Prism - UNESCO and the BORI Natyasastra The Many Natyasastras in the One and the One in the Many - Dr. Avanthi Meduri

I offer here a brief meditation on UNESCO's inscription of the Natyasastra manuscript in the Memory of the World Register, cast as a staged conversation across time with the late Kapila Vatsyayan - our Kapilaji - whose life's work helped make India's Natyasastra traditions newly legible to the world.

In this exchange, I reflect on the relation between world heritage and lived history, between sastra and prayoga, and between the living historical Natyasastras that helped shape the twentieth-century revival of Bharatanatyam and Indian classical dance, placing these firmly on the global stage.

This staged conversation draws on my 2025 essay on the Natyasastra in The Oxford Handbook of Indian Dance, where I reflect on three historical Natyasastras through which the text entered Indian classical dance history, practice, training, pedagogy, and public performance - a question newly sharpened by UNESCO's 2025 inscription. 

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