{"id":289,"date":"2017-10-02T17:54:45","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T14:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/?p=289"},"modified":"2025-11-05T12:25:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T10:25:48","slug":"krishnanattam-praise-to-lord-krishna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/krishnanattam-praise-to-lord-krishna\/","title":{"rendered":"Krishnanattam<\/em>, Praise to Lord Krishna"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Krishnanattam<\/em> (Dance of Krishna) developed from the same tradition as kutiyattam<\/em> at the turn of the 17th<\/sup> century. It is a full-scale form of dance-drama concentrating solely on episodes in God Krishna\u2019s life, from his birth to his ascent into heaven. In its spirit krishnanattam<\/em> is pure bhakti<\/em> art as its function is to sing ecstatic praise to the Dark Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Krishnanattam<\/em> differs from kutiyattam<\/em> in the sense that the actors themselves do not speak. Singing is executed by two singers and thus actors can concentrate on abhinaya<\/em> acting as well as on dancing, which has a much more prominent role in krishnanattam<\/em> than in kutiyattam<\/em>. Krishnanattam<\/em> is performed only in the Guruvayur Temple and it is intended exclusively for Hindu audiences. That is why it is barely known outside Kerala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The History<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The bhakti<\/em> poem Gita Govinda<\/em><\/a> by the 12th<\/sup> century East Indian poet Jayadeva also gained enormous popularity in Kerala. It has been and still is chanted in the temples. It led to an early form of a Krishna play, asthapadiattam,<\/em> which was later, at the turn of the 17th<\/sup> century, replaced by krishnanattam<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The creator of krishnanattam<\/em> was the poet Manadevan, born at the end of the 16th<\/sup> century. It is said that he had a vision in which the flute-playing Krishna appeared. This led Manadevan to create his own praise to Krishna, the Krishna Geeti<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Krishnanattam<\/em> was favoured by the rulers of the Zamorin dynasty, which was in power for nearly 900 years beginning from the ninth century AD. After the decline of the dynasty a krishnanattam<\/em> troupe was located at the Guruvayur temple in central Kerala. Only Hindus are allowed to enter the temple, which is the only place where krishnanattam<\/em> is now performed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Plays<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The stories of krishnanattam<\/em>, which cover the whole life cycle of Krishna, an avatar<\/em> of God Vishnu, are based on the Bhagavata Purana<\/em>, and they are always sung in Sanskrit. The episodes are performed on eight successive nights, while the opening episode, concentrating on the avatar<\/em> of Vishnu, is repeated at the end of the cycle, thus forming the ninth evening in the series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In true bhakti<\/em> spirit it is believed that merely witnessing a krishnanattam<\/em> is a meritorious act bringing good karma<\/em> to the spectator. A kutiyattam<\/em> performance is also seen as an offering to Lord Krishna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Characteristics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In many respects krishnanattam<\/em> reminds one of kutiyattam<\/em>. The costuming, dominated by a large skirt-like lower garment, is similar in both genres, as are the gilded wooden ornaments. They also both share the local, stylised and colourful make-up system. There are, however, distinctive differences between the styles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, as mentioned above, the actors do not use their voices in krishnanattam<\/em>. Two singers from among the accompanying musicians sing all the lines in the sopanam<\/em> style, used for chanting the Gita Govinda<\/em> in the temples of Kerala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The novelty of krishnanattam<\/em> was that the acting and the singing were separated from each other. This enabled the actors to concentrate on the abhinaya<\/em> mime acting and dancing. However, the acting in krishnanattam<\/em> is not as detailed as in kutiyattam<\/em>. This is perhaps because krishnanattam<\/em> is a form of bhakti<\/em> worship, and a kind of offering, and thus not a theatre form for connoisseurs, as kutiyattam<\/em> has been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One speciality of krishnanattam<\/em> is that some of the characters wear masks. They may be larger than the human head, and their style is often naive and robust, even grotesque. Otherwise the outer aspects of krishnanattam<\/em> are similar to those of kutiyattam<\/em>, although the variety of headgear in krishnanattam<\/em> is larger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As already mentioned, dance has a more prominent role in krishnanattam<\/em> than in kutiyattam<\/em>. This is partly because the actors do not have to recite or sing their lines. One reason may also be that dance has a very prominent role in Krishna\u2019s mythology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both mimetic abhinaya<\/em> and non-descriptive nrtta<\/em> dance are employed. Krishna himself dances as do the milkmaids, Krishna\u2019s beloved ones. Dance sequences in krishnanattam<\/em> reflect the influence of local folk dances and underline the art forms\u2019 emotional directness, a characteristic of bhakti<\/em> art all over India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Krishnanattam (Dance of Krishna) developed from the same tradition as kutiyattam at the turn of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"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=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4549,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions\/4549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disco.teak.fi\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}