Indumati Raman, an alumna of Rukmini Devi's Kalakshetra (Chennai), is an exponent, mentor, choreographer, and writer on the arts. She was active as performer and mentor from 1966. From 1993 to 2002 she was Chairperson, Sponsor and Patron associated with the artistes of Melattur Bhagavata Mela Natya Vidya Sangam. Five 4-day festivals of Bhagavata mela Natakams were organised and curated by Smt. Indumati in Mumbai, Chennai and Thiruvaiyaru.
Indumati produced, directed and staged in 2002, Bavasaheb Ekoji Bhonsle II's (1736-1737) natakam 'Sakuntala in Mumbai in collaboration with artistes from both Melattur and Mumbai. The effort received acclaim and appreciation from the Marathi theatre fraternity in Mumbai.
Smt. Indumati is the author of 'Bhagavata Mela My Tryst with Tradition' the history and evolution of the Bhagavata Mela tradition. (Indus Source Books 2017).
Indumati Raman was awarded National Tagore Fellowship in 2018/19. Her project was "Design & Rhetoric of Marathi Yakshaganams of Thanjavur Maratha Rajas". The Thesis included translation, transliteration and annotation for two Marathi yakshaganams besides history of Thanjavur Maratha Rajas.
This work of Indumati Raman is a significant contribution to the studies of Indian classical dance and the texts that brought into performance by it, and to the studies of a rarely noticed aspect of linguistic, religious, social and spiritual culture of Bharat in general and Hinduism in particular.
That is the composite nature and inter group and inter strata fluidity of culture at the level of languages, sects, settlement patterns like rural and urban, cultural strata like elite and non-elite. Particularly less noticed is the prevalence of such culture in the Tamil region. The widespread and famous image of extreme linguistic and regional cultural self-esteem, beautiful, sweet, linguistic and regional cultural conservatism of the Tamil population comes in the way of recognizing the rich and vibrant prevalence of a 'non-Dravidian' 'north Indian' language Marathi, its speakers, the prevalence of the vibrantly performed Marathi Bhakti lyrical texts among the Tamil speaking Hindu Bhakti communities and groups. That there is a Thanjavur dialect of Marathi spoken in the families of Marathi ancestry and lineage in Tamil Nadu, particularly south India, did not catch the attention of the observers of pan Indian or Tamil culture. That there are numerous vibrant Bhakti communities of Hindu Tamilians that perform Marathi abhanga lyrics as Bhajans through choral music, dance, in the Tamil region is not widely discussed by observers and researchers of Indian or Hindu culture.
The book focuses on the Marathi dance theatrical texts that emerged in the 17th and 18th century cultural milieu in the Tamil region to which this present-day interesting aspect of Marathi Bhajan singing performing culture among Tamilians can be traced. Two centuries of the rule of Maratha rulers in Tanjore marks the origins of such aspects of Tamil-Marathi composite Hindu culture.
This book is about Yaksaganams, a unique genre of dance-theatre of south India. The term Yaksaganams is generic to dance-theatre format of parallel traditions found in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra. While Karnataka's drama tradition is known as Yakshgana, in Andhra it is called Kuchipudi. The Thanjavur (Tamil Nadu) Yaksaganams is today known popularly in its diluted version as dance-drama and dance ballets.
When Sanskrit theatre declined and regional forms raised their heads, they were welcomed by lay viewers and connoisseurs. This book describes the design and rhetoric of the drama format written by the royal Thanjavur Maratha composers.
The word Yaksaganams is commonly used here for theatre, plays and drama.
The Maratha kings were natives of Thanjavur, a branch of the family in Maharashtra, western India. Educated in southern music and dance culture which flourished here, they were polyglots fluent in Marathi, Telugu, Sanskrit and Tamil. They used this skill to create multi-lingual plays. The history of Thanjavur Maratha s, their immense contribution to this country's literature and arts goes unnoticed and neglected even today. An academic study of the plays has been neglected and almost forgotten save by a few scholars.
In the Yaksaganams, the story unfolds in poetic verses which are set to music and dance, dialogues to be enacted, and narration by the Sutradhar/Director, which takes the story forward. Commencing with salutations to deities, the story is woven together with ornate poetry in Sanskrit. As these are stories from our Puranas, there is a prayerful attitude, with emotional and humorous situations in the story. In Thanjavur Yaksaganams, a poetic device called churnikas, which are odes addressed to deities, are in Sanskrit. Sutradhar, who plays a crucial role, and the other characters converse in Marathi making it a multilingual work. Prose passages, dialogues, and verses flow one after the other as the story unfolds. Each passage is crafted and ornamented with literary and poetic devices developed over time. These are masterly works written for presentation as drama and dance and set in a variety of metres and verses. The Thanjavur play is ornamented with poetic meters of various lengths, exquisite imagery in Sanskrit studded with precious philosophic values culled from the epics and mythology. The songs were set to classical music and dance sequences with prose in speech for dramatic effect.
This book is a study of the design and rhetoric of two multi-lingual Yaksaganams, composed by the Thanjavur Maratha Rajas Sahaji II and Bavasaheb Ekoji II. The two plays are written by scholarly kings of the 17th and 18th century CE.
They reflect diverse approach to the format. The first is a romantic legend and the treatment contrasts with the other richly devotional play. The ornate language and complex format of these plays ranks high among similar works, comparable to Kalidasa and other Sanskrit poets.
The main body of my book is the transliteration, translation, and annotation of two Marathi Yaksaganams. In this book the English translation of the Yaksaganams is versified. I humbly submit that the methodology may not conform to the rigid canons that rule translations of the classical language. Any attempt to match the rich ornate language of the original is quite futile where the complexity of the ideas and description has cultural and religious connotations.
Annotation notes for some verses help bridge the cultural and sociological differences between the Oriental and the Occident.
At the Foundation Day celebrations at a Hyderabad university (December 2021), Venkaiah Naidu, ex-Vice-President of India, stated that 'to preserve and promote the use of various Indian languages efforts should be made to translate literary classics into other languages. These words are significant in the context of my work.
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