Article - Performance and Ritual: Bangla Natya
Published in: Apperception (ISSN 2321-1261), Department of English, Visva-Bharati
Issue: special issue on Drama and Theatre Arts
Pages: 135-144
Publication Year: June 2018.
Edited by: Prof. Somdutta Mandal, Professor, Deptt. of English, Visva Bharati.
End notes
Works Cited
Issue: special issue on Drama and Theatre Arts
Pages: 135-144
Publication Year: June 2018.
Edited by: Prof. Somdutta Mandal, Professor, Deptt. of English, Visva Bharati.
Abstract
The essay dwells with several
facets of the much discussed subject of ‘rituals’ and ‘performances’ in Bangla natya. Conditioned as we are by the urban theatre
with its colonial legacy, it is difficult for us even today to realize that ‘ritual’
and ‘performance’ are never separated from each other in Bangla natya. One
reason behind this may be that generally by the term Bangla natya we understand a specific kind of performance, rooted
in the folk tradition. It is only after we clear our views in this regard,
would we be in a position to engage with the ritual-performance interface. Only
an awareness of this will make the contemporary Bengali audience comprehend the
importance of the issues concerned. This paper seeks to focus on the
inseparable bond between ritual and performance that is widely available in
various forms of Bengali traditional theatres, that comprise Bangla natya.
Performance and Ritual: Bangla Natya
Bivash Bishnu Chowdhury
(1)
Bivash Bishnu Chowdhury
(1)
This
essay attempts to analyse how theatres
of Bengal have grown along with the rituals where ‘performance’ and
‘ritual’ are hardly distinguishable. So, our primary query will be based on the
indigenous theatres of Bengal. Then, some questions may arise as to why in
discussing interface between ‘performance’ and ‘ritual’ should we talk about the
indigenous theatre only. Why the main stream theatre will not come into the
picture? The fact is, from the colonial period the entire theatrical scenario
of the Indian subcontinent became Euro-centric which has no relation with our
traditional indigenous theatres. Many scholars of Bengal as well as in
Bangladesh have considered this Euro-centric theatrical practice as the main
stream theatre of Bengal. However, in this paper we will use the term Bangla
Natya to refer to the indigenous theatres of Bengal where by ‘indigenous’
we mean “…that which is born or produced naturally in a land or region’ (Syed Jamil
Ahmed 18)”, while the word ‘theatre’ comes from Europe.
To state with, there is no fixed style of presentation in Bangla Natya.
A thousand years of customs have given birth to the styles which have a
cumulative (Odoito) power in its
soul.
Despite being ‘theatre’ in term,
it has not dissociated itself from songs, dance becomes its lifeline and it has
embodied the structure of poetry. It has
grown rich from performance to performance depends on the daily life of the
common people and all their ‘ritualistic performances’ which may be considered
as ‘religion’. It is there that the beauty and rasa of the Bengali
theatrical tradition have revealed in itself where the poetry and the upakhayan
are lyrical in nature (Selim Al Deen 3; translated).
