________________
Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
the Vaishnavite celebration of Ramlila, the "cosmic play" of Sri Rama. Like the Rasalila of Vraja, Ramlila too is an all male bhakti theatre form. It draws its performance text from Ramayana and Tulsidas's Ramacharitamanas,' and is performed in regions all over north India. Developed as a bhakti genre around the nineteenth century, the Ramlila of Varanasi and more specifically, of Ramnagar in Uttar Pradesh, provides a fascinating theatrical experience. The Maharaja of Varanasi plays the chief patron and host to Ramlila performed as a month long event held during the Dasehra festival each year. He parades riding over the royal elephant led by his marching band among cheers from tens of thousands of people gathered to witness the spiritual representation of the coming to earth of Sri Rama. In Ramnagar, the entire town is deeply submerged into great devotional fervor at this time as the entire Ramlila theatre travels night after night from the central square to the river front and to the outskirts of the town in keeping with the Ramayana acts as they progress in the epic story.
To an audience of over one hundred thousand people gathered to watch the Ramlila at Ramnagar during the Dasehra festival, the characters are swarupa or representations of the divine images of Gods, Goddesses, semi-divine sages and therefore, venerated as such for the duration of the play. In a special ceremony at the end of Ramlila, even the Maharaja offers worship to the lead swarupas. All character roles in Ramlila are performed by males. The lead roles of Rama, Sita, and his three younger brothers are performed by young brahmin boys. Emphasis is given to the inherent innocent" quality of the young male actor who plays the lead role of Rama. "The actor playing Rama must be pure, innocent and have no knowledge of sex” (Gargi 1966:99). The actors must be pious devotees, deeply involved in the roles they play. Over years, the actors receive great respect from their audiences and become identified with the character roles they have repeatedly played for many years.
Temple form of Kathak, flourishing in the north Indian regions of Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, and Bengal since the 17th century, was also dominated by male performers. Influenced by the bhakti movement, temple Kathak centered largely around the Radha-Krishna lore drawn from the Bhagavad Purana, the epics and Shiva stutis. Traditionally, a male dancer performed solo Kathak dance, incorporating all characters of the story in what is termed as "ekaharya abhinaya," meaning, a single dancer enacting a variety of characters - switching from one to another as they enter and re-enter the story - using an aesthetic combination of song, dance and rhythmic footwork to embellish his art (see Shah 1998). Parallely, Kathak also developed as a royal courtly form of entertainment where it was enriched with vigorous dance technique, intricately complex rhythmic footwork and the poetic art of depicting subtle nuances in the portrayal of various epic and mythical characters. Pandit Bindadin Maharaj, an ardent devotee of Sri Krishna and a court dancer in the employ of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Avadh popularized the performance of thumris - romantic songs of love and separation with reference to Sri Krishna and Radha - as a highlight of a Kathak performance. As in the temples, so in the royal courts too, the male dancer
zum
: y. 24, vis 3-8, zuszi. 2004 – Hz, 2006
For Private and Personal Use Only
