1. 2015, Pp. 220 4 Col. Illus. 8
Size: 14 x 22 cm B/WIllus. 40
Bibliography Index
She lives in Hyderabad, and publishes Nartanam
(www.nartanam.in) through the SahrdayaArts Trust of which
she is theManagingTrustee.
She has taught at the University of Hyderabad to post-
graduate students of dance for many years apart from
working as an independent scholar researching Indian
aesthetic theory. She has conducted a precise investigation
into some of the medieval Indian treatises on music and
dance, the mechanism of Kundalini and the Chakras in the
human body and their relation to rasa nishpattih. This book
presentsherfindingson thesubject.
MADHAVI PURANAM is the Chief Editor of Nartanam, a
quarterly journal on the dances of India. An avid spectator of
traditional Indian dance she is also a trained Kuchipudi
dancer. With a Masters in Business Administration she chose
Management as a career option but quit it to pursue her
creative urge and obtained a Masters in Performing Arts
(Dance). She travels widely to watch dance across India and
writesondance.
She is now working on a book based on her research on
marketing strategies in Indian Arts, especially in dance and
music, which was conducted for the Senior Research
Fellowship in the field of Management of Heritage and Art
and Cultural Institutions for the Ministry of Culture,
Governmentof India.
Indian Dance and Music in the traditional classical format are
ingrained in the psyche of every Indian as 'divine'. The
existence of beauty, its universal nature and portrayal in the
arts is a subject that has received much attention. What is it
that makes a dance beautiful and what is the mechanism of
reacting to dance in a spectator? Where does the onus for
relishing aesthetic pleasure lie and how does it come about?
Thesearethequestionswhose answers remainelusive.
This book will be of absorbing interest to the
practitioners, spectators, academics and aestheticians of
danceandmusicallovertheworld.
Some of the best known critical-aesthetic thoughts and
theories right from the ancient Greco-Roman philosophers
such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Longinus, and
Augustine, ancient Indian aestheticians like Bharata,
Anandavardhana, and Abhinavagupta to the much later
Japanese aesthetician Zeami, and the later European theorists
like Kant and Brecht, all lead to an element of the
metaphysicalinart.
th
Chatura Damodara's Sangita Darpanam, a 17 century
treatise on music and dance, indicates the presence of a
rarefied instrument in humans that naturally perceives the
essence of music and dance. Sahaja Yoga, a form of medita-
tion propounded by Dr. Nirmala Srivastava, known to her
followers as Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, has a vast body of
research in medicine on the apparatus similar to the one
describedinthesarira vivekaintheSangitaDarpanam.
Sarira viveka offers the tremendous possibility of it
being subjected to scientific research in the context of dance
and music which could lead it to be accessed and utilized by
the practitioners and spectators of dance and music. This
book proposes that the most highly encoded art can be
perceived and appreciated by the most ordinary of viewers
through an innate mechanism that all humans are equipped
with. It also offers a glimpse of the nuances of Indian
traditional dance forms in terms of their form, technique,
repertoire, and content that contribute significantly to the
experienceofthesublimebythespectator.
Madhavi Puranam has taken courage to examine the text of a
seventeenth century treatise entitled Sangita Darpanam by Chatura
Damodara. This text has not been noticed by many scholars. Her
work has significance in the contemporary discourse because she
makes a bridge between the textual tradition of India and modern
medical science. This is an area which should invite the curiosity and
attention of a younger generation. Normally, with notable
exceptions, the dancers dance, the critics comment, and the scholars
look into the text.This may be an extreme statement but there is some
truth in it. Having traversed all three worlds I have been impressed
with her courage and commitment as an editor, writer and someone
who has rare insights into what she calls ‘An Indian Analysis of
Aesthetics:TheDance,TheDancerandTheSpectator’.
Dr.KapilaVatsyayan
ISBN 81-7017-555-0
She is a Tagore Research Scholar of the Ministry of
Culture, Government of India and is due to commence her
work on KuchipudiYakshaganas.