{"id":1771,"date":"2017-06-26T12:28:29","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T09:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/?p=1771"},"modified":"2022-11-29T10:14:03","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T08:14:03","slug":"the-devadasi-institution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/the-devadasi-institution\/","title":{"rendered":"The <em>Devadasi<\/em> Institution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There was already mention of <i>lasya<\/i>-style dances in the <i>Natyashastra<\/i>, or the Drama Manual, compiled in the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> century AD. These dances are soft or \u201cfeminine\u201d in style and combine <i>abhinaya<\/i> (mimetic storytelling) sequences with <i>nrtta<\/i> (pure dance) sequences. In Indian literature these dances are often related to mythical <i>apsara<\/i> nymphs, famous courtesans etc.<\/p>\n<p>The votive dances, particularly in the southern parts of India, represent the <i>lasya<\/i> style and are therefore often called \u201ctemple dances\u201d in the West. The performers in these votive dances, dedicated to the chief deity of the temple, were a special group of temple servants called <i>devadasis<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><i>Devadasis<\/i> were female temple servants, who were given to the temple to be \u201cmarried\u201d to the deity of the temple. Thus <i>devadasis<\/i> became the god\u2019s brides. They took care of several ritual duties, the most important duty being the votive dances. In return, the temples provided them with a house to live in and their daily livelihood. Some of the large South Indian temple complexes had hundreds of <i>devadasis<\/i> in their service.<\/p>\n<p>The <i>devadasi<\/i> institution declined during the later part of the Middle Ages. The <i>devadasis<\/i> first provided the clergy with sexual services, and later many of them became public prostitutes. This led to the decline of their art as well as general contempt toward the <i>devadasis<\/i>, particularly by the British colonial authorities.<\/p>\n<p>The revival of these \u201ctemple dances\u201d started in the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century, when some upper caste artists started to perform the repertoire of the <i>devadasis<\/i> while the tradition was removed from their original temple context.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There was already mention of lasya-style dances in the Natyashastra, or the Drama Manual, compiled in the 2nd century AD. These dances are soft or \u201cfeminine\u201d in style and combine abhinaya (mimetic storytelling) sequences with nrtta (pure dance) sequences. In Indian literature these dances are often related to mythical apsara nymphs, famous courtesans etc. The [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1772,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771\/revisions\/1772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}