This may be termed as Bornonatok Natya-riti or ‘Narrative Theatre’
in English. Sanskrit Theatre also contains some sort of narrations pronounced
by Sutradhar (not ‘Narrator’ as such,but more of a ‘Messenger’) who is
giving the missing link between the two stories. It can be said clearly that the
story or the text of Bangla Natya presented by a Gayen (at times there could be two) with the cumulative effects of
speech, song and dance constitutes the ‘narrative performance’ of Bangla Natya. The effects of speech,
song and dance implies that these expressions are spontaneously expressed
through the performance of Gayen where dialogue becomes narration and the
essence of dialogue is displayed through narrative acting. This may be called
Narrative acting (as against Character-acting) because, at the time of narrating
the speech, the Gayen (Narrator or Actor) is not portraying a particular
character; he is portraying the overall scenic atmosphere of a particular story
on the spectator’s mind through his speech, song and dance. Here, we may recall
Tagore’s observations in ‘Rangamancha’ where he says that
…The
imaginative, the introspective has the stage inside his own creative self; and
therein there is no dearth of space. There, by the skill of the wizard the
sceneries keep on surfacing. That stage, those sceneries are the dramatist’s
ultimate telos; no artificial stage, no artificial scenery is fit for the
poetic imagination. …For the sake of poetry they [the audiences] would
willingly overlook [the] limitation of the stage; and, in the process, by
enlarging their mental horizon they would ennoble the stage. But, if, due to
the limitations of the stage the poetry had to curb its flight who would have
forgiven the presence of those wooden blocks on stage? (translated by Dipankar
Roy; as cited in ‘Thespian Magazine’)
(2)
Thus, if we analyse our thousand years tradition of Bangla Natya, we see that
unlike the West, our theatre is
not confined within the tradition of character acting and distinguished from ‘narrative’
and ‘ritual’. It has evolved around the subject and custom of gaan, panchali, leela, geet, geetnat, pala, paat, yatra, gamvira, alkap,
ghatu, hastar, mangalnat, gazir gaan and so on (Selim Al Deen 4; translated).
These do not have any written
manuscript, possibly that was never required and we can see that all “ancient
and medieval Bengali plays like panchali,
leelanat, geetnat, natgeetpala etc were chiefly germinated through oral
tradition” (Selim Al Deen 4; translated). One of the ways in which the Vedas
were referred to us Shruti (the text being received aurally). Though
there is no overt connection between the Vedas and the indigenous
performances, both dependent heavily on the aural reception of the text.
In the present day, Bangla Natya in contemporary stage implies a modified form of medieval
and contemporary traditional forms of Bengal. As the following discussion would
show, the structure and conventions of the medieval Bangla Natya have had their influences on contemporary theatrical
tradition of Bangla Natya.
From the scholars’ point of view, the medieval Bangla Natya is seen as an extension of
the stream of the panchali. The
manuscript of the medieval Bangla Natya and the style of presentation of
several contemporary renditions of traditional Bangla Natya,
particularly in Bangladesh, show that Gayen
presents the narration in a few distinctive ways. “The general tendencies are
as follows:
1. Narration through speech
2. Narration through dance and song
3. Conversation with the Dohar (as Character or Gayen)”
(Yousuf Hasan 21; translated)
From
medieval to the present times, Bangla Natya contains narrativity. It can be seen that the Gayan narrates a story primarily through
poetry or prose, or through speeches or songs along with dance;
not as a character but as a story teller. As the uniqueness of the style of
performance is in the introduction of the characters through narration, scenes
are built up through speeches; some call this type of performance Kathanatya. Here, we need to mention
that in Bangla Natya, songs are not implanted to add to the situation
actually; the situation itself is constructed by the songs used as narration.
In all the palas
of Mangalkavya, these types of geet
[narrative songs] can be
found. Naturally, it is the general technique for all of these types of geet in any kind of ‘traditional Bangla Natya’. Gayen will narrate the story based upon dance. However, in this
context Gayen’s dance is not based on
mudras, and there could be no
relation between dance and geet (Yousuf
Hasan 22-23; translated).
In this style of dance, there
is no rigorous control of the shastras,
rather, the spontaneity comes from the heart.
Next is the
conversational technique of Gayen-Dohar.
This is a very old performance technique of Bengal. Here, Gayen narrates the story, narrates the scene and enriches the
performance through conversation with Dohar.
They take the help of ‘Character acting’ for this particular performance style
but not become a character. This is their ultimate uniqueness that in enacting a
character they do not become a character. Here, though the Gayen utters the dialogues as characters, s/he does not attempt to
dress or modulate the voice like the characters. They say their dialogues in
their own voice, wearing the dress of their daily life, or that of Gayen or Dohar’s.
The
performance of Bangla Natya usually takes place in these three ways. In present
day of Bangla Natya on the contemporary
stage, a refashioned form of these techniques of the traditional Bangla
Natya is seen. It may be noted here that ‘Gayen’ implies the ‘character’ of contemporary stage of Bangla
Natya where one or several or even all the characters becomes ‘Gayen’.
