Rasa: Performing the Divine in IndiaWhile many people outside India find the images, sounds, and practices of Indian performing arts compelling and endeavor to incorporate them into the "global" repertoire, few are aware of the central role of religious belief and practice in Indian aesthetics. Completing the trilogy that includes Darsan: Seeing the Divine and Mantra: Hearing the Divine in India and America, this volume focuses on how rasa has been applied in a range of Indian performance traditions. "Rasa" is taste, essence, flavor. How is it possible that a word used to describe a delicious masala can also be used to critique a Bharata Natyam performance? Rasa expresses the primary goals of performing arts in India in all the major literary, philosophical, and aesthetic texts, and it provides the cornerstone of the oral traditions of transmission. It is also essential to the study and production of sculpture, architecture, and painting. Yet its primary referent is cuisine. This book articulates the religious sensibility underlying the traditional performing arts as well as other applications of rasa and examines the relationships between the arts and religion in India today. |
Contents
A Taste of Things to Come I | 1 |
Text and Context | 7 |
Drama Dance Music | 21 |
Transformations in Time and Space | 87 |
GLOSSARY | 99 |
| 107 | |
| 113 | |
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Common terms and phrases
achieve aesthetic ananda ancient Arangetram art forms artistic arts in India Asian associated audience become bhakti Bharata Natyam bhava body Brahman century classical color Common Common Era context creation creative culture dance form dancer defined deity described devadasi devotional diaspora divine drama embodiment emotion essence example experience flavor gesture goal guru Hindu tradition Hinduism human Ibid icon Indian dance Indian traditions influence Islam JEDEDIAH BAKER Kalarippayattu Kalidasa Kathak Kathakali Krishna lila macrocosm manifestation Marglin maya Mohiniyattam movement mudras musicians Nataraja nature Natyashastra Nritta performance traditions performing arts Phillip Zarrilli physical play poetry practice qualities raga rasa reality refinement relationship religion religious result ritual sacred Sanskrit sawal-jawab sense sensibility sexual Shafaatullah Khan Shanta Shiva Shovana Narayan shringara shringara rasa sound South Asia spiritual stage story student subcontinent Tamil taste texts textual Theatre tion transcendence transformation ultimate understanding understood Vatsyayan western word worship