Bharatanatyam

Bharatanatyam is the oldest of India's eight recognised classical dance forms, native to Tamil Nadu and traditionally performed as a solo by women in the precincts of Hindu temples. Its theoretical foundation rests on Bharata Muni's Nāṭyaśāstra (c. 200 BCE–200 CE), the treatise that systematises nṛtta (pure rhythmic dance), nṛtya (expressive dance) and nāṭya (drama), and on the later Abhinaya Darpaṇa of Nandikeśvara, which catalogues the hastas (hand gestures), bhedas of head, neck and eyes, and the principles of abhinaya (expression). The name is popularly parsed as bhāva (emotion), rāga (melody) and tāla (rhythm), though the form was historically known as sadir or dāsiyāttam, the art of the temple-attached devadāsis. The modern repertoire was consolidated in the early nineteenth century by the Tanjore Quartet — the four brothers Chinnayya, Ponnayya, Sivanandam and Vadivelu, court musicians of Serfoji II of Thanjavur — who fixed the concert sequence still followed today.

The performance unfolds in a graded sequence called the margam: Alarippu (an invocatory flowering of pure movement), Jatiswaram (rhythmic patterns set to musical notes), Shabdam (the entry of words and devotional meaning), Varnam (the centrepiece combining intricate footwork with sustained emotional narration), Padams and Javalis (lyrical, often śṛṅgāra-laden expressive pieces), and the concluding Tillana (a vibrant rhythmic finale). The dancer holds the geometric ardhamandali half-seated posture, articulates adavus (basic units of footwork) struck against the floor in araimandi, and accompanies the movement with mudras, facial abhinaya and the navarasas (nine emotions). The accompaniment, drawn from the Carnatic system, includes the nattuvanar (conductor who recites sollukattu syllables and plays cymbals), vocalist, mridangam, violin and flute.

The form survived a near-fatal colonial assault: the Anti-Nautch movement and the Madras Devadasi (Prevention of Dedication) Act, 1947 outlawed temple dedication, stigmatising the hereditary practitioners. Its twentieth-century revival is credited above all to Rukmini Devi Arundale, who founded Kalakshetra at Chennai in 1936, sanitised and re-presented the art for the proscenium stage, and to scholar E. Krishna Iyer. Major exponents include Balasaraswati, the last great hereditary devadasi dancer who defended its erotic-devotional content, Yamini Krishnamurthy, Padma Subrahmanyam and Alarmel Valli. Today Bharatanatyam is regulated and promoted through the Sangeet Natak Akademi (established 1952) and remains a globally taught diaspora art.

For the UPSC Civil Services examination, Bharatanatyam is a high-yield topic in General Studies Paper I under Indian art and culture, and appears in prelims through factual MCQs (its Nāṭyaśāstra and Abhinaya Darpaṇa basis, the Tanjore Quartet, the margam sequence, accompanying instruments, and famous proponents). The typical mains angle asks candidates to distinguish it from other classical forms — its Tamil origin, araimandi posture and Carnatic music separating it from Odissi's tribhanga or Kathak's Persianate spins — and to trace the colonial decline and Kalakshetra-led revival as a case study in cultural nationalism.