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Of cosmic dance

Her evolution as a writer must be the end of one of the many journeys Ranjana Srivastava talks about in "Tantra Mantra Yantra in Dance: An Exposition of Kathaka" (D.K. Printworld, Rs.750). In this book, she neither tries to impress readers with her scholarly outpouring nor burden them with voluminous details about the dance form. She encourages one to approach it as a dancer's vision-research-album in which she jots down her searching, her thoughts about the roots, her views on the necessity of innovation in Kathak, on how dance is to be viewed. Her words flow as smoothly as her movements, but one is easily distracted by the vibrant sketches and pictures.

This book is divided into the expositions of Kathak dance as tantra, mantra and yantra, to conclude how this dance discipline originally related with these three major aspects of Indian spirituality. She writes, "My inspiration to write a book on tantra-mantra-yantra in dance is largely a result of my growth and evolution as a student, performer, teacher and researcher of Kathak, as will as my effort to integrate the traditional knowledge I received from my late guru, Vikram Singhji, largely in the form of an oral tradition."

This research (after the work of Shovana Narayan), in order to touch the circumference of the mystiques of tantra or mantra, moves through several shastras, such as the Natya Shastra, Sangeet Shastra, Tantra Shastra, Nritta Shastra, Brhaddesi, the Sangitaratnakara, etc. In the tantra portion, she derives that dance is a visual representation of the manifestation of Nada, the imaging sound. The seed syllables of notes or Pataksaras perhaps, reflect the influence of tantra on the already existing tradition of Vedic Sangeet. In the section on mantra, she concludes that the mnemonic syllables of Kathak, through apparently meaningless, are loaded with power - the power of Nada Brahman. Similarly, in the yantra section, she admits that the principles of composition in the art form are studied and laboured, because in India the evolution of the arts, whether painting, sculpture or dance, has been the work of successive generations, and the traditional artists were dedicated to the realisation of metaphysical/religious ideas.

Some omissions

The writer, who is eager to shed new light on Kathak and is earnest in the search for the roots of dance in the area of tantra, etc., overlooks the entire fundamental regions of tantra as Kashmir Shaivism or Agama Shastra.

Besides the Nigama, the lights of tantra, we find from the Buddhist Tantra, Natha Sampradaya, Shankar's Tantra and the Tantra of Kashmir Shaivism. In the Prapancha Sara Tantra of Adi Shankara, we find the names of six rasas with the initially introduced Shanta rasa. Again, the major work of Abhinava Gupta, the polymath of Kashmir Shaivism, is Tantraloka (The Light of Tantra), in which he bows down to that energy which is a dancing essence. The Shiva Sutras of this profound and mystic agama itself contain the important sutra that is Nartaka Atma. The discourse on tantra in dance is incomplete if we don't discuss these with Vigyan Bhairav.

In quantum, this scholarly written research-oriented book on Kathak tries to explore new vistas in the dimension of Indian Agama-Nigama consciousness. The writer should take note that in tantra, there exist only six chakras, or the psychophysical centres, whereas in music, there exist 10 chakras, as described by Sarangadeva in his famous Sangitaratnakara. Overall, with the interesting explanations by Premlata Sharma, the well-known musicologist, this book is of great interest to those readers who are limited to only dance performances. Lastly one can say, this book opens another horizon of Nritya Shastra in terms of Kathak.

Gautam Chatterjee

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