Dancers highlight Adi Sankara’s life at the Acharya Bharatham festival

Natyarangam, the dance wing of Narada Gana Sabha, conducted the 27th annual thematic Bharatanatyam festival from August 14 to 18 at Narada Gana Sabha. The theme chosen for this year was ‘Acharya Bharatham’ (Gurus Divine), which reiterated the fact that spiritualism is the bedrock of Indian culture.

The five-day festival highlighted the life and teachings of five acharyas. Day one featured artistes Vidhun Kumar, Uma Govind and Sibi Sudharshan. Their performance was themed on Adi Sankaracharya. The introduction by Sudha Seshayyan about acharyas and the Advaita philosophy of Sri Adi Sankara set the tone for the presentation.

The performance depicted the essence of Adi Sankara’s philosophy.
| Photo Credit:
M. Srinath

The performance began with Pranava Mantram ‘Om’, followed by the Gayatri Mantram and a Ganesha vandanam, which was an invocatory nritta piece, marked by clarity of adavus and hasta mudras.

By way of recreating the disciplined life of the Vedic age, the dancers depicted people living in solidarity and performing rituals. Soon there is disparity and people take to durmargas, which leads to a lot of chaos.

This is when Dakshinamurthy takes the form of Sankara and is born to reinstate dharma. The dancers through the Kanakadhara Stotram depicted the incident where the crocodile grabs Sankara’s feet and release it only when his mother grants him permission to become a sanyasi. Vidhun was impressive as Sankara.

Sankara now goes in search of a guru and approaches Govinda Bhagavathpada, who enquires who he was. Sankara immediately recites the Nirvana Shatakam telling that he is pure consciousness. The guru understands that he was Sankara and takes him as his sishya Having mastered the Advaita philosophy from his guru, Sankara writes the bhashyam of the Brahma Sutra and other religious texts and spreads the message to the world. Sankara’s intellectual growth is seen when he asks a chandala, who crosses his path, to move aside. He in turns asks him if he should move his body or his consciousness. This makes Sankara fall at his feet.

It traced Adi Sankara’s journey across the country.
| Photo Credit:
M. Srinath

The interesting debate between Sankara and Mandana Misra reflected the spirit of the vedic age . Sibi as Madana Misra played his part well. Ubhaya Bharathi, the wife of Mandana Misra is asked to judge the debate as she was an expert in both Mimamsa and Advaita. Uma Govind as Ubhaya Bharathi brought out the quiet confidence of the character Though Sankara wins the debate, Ubhaya Bharathi refuses to accept him as a sarva gyani as he had never experienced the sensual pleasures of a grihasta. Sankara then does Parakayapravesha, entering the body of king Amaru. The tillana that followed, performed by Vidhun and Uma, choreographed with great care conveyed the sensual joys experienced by the king and the queen.

Sankara returns to his original body and clearly states that he had experienced and renounced the sensual pleasures of a grahasthan. Now, both Madana Misra and his wife become his sishyas.

Then followed a depiction of the shanmatas and Sankara unifying them as manifestations of the formless brahman (connection with the divine). Sankara does the four mata sthapanas and attains the sarvasya peetam status.

The production concluded with Sankara’s popular composition “Bhaja Govindam’, where he stresses the need for people to stop worldly pursuits and understand the need to connect with the Brahman making it relevant to the present generation.

The music scored by Rajkumar Bharathi deftly highlighted the mood of each scene. The orchestra led by Jayasree Ramnathan on the nattuvangam, Venkateswaran Kuppuswamy (vocal support), Venkatesan Vedakrishnaram (mridangam), Soundarajan’s (veena) and Hariprasad (flute) helped enhance the divine experience.

The choreography was done under the guidance of the dancers’ gurus Priyadarsini Govind and V. Mythili.

The production was a good start to rasikas’ journey into the world of acharyas.