(3)
Languages and cultures of Bengal have sustained their
continuity through several religious rituals that have their connections with
this performance method. We can see that the chief characteristic of this theatrical
tradition is the narrative nature of its presentation style and performance too.
“The tradition of pure dialogue and character acting is scarcely found in Bengal
up to eighteenth century” (Selim Al Deen 4; translated). And it is very true in
a sense that “our medieval literature is in fact not pure literature, it is
merely the shashtra recited with the flavour of songs and stories” (Yousuf
Hasan 18; translated).
Now let’s turn
to the history, the point from where this tradition started. However, there is
no particular information regarding the inception of this theatrical tradition.
Moreover, it is impossible to calculate the dates of the creation of a
particular artistic tradition. It is spontaneous matter which has naturally
evolved with time. The first mention of this traditional art form occurs in
Bharata’s Natyashashtra. In Natyashashtra, four kinds of pravriti find mention – ‘Avanti’, ‘Dakshinatya’,
‘Odra-Magadhi’1 and ‘Panchali’. ‘Avanti’ indicates the western region,
‘Dakshinatya’ implies the southern region, ‘Panchali’ denotes the northern region
and ‘Odra-Magadhi’ refers to the eastern and north-eastern region, which
incorporates Bengal too. Thus, it’s proved that ‘Odra-Magadhi’ tradition
existed during Bharata’s time and perhaps even before that too. The Natyashashtra is an artistic version of
the Aryan culture and as Bengali theatrical tradition seems to have existed
before this, “some opine that this tradition germinated through the ancient
Dravidian festival and rituals of the Lord Shiva” (Selim Al Deen 14; translated).
And in this context, “comparisons have been made with the Dionysus festival
vis-à-vis the Greek theatre and it has been conjectured that the theatre
germinated through the festival of the Lord Shiva” (Selim Al Deen 14;
translated).
From the above discussion, it could be concluded that the performing art
had arrived in our custom and culture in the garb of rituals. “As akhayan (legends) of this theatrical
tradition is the basis of the rituals of Shiva,
Dharma, Chandi, Manasa, Gazi and Manik-peer, its presentation spreads through the Asor [ritualistic performance area] and its
audience” (Selim Al Deen, 3; translated). If one were to separate the ritual
from its vein, it would be vain to explore the nature and tradition of the Bangla Natya. And of course, it is needless
to say that in each and every civilization of the world, the performing art has
penetrated into the life of common people through their rituals.
Above all, it can be said that, the Bengali theatrical tradition of ancient
and medieval era were culminations of several rituals of the religious sects.
This trend is seen all over India and the subcontinent. In several contexts in
India, even today ritual is inseparable from the performance. For example, Tere-Koothu from Tamil Nadu; Kathakali, Mohini-Attam, Krisna-Attam,
Ottan-Thulal from Kerela; Rasa-Leela from Manipur and so on are
specimens of performances which have remained closely connected to ritual. And this is why in the Natya
tradition (theatrical performances) of Bengal too, it is difficult or rather
impossible to separate ‘performance’ from ‘ritual’ or vice-versa.
(4)
In this section, some instances of this relation will be discussed. In
ancient Bengal, several rituals performed during the festival of the Lord
Shiva, or Gajans (the germination of theatrical
performances) can be seen:
…In Gajans, showcasing the performances related to farming, the actors
usually perform the harvesting, seeding and sowing. A ‘chief-saint’ asks the
actors about the future of the harvests. In reply, another actor says something
and others conjecture the amount of harvest of that year from that conversation
(Selim Al Deen 15; translated).
