From Madhavi to Modernity: Literary Memory and the Evolution of Bharatanatyam

Abstract

This research examines the literary, aesthetic, and performative genealogies that contribute to the evolution of Bharatanatyam from early classical traditions to its modern reconstruction as a codified Indian classical dance form. Rather than approaching Bharatanatyam solely as a performative practice, the study investigates the form as an embodied cultural archive shaped through literary memory, dramaturgical theory, Tamil poetics, and historical transformation. The research particularly focuses on the relationship between Bharata Muni’s Natyashastra, the Tamil treatise Tolkappiyam, and the epic Silappattikaram in order to understand how textual traditions participate in shaping the conceptual and aesthetic foundations of dance.

          The study adopts an interdisciplinary methodological framework combining literary analysis, performance studies, cultural historiography, aesthetic theory, and textual interpretation. Through close reading of primary texts alongside historical and theoretical scholarship on Bharatanatyam, the paper examines how concepts such as rasa, bhava, abhinaya, gesture, emotional representation, and performative narration move from textual codification into embodied artistic practice. Particular attention is given to the figure of Madhavi in Silappattikaram, whose presence as a trained dancer and performer provides insight into early Tamil performance cultures and the literary imagination surrounding dance traditions that later transcend towards Sadir and Bharatanatyam. The paper does not attempt to establish a direct equivalence between ancient performance forms and contemporary Bharatanatyam. Rather, it traces the continuities, aesthetic echoes, and cultural inheritances that contribute to the broader genealogy of the dance form.