumstances of performance, it also remains that the subtle modulations of voice and tone that characterized the culture of vācika in the kūttampalams are being adversely affected and sacrificed in favour of higher volumes of sound, a very unfortunate development to say the least. The implications of this preference for loudness is best exemplified by the recently arisen tendency to use microphones even for the miḻāvu, a percussion instrument that being naturally quite loud and powerful, amplification only helps to make its sounds harsh and painful to the ears, and even more grievously results in the subtle variations of timbre and intensity that characterizes its drumming being lost in the limited tonal range of the amplifiers. 249

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Figure 7.4 A performance of Nāgānandam at Regional Theatre, Sangeetha Nataka Academy, Thrissur, on 6 June 2010 Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

The shift from the kūttampalams to other public spaces has also impinged drastically upon both the ways of doing and the ways of seeing that had been characteristic to Kutiyattam in the five or so centuries when it was cloistered in the temple theatres. Given the larger spaces of the stage and the auditorium, and the greater distances which separate the performers and the audience in most public theatres, neither the “proximal, microscopic mode of viewing” that is closely attentive to minute details and actions, on the part of the spectator, or the controlled, restrained mode of acting, in which suggestion and evocation were of primary importance, on the part of the actor, are fully possible. It is not surprising then that, of late, there has been a growing tendency among performers to engage in more expansive modes of acting and gestures, most often in an unconscious effort to compensate for and size up to the larger performance area, the brighter and more spread-out lighting and the resultant reduction in the scale of their figures and actions. In other words, a different kind of triangular relationship between the space, the ways of doing of the actor and the ways of seeing of the spectator seems to be evolving in the public spaces that has grave implications for both the form and culture of the Kutiyattam performance, which will in reverse affect the performances in the kūttampalams too. 250

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A question that may arise here is why there has been little attempt to manage and control the spatial and lighting systems in a manner that would make them more akin to those of the kūttampalams and thereby meet the requirements of the Kutiyattam performance as it has evolved traditionally. This question acquires significance especially in light of the actual fact that instead of attempts to carve out on the stages of the public theatres performance spaces that correspond to the ones in the kūttampalams or to curb the lighting so as to restrict it to a circumscribed acting area, the efforts have all been in the other direction so that the form has gradually been accommodated to the new realities of space and lighting. One justifiable reason for this is that performances outside the temples are usually one-off presentations at different theatres or public spaces, where the performers have little time or opportunity to modify the spatial or lighting arrangements and they are constrained to accommodate themselves and their performance to the systems of space and lighting available. At the same time, that neither the organizers nor the performers of Kutiyattam have been able to take much initiative in fashioning the space, lighting and other conditions of performance to meet their own requirements, as with modern theatre practitioners, is also indicative of the sorely limited financial resources available for Kutiyattam performances and the intense lack of enablement that Kutiyattam performers experience as traditional practitioners in a modern cultural context. Sadly, they are an underprivileged lot in the intensely competitive contemporary cultural environment, and their voices are like voices in the wilderness, with no one to hark to them. The move out of the temples has also been a move into a radically different cultural space. No longer the sole, or even primary, performance form of its environment, as was the case in the temples, nor surrounded by discourses and practices that were complementary to it, nor supported by a ritual structure that supplemented its cultural value, nor even assured of a dedicated audience, in the public spaces Kutiyattam has had to contend with a much more crowded domain of visual culture populated by a number of forms and practices ranging from dances through theatre to film and compete with them for space and attention. Bereft of any privileged position in a primarily secular visual culture, a very different set of cultural values and aesthetic priorities have been brought to bear upon it. Probably, the first consequence of this has been the growing tendency to approach and present Kutiyattam as a performance first and foremost and on a par with any other performance. This has resulted in the marked attenuation of ritual elements in performances in secular venues and the retaining of only the most minimal pre-play and post-play rituals that are absolutely essential for the purpose of performance. There have also been efforts on the part of the practitioners to make the performance appear more aesthetically pleasing and professional so as to meet the visual inclinations of an urban performance culture and its ways of seeing. Such attempts at aestheticization have 251

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ranged across the entire domain of performance, from beautification of the āhārya to conscious attention being paid to the way in which gestures and movements are executed. Probably the most evident of the attempts are the ones that have been made in costuming and make-up. Even a cursory comparison with earlier days, say, the first part of the 20th century, through the few photographs available of that time will vouch for the fact that today the costumes and headgear are larger and the make-up much more colourful and attractive. A major example of the process of aestheticization is how the design of the female headgear has been changed from what was essentially a conical hat into the form of a three-tiered domed kirītam (crown) with  an emblematic serpent’s head placed just above the forehead. This design brought in by Painkukam Rama Chakyar, who has also contributed significantly to the recovery of some female roles that had disappeared from performance, has no doubt made the female headgear more attractive and impressive (see Figures 7.5 and 7.6). “The credit for the beauty of today’s Koodiyattam attire, including the headgear used in female roles, goes to him and the late Vazhengata Govinda Warrier,” says Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar (Gopalakrishnan, 2015).12 At the same time, no longer constrained by the strict rules of purity and pollution that governed the performances inside the temples, new kinds of material are being used for the purpose. A major example is the use of paper in place of rice paste for the cuṭṭi, the protruding white border on the chin.13 A practice borrowed from Kathakali, this innovation has not only made the cuṭṭi larger but also lighter, thereby ensuring that it doesn’t get broken or fall off during performance, as used to happen quite regularly earlier with the purely rice paste cuṭṭi. The practice has now come to be adopted for performances inside the kūttampalams as well. Similarly, artificial flowers have replaced natural ones, and all around there is more flexibility in the material used for the costumes and make-up. It is to be noted that in most of the changes that have so occurred one can discern the marked influences of Kathakali and other performance forms, a fact that vouches for how entry into the general visual culture has opened possibilities for Kutiyattam for such fruitful interactions with other forms and performance practices. Probably the greatest challenge faced by Kutiyattam after it has been brought out of the temples is with regard to the structures of knowledge, which is most vital for a form like it, given that even reasonable reception, let alone appreciation, is possible only with an audience who possesses such knowledge. If knowledge of both Sanskrit and the language of mudras, the necessary prerequisite for watching and understanding Kutiyattam, was relatively strong within the temple community until at least the beginning of the 20th century, such knowledge is sorely lacking when it comes to audiences outside. The same is true with most of the performance conventions too, leading to a marked lack of accessibility for ordinary audiences to not just the subtleties of performance but also to the very substance of it. 252

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Figure 7.5 Illustrations for changes in male and female headgear from the notebook of Painkulam Rama Chakyar Source: Courtesy Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar.

This is without doubt a huge stumbling block for Kutiyattam to attract new audiences, leading to a situation where even when the venues are outside the temple, barring a few exceptions, the audiences are composed primarily of the same people as those who come to watch the performances in the kūttampalams. This is not to deny that there is a small number of people who do not belong to the traditional audience of Kutiyattam who come to 253

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Figure 7.6 Contemporary female headgear after the changes brought about by Painkulam Rama Chakyar; Artiste: Usha Nangiar Source: Courtesy Mundoli Narayanan.

watch performances, spurred in some instances by curiosity and in most instances by a deeper interest and investment in theatre at large. The sad fact is that only a small handful of them turn into regular viewers, with the rest falling off after their specific point of interest is satisfied. Though small in number, the influx of new members to the audience who are not well versed with the systems and practices of Kutiyattam has led to different kinds of attempts to facilitate their access to the form by providing 254

