VL 10 Becoming the Goddess - Possession Flashcards
Many ways of bringing the Goddess to life…
Mantra
Alphabet Storytelling/texts Poetry
Music Stories/music/visual
Yantra
Writing (case of Sanskrit alphabet)
Visual arts, photography, contemporary art
Theatre Dance Movies
What to think about museums?
Importance of the recipients: the viewers, the devotees
- Active engagement of the devotees with the images represented in art
- While seeing the images, viewers co-create the stories
- By engaging the viewers in still or in motion, arts reveal
their content in space and time - Body’s motion and position influence the experience of the narrative
- Only through interaction with the viewers, the arts can perform their narrative function
The artist’s job
- Artists must offer to the viewers enough information for them to be able to get:
1. the story
2. the message - Selecting what to include/ what to exclude
- Working with sets of conventional options (śāstras)
- Tradition vs Innovation
Different types of performances
Classical
* Dance: abstract and narrative dance (Bharatanatyam,
Kathak, Odissi, Kathakali)
* Theatre: Kerala Sanskrit theatre Kutiyattam
Folk
* tribal dances, popular theatre
* Ritual performances (Mutiyettu, Theyyam, Bharani, Deodani-Nac)
Classical dance
e.g. Bharatanatyam
* originating in Tamil Nadu but nowadays a globalised art
* modern “revived” traditions
* linked with older dance traditions (Devadāsīs) that were performed in temples and at courts
* 18th-20th c. dance repertoire (padam, javali, varnam, etc.) based on multilingual literary compositions (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Sanskrit, etc.)
* linked (imaginatively and non) with an authoritative textual tradition of codifying the arts in scientific treatises in Sanskrit (Nāṭyaśāstra) or in regional languages
* performed on the theatre stage
Classical theatre
Sanskrit theatre Kutiyattam
* the only living form of Sanskrit theatre exists in Kerala, South India
* only single acts are performed over many nights
* probably took its present form around the 15th c. but the
form is older
* performed traditionally in temples during seasonal festivals or commissioned (kutambalam)
* performed by the Chākyars (male actors) together with Nangyars (female actresses) and Nambyars (drummers)
Folk performances
- tribal dances, popular theatre
- e.g.Yakṣagānatheatre
- acourtly “semi-classical”forms a popular entertainment
- a multilingual courtly repertoire of dramas close to Sanskrit
drama vs Telugu/Kannada less refined popular drama - local tradition of South India, performed by men only
- Ritual performances (Mutiyettu, Bharani, Deodhani-Nac)
- non-codifiedforms
- sometimes linked to a narrative, based in regional texts or oral traditions
- caninvolvepossession
- ritual and theatrical boundaries are sometimes overlapping
Becoming the goddess in Kerala
ritual performances and possession
On the relationship between performing arts and temples:
* Festivals
* Dedicatedspacesin
temples for performances
* Templesenlargedtocreate new spaces for perfomances
* Literature
* Inscriptions
The actor and acting techniques
Nāṭyaśāstra 27.99-100:
“The rule regarding the actor is [that he should possess] intelligence, a beautiful appearance, knowledge of tempo and rhythm, knowledge of the rasas and the states, youth, curiosity, [ability to] understand and retain [the teachings], absence of physical defects, and courage in overcoming one’s [stage] anxiety.”
