The Origin of Bharatanatyam

The Natyashastra is the world’s oldest known document on performing arts. It was written by Bharata muni and is divided into 36 chapters. The first chapter describes the origin of dance, which is described below.

In the beginning of Treetayuga, peoples’ lives were filled with greed, anger, jealousy, etc. There wasn’t good (dharma) and the demons (asuras) ruled the world. The gods realized that the people needed a distraction, so they went to Lord Brahma, the creator, and asked him to create a fifth Veda that would be enjoyable, but also instructive and accessible to everyone.

Brahma agreed to help and went into meditation. He used different parts of the existing vedas (Speech from Rig Veda, Song from Sama Veda, Histrionic Expression from Yajur Veda, and Rasa from Atharva Veda) to create the fifth veda which he named the Natyaveda.

Lord Brahma taught the Natyaveda to Bharata who taught it to his 100 sons and assigned roles to each of them.

When they rehearsed it, Bharata was not satisfied and asked Brahma to bring down 24 apsaras (nymphs) to add grace and elegance to the dance. With this, Bharata was satisfied and performed it in the open air at Indra’s Dhvaja Mohatsa festival (his flag festival). The asuras got very angry since the play was pointing at their defeat, so they paralyzed the performance. Indra got mad and attacked them with his Jar-jara (flag-staff).

The dance presentation started over again. The remaining demons started to frighten the actors, so Lord Brahma asked Vishwakarma, the celestial architect, to build a theater (Natya Griha) that would restrict access to bad elements. Vishwakarma immediately built a theater that was perfect for performances. To prevent any hindrance to the performance, Brahma assigned different responsibilities to different gods. These gods are called the Ranga-Devatas and we worship them at the start of a dancing event today.

When the production was perfect, Brahma took the play to Mount Kailasa. Here they presented it to Shiva and Parvati. Shiva suggested that they should add nritta to present a better play. So, Saint Tandu taught nritta (karanas, angaharas, recakas) to Bharata. Goddess Parvati taught lasya to Usha. The karanas, angaharas, and recakas are all documented in the Natyashastra.

After watching the play, people understood how to defeat the demons and started living better lives.

Natya represents the lives of devas, asuras, kings, and common men. It showcases themes from history, epics, vedas, and mythology, thus educating people in an enjoyable way.