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them with a suitable knowledge base. In the initial years after the form was brought out of the temples, these took the form of lecture-demonstrations by scholars and practitioners in which various aspects of the form were explained to prospective audiences. While these continue, a most welcome innovation on the part of younger practitioners has been the method of providing a concise detailing of the segment about to be performed immediately before performance, accompanied by the relevant mudras and other actions that are going to be employed. Taking a leaf from both the practice associated with Kathakali of detailing the story before the performance and, closer to home, the practice of Nampyār Tamiḻ, these introductory elucidations go a long way in making the performances intelligible even to a lay audience. Equally importantly, it is also an indication of the younger artists taking charge of their art form and assuming the responsibility of representing it, a feature of no mean importance in the journey of Kutiyattam and its practitioners towards cultural and artistic self-reliance. With regard to the previously mentioned interest of theatre practitioners in Kutiyattam, another aspect is that it has opened opportunities for Kutiyattam performers to interact with people working in contemporary and other forms of theatre. The culture of creating a performative body in Kutiyattam, discussed in Chapter 5, has been of special interest to the directors and trainers of contemporary theatre, in their attempts to formulate an adequate training programme for actors, and as a result there have been several instances of Kutiyattam practitioners being invited to drama schools as teachers and trainers.14 Some of these associations have also gone beyond training and led to fruitful collaborations where Kutiyattam practitioners have either contributed to the production of plays or have been featured as actors.15 Needless to say, these associations can never be a one-way affair, and they have inevitably had a reverse effect on the Kutiyattam performers themselves. Exposure to other cultures, practices and concepts of theatre has invariably influenced them. It is apparent from conversations with Kutiyattam practitioners that this influence has had two primary outcomes. While the first is a deeper realization of the distinctiveness of the Kutiyattam theatre and its culture of performance leading to attempts to preserve and protect its systems as well as revive some of the acts/segments that have disappeared from the performance, the second is a tendency towards innovation, which is characteristic of contemporary theatre and which inspires Kutiyattam practitioners to attempt inducting new content into the repertoire and new modes of stagecraft into the performative culture. Though somewhat contrary as these two tendencies may seem, interestingly both complement each other in creating a contemporary identity for Kutiyattam and a distinct space for it in the contemporary theatrical sphere. The move out of the temples has also led to radical alterations in the time schemes associated with Kutiyattam. The most obvious change has been to do with the scheduling and timings of performances. If, within 255

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the temples, as we saw in Chapter  4, performances were held primarily according to a prefixed schedule in the annual calendar of temple activities and usually at nights in such a way as not to conflict with the ritual services of the temple, in the public venues it is a different set of considerations that are at work in the scheduling and timing of performances. Being incorporated into the larger structures of contemporary performance and entertainment has meant that Kutiyattam has had to adjust to the time schemes of the urban, business work world. Thus, Kutiyattam performances have come to be scheduled primarily in the evening hours of weekends or holidays, and it has also had to accept the regular standards of duration of evening performances in public spaces and limit its presentations to a maximum of three to four hours. In terms of performance, this has raised great challenges to the performers in devising and formulating performances that would stay within such time limits since they are used to much longer durations. In some instances, this has led to the shortening of longer performances by cutting out some of the elaborative segments, generally increasing the pace of performance and adhering more to the text of the play than to the performative text, none of which does justice to the distinctive performance culture of Kutiyattam. However, a more successful response has been the system of presenting edited highlights. First introduced by Painkulam Rama Chakyar, especially for performances outside India, and now followed by most practitioners, this system follows a method of presenting premium sequences edited in such a manner as to showcase the real strengths of the performance culture of Kutiyattam, even as it limits the performance to a specified time frame. It is also of note that this system is indeed a continuation of the episodic culture of Kutiyattam, in which the performance narrative supersedes the play narrative and where the text and the plot are only resources that offer occasions for the launch of elaborate performative segments. It deserves mention that a feature that has been germane and fundamental to its culture of performance has come to the aid of Kutiyattam in a most significant manner in its effort to adapt itself to a contemporary context. A third approach that seems to be slowly gaining ground in recent times is to present an entire act through weekly or monthly performances, a system in which even as the contemporary culture of the three-to-four-hour evening performances is yielded to, the elaborative nature of Kutiyattam is not affected or compromised. The only drawback to this arrangement is that it requires of the spectators a long-term commitment to attend all, or at least most, of the performances spread over several months, which in practical terms becomes somewhat difficult, given the diverse demands on their time, thus leading to smaller numbers of viewers again. The process of secularization of Kutiyattam also witnessed the creation of new structures and spaces of training. If in earlier times training was

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basically a family affair with the elders teaching the younger ones, a huge shift took place when Kerala Kalamandalam, the State Institute of Arts, opened a Department of Kutiyattam in 1965, with Painkulam Rama Chakyar heading it (Namboodiripad. 1990, 94). It effectively heralded the disassociation of the form from the rigidities of the caste/familial system and its reconstitution in a modern secular, institutional context. No longer was training limited to the familial spaces of the Cākyār, Nampyār or Naṅṅyār communities, and anyone interested in learning the form, irrespective of his/her caste or religion, could in principle become a performer. Following the path opened by Kerala Kalamandalam, a centre for Kutiyattam training with no community bar was started at Margi, Trivandrum, in 1981, and in the late 1980s the Ammannur Chachu Chakyar Smaraka Gurukulam, Irinjalakkuda, also opened its portals to students who did not belong to the Cākyār or Naṅṅyār communities. Finally, in 1997 the Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit at Kalady began training and research on Kutiyattam as part of their Ancient Theatres programme. A happy consequence of this development has been the entry into Kutiyattam of several actors who belong to communities other than the Cākyār and Naṅṅyār castes. Starting with Sivan Nambudiri, who was the first non-Cākyār who learned Kutiyattam at the Kerala Kalamandalam and who has turned out to become one of the foremost actors of the form, there have been several others whose arrival has effectively redrawn the demographic profile of Kutiyattam actors. They include G. Venu, Kalamandalam Girija, Margi Sathi, Kalamandalam Shailaja, Sooraj Nambiar, Kapila Venu, Saritha Nambiar, and Indu G., to mention a few, all of whom have made their distinctive mark on the history of the form. It is also a matter of great optimism for the future prospects of the form that there is a growing number from the younger generation who have taken up Kutiyattam in earnest and have either completed their training, or are being trained, at one of the previously mentioned institutions. The establishment of new structures and spaces of training has also led to changes in the timings and schedules of teaching. We have seen in Chapter  5 that traditional training in the familial setting was a day-long affair, with the students undergoing only the education associated with their community profession. However, in an institutional context, even as there was the attempt to adhere to traditional timings and schedules, there were also changes brought about by institutional pressures and the need to correspond to the general scheduling patterns of training followed for other forms in the same institution. Painkulam Rama Chakyar’s “class diary” detailing the class schedule and activities at the Kerala Kalamandalam, when Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar, Kalamandalam Sivan Nambudiri and Kalamandalam Rukmini were students, indicates how the general structure of traditional training was retained but the timings were altered to suit

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institutional requirements. For instance, the entries for 25 and 27 September 1967 show the following timings and activities: Class started around 4.30 am; 4.30–6.30: eye exercises, regular acting segments such as kēśādipādam (head-to-toe gestural description), kōppaṇiyikkal (decoration of the heroine with ornaments), etc, physical exercises such as swinging of arms and legs, jumps, etc; 8.30 to 10.30: the ‘main class’ with colliyāṭṭam (both verbal and gestural acting united) of the puṟappāṭ segments of Śrīrāma and Sugrīva; 10.30 onwards: literature class which focused on the learning of Sanskrit kāvyas and the plays in the repertoire; 7.00 pm – 8.15 pm: evening class; 20 minutes for eye exercises followed by recitation of nirvahaṇa ślōkas of Śrīrāma and Sugrīva set to svaras (rāgas). (see Figures 7.7, 7.8) As Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar remembers, in addition to this schedule, they also had regular classes at 4:00 p.m. at Painkulam Rama Chakyar’s residence for learning the prabandhams, as also occasions when they informally joined Kathakali students in their afternoon literature classes. While this arrangement continued without much change for more than 20 years, the starting of a high school at Kerala Kalamandalam in 1990 to provide general education to all the students there meant that the schedule had to be altered to accommodate modern school education during normal work hours with Kutiyattam training being scheduled before and after it (see Namboodiripad, 1990, 129). Around the same time, we find similar changes, but accentuated even further, being effected in the curriculum of Ammannur Chachu Chakyar Smaraka Gurukulam, Irinjalakkuda. According to Sooraj Nambiar, who joined there in 1989 and started training with Ammannur Parameswara Chakyar and Ammannur Madhava Chakyar by 1990, training started at 4:00 a.m. with the recitation of ślōkas set to svaras and physical exercises such as kālsādhakam (leg drills) and continued until 6:30. During the daytime the students were free, and they attended the nearby regular school. At 4:00 p.m., they had the main class for acting training with colliyāṭṭam of play segments. At 6:30 p.m. they had an hourlong break followed by the evening class at 7:30 that consisted primarily of eye exercises and recitation of ślōkas.16 At the same time, on weekends and other school holidays, the entire day was devoted to Kutiyattam training adhering almost entirely to the traditional pattern. It is apparent from these two instances that though the basic structure of traditional training was largely retained in the institutional setting, it was inevitable that several alterations in timings and schedules had to be brought in to suit a modern 258

