Among the many claims surrounding the antiquity of Indian classical dance traditions, one of the most repeated assertions in modern Odissi discourse is that the dance form finds direct mention in the Nāṭyaśāstra under the term Odra-Māgadhī. This proposition, widely circulated particularly in post-independence scholarship, seeks to establish an uninterrupted continuity between contemporary Odissi and Bharata's Nāṭyaśāstra.
However, such a claim requires careful historical and textual scrutiny. Modern scholarship has often attempted to connect living performance traditions directly to the Nāṭyaśāstra in order to legitimize them through antiquity, sometimes overlooking the complex evolution of Indian dance through centuries of regional practice, transformation, and codification. A close examination of the Nāṭyaśāstra reveals that the text neither discusses present-day "classical" dance forms as we know them nor conceptualizes dance in the same manner as later traditions.
Please type your name along with your comment. Anonymous and derogatory comments are likely to be removed.
No comments:
Post a Comment