Influence of music on Bharatha Natyam

Subashini Pathmanathan

Normally in all dance forms, whether it is ritual, religious, classical, folk or any sort of dance form, the music is the soul and strength. Music inspires the human mind.

Facial expressions are essential in dance

At the same time the music not only comprises vocal music but also instrumental music as well. Earlier the instruments used for dance were called Geethangam and the instruments used for nirtha (steps) were called Nirthangam.

Tamil Nadu was under various rulers and different cultural concepts were introduced in different periods. During the period of Pallavas, art, culture, religious values and traditions were well protected and preserved to some extent.

After the Pallava period the Chola period followed. During this period royal patronage was given to fine arts and religion. Especially to dance, music, drama, painting, sculpture, architecture and literature. This era was considered a golden era in the history of Tamil land.

The Chola period was followed by the Nayaka period. Generally Nayaka period in Tamil history was considered as a dark period. But in the development of history of dance there was a considerable progress. During the Nayaka period numerous dance compositions were composed.

Some beautiful padams in Telugu language were also composed by the rulers themselves. It was believed that the previous temple dance form Sathir got a rational format only during this period.

A famous Telugu epic named Valmiki Charithram was written by one Nayaka ruler Ragunatha Nayak who created and introduced two imaginary dance characters.

And he created a dance competition between these two imaginary dance character Rampa and Urvasi. In this epic numerous dance and musical nuances are mentioned.

According to Ragunatha, Urvasi danced 23 dances, and Rampa danced four different varieties of dance forms.

This showed that numerous dance forms and variety of dance forms existed during that time. He further mentioned about some number of Asamutha hastas, Samutha hastas, Nirtha hastas, (hand muthras), body positions, neck movements, side body positions and leg positions.

This reveals that the dance tradition of those days was preserved with high norms. Further in his epic he mentioned numerous musical instruments used during time for dance, including string instruments, leather instruments and other variety of various instruments. The srinagara padams and desi musical traditional songs were used for dance. A great Telugu poet Kashetrajna who visited Thanchai during the period of Nayak King Vijeyaragava Nayak and King Thirumalai composed beautiful Telugu padams.

More or less the terms Sangeetha Mela, Chinna Mela and Periya Mela came into existence during this period in the music and dance world. Hence during the period of Nayaka period as far as dance and music are concerned both these fields faced tremendous changes and development.

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