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Figures 7.7 & 7.8 Pages from the class diary of Painkulam Rama Chakyar, dated 25 September 1967 and 27 September 1967, detailing the teaching/learning activities undertaken in the Kutiyattam class at Kerala Kalamandalam Source: Courtesy Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar.

culture of time and to enable the students to have a general education apart from their Kutiyattam training. The waning of temple patronage and the entry into the secular, public spaces have also led to the seeking of new sources of support and new forms 259

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Figures 7.7 & 7.8 (Continued)

of patronage. Apart from the institutional patronage mentioned earlier, primarily for the purposes of training, Kutiyattam has been receiving assistance, in the form of salary grants for institutions, subsidies for performances, and fellowships for artists, from Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Academy and the central Sangeet Natak Academy, as well as from the Departments of Culture of the State and Central Governments. The setting up of the Kutiyattam Kendra (Centre for Kutiyattam) at Thiruvananthapuram in 2007 by the central 260

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Sangeet Natak Academy to provide regular support to “institutions and artists existing in the field, by way of funding training and regular performances, maintenance, etc.” has been a major milestone in governmental patronage. In addition to instituting a “monthly ‘Gurudakshina’ to veteran Gurus who have significantly contributed to sustain the tradition,” the Kendra also conducts performances, workshops, interactive lecture-demonstrations, etc. at frequent intervals to disseminate the art, with an increased focus on the youngsters (Kutiyattam Kendra, 2007). The designation in 2008 by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity has also led to a significant inflow of funds into the form. There has also been the formation of a few āsvādaka samitis (Forums of Appreciators) that work through member subscriptions and conduct regular performances and lecture demonstrations, on lines similar to those of Kathakali Clubs, which have played a major role in providing patronage to Kathakali. However, the fact remains that Kutiyattam has as of yet not been able to develop a viable and self-sustained economy of its own, as in the case of many other cultural/ performance practices in which there is an internal system of circulation of funds generated primarily from viewers/listeners and with little dependence on governmental assistance. That possibility looks rather distant at present, given that Kutiyattam still doesn’t have anywhere near the kind of numbers in viewers that would help achieve it. A more positive development that has accompanied Kutiyattam’s move out of the temples has been the induction of new content into its repertoire. It is probably the culture of contemporary, modern art forms to be in a constant state of invention and renewal and their practice of being creative primarily through novelty that has exerted pressure on Kutiyattam artists to bring in new performances and plays into its range. On the one hand, this has taken the route of reviving plays/acts/characters that at one point were in the repertoire but had fallen into disuse, and on the other, it has led to the introduction of plays and acts that have never been performed before on the Kutiyattam stage. To mention just the most important ones, the first category includes Bhagavadajjukīyam of Bodhayana and the third act of Nāgānandam by Harsha, both revived by Painkulam Rama Chakyar on the basis of surviving āṭṭaprakārams, and the second includes Abhijñānaśākuntaḷam of Kalidasa and Ūrubhaṅgam of Bhasa, both by G. Venu, as completely fresh productions not based on any extant āṭṭaprakārams. In this regard, a feature that deserves special mention is the great strides taken by the performers of Naṅṅyārkūttu, the sister form of Kutiyattam, who have revived several women characters that had disappeared from the Kutiyattam stage, developed extended nirvahaṇams for them, as well as brought into the repertoire of Naṅṅyārkūttu new characters not belonging to Sanskrit plays but drawn from other narrative sources, such as Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, the purāṇas and even modern poems. These attempts, especially the work of Usha Nangiar, have taken a distinctly different flavour, being informed by a politics of 261

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gender and a culture of women’s writing that can only be termed contemporary (see Narayanan, 2021). It is fairly evident that it has been a mixed bag of fortunes for Kutiyattam since its coming out of the temples. On the one hand, there is little doubt that it is primarily the brave efforts of Painkulam Rama Chakyar and others in bringing it out to the larger domain of contemporary, secular performance that has ensured its survival. Additionally, the attempts at creating new structures of patronage, the processes of institutionalization and aestheticization, the induction of new content and the revival of lost segments, the efforts to make itself more accessible to new audiences, the interaction with other forms and performers and the efforts of younger artists to take up the representation and responsibility of the form are all pointers to a brighter future. However, at the same time, it also remains that some of the effects of the move have not been entirely favourable to the maintenance of its fundamentally unique culture of performance. The need to accommodate itself to the spaces available at secular, public venues; the difficulties of making itself accessible to contemporary audiences who do not possess the adequate structures of knowledge as well as the compulsion to cater to their tastes and interests have also so affected the triangular relationship among the space, the performers and the audience in that they have had a somewhat negative impact on its performance culture. As we have seen, they have adversely affected the proximal, microscopic ways of seeing of the spectators and the restrained, controlled ways of being of the performer that comprise the fundamental sources for the elaborative, interpretative culture of performance that defines Kutiyattam. It is in this context that one would like to conclude this work with a question that at first sight may appear rather curious. Even though Kutiyattam has come out of the temples, is it necessary for it to step out of the kūttampalams? Or, to put it differently, will it be possible for Kutiyattam performers to take the kūttampalam with them, along with the texts, material, conventions and techniques of performance, when they perform outside the temples and on secular, public stages? Here kūttampalam does not refer to the specific physical buildings that stand in the precincts of temples as part of their pañca-prākaras, nor even an ideologically and culturally overlaid space that evolved in a Brahmin-dominated temple system, but to a performative space with a specific set of configurations in which the performers and the spectators come together in a particularly proximal manner, and in which a certain kind of intense relationship is instituted between the ways of seeing of the spectators and the ways of being of the performers. In other words, it is not the material or ideological structure of the kūttampalam but its internal measurements, the spatial dimensions of its performance space, its features that induce proximity between performers and spectators, and the particular kind of relationship that arises 262

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within it between the performer and the spectator that need to be taken out and inscribed on the public spaces in which Kutiyattam comes to be performed. Since no performance can be detached and pried away from the space in which it evolved, without doing terrible violence to it and affecting all its modalities, the suggestion here is that whenever Kutiyattam is being performed in public, secular venues, a space should be carved out inside them that resembles and invokes the space of the kūttampalam, which facilitates the generation even in those public venues of structures of viewing and performing that are at least similar, if not the same, as in the kūttampalam. Given the sophisticated systems of lighting and sound available today, and the flexibility of most contemporary theatre spaces, this is not a demand of too tall an order. However, it would definitely require the resolute initiative and sustained pro-active intervention of organizers, institutions and, most importantly, performers. Through their collaborative efforts, as well as with the help of contemporary theatre technicians, a system of creating a clearly defined performance and audience space as in the kūttampalams, through lighting, seating arrangements and other spatial methods must be evolved, which can then be easily replicated at different venues with minimal effort and cost. In other words, it should be as if a virtual kūttampalam space is created at every venue where a Kutiyattam performance takes place. The value of such a move cannot be exaggerated because it will not only serve to protect and preserve for future generations a culture of performance that has the accumulated wealth of experience of several centuries but also because in the contemporary cultural domain, which is characterized by momentary and fleeting entertainment, brief and superficial attention and an overwhelming flood of images and visuals that provide little space or time for contemplation or critique, Kutiyattam’s culture of conscious, intense viewing and of interpretative, elaborative performance can offer a very different critical alternative to the mind-numbing visual practices of the contemporary culture industry. It is probably in thus holding out the possibility of an active, creative and critical way of seeing which plays a significant role in the making of the performance text, and a way of acting that fosters such a seeing through a meticulous attention even to the finest of details, that Kutiyattam can assure itself of a meaningful place in the performative culture of the present and the future.

