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| The Birth of Bharata Natya |
In this series, we bring to you the story of Bharata Natya, the technicalities of Natya sastra, its finer details like what is abhinaya, what is mudra etc. This series, which will appear on every Tuesday, is written by the well-known writer Krishangini, in association with her dancer-daughter, Neeraja Nagarajan now living in Singapore.
 There is a story behind the birth of Bharata Natya. In the Thretha Yuga, the second of the four Yugas, people were leading their lives without any self-control or self-restraint. Leading a life of miserliness, sadistic ways of deriving pleasure from the pain of others, going astray led by lust and such other lower and despicable forms of pursuits pleased them. Greed, crookedness, cruelty and malevolence were the order of the day. This caused concern to the Devas and they wanted to bring some order in the life of these mortals by some alternate arrangement.
The Devas discussed among themselves to find out the reason for the downfall of humanity. The Vedas defined and prescribed the ways in which humanity should lead its life. But Vedas were in the hands of the Brahmins. Not everyone could understand its message because of its depth of meaning as well as because they were a strictly guarded secret among a section of the people. Therefore the celestials thought that the Vedas must be simplified and be spread among the masses in order to put the humanity back on its track. They therefore requested Brahma through Indra to cull out such facts and codifications from the Vedas that would benefit humanity at large and spread it through a performing art so that the message reaches them and purifies the lives of one and all. The essence of all the four Vedas was collected and compiled as the fifth Veda.
Language, speech and communication were taken from the Rig Veda. Music from the Sama Veda, expression of feelings from Yajur Veda and aesthetics from the Atarvana Veda were distilled and the fifth Veda was compiled by Brahma. He wanted this Veda to be spread among humanity not by words, but by performing art. He therefore entrusted the job to Bharata muni.
 Bharata muni then taught it to a hundred of his disciples. Since it was not possible for men alone to express all the feelings - like motherliness for instance - he created 24 apsara kanyas. Then they needed a story to dramatise it and convey the message. They chose the story of the burning of Tiripuras for the performance. Lord Parameshwara, according to the legend, burnt the Tiripuras by his laughter. That was performed before the Lord himself. The Lord felt that apart from the dramatic element in the art, it would be still more effective if it had the element of Tandava (dance) as well.
Bharata muni saw the point and learnt the dance form from Tandu, a disciple of the Lord and graceful movements from Parvati Devi. This form then spread among the masses for their good and took strong roots.
That is the legend behind Bharata Natya. Historically, the origin of Bharata Natya has been traced back and its time is believed to be approximately between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD.
Krishangini - Neeraja Nagarajan
Translated by Hari Krishnan
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