Temple dancers of Sri Lanka

Subashini PATHMANATHAN

In Sri Lanka the role of temple dancers did not carry any particular ritual purpose in the Sri Lankan Hindu temple traditions. Yet during the temple festivals these professional temple dancers performed dances in the outdoor of the temple premises as well as in the outer verandahs of the temples. Anyway particular class women were only supposed to perform this type of dances in the temples.

During the British era the temple dancers were called Nautch girls

The male members of this particular traditional class are still known Periyamelakarar, because they play the large temple traditional musical instruments call Natheswaram, or Nageswaram and Thavil. Among all the traditional Tamil musical instruments, Natheswaram and Thavil are the biggest musical instruments. That’s why those who handle or play these instruments are often referred to Periyamelakarar (that means the players of the big musical instruments).

Temple functions

And the female members of this clan were known as Devaradiyarkal or Sinnamelakaries. These female dancers were supposed to dance at the temple functions. With the passage of time in Tamil Nadu practising and performing dances at the temples were legally banded by the state legislative assembly.

Similarly the moderate Hindu Tamil community and several social reformers of Sri Lanka also opposed the practice of dancing at the Hindu temples, due to the malpractices of these temple dancers. And many often these dance programmes were ended with disturbances.

The research studies on this subject reveal that first of all, the temple dance performances were stopped at the Arali Muttu Mari Amman temple in the Jaffna district by the bold action of the temple manager. This action caused vigilance among all the temple administrators in the Island especially in the Northern Sri Lanka.

Gradually other temple authorities also try to ban the temple dance performances at the temples in Sri Lanka.Similarly many big temples like Nallur Kandaswamy temple Jaffna and Mavidapuram Kandaswamy temple Kankesanthurai also slowly and slowly discontinued and abandoned this tradition. Many of these temple dancers never adhered to the basic Hindu traditional norms or moral codes.

They ate meat and danced at the temples. Still reliable oral evidences also reveal that most of these dancers drank and danced at the temples.

Temple dances

All these above said incidents were the main causes to abandon these dance performances at the temples. When the big temples abandoned the temple dances, yet for a long time, village temples and small temples continued this customs. They arranged such programs mainly to attract the crowd despite of the fact that severe social stigma was strongly attached to this tradition.

During the British era the temple dancers were called Nautch girls. These temple dances were not considered as a part of temple rituals in Sri Lanka. But it was considered more or less as a social practice at the temples by the average level masses. However in India dancing at temples were certainly considered as a part of temple rituals.

According to one Sri Lankan historical evidence of 1946 reveals that at one temple in Mallakam in Jaffna district a large number of crowd was over whelmed at a temple premises including, elderly people and small children irrespective of their age differences to view the dance performances of four Nautch girls in the temple premises.

This entertainment event normally started at the late nights and continued till the early hours of the following day. Those dancers dressed themselves with beautiful saris, and heavy makeup. It was generally said that these dances of the Nautch girls were not either refined or systematically structured. No proper or well defined repertoire was adopted for their dances.

In spite of all these drawbacks certain temple authorities arranged these shows at their temples till the last quarter of the 20th century. Still they arranged these shows just for entertainment purpose, especially during the festival time. Normally these dancers also started their dance with the invocation song on Lord Ganesha as usual in the Hindu tradition. In other words the ancient temple dancers of Sri Lanka always dedicated the very first dance item to Lord Ganesha.

In Hinduism Lord Ganesha is supposed be the God of success, God of worldly wisdom and remover of obstacle. And later they switched on to some other songs of their own choice.

Hence the approach and practice of Hindu temple dance tradition in Sri Lanka was entirely different from the Indian Hindu temple dance traditions.