Notes 1 These include the rebellions of Pazhassi Raja of the Kottayam principality in Malabar, Velu Tampi Dalawa of Travancore, and Paliath Achan of Cochin. For more details, see A. S. Menon, 1970, 316–325. 2 A humanist and social reformer who lived in the princely kingdom of Travancore in the first half of the 19th century (1809–1851) who critiqued caste discrimination and religious hierarchy and fought against the practice of untouchability.

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3 A sage and social reformer who lived in southern Travancore (1853–1924). He strived to reform the heavily  ritualistic  and caste-ridden Hindu society of late 19th-century/early 20th-century Kerala. 4 A philosopher, spiritual leader and social reformer who lived in Travancore (1855–1928) but had extensive influence all over Kerala. He led a reform movement against the injustices of the caste-ridden society of Kerala and promoted spiritual enlightenment and social equality based on a philosophy of advaita (non-duality). 5 A leader (1863–1914) who worked for the advancement of deprived untouchable people in the princely state of Travancore. His efforts helped members of the lower-caste communities to attain the freedom to walk on public roads and for their children to join schools. 6 Also known as Kumara Gurudevan (1879–1939), he was a lower-caste leader, poet and social reformer from central Travancore. Having converted to Christianity, he was the founder of the socio-religious movement Pratyakṣa Rakṣā Daiva Sabha (“God’s Church of Visible Salvation”). 7 A social reformer, dramatist and an Indian independence activist (1896–1982), he is best known for his contributions to the reformation of the Nambūtiri community. 8 The Cānnār Lahaḷa (revolt), also called māru maṟakkal samaram (struggle to cover the breasts), refers to the agitation from 1813 to 1859 of the women of the lower-caste Nāṭār (Cānnār) community in the Travancore region for the right to wear upper-body clothes to cover their breasts. 9 A movement seeking rights of access to the interior of the temples for members of the so-called untouchable castes in the early decades of the 20th century,  inspired by the teachings of Narayana Guru  and others. Protests in 1924–1925 against the prohibition of untouchables using a public road near a temple in Vaikom were a significant precursor to the temple entry movement. Known as the Vaikom Satyagraha, the protests sought equal rights of access in areas previously restricted to members of upper castes. The protests expanded to become a full-fledged movement, which finally culminated in the Temple Entry Proclamation issued by Maharaja Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma on 12 November 1936. 10 For more details on such stoppage of performances and the payments not keeping pace with the changing times, see Madhu, 2002, 59–60, 75–76, 87–91. 11 The first presentation outside temple precincts of prabandham kūttu, the narrative form related to Kutiyattam, was done by Painkulam Rama Chakyar in 1949, followed in 1956 by the first-ever presentation of a Kutiyattam performance outside the temple. In the 1960s there were performances outside Kerala, in Madras, Varanasi, Ujjain, New Delhi and other cities; and in 1980 Kutiyattam came to be performed outside India, for the first time, in Paris and Warsaw. For more details, see Namboodiripad, 1990, 93; Narayanan, 2005, 44–45; Paulose, 2001, 234–235. 12 The association between Painkukam Rama Chakyar and Vazhengata Govinda Warrier was made possible in the context of a Department of Kutiyattam being started at Kerala Kalamandalam, the state institute of arts, which constituted a major step in the secularization, as well as institutionalization, of Kutiyattam training (see Namboodiripad, 1990, 94). 13 Originally, this innovation was first introduced in Kathakali in the 1960s by K. P. Ramakrishna Paniker, a cuṭṭi artist (see Kaimal, 2000, 405). After it had become popular in Kathakali, the technique came to be used in Kutiyattam too.

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14 For instance, from the inception of the University of Calicut’s School of Drama at Thrissur, Kutiyattam and Kathakali practitioners have been associated with it as trainers for actors, especially in teaching bodily exercises and movements. At the beginning, if it was G. Venu and Ammannur Kuttan Chakyar who were thus associated, later several younger Kutiyattam actors continued with the practice. Similar affiliations, more in terms of short-term workshops and training programmes, can also be found in the case of the National School of Drama and other drama institutions in India and abroad. The work of Kalamandalam Raman Chakyar, who has served as a Visiting Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA, and has conducted workshops at several other universities in Europe and the United States, is an example. It is also of note that at the Intercultural Theatre Institute (formerly known as the Theatre Training and Research Programme – TTRP) in Singapore, aspects of Kutiyattam acting are part of the curriculum, and traditionally there has always been a Kutiyattam practitioner on the faculty. In addition to this, there have been several instances of Kutiyattam actors giving acting workshops to contemporary theatre practitioners in several countries, such as Japan, the United States, the UK, France, and so on. 15 A major instance of a Kutiyattam actor being featured in contemporary theatre is that of Sooraj Nambiar who has acted in plays such as Peer Gynt, directed by Abhilash Pillai. 16 Told in a recorded telephone conversation on 18 October 2020.

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GLOSSARY OF FREQUENTLY USED TERMS

abhinaya The art of acting/expression that leads an audience towards rasa (aesthetic experience). āhārya Make-up and costumes of the performer. According to Nāṭyaśāstra, it one of the four constituents/aspects of abhinaya, the others being āṅgika, vācika and sātvika. akkitta A series of rhythmic, invocatory verses dedicated to Lord Gaṇapati, Lord Śiva and Goddess Sarasvati, sung by the Naṅṅyārs, as part of the pūrvaraṅga. āṅgika Physical, bodily acting that includes gestures, limb movements, facial expressions, eye movements, etc. According to Nāṭyaśāstra, it one of the four constituents/aspects of abhinaya, the others being āhārya, vācika and sātvika. aṉukramam – Part of the nirvahaṇam, the exposition/recapitulation of characters at the beginning of each act, it literally means “following the order.” It features a series of questions that narrate in backward order the events from the play’s present to the earliest point to be recollected by the character. āṭṭam – Multi-actor dramatic performance; originally meant “game” or “play” in Tamil but through a semantic shift came to indicate performance in Malayalam. āṭṭaprakārams Actor’s manuals, comprehensive guides to performance from the performer’s perspective. Bhārata Bhaṭṭar A learned Brahmin appointed in Kerala temples for the purpose of reciting and explaining Mahābhārata to the common people. Cākyār A community of temple servants of Kerala, the men of which community are the actors of Kutiyattam. campu A medieval literary genre in both Malayalam and Sanskrit which features a mixture of poetry and prose. kēśādipādam The description of the hero/heroine from head to toe, through gestures, facial expressions and eye movements. kēṭṭāṭal Literally, “listening and acting;” a dramatic technique in which one character acts as if the second character is present even as she/he

