Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies Volume 19 Article 10 January 2006 Embodying "Bhakti Rasa" in Bharata Natyam: An Indian-Christian Interpretation of "Gayatri" Mantra through Dance Katherine C. Zubko Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Zubko, Katherine C. (2006) "Embodying "Bhakti Rasa" in Bharata Natyam: An Indian-Christian Interpretation of "Gayatri" Mantra through Dance," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 19, Article 10. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1365 The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. Zubko: Embodying "Bhakti Rasa" in Bharata Natyam: An Indian-Christian Interpretation of "Gayatri" Mantra through Dance Embodying Bhakti Rasa in Bharata Natyam: An Indian-Christian Interpretation of Gayatri Mantra through Dance Katherine C. Zubko Emory University AS the five female dancers from the Indian­ through a performative embodied understanding Christian fine art college of Kalai Kaviri encircle of bhakti rasa, an aesthetic sentiment typically the South Indian brass lamp, or vilakku, defined as a "devotional" mood, contemporary awakening it to life with the flames from their performers of Bharata Natyam106 create a own individual votives, the beginning melody of critical framework that makes fluidity of a song cues the women to stretch out their arms religious narratives and meanings possible I I in preparation to rise from their seated positions across religious traditions. and dance. As they raise their arms in unison, Through the contextualized Kalai Kaviri : 'i ! the light glinting off their bangles and gold performances of the Gayatri mantra, I will, first threaded costumes, the Sanskrit words Om Bhur of all, concretely make the distinction between Bhuvah Svah signal the invocatory phrase of the embodied, performed rasa in comparison to the popular Gayatri mantra chanted daily by many predominant textual, philosophical theories on Hindus all over the world. By the time the rasa, with special attention to the cultivation of second r~petition of the mantra is completed, the bhakti rasa. Second, I highlight how these bodies of the dancers are fanned out from behind particular boc!.ies dancing specifically on the a single dancer, creating the visual image of the Gayatri mantra shape new meanings of the sun with its rays beaming outwards to all mantra through a condensed performance directions of the universe. This pose aptly analysis. And third, I suggest through a cultural conveys homage to the sun god, Savilr or Surya, reading of the indigenous category of bhakti one of the Hindu deities associated with the rasa, an expansion of Barbara Holdrege's idea Gayatri mantra. lOS At the same time, the of "devotional bodies" to account for embodied choreographer notes that this pose, perfonned knowledge from within the study of religion. I I during cultural programs in Hindu temples and liturgical services in churches and cathedrals Aesthetics of Rasa: Textual and Performed across England during June 2004, also evokes Understandings \, the idea of Jesus as the Light of the World. Drawing upon the Kalai Kaviri presentations of In the traditionally Hindu dance fonn of Bharata the Gayatri mantra as a lens, I argue that N atyam, perfonners tell the stories of the gods KATHERINE C. ZUBKO is a doctoral candidate at Emory University, U.S.A., in the program of West and South Asian Religions, specializing in Hinduism and Islam. Her interests in perfonnance, aesthetics, and religion and· the body stem from her own dance training in Bharata N atyam over the last nine years. Having retumed from a year of fieldwork in India as a Fulbright Fellow, she is in the middle of completing her dissertation entitled Embodying Bhakti Rasa: Dancing Ac;'oss Religious Boundaries in Bharata Natyam. This article was first presented at the American Academy of Religion, Southeast Region, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, March 2005. The fieldwork for this study was conducted in London 2004 with the generous help of the University Fund for Intemationalization, Emory University. Journal o/Hindu-Christian Studies 19 (2006) 37-43 Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 2006 1 Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 19 [2006], Art. 10 38 Katherine Zubko and goddesses through hand and facial and hunching the shoulders), and fleeting expressions in combination with rhythmic and emotional states of vyabhicari-bhava-s (e.g., graceful footwork. Bom and cultivated in a shyness, jealousy, playfulness) to create sthayi­ temple atmosphere, these dances were seen as bhava-s, or more permanent primary