Spotlight
Revival Of Cambodian Traditional Dances

Quite recently, in late June, Phillippe Agret of the Agence
France Press sent a detailed report about the revival of Cambodia's classical
dances. These were kept alive, for centuries after the defeat and deposition of
the last Angkor king in the 15th century in the smaller royal courts. In 1965,
King Sikanouk founded the University of Fine Arts to continue the tradition.
But the inglorious Pol Pot regime set out to destroy the dance as part of an
old oppressive feudal system. Eight out of every ten dancers died in the
infamous "Killing Fields" betrayed by their artistic postures and
most manuscripts dealing with the art were destroyed.
But a few instructors
survived the ordeal and started reviving the tradition from 1979 in various
refugee camps near the Thai border. Preung Chien, a former royal palace dancer
who survived twenty years of labour in the paddy fields started reviving it in
the university of Fine Arts, with the help of Chea Samay (a sister-in-law of
the hated dictator Pol Pot!). The University also came under the direct
patronage of princess Bhopa Devi, daughter of King Sikanouk, and minister for
culture. The ballet troupe has now grown to fifty teachers and 300 students.
According to Chieng, it was a miracle that the; dance survived at all during
the most unbelievable period of madness in history. Now the real danger
according to him is not lack of patronage but globalisation of culture.
The revival of those traditional dances is good news for all
lovers of the performing arts and in particular for Indian connoisseurs and
Indophiles. They know about the Indian origins of Cambodian dance in a vague
general way and they have also noticed some resemblances and differences
vis-a-vis current Indian classical dances. They like to attribute the
differences to severance of cultural contacts. It is however interesting to
explore the deeper reasons, namely the historical context of the emigration of
Indian arts and their differing development in South East Asia and India
thereafter.
The classical dance system of India was taking shape
centuries . before Christ and seems to have settled its firm outlines between
the second and fourth centuries after Christ, as detailed in Bharata's Natya
Sastra. But after that and particularly from the seventh to the tenth
centuries, it underwent two broad changes (a) through the division of the
holistic theatre into separate arts and (b) the evolution of bhakti sringara.
The holistic theatre discussed by Bharata spawned three separate art-streams
namely music, dance proper and rhythm. Along with the evolution of bhakti
sringara, it promoted the individual female dancer to a central position.
Holistic theatre went into the background, more through the
emergence of bhakti sringara or erotic devotion, in South India from the 7th
century onwards and its spread over the rest of India. It evolved in Tamil Nadu
under the most favourable conditions; the dominant erotic romantic genre of
ancient Tamil poetry called Akam supplied the model when the devotional cult
was evolving; the idea that the deity in the temple should be treated as a king
in his palace to be worshipped through the sensuous arts, also derived from the
Arruppadai genre of Tamil literature, took root and legitimised the offering of
music and dance in the temple. As a result the lyrics for a dance came to be
based on "bhakti sringara" proclaiming a woman's love for the Lord.
This virtually pushed the holistic theatre format into the background and
entrenched the single lady dancer interpreting devotional lyrics. I have
elaborated all this in detail in two earlier articles [From Bharata to
Nandikeswara in Sruti and The Origin of Bhakti in Tamil Nadu, Chap. 1 in Bhakti
Studies (edited by Bailey & Wilson, Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 1989).
Indian emigration and the consequent cultural transformation
of South East Asia took place mainly from the seventh to the tenth century.
During this period South East Asians took over Bharata's holistic theatre and
made their own adaptations, even as the Indian classical system went through
important changes by itself. As a result, there have arisen differences between
these cultural cousins. These were based not so much on artistic factors but
were more influenced by socio-economic and practical factors.
The most striking difference is that the south East Asian
dances have retained the holistic theatre format and developed as group dances
(i) either as dance-dramas of say the Ramayana or as (ii) collective tableau
dances like Apsara, while Indian classical dance of the major schools had since
then developed essentially as an individual dancer's performance, based on
bhakti sringara.
In South East Asia, the older holistic theatre format was
not affected by the new devotional erotic tradition. Buddhism as the dominant
religion of South East Asia did not encourage that but supported the non-erotic
Bodhisatva cult of devotion. Dance retained its holistic format, also because
the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata had become popular and were presented
as dancedramas. Moreover in Cambodia, the development of the Devaraja cult of
equating the 'Varman' kings with Siva encouraged a tableau group like 'Apsara'
which developed it as part of royal and temple pageantry (supported by the God
King and King God concepts). Thus the South East Asian countries which absorbed
the pre-devotional theatre format of Indian dance have retained and developed
it.