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is absent on the stage and responds to her/him after appearing to have heard and repeated what the second character has said. kramadīpikas Production manuals that describe the structure and conduct of performance of each act, including make-up and costume of characters, entrances and exits, the beginnings and endings of different portions of performance, the segments to be elaborated, the materials needed, the rituals to be conducted, rates of payment, and so on. kriyas Sequences of pure physical movement used in actor training as well as in performance. kūttampalams The temple theatres of Kerala in which Kutiyattam, kūttu and Naṅṅyārkūttu are traditionally performed. kūttu Performance of dance or drama in Tamil; this meaning is retained in some usages in Malayalam, but there has also been a pronounced shift in general usage to indicate prabandham kūttu, the allied verbal narrative form of Kutiyattam, in which the Cākyār tells stories from the epics and the purāṇas. maṇipravāḷam Medieval literary compositions in a mixture of Malayalam and Sanskrit maṟayilkriya Kriya conducted behind the curtain. miḻāvu A big copper drum played as an accompanying percussion instrument for Kutiyattam and kūttu performances. mudras Hand gestures used in performance to convey ideas, objects, meanings. muṭiyakkitta The rituals performed by the actor at the conclusion of the performance of an act. Nampyār A community of temple servants of Kerala, the men of which community are the drummers for Kutiyattam and kūttu. Nampyār Tamiḻ The commentary in archaic Malayalam, somewhat close to Tamil, delivered by the Nampyār during interludes of an act aimed at providing a synopsis of the content of the scene just concluded. Naṅṅyārs Actresses and singers in Kutiyattam and kūttu; the women folk of the Nampyār community. Traditionally, they also present Naṅṅyārkūttu, the sister form of Kutiyattam. nirvahaṇam Exposition/recapitulation of their previous history by major characters at the beginning of every act. nityakriya Kriyas practiced by actors every day during training and afterwards pakarnnāṭṭam Literally “transferred acting,” where an actor who plays the role of one character assumes the aspects of the other characters who figure in the story he narrates. puṟappāṭ The first entrance of characters at the beginning of an act, through which the dramatic situation at that point and the nature and emotional state of the character are established

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puruṣārtthakkūttu - The humorous and inverted verbal presentation of the four puruṣārtthas (aims of life) – arttha (wealth), kāma (desire), dharma (righteousness/duty), and mōkṣa (salvation) – as aśanam (eating, satisfaction of the palate), rājasēva (service to the king), vēśya vinōdam (visiting a prostitute, sensual pleasure) and vancanam (cheating, deception) respectively, in the form of the nirvahaṇam of the Vidūṣaka. pūrvaraṅga Pre-play rituals, invocations and other activities including the preparation of the actor and the preparation of the stage. saṃkṣēpam A segment of the nirvahaṇam, immediately following the aṉukramam, in which there is a brief recounting of events that are even earlier to the ones featured in the aṉukramam. ślōka A form of verse in Sanskrit, which consists of four lines/quarter-verses of eight syllables each, or two lines/half-verses of sixteen syllables each. Tamiḷakam The geographical region inhabited by the ancient and medieval Tamil people, comprising of today’s Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry and the southern parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. vācika Verbal acting; according to Nāṭyaśāstra, it one of the four constituents/aspects of abhinaya, the others being āhārya, āṅgika and sātvika. Vidūṣaka The clown character in Sanskrit drama who appears as a poor Brahmin, the friend of the hero in romantic comedies.

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278

INDEX

Abhijñānaśākuntaḷam 26, 137, 157, 243, 261 Abhinavagupta 3 Abhiṣēkanāṭakam 91, 114, 117, 124, 135, 137, 143, 148, 158; see also Tōraṇayuddhāṅkam ācamanam 105, 106, 242 acoustic(s) 3, 9, 49, 81 – 82, 249 acting 15, 22, 52, 64, 94 – 95, 108, 123, 140, 141, 158, 160, 162, 163, 164, 166, 171, 172, 173, 176, 191, 199, 200, 201, 205, 225, 226, 230, 231, 233, 235, 258, 263, 265, 266, 267, 268; acting space/area 52 – 53, 164, 165, 168, 197; costume and make up (see āhārya); emotive acting 15, 59, 95, 97, 98, 117, 140, 163, 178, 222, 242, 267; facial acting/ expression 14 – 15, 18, 31, 89, 94, 95, 98, 124, 139, 140, 145, 162, 163, 164, 170, 195, 196, 197, 222, 266; gestural acting 14, 15, 95, 98, 100, 110, 140, 141, 158, 174, 195, 211, 224, 226, 227, 235, 242, 258 (see also mudra(s)); internalized acting 108, 114; microscopic acting 95, 109, 115, 117, 139, 188, 225; physical acting 14, 31, 45, 224 (see also āṅgika); restrained acting 22, 94, 250, 262; solo acting 20, 94, 95, 104, 106, 109, 111 – 112, 135, 211, 230; transferred acting (see pakarnnāṭṭam); verbal acting (see vācika/verbal acting)

actor’s theatre 113 – 114, 115, 138, 157 actor’s time-space 146 – 147 aestheticization 251 – 252, 262 Agnipravēśāṅkam 136 āhārya 93 – 94, 252, 266, 267; see also costume(s); cuṭṭi akkitta 97, 242, 266 ampalavāsi 69, 218 anēkahārya 230 āṅgika 110, 140, 141, 145, 163, 196, 266, 268 Aṅgulīyāṅkam 64, 65, 135, 136, 150 – 151, 153 – 154, 162, 178, 189, 199, 212, 242 antarāḷa-jāti 184 aṉukramam 100 – 101, 107, 110, 11, 171, 226, 266, 268 anvaya 218, 219 – 222, 226; anvaya in Kutiyattam 222 – 225 Appachan, Poikayil 245 araṅṅutaḷi 97, 191 Aristotle 1 Artaud, Antonin 5, 17 āryakkūttu 61, 62, 63, 75, 233 Āścaryacūdāmaṇi 19, 25, 65, 91, 93, 98, 114, 135, 136, 137, 150, 158, 171, 174, 179, 212, 226 Aśōkavanikāṅkam 98, 100 – 101, 103, 106, 162, 122, 123, 136, 145 Aṭikal, Iḷaṅko 61; see also Śilappatikāram aṭiyantarakkūttu see kūttu āṭṭam 75, 76, 79, 157, 171, 232, 233, 234, 235