emotions embodied offerings, akin to the beauty of a (e.g., rati, or love). When these sthayi-bhava-s flower left lovingly at the feet of the deity. are appreciated or tasted by an audience Against the ongoing background and continued participant, they become known as rasas (e.g., practice of Hindu devotion connected to Bharata sr ngara, or erotic love). The nine rasas of Natyam, a process of secularization occurred in erotic love, humor, fear, heroism, fury, disgust, the 1930's, producing different contexts for the wonder, compassion, and sometimes tranquility dance, and different roles - including its are the commonly listed aesthetic moods that designation as a classical Indian dance, artists ideally want their audiences to enjoy. representative of a national art form. One of the Modem Bharata N atyam dancers and effects of this secularization included the scholars refer to this aesthetic recipe from the gradual incorporation of thematic and practical Natyasastra when discussing the production of content from Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and rasa. And yet, bhakti, or a devotional, rasa, other religious traditions. At the same time, the which is explicitly absent from the Natyasastra Hindu roots of the dance tradition became more and other Sanskrit aesthetic texts referred to by embedded through the framing of the these contemporary performers, is the most often reformulated dance practice through Sanskrit mentioned rasa discussed in current speeches, texts on aesthetics. In particular, dancers began writings, program notes, and interviews. Many to view the 2,000 year-old Natyasastra,107 or even cite bhakti rasa as the basis for all Bharata Treatise on Dance-Drama, as the dance manual NatyamYo While there is a fully developed par excellence, to be emulated in their own theoretical understanding of bhakti rasa centered practices as a way of attempting to align the around Krsna in the 16th c. writings of Rupa I, dance form to its ancient, and what some claim Gosvamin found in Gaudiya Vaisnavism, III the I' Ii to be its most authentic state. 108 While some dancers never mention these texts or the ,i danc\:': movements were remolded to match the practitioners of this group when discussing detailed descriptions found in this and other bhakti rasa. According to a performance claimed dance texts,109 it was later that the perspective that pays attention to the contextual chapter on rasa, or aesthetic mood, was keenly framing constructed by the practitioners embraced for its theories on generating ideal themselves, this disqualifies Rupa Gosvamin as audience responses. a primary source for the interpretation of bhakti This chapter in the Natyasastra, as the rasa within the context of Bharata Natyam. In earliest extant text on rasa, became the order to give preference to the ways in which foundation for the development of philosophical· dancers frame their own understandings of . and literary conversations about the nature of bhakti rasa, I will follow Charles Briggs' notion aesthetic enjoyment which hinged upon a ofi "contextualization clues." According to metaphor of "tasting" different emotional moods Briggs, these cues "signal which features of the or flavors known as rasas. Theories on rasa physical, social, and linguistic setting are being I ! mechanically map out what ingredients are utilized at the time in creating interpretive necessary for a knowledgeable spectator to savor frameworks for deciphering the meaning of what one's own personal engagement with an art is being said," 112 or in this case, what is being form. In the theoretical fonnula, vibhava-s, or danced. In this way, the context emerges in each different situational cues (e.g., moonlight, smell ethnographic instance, created within the of jasmine, a secluded grove) combine with the process of the perfonnance itself by the physical· responses of anubhava-s (e.g., participants. This performance-centered flirtatious side-long glances, demurely looking approach reveals shifting formulations and down, clasping ones hands behind one's back understandings of bhakti rasa that would https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol19/iss1/10 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1365 2 - Zubko: Embodying "Bhakti Rasa" in Bharata Natyam: An Indian-Christian Interpretation of "Gayatri" Mantra through Dance Embodying Bhakti Rasa 39 otherwise remain unknown if only the aesthetic considered to be esoteric knowledge, this texts are turned to for authoritative explanations. mantra, adopted by groups such as the Arya Although I would argue that Samaj, now encapsulates a widespread core practitioners of