The second most
noticeable difference between the South East Asian and Indian classical dances
(in particular Bharatanatyam) is the continued use of some karana-s in the
former, while these have been mostly phased out over the centuries by the
system of adavu-s. This is more difficult to explain as historical material
available is scrappy and discontinuous. One can however make intelligent
guesses towards an explanation.
The fourth chapter of Natya Sastra describes the 108
karana-s in the first half and angahara-s and a few related topics in the
second half. The description of a karana literally interpreted, includes
details of the disposition of foot and hand and facial movements towards a
final interesting artistic pose. Whether karana denotes the final artistic pose
or the successive movements leading to it is a practical question. The actual
wording in the text is capable of a static interpretation for some karana-s and
a movement interpretation for some others. In practice, a static-sounding
karana 'pushpaputa' (the very first karana) is currently employed with the
addition of simple foot movements as Pushpanjali. Similarly some other karana-s
are being executed with repetitive and consecutive movements according to the
beats of a tala— (as used for example by Padma Subrahmanyam, in portraying
Kaliyamardana in her Kiishnaya Tubhyam Namaha). But looking at the description
of karana-s, as a whole and as such without commentary, some would best
represent static poses— while some others would qualify as a series of
consecutive movements.
The real question
however is why the karana-angahara system went into the background over the
centuries in India while a part of it has survived in Cambodian and Thai dances,
in which at least a dozen karana-s can be identified (for example Mayuralalitam
and Garudaplutakam). It is plainly impossible to trace the history of the
intervening centuries comparatively to establish the causes for this firmly.
But an important cause may be the high development of the musical system in
India and its dominant influence on dance.
In Bharata's Natya Sastra, music is inseparable from dance
and is already quite developed along melodic lines, though there are doubts
about the 22 sruti-s and the concept of jati. Over the later centuries, a
sophisticated raga system and a more and more intricate tala system took shape.
As dance became independent of holistic theatre, it became even more closely
tied to the music and tala system. Thereafter, the rhythmic movements or nritta
had first to be harmonied with a tala format and secondly, they were to be
executed in pairs right and left and also had to be serialised with variations
to form a jati. This type of nritta passage could not be easily derived from
the complex karanaangahara system to be executed to harmonise with the
increasingly sophisticated tala system. Ultimately, the system of adavu-s
evolved and was set down in Tulaja Maharaja's Sangeeta Saaraamritam.
We know little about
the history of the intervening steps. There was probably a concerted effort to
stabilise the karana-s and the general framework of Bharatanatyam from the
tenth to the thirteenth century, under Raja Raja and Rajendra Cholas, the
Kakatiya Kings of Warangal and the Hoysalas of Dwarasamudram. The carving of
the karana-s in the Brihadeeswara temple and the commandeering of 400 dancers
from different temples and settling them down in the four streets round the
temple were all crucial steps taken by Raja Raja in this direction and this was
followed by the carving of karana-s in other temples such as Chidambaram. The
idea of the nritta mantapa, was taken from the Chola temple but was more fully
developed by the Kakatiyas. All Kakatiya temples have larger nritta mantapa-s
as the most important part of the temple with dance related sculptures. The
mantapa facing the sanctum in the famous Ramappa temple, includes a sculpture
of amrita-manthan reminiscent of the fourth chapter of Bharata's Natya Sastra
in addition to several dance poses. Two smaller temples on the lakeshore
include only the mantapa and the sanctum. The Hoysala temples followed suit
with the mantapa facing the sanctum.
All these built up temple dance as an institution but they
don't seem to have helped in preserving the karana-s as an integral part of
dance. The next period witnessed much development in pure rhythm or suddha
nritta. Rhythm-centred dances like Jakkini and Perani took shape in this period
as well as works on rhythm like Jayappa's Nritta Ratnavali. Ultimately, by the
eighteenth century, out of the various rhythmic movements that evolved, some
were selectively incorporated into adavu-s.
South East Asian countries took over the melody based system
of music but they did not develop a raga system or an elaborate corpus of
tala-s. Even now their melodies are mostly pentatonic and their rhythms are not
too complicated. Possibly this enabled them to preserve and use complex
karana-s without any challenge from complex rhythms for footwork needed in
executing the steps of a complex karana in tandem with the tala.
The thrust of this
brief effort at comparison is to highlight some" socio-historical factors
in the evolution of classical dances, and to correct a tendency particularly in
India to regard all art as selfcontained and as propelled by internal-religious
factors alone in its evolution. The importance of external societal factors in
the development of the arts is quite well recognised in studies of Western art
in Western Universities. Indian scholarship in art needs to develop a more
sociological orientation for a deeper understanding of artistic development.
PROF. V. SUBRAMANIAM