279

INDEX

ā ṭ ṭ a p r a k ā r a m ( s ) 2 3 , 7 6 , 1 0 5 , 1 1160 4 ,– 161, 168, 170, 177, 178, 122, 123, 136, 148, 150, 158, 184, 186, 187, 189, 191, 206, 162, 170 – 177; incremental inter207, 216, 229, 230, 231, 232, 235, textuality of āṭṭaprakārams 173 – 174; 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 246, mnemonic texts 23, 176; spatiality of 257, 266, 267; community 61 – 62, āṭṭaprakārams 174 – 175 186; families 160 – 161, 186, 101; audience composition 64 – 65, 75, family space 160 – 161, 178; invested 76, 185 – 186, 190, 252 – 254, 262; Brahminhood 136, 96 – 97, 122, 187, audience hierarchy 186 – 188 191; links to Buddhism 61 – 62, 78, audience space 10, 11, 22, 49, 52, 53, 186; in temple society 69 – 70, 73 83, 85 – 89, 121, 186, 247 – 248 Camp, Panill 53, 180, 208 Ayyankali 245 campu 74, 75, 98, 109, 122, 123, 153, 174, 228, 229, 266 Bachelard, Gaston 4, 34 Candrōtsavam 215 Carlson, Marvin 29 Bakhtin, Mikhail 212 – 213, 239 caṭṭar (cāttirar) 209, 214, 215 Bālacaritam 63, 135, 137, 163, 189, 232 Cēra(s) 25, 58, 61, 63, 68 – 70, 71 – 73, Bālivadhāṅkam 91, 120, 148, 158, 189 74, 78, 79, 210, 215, 232; Cēra Bhagavadajjukīyam 62, 137, 236, 237, rule 68 – 70; Cōḷa-Cēra war 71 – 72; 248, 261 decline 71 – 73 Bhāgavata Purāṇa 137 Chakyar, Ammannur Chachu 158, 178 bhāṇa 211, 242 Chakyar, Ammannur Madhava 73, 90, Bhārata Bhaṭṭar 23, 209 – 210, 266 158, 160, 216, 258 Chakyar, Ammannur Parameswara Bharatamuni 2 – 3, 83, 230, 231; Nāṭyaśāstra 2 – 3, 19, 20, 58, 61, 83, (Kuttan) 157 – 158, 265 178, 203, 205, 230, 231, 242, 266, 268 Chakyar, Mani Madhava 162, 163 Bhasa 18, 19, 63, 65, 74, 114, Chakyar, Painkulam Rama 157, 158, 124, 170, 179, 261; see also 163, 165, 178, 182, 246, 252 – 253, Abhiṣēkanāṭakam; Bālacaritam; 254, 256, 257, 258, 259, 261, 262, Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇam; 264; changes in costume 252 – 253; Pratimānāṭakam; class diary 258 – 259; reform Svapnavāsavadattam; Ūrubhaṅgam 182, 246 Bhattatiripad, V. T. 245 Cōḷa(s) 61, 62, 63, 71 – 72, 79, 215; bilingualism 23, 209, 214, 226 – 229, Cōḷa-Cēra war 71 – 72 233, 236 colliyāṭṭam 235, 258 Bleeker, Maaike 33, 35 costume(s) 16, 18, 48, 59, 73, 88, Bōdhāyana 62, 261 93 – 94, 96, 109, 110, 111, 137, 147, Bowler, Lisa Marie 29, 120 161, 189, 190, 191, 210, 236, 242, Brecht, Bertolt 27 248, 252, 266; changes in costume Bṛhatkatha 137 252 – 253; effect of single lamp Bṛhatkathāmañjari 137 93 – 94; see also āhārya; cuṭṭi Brook, Peter 6, 28, 29 cultural space 7, 53, 58, 109, 137, Butler, Judith 34 180, 225, 226, 229, 245, 251; contemporary changes 251 – 255 cākṣuṣa yajña 192, 199 cuṭṭi 93, 252, 256, 264 Cākyār 57, 61 – 62, 64, 66, 67, 69 – 70, 72, 73, 74, 76, 78, 79, 96 – 97, 108, daṇḍānvayapaddhati 219 – 221 109, 114, 123, 135, 136, 153, 154, daśarūpaka(s) 20, 211, 242

280

INDEX

dhvani 3, 59, 77, 108, 123, 220 diegetic space 9, 115, 119 – 120 digressive time 23 Dostal, Robert J. 131 economy 58, 69, 160, 184, 191, 192, 245, 261; agrarian economy 69, 184; of effort/ practices 23, 168 – 169, 170, 197; temple economy 69, 160, 191, 192, 245, 261 ēkahārya 20, 230 elaboration 18 – 20, 21, 22, 23, 57, 58, 77, 80, 95, 96, 98, 103, 106, 107, 108, 109, 113, 114, 121, 137, 138, 141, 142 – 143, 143 – 145, 146 – 147, 155, 156, 157, 171, 174, 206, 214, 226, 229, 236, 238; conventions of elaboration 106 – 121; digressions 57, 100, 102, 103, 106, 111, 121, 141 – 144, 148, 155 – 156; subject of elaboration 143 – 145; time of elaboration 142 – 143; Vidūṣaka’s elaboration 146 – 147 embodiment 4, 22, 23, 34, 35, 36, 38, 42, 44, 46 – 47, 165, 169, 208; in Kutiyattam 163 – 166; in phenomenology 39 – 42; in theatre 46 – 47 facial expression 14 – 15, 18, 31, 89, 94, 95, 98, 103, 124, 139, 140, 145, 162, 163, 164, 170, 196, 197, 222, 266 Foucault, Michel 4 Freeman, Rich 75, 78 Garner, Stanton 34 – 35, 36 grammar 14, 15, 61, 78, 164, 194; grammar of performative emotions 15; grammar of space 16 Grotowsky, Jerzy 27, 28 Guru, Narayana 245, 264 Gurukkal, Rajan 69, 70, 71, 244 Gurwitsch, Aron 39 Haas, Andrew 34 haptic vision 115 – 118, 121, 124; in Kutiyattam 117 – 118

Harsha 18, 19, 61, 261 Hastalakṣaṇadīpika 162, 178, 218 Hegarty, James 212, 213 Heidegger, Martin 21, 32, 34, 38, 40, 42, 44, 45, 46, 55, 130, 132, 133, 181; Being and Time 44; forestructure of assumptions 22, 23, 38, 42, 46, 52, 54, 116, 181, 182, 207, 213; inter-subjectivity 44 Husserl, Edmund 21, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36 – 39, 41 – 43, 44, 45, 46, 130, 133, 131 – 132, 133, 144, 152, 155, 181; embodiment 38 – 40; horizon of potentialities 22, 23, 37 – 38, 42, 46, 49, 52, 54, 116, 181, 207; intentionality 36 – 38; intersubjectivity 42 – 43; time 131 – 132 iḷakiyāṭṭam 162, 163, 235 induction of new content 261 – 262 institutionalization 262, 264 Jansen, Steen 7, 8, 25 Jaṭāyuvadhāṅkam 101, 136, 173, 222, 247, 249 Johan, Virginie 193 Kabuki 13 Kailāsōddhāraṇam 105, 114, 117 – 118, 143 kaiśiki vṛtti 230 kaḷari 166, 169; kaḷarippayaṯṯu 169 kalaśattaṟa 121, 183, 190 kāḻcakkūttu see kūttu Kalidasa 26, 77, 192, 196, 199, 211, 228, 241, 261; see also Abhijñānaśākuntaḷam; Māḷavikāgnimitram kāḷiyāṅkam-kuttu 232 Kaḷiyāṭṭam 235 Kalyāṇasaugandhikam 137, 138 Kamba Rāmāyaṇam 154 Kathakali 13, 14, 15, 16, 65, 76, 79, 157, 168, 169, 216, 217, 235, 252, 255, 258, 261, 264, 265 Kathāsaritsāgara 137 Kēralōlpatti 79 Kēśādipādam 99, 162, 163, 173, 213, 266

281

INDEX

kēṭṭāṭal 58, 111, 266 khaṇḍānvayapaddhati 219 – 221, 222, 224 Knowles, Richard 31 Kozel, Susan 36 kramadīpika 23, 65, 76, 114, 123, 170 – 177, 179, 226, 267; incremental inter-textuality of kramadīpikas 173 – 174; mnemonic devices 23, 176; Parṇaśālāṅkam kramadīpika 171 – 172 kriya 23, 58, 77, 162, 163 – 168, 173, 174, 175, 178, 179, 193 – 207, 242, 267; as bodily action 195; historical subtexts 203 – 207; learning of kriyas 163 – 168; maṟayilkriya 97, 98, 169, 163, 207; meaning 194 – 195; multiple significance 202 – 203; nityakriya 98, 99, 110, 162, 163, 242, 267; in performance 197 – 202; as training/instruction 195 – 197 Kṛṣṇāṭṭam 76, 235 kṣatriya 79, 179, 186 Kuiper, F. B. J. 237 Kulasekhara Varman 18, 19, 25, 58, 64, 65, 67, 74, 76, 77, 107, 108, 114 – 115, 124, 205, 209, 210; see also Subhadrādhanañjayam; Tapatīsaṃvaraṇam kūṭi-āṭṭam, nomenclature 230 – 235; performance of text 94, 96, 103, 111, 112, 113, 138, 230 kūttampalam 18, 21, 22, 23, 57, 58, 59, 75, 76, 77, 80, 81 – 90, 92 – 96, 109, 114, 121, 122, 123, 134, 136, 137, 138, 140, 161, 162, 165, 168, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190 – 191, 205, 208, 214, 218, 245, 246, 247, 252, 262, 263, 267; architecture 81 – 83; internal design & layout 83 – 85, 189; location 81, 183; move away 246 – 252; places 80; purity and pollution 190 – 191; ritual significance 108 – 109; stage 83, 183; ways of doing 92 – 96; ways of seeing 85 – 92 kūttu 61, 63, 64, 67, 73, 75, 76, 79, 186, 191, 211, 227, 231, 233, 235,