Nevertheless,
it has been mentioned earlier that there is no definitive style of presentation
of Bangla Natya. However, there are
some traditional forms that are totally narrative in nature amongst which panchali,
kathakata deserve mention. One of the traditions of this panchali
is ‘Dharma-puja’ (the worship of Lord Dharma is
primarily Suryapuja (worship of the Sun)) and Dharmamangal
tradition. This is a distinctly Bengali theatrical tradition which had evolved
based on ancient rituals and tales. In Shashtra,
performance, ritual and pala – these
three traditions were prominent in the worship of the Lord Dharma. The
book Agam Purana or Shunya Purana took its name from Ramai Pandit,
who is credited with the inception of the worship of Lord Dharma. We come
to know that
…Shunya Purana is the
first instance of verse in the line of panchali tradition of Bengal. In
this poem, one or two chapters were narrated in Kathakata (conversational technique) and rests of the chapters were
presented as songs. These songs were ritualistic and were parts of the various
performances of main Dharmapuja. …From the chapters of Shunya Purana,
one can derive an idea of the ancient tradition of Bengali Panchali.
Till that time, Panchali was ritualistic in nature. It had not yet got
the accomplishment as a performative lyric which is infused with full story and
akhayan (Selim Al Deen 20-22;
translated).
In the worship of Lord Dharma, ‘ritual’ and ‘performance’ exist
inseparably. In the beginning, for three or four days before the festival we
may see that the devotees take the Dharmashilas (Stone Idol) outside the
Shrine, keep it in the sun for the day, and bring it back into the temple at
the end of the day. This is the part of their ritual which was performed
through these performances where “the devotees act in this manner so that the
God does not think of going beyond the temple” (Selim Al Deen 26; translated). Again
the scholar of folklore Asutosh Bhattacharya explains this differently. The
devotees believe “during period of drought, community worship offered to the
deity, will bring the rain” (23). And for that they bring out the deity into
the midday sun, “as a measure of punishment inflicted on him in case of
continued and severe drought” (23).
There are several such ritual-works to perform in such kind of puja. For
instance, there is Lapra Bhanga as part of Dharmapuja where the
devotees engage themselves in a mock fight along with dance with thorny
branches of trees. Though this is a part of the ritual but “this artificial
fight is supposed to be a performance. However, here devotees get bruised and
cut by the thorns” (Selim Al Deen 26; translated).
At a later period, apart from this ritualistic Dharmapuja, Dharmamangal
was presented in the well-known tradition of Bangla Natya following the Gayen-Dohar tradition. Nowadays, we do not see those performances which
originated from the ritual of Dhamapuja. Those ritualistic performances
are now no more but we see the presentation of the performances which are based
on ritual such as the story-telling process based on Panchali and the
uses of props like Chamor2 where we can see that there is
…one chief Gayen. Along with the Gayen,
there are two to four Dohars. For dance, Gayen uses ghungur (anklet).
There is a ‘Chamor’ in his hand which
symbolizes blessings and healing power. Gayen
presents the Akhyans lyrics with
dance and gestures. Along with this, there are also some musical instruments. Dohars perform ‘dhua’ along with Gayen’s
recitation (Selim Al Deen 27; translated).
There are other ritualistic performances like Gazir gaan, Vasan gaan, Ramayana gaan, Rayani
and so on where the Gayen pays
his tribute to the gods and goddesses in his vandana along with song and
dance. It is apparent from the Gazi’s vandana that here the Gayen is worshipping the character of Gazi by ascribing him a divine status. Thus
the Gayen’s point of view leads to organizing
Gazi’s songs with the prayer of
deliverance from all kinds of sorrow and for the welfare of the entire
humanity. We know that in Islam,
vows and offerings and worship of
the Pir are forbidden, but the ‘Muslim Gayen’
sings this song from his own belief and devotion. The spectators [in Bangladesh]
are also Muslims who transcend the formal dictates of Islam to take vows in
their belief and devotion. Thus, the belief and conscience of the Gayen and that of the spectators arrive
at a point where a spontaneous spirit of devotion blossoms which gains its
value in European thoughts only as ‘ritual’, not as ‘performance’ (Yousuf Hasan
14-15; translated).
It has been mentioned before that
our akhyans are based on the rituals
of Shiva, Dharma,
Chandi, Manasa, Gazi, Manikpir and so on.