4 registers of acting (abhinaya):
* āṅgika-abhinaya: ‘bodily representation’, facial mimics, limb movements, dance
* vācika-abhinaya: ‘vocal representation’, dialogues in Sanskrit and Prakrit, songs, music
* āhārya-abhinaya: ‘ornamental representation’, make up, costume, ornaments
* sāttvika-abhinaya: ‘emotional or psychophysical representation’, through mindfulness
8 (or 9) [sthāyi]bhāvas (stable states)
8 (or 9) rasas (’tastes’, aesthetic emotions)
Bhāva 1. Delight (rati)
Rasa 1. The Erotic (śṛṅgāra)
2. Laughter (hāsa)
2. The Comic (hāsya)
3. Sorrow (śoka)
3. The Pathetic (karuṇa)
4. Anger (krodha)
4. The Furious (raudra)
5. Valour (utsāha)
5. The Heroic (vīra)
6. Fear (bhaya)
6. The Fearsome (bhayānaka)
7. Disgust (jugupsā)
7. The Loathsome (bībhatsa)
8. Wonder (vismaya)
8. The Marvellous (adbhuta)
[9. Tranquillity (śama)]
[9. The Pacified (śānta)]
The actor as vessel (pātra)
The actor does not access the aesthetic
emotions:
he is considered a pātra, a vessel, a goblet, which cannot savour the juice of the rasa
that is contained in it. The actor is only the means of of its transferal:
(ata eva naṭe na rasaḥ. […] naṭe tarhi kim? āsvādanopayaḥ […] ata eva ca pātram ity ucyate | na hi pātre madyāsvādaḥ | api tu tadupāyakaḥ)
→ argument: otherwise he would get lost in the emotion and forget to follow the rhythm and tempo. The actor should be in control of his/her mind
vs possession (āveśa)
- from ā-⎷viś (to enter, be entered)
- possession is part of religious experience, for instance in left-hand tantric rituals “altered states of consciousness”)
- controlled/ecstatic possession
- part of ritual theatre, sometimes making the boundaries
between theatre and ritual blurred - often,butnotalways,connectedwithfemale deities/beings
- especially available to lower social classes, not for Brahmins
- signs of possession: trembling, dancing frantically, imitating a god’s behaviours
Mudiyettu
- ritual theatre performed as an offering in various temples of the Goddess Bhadrakālī in central Kerala
- it is a theatre in its form, an enactment of the myth of Dārikavadham (”Slaying of the demon Dārikan”) in 7 scenes
- relatively fix scenography, theatrical props, musical accompaniment
- performed by Marar and Kuruppu castes
- 7 characters
- main character is the goddess Bhadrakālī, impersonated by the senior mutiyettukar (wearing the wooden headgear, valiya muṭi) in her costume, carrying her attributes ((sickle shaped sword, fangs, metal anklets)
Possession and divine presence
- the senior muṭiyettukar is the only character who gets possessed by Bhadrakālī through the headgear, a permanent receptacle of the śakti of the goddess
- he is not enacting or representing the Goddess, he is the Goddess → Mudiyettu is also a ritual that makes the Goddess present and
achieve the goal of worship for her devotees
“Mudiyettu is the most develop form of Kālīpūjā” (Nambyar 1989) - an interactive narration of the myth of Dārikan, and active reactualization of the Goddess’ cosmic combat
“Possession in Mudiyettu is based on the idea that imitation, i.e. the iconic realization of the goddess is the goddess”
(Pasty-Abdul Wahid 2019, p. 40)
```
~~~
Presentifying/personifying the
Goddess
The goddess is first invoked in the muṭiyēṯṯukar’s mind, where she is given a mental body through prayers and visualization. From there he constructs her physical body by putting on her costume, applying her make-up, carrying her headgear and most of all by acting like her. For the muṭiyēṯṯukars, being the goddess in a literal sense means presentifying her in a comprehensive way by restituting her physical appearance, her nature and her definitional behavior. When these elements are gathered, there is no need for any further demonstration of the goddess’ actual presence in their bodies. An important dimension of the personification of the goddess—and of the theatricality of possession—in Muṭiyēṯṯu’ is that it is prepared and non-spontaneous. Embodying the goddess is learned like a theatre role. It involves a fixed choreography and text. The audience shares this prebuilt knowledge and expects the gestures and actions to take place according to these established patterns. The performance progress is fixed and is not adapted to the development of possession.
(Pasty-Abdul Wahid 2017, p. 43)