241, 243, 215; aṭiyantarakkūttu 134, 189, 191, 241; kāḻcakkūttu 134, 135; paṟakkum kūttu 76; vaḻipaṭukūttu 134, 135, 136, 189 Lefebvre, Henry 4, 28, 180; The Production of Space 4, 180 Lichte, Erika Fischer 48, 118 lighting 9, 12, 15, 16, 30, 46, 48, 49, 90, 96, 250, 251, 263; contemporary changes 248 – 249; in kūttampalam 90 – 92 Līlātilakam 78 Lipps, Theodore 42 live archive (body as) 23, 160, 168, 170, 176 Mahābhārata 23, 85, 114, 119, 137, 156, 29, 209 – 214, 218, 221, 228, 236, 261, 266; influence on Kutiyattam performance 209 – 214 Mahendra Vikrama 18, 19, 62; Mattavilāsa (Prahasana) 62, 135, 136, 137, 162, 236, 237 Mahōdayapuram 25, 61, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 78, 232; flooding 72 – 73 Māḷavikāgnimitram 192, 196, 199 Malayaḷam 22, 65, 66, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81, 100, 122, 135, 146, 153, 157, 178, 210, 218, 221, 222, 224, 226 – 228, 229, 230, 233, 234, 235, 236, 241, 242, 243, 266, 267; language of performance in Kutiyattam 226 – 228 maṇipravāḷam 66, 67, 74, 75, 78, 228, 267 Mantrāṅkam 65, 135, 189, 235 Māyāsītāṅkam 101, 136, 173, 174 McAuley, Gay 7, 11 – 12, 15, 28, 29, 55, 56; taxonomy of spaces 11 – 12 Menon, A. Sreedhara 69, 71, 78 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 4, 21, 32, 34, 35, 37, 40 – 42, 44, 45, 115, 130, 133 – 134, 155, 178; embodiment 40 – 42; intersubjectivity 133 – 134 miḻāvu 84, 90, 97, 120, 141, 164, 165, 167, 179, 188, 190, 249, 267 mimāmsa 215, 220, 224

282

INDEX

Mohiniyaṭṭam 76, 89, 235 Moser (Oberlin), Heike 230, 231 – 232 mudra(s) 65, 89, 158, 162, 163, 164, 176, 178, 197, 217, 252, 255, 267; Vedic mudra(s) 217 – 218 muṭiyakkitta 96, 105 – 106, 110, 191, 242, 267

as convention 100 – 103; development 106 – 109; as elaboration 20 – 21; question-answer format 111 – 112 nityakriya see kriya Noh-gaku 13, 128 ōttu śālai see śālai

Nāgānanda 61, 79, 137, 250, 261 Nair(s) 185, 186, 187, 241 nālampalam 78, 188, 241 nālutaḷi 70, 72 Nambiar, Sooraj 257, 258, 65 Nambudiri, Punam 109, 228; Bhāratam Campu 109, 228 Nambudiripad, Chennas Narayanan 82, 83, 84 Nambudiripad, Kanippayyur Damodaran 82, 84, 183 Nambudiripad, Killimangalam Vasudevan 77, 123, 211, 214, 227, 242 Nampūtiri 79, 122, 184, 185, 187, 217, 233, 241 Nampyār 57, 65, 69, 78, 79, 97, 136, 172, 186, 190, 257, 267; Nampyar Tamiḻ 64, 65, 74, 75, 78, 226, 255, 267 Nangiar, Usha 254, 261 Naṅṅyār 57, 67, 69, 76, 79, 84, 90, 92, 97, 98, 100, 102, 135, 136, 164, 171, 172, 179, 186, 230, 242, 257, 266, 267 Naṅṅyārkūttu 76, 135, 261, 267 Narayanan, M. G. S. 70, 79, 209, 210 Narayanan, Mundoli 111, 146 – 147, 185, 190 – 191, 192 – 193, 217, 240 nāṭaka 62, 63, 75, 204, 233 Naṭāṅkuśa 23, 58, 59, 73, 76, 79, 232, 233; discussion of kriyas 198 – 202; historical subtext 203 – 207 nāṭuvāḻi 69, 70, 71 Nāṭyaśāstra see Bharatamuni nirvahaṇam 58, 74, 94, 96, 97, 110, 122, 123, 138, 141, 158, 171, 174, 186, 211, 212, 226, 238, 261, 266, 267, 268; in Aṅgulīyāṅkam 15 – 51;

pakarnnāṭṭam 20, 58, 109 – 111, 144, 150, 205, 211, 213, 235, 267 pānāt rūpa rasāyanam 102 – 103 pañca-pṟākāra 77, 183, 241 paṟakkum kūttu see kūttu Parṇaśālāṅkam 136, 171, 179 patronage 22, 56, 58, 71, 80, 182, 186, 187, 203, 204, 206, 207, 239, 261, 262; decline in patronage 345 – 346; patronage in ancient/medieval ages 60 – 68; temple patronage 72 – 74, 191 – 193 Paulose, K. G. 77 – 78 Pavis, Patrice 7, 10 performance conventions 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 57, 58, 64, 75, 106 – 115, 118, 121, 123, 127, 135, 138, 139, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 170, 173, 174, 177, 187, 193, 201, 216, 231, 247, 252, 262 performance time 13, 22, 27 – 28, 95 – 96, 106 – 107, 125 – 159; digressive time 23, 142, 141 – 144, 155 – 156; dramatic (fictional) time 95 – 96, 126, 127, 128, 129, 137, 142, 146, 155; performative/ theatrical time 22 – 23, 127 – 129, 130, 142, 143, 146, 152, 155, 156, 175; real time 13, 22, 121, 126 – 127, 129, 134, 136, 144, 148, 151, 155, 156; tempo(s) of performance 23, 94, 125, 126, 127, 129, 139, 141, 155, 156, 165; temporal dissonance 23, 128 – 129, 130, 134, 144, 148, 155; text time 126, 127, 137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 144, 147, 148, 151, 155, 156; time frames 123, 125 – 130, 135 – 138 performance venues 22, 24, 59, 72, 73, 76, 182, 251, 253, 256, 262, 263;

283

INDEX

ancient and medieval venues 67 – 68; contemporary venues 246 – 248 Perumāḷs see Cēra(s) Phelan, Peggy 27 phenomenology 22, 31, 38, 39, 40, 115, 116, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 276, 277, 278; phenomenology of space-performer-spectator engagement 46 – 55; phenomenology of theatre 32 – 36; time in phenomenology 22, 130 – 134; see also embodiment; Heidegger, Martin; Husserl, Edmund; Merleau-Ponty, Maurice Pillai, Elamkulam Kunhan 71, 78 Pisharoti, K. P. Narayana 237 poetics 1, 269 Potuvāḷ 69, 184 prabandham(s) 109, 123 prabandham kuttu 75, 79, 123, 135, 136, 211, 214, 227, 229, 235, 239, 242, 264, 267 Prathamadvitīyāṅkam 118 – 119 (Abhiṣekanaṭakam) Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇam 65, 137 Pratimānāṭakam 114, 135, 137, 158, 179 pravēśakam 99 prēkṣaka 2, 59, 64 proximal viewing 22, 87 – 92, 94 – 95, 113, 134, 139 – 141, 157, 188, 226 purāṇa(s)/purāṇic 79, 123, 135, 137, 144, 228, 238, 242, 261, 267 puṟappāṭ 96, 97 – 99, 100, 103, 106, 109, 122, 135, 136, 162, 163, 109, 174, 179, 242, 258, 267 puruṣārtthakkūttu 74, 75, 216, 238 – 239, 243, 268 pūrvaraṅga 58, 96 – 97, 166, 191, 266, 268 Puṣpaka 184 question-answer (method) in performance 111, 208, 211, 218, 224 – 226 rāga 66, 139 – 140, 162, 171, 174, 216, 242, 258 Rāmacaritam 228