Some vandanas of certain ‘secular’ palagan show equal belief and devotion of
the Gayens to several religions. For
example, “the vanadana (which can be
used in any pala) of the Muslim Gayen of Kishorganj (Bangladesh),
Islamuddin Palakar starts with the vandana
of Devi Saraswati, but in the next stanza, we find mention of the holy land
of Makkah (Mecca). Yet, the name of Saraswati is repeated in the refrain (Dhua):
Ami ar kare dakibo ma eso go Saraswati.
[Who else will I call mother, please come (Devi) Saraswati]
Ami Pubete vandana korlam puber vanushwar
[I praise in the East the God of the East, the Sun]
Akdike udayre vanu choudike pashar
[Who rises on one side but lights up the whole]
Pashchime vandana korlam Makkah heno sthan
[I praise in the West the holy land, Mecca]
Urdishe baray selam momin Musalman.
[To which all the Muslims vow their obeisance]
Ami ar kare dakibo ma eso go Saraswati.
[Who else will I call mother, please come (Devi) Saraswati]
(Yousuf Hasan 15-16; translated)
Here it may be
noted that Islamuddin formally identifies himself as a Muslim. But we know, “religion
[Islam, in the particular context of contemporary Bangladesh] formally does not
believe in the multiple existence of the spirit, yet the common psyche of the people
of Bengal, who came in contact with several religions with the passage of time,
accepts this kind of vandana by Gayens like Islamuddin” (Yousuf Hasan 16;
translated).
So,
it is impossible to explore the nature of Bangla
Natya without reference to the rituals, be it in the vandana or geet, or in the dialogues of the play or
in its structure. The above discussion has been a brief attempts to locate the
relation between rituals and performance in Bangla
Natya. In the ritualistic performances of the traditional Bangla Natya, in the presence of the
audience, “Gayen acts as a priest” (Yousuf
Hasan 42) to preside over the ritualistic performance/performative ritual where
ritual and performance are inseparable.
*
Unless otherwise specified, all the
quoted translations are mine.
End notes
1 It has been said about the Odra-Magadhi tradition in the Natyashashtra that this pravritti is based on ‘Bharati’ and ‘Kaushiki’ vritti. For the sake of ‘Kaushiki’, Bramha had separately created the thirteenth apsara. This ‘Kaushiki’ was derived from the Shringara dance of Lord Shiva. The application of ‘Kaushiki’ is not possible without the participation of women. Natyashashtra also comments on the dresses and ornaments of its actors. According to the Shashtra, the ahariya in ‘Koushiki’ would be sober, the ‘karya’ and ‘rasa’ are the souls. Bharat has said about its characteristics that this consists of several dance, music and songs and gestures. Here, the usage of the word ‘nritta’ (used by Bharata) is noticeable. ‘nritta’ and ‘nritya’ are different in terms of their application. ‘nritta’ is general gesture along with the rhythm and rhyme. This is a popular form of theatre. Here the Natyashashtra indicted classical gestures are not followed. As the word ‘nritta’ is mentioned in the context of ‘Kaushiki’, the characteristics of old Odra-Magadhi can be gauged. All the theatrical traditions which has been discovered till now, are based on the tradition of this popular form of theatre or ‘nritta’ (Selim Al Deen 2).
2 ‘Chamor’ is a brush like fan, made of yak’s hair, which is swayed to fan the deity.
Works Cited
Ahmed, Syed Jamil. Achinpakhi Infinity: Indigenous Theatre of Bangladesh.
The University
Publishing Limited: Dhaka, 2000. Print.
Bhattacharya, Asutosh. Folklore of Bengal. reprint. National Book
Trust, India: New Delhi.
2007. Print.
Deen,
Selim Al. Madhyayuger Bangla Natya. Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1996. Print
Hasan,
A.K.M. Yousuf. “Bornonattak Bangla Natyabhinoi ratite Bornonakari Abhinetar
Chetonagoto Obosthan o Brechtio Abhinetar
Porjobekhan.” Theatre Studies XVII
(2010) : n.pag.
Print.
Roy Dipankar,
trans. “Rangamanch” by Rabindranath Tagore. Thespian Magazine.
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