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ABSTRACT
This article will critically explore how the intersection of mimesis and labour may open up another perspective on the much-theorized relationship between practice (prayoga) and theory (śāstra) in dance and painting. Labour or śrama, a loaded term by itself, will be taken in its complex sense of not only involving labour as skill that informs acts of painting, acting-dancing but also as a thematic of representation. Interspersed into these two senses is ritual labour or the labour involving acts of propitiating the divine – a domain not sufficiently thought out beyond the truism that religion pervades all spheres of Indic life. What this mode of inquiry aims to bring out is a tense relationship between manual/artistic labour and ritual labour both as a site of complicity and conflict amongst the actor-dancers and the authors of the treatises.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. yathā nŗtte, tathā citre, trailoyānukŗtam smŗtāh. III.35.5 cd.
This is the author’s translation of the oft quoted verse from the Citrasūtra section of the III section of the Vişņudharmottarapurāņa. It slightly differs from how the author translated it in the critical edition: Dave-Mukherji, “Citrasūtra of the Vişņudharmottara Purāņa,” 3.
2. Dave-Mukherji, “Who is Afraid of Mimesis?” 71–92. Being unable to find aone to one correspondence between the Sanskrit term and ‘mimesis’ or ‘imitation’, I had to settle for this laboured translation. I have foregrounded critical historiography while exploring Anukŗtivāda or the theory of mimesis using the lens of comparative aesthetics to grasp its cultural specificity in relation to the western theories of mimesis.
3. Maxwell, “Śilpa versus Śāstra,” 5–15.
4. This theme in Indian Art History has rarely been taken up except by the art historian, R. N. Misra, who has placed the early Indian artists within their institutional context of guild formation and foregrounded their role as creative practitioners. Misra, Ancient Artists & Art-Activity, 131–51.
5. Lidova, 7–93; Thomas Kintaert, “Ritual Performances in the Nāṭyaśāstra.”
6. Dave-Mukherji, “Who is Afraid of Mimesis?” 71–92.
7. Nāṭya and nŗtta are equated under the section on hand gestures.
uttāna vartulastraśryah sthito adhomukha eva ca
panca prakāra hastasya nāṭyanŗttsamāśrayah. NS, 497.
8. CS. 35.6–7.
9. The distinction between non-mimetic dance nŗtta and mimetic dance Nŗtya is a later development attributed to Śārngadeva in the 14th century. It was more implicit in the Nāṭyaśāstra. Mandakranta Bose 194.
10. The NS discussed 36 Dŗşṭi in all, some of which correspond to the nine Rasas. NS. 8.40.
11. samatārā samaputā nişkampā śunyadarśanā.
bāhyārthāgrāhiṇi dhyāmā sunyā dŗşṭih prakīrtitā. NS. 8.65.
12. śramapralāmpitapuṭā ksāmā kuncitalocanā.
… sannā patitatārā ca śrāntā dŗşṭih prakīrtitā … . NS 8.67
13. karmavyagrajanaprāyah kavtavyo vāsaras tathā.
dvijanair niyamibhir yuktam raktām sandhyām pradarśayet. CS.42.71
14. netra utpalapatrābham raktāntam kŗsnatārakam.
prasannam dīrghapakmāntam manognam mrduvatma ca. CS.38.1.
15. devatānām kŗtam rājan prajā hitakaram bhavet.
Same gokşīravarṇābhe snigdhe jimhāgrapakşamale. CS.38.2.
16. ‘Lines that are either [too] weak or [too] thick, lack of details (avibhaktatvam) oversized cheeks, lips, and eyes, crooked lines and the [undue] merging of colours (varṇānām saṃkarah)’ count as citra dośa or faults in a painting. Dave-Mukherji, “Rethinking Gender Issues in Indian Art,” 247.
17. This is the author’s translation that slightly modifies the earlier translation. Ibid.
18. urdhva dŗşṭiradhodŗşṭis tiryak tesām vivarjayet.
hinādhikā vā dinā va kŗuddhā rukşā tathaiva ca CS. 38.13
19. urdhvā tu maraṇāyokta śokāyadhah prakīrtitā.
tiryag dhanavināśāya hīnā bhavati mŗtyave. CS. 38.14
20. I use ‘cosmopolitan’ associating it with Sanskrit, in the sense proposed by Sheldon Pollock. ‘It was instead a symbolic network created in the first instance [189] by the presence of a similar kind of discourse in a similar language deploying a similar idiom and style to make similar kinds of claims about the nature and aesthetics of polity – about kingly virtue and learning; the dharma of rule; the universality of dominion.’ Pollock, “The Sanskrit Cosmopolis, A.D. 300–1300,” 229–230.
21. I avoid using ‘mind’, or ‘intellect’ as an antonym of ‘body’ and prefer non-body as a broad but less problematic term.
22. Dance is also seen by Bharata as an introduction to dramatic performance as a purvaraṅga. Bose, Movement and Mimesis, 109.
23. Kriyā is thus reduced to invocation of the gods and thereby confined to ritual labour by the Uttarapaksa.
24. As pointed out by Bose, the distinction between nṛtta and nṛtya did not emerge before the tenth century A.D. (Movement and Mimesis, 111). Naṭānkuśa uses them as analytical categories to justify the important role of the actor-dancer.
25. For Bharata, the Purvaraṅga or Nandi or preliminaries may be presented with or without dance. When there is no dance but songs are sung, it is known as śuddha or pure, whereas when it is accompanied by dancing, it is called citra or mixed. NS. 4.15–16.
26. Dave-Mukherji, “Who is Afraid of Mimesis?”
27. It reminds me of the 16th century Italian artist and treatise writer, Cenino Cenini who writes about how rational proportions apply only to rational, male bodies whereas women and animals’ bodies do not merit application of rules. Rather than claiming patriarchy to be universal, I have argued elsewhere that the art treatises like the Citrasūtra are comparatively more inclusive by bringing women’s bodies within the rules of iconometry, even if the male prototypes have a primacy. Dave-Mukherji, Rethinking Gender Issues in Indian Art, 128, end note 17.
28. yat kincid lokasādrśyam, tat satyam ucyate. CS. 41.2 ab.
29. Author’s translation.
30. Dehejia, “The Body Adorned,” 16.
31. Descriptions of the lower caste body is varying, from being short, tawny in complexion, with teeth slightly protruding (kiṃcid danturaka), to being clever (catura). In the CS, out of the 5 male body types, the first (Hamsa type) is the tallest (108 aṅgulas), as fair as the moon (candragaura) and most handsome, reserved for representing the gods and the kings. The last two are associated with labour: Rucaka and Śaśaka. If the Rucaka type is 100 aṅgula in height, he has the perfect conch shell neck, is highly intelligent, laborious (śramika) whereas the Śaśaka type is 92 aṅgula tall, brown and reddish in complexion, with full cheeks and clever (catura).
32. CS. 43.23. pratitam ca likhet dhimānnapratitam kathañcana. A wise painter only depicts that which is recognizable [or trustworthy] (pratitam) and never should he paint that which is unconvincing (apratitam). Dave-Mukherji, “Nāṭyaśāstra of Sri Bharata Muni,” 248–249.
33. Bose, Movement and Mimesis, 258.
34. This reading of the dance is further corroborated by the emergence of the categories of rule-bound (bandha) and flexible anibandha regimens of dancing around this time. Ibid.