Rāmanāṭṭam 76, 235 Rāmāyaṇa(m) 85, 114, 119, 137, 152, 212, 261; Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇam 153 – 154, 228; Kamba Rāmāyaṇam 154; Kaṇṇaśśa Rāmāyaṇam 228; Kiṣkindā Kāṇḍam 153, 154; Kṛttivāsa Rāmāyaṇam 154, 159; Rāmāyaṇam campu 109, 228; Rāmāyaṇa plays 135, 137, 153, 156, 179; Rāmāyaṇa Prabandham 153, 154; Rāmāyaṇa saṃkṣēpam 150 – 152, 158, 178; Uttarakāṇḍa(m) 151 – 152, 154; Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 153, 154, 159 repetition/reiteration 16, 35, 125, 146, 163 – 166, 169, 175, 177, 196, 203 – 204 Reynolds, Jack 40 Ṛgveda 216, 217 Richardson, Brian 126, 127 Ricoeur, Paul 34 ritual(s) 2, 19, 23, 52, 53, 58, 59, 72, 73, 77, 80, 96 – 97, 105 – 106, 110, 122, 134, 136, 160, 168, 171, 174, 179, 184, 185, 188 – 192, 206, 209, 242, 245, 246, 251, 256, 264, 267, 268; kriya as ritual 193 – 198, 202, 203 Śākkai/Śākkaiyyan/Śākyar 61, 64, 230, 231, 232 Saktibhadra 18, 19, 65, 114, 179; see also Agnipravēśāṅkam; Aṅgulīyāṅkam; Āścaryacūdāmaṇi; Aśōkavanikāṅkam; Jaṭāyuvadhāṅkam; Māyāsītāṅkam; Parṇaśālāṅkam; Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam śālai 62, 63, 215; ōttu śālai 123, 216, 218, 221, 225, 228 Sāmaveda 217 saṃkṣēpam 100, 101, 171, 268 sandēśa kāvyās 75, 228 Sanskrit drama 18, 19, 20, 22, 72, 75, 76, 107, 124, 146, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 243, 268; early history of patronage in South India 60 – 68 Sanskrit pedagogy 23, 209, 218 – 222, 225, 228

284

INDEX

śāntikkūttu 75, 233 Scheler, Max 34 Scolnicov, Hanna 7, 9 – 10, 12 Shulman, David 123 Śikhinīśalabham 25, 105, 114, 124, 145 Śilappatikāram 61, 232, 235 Śilparatna 83, 183 Smith, Irwin 128 Sobchack, Vivian 115 Soja, Edward 5 Sokolowski, Robert 132 sōpāna saṅgītam 216 Soriau, Etienne 7, 8, 25 States, Bert O. 35, 128 Stein, Edith 42 structure of temple society 184 – 186 Subhadrādhanañjayam 19, 25, 58, 67, 76, 77, 107, 109 – 110, 124, 137, 143, 145, 173 Sullivan, Bruce 74, 124, 145, 210 Śūrpaṇakhāṅkam 91, 93, 136, 173, 179, 189, 226 Svapnavāsavadattam 26, 137 svara(s) 66, 140, 162, 216, 217, 242, 258 svargavibhūṣaṇam 112, 145 Swami, Ayya Vaiukunta 245 Swami, Chattampi 245 Taipale, Joona 37 tāḷam 139, 141, 164 taḷiyātiri(s) 72, 79 Tamiḻakam 60, 61, 63, 64, 76, 232, 268 Tantrasamuccayam see Nambudiripad, Chennas Narayanan Tapatīsaṃvaraṇam 19, 25, 58, 74, 77, 137 temple society 23, 69 – 70, 80, 182, 184 – 185, 186, 188, 192, 193, 206 – 207, 228, 229, 243, 245; knowledge structures in temple society 207 – 226; temple society in puruṣārtthakkūttu 238 – 239 theatre space 1 – 4, 5 – 7, 57, 59; acting space/area 52 – 53, 164, 165, 168, 197; actor’s time-space 146 – 147; audience space ix 10, 11, 22, 49, 52,

53, 83, 85 – 89, 121, 186, 247 – 248; body and space 40 – 41, 43, 165, 169, 191; contemporary changes in space 245, 247 – 250, 251 – 255; contemporary spaces 245, 247 – 250, 251 – 252; diegetic space 9, 115, 119 – 120; kūttampalam space 59, 81 – 88, 90, 93, 114, 121; live(d) space 28 – 32, 38; physical space 8, 11, 12, 22, 49, 52, 53, 81 – 88, 226, 245, 247 – 251; public space 8, 66, 185, 250 – 251, 256, 259, 263; social/cultural space 4, 7, 28, 29, 30, 53 – 55, 58, 59, 64, 109, 137, 180 – 243, 245, 251 – 255; spaceperformer-spectator engagement 46 – 55, 262; spatial turn 1, 4 – 5, 6, 7, 18; taxonomy of theatre space 7 – 18; temple space 66 – 67, 78; training space 16, 23, 16 – 61, 166 – 168, 197, 256 – 259; see also kūttampalam Thompson, Evan 37 Tolkkāppiyam 61 Tōraṇayuddhāṅkam 117, 143 training 23, 158, 160 – 179, 193, 195, 196, 197, 202, 206, 247, 255, 265; contemporary changes 256 – 264, 267; economy of effort 168 – 169; embodiment 169 – 170; role of āṭṭaprakārams and kramadīpikas 170 – 178; training process/schedule 165 – 168, 257 – 258; training space 161, 256 – 257; see also ‘repetition/ reiteration’ translation 23, 209, 214, 218, 222, 224 – 225, 226 – 229, 233, 236 Tripuradahana 61, 232 Ubersfeld, Anne 6, 7 – 8, 10, 18, 25, 31, 49 Unni, N. P. 59, 74, 76, 77, 124, 145, 210 Uṇṇiccirutēvīcaritam 215, 228 Uṇṇiyaccīcaritam 215, 228 Uṇṇiyāṭīcaritam 66, 67, 79, 215, 228 Uṇṇunīlīsandēśam 66 – 67, 79, 228 Ūrubhaṅgam 118, 119, 124, 261

285

INDEX

vācika/verbal acting 31, 50, 65, 79, 123, 135, 140, 141, 158, 160, 162, 163, 164, 168, 171, 195, 196, 197, 211, 214, 227, 235, 236, 239, 256, 267, 268, 249, 266 vaḻipaṭukūttu see kūttu Varier, M. R. Raghava 70, 71 Vāriyar 184 Veluthat, Kesavan 184, 215 Venu, G. 257, 261, 265 Venugopalan, P. 123 Vidūṣaka 23, 65, 74, 75, 77, 79, 88, 122, 135, 136, 157, 171, 174, 186, 207, 211, 214, 216, 226, 229, 268; culture of elaboration 146 – 147; links to local culture 236 – 240; practice of translation 227 – 228 virutti 64, 69, 73, 160, 184, 245

Vyaṅgyavyākhya 58 – 59, 64, 75, 76, 78, 107, 108, 109, 110, 113, 233 Wagner, Mathew 127 – 129 ways of doing 21, 22, 50 – 55, 57, 58, 59, 181, 250; in kūttampalam 92 – 96 ways of seeing 21, 22, 50 – 55, 57, 58, 59, 109, 115, 117 – 118, 120, 138 – 139, 181, 188, 208, 263; contemporary changes 250 – 251, 262; in kūttampalam 85 – 92 Wiles, David 29 Wilshire, Bruce 35, 126 – 127 Yajurveda 216 Zahavi, Dan 44, 45 Zarrilli, Philip 36, 167

286