Below the Attic-Swarnamalya ganesh

Dear all,

When a whole lot of my friends kept requesting, insisting and even chiding me that I must blog about my work, my excuse/ explanation to them was that I must finish atleast a huge portion of my life's mission before I start talking about it. The herculean task ahead of me ofcourse was and is to reconstruct a lost dance form.

Here I am, four and a half years later...willing to start telling the world, a story.

Way back in 2005 when I was studying my masters in Bharatanatyam, I had a class project. Each of us had to chose any one historical period and write an article about the king, nobles, musicians and dancers and their artistic contributions to world.

I was/am a die-hard Chola loyalist. To me, Raja Raja II (10th century A.D) is the greatest of kings. He was an embodiment of vision and grandeur. The tanjavur Big temple alone stands as a testimony to his "larger-than-life" image. The structure of the temple, the stories behind each of the gopurams (example: the keralantagan gopuram) facinated me.

The most compelling of them all is the thought of RajaRaja entering the temple, majestically on a horse back, complete with his retinue of nobles, soldiers and other royals entering the temple through the anukkan nuzai vaayil (entrance). The temple’s north side is where this entrance is. It has wooden door frames. There is the sankha nidhi, padma nidhi, lamps, poornakumbha, chamaram holding girls. Saaradvarams and tandiyams are the kind of workmanship on the simha figures. Wooden roofs and maybe there were bronze or golden roofing over this back during the chola days. The entire entrance is in the style of the chera country. This was probably the entrance Rajaraja used to visit the temple everyday. To further prove this in the next inner entrance there are the ashtamangala figures.

He was born as the second son to Chola king Sundarachola and Vanavanmadevi. He was named Arunmozi by them. When Aditya karikalan died, the people of the Chola country wanted to make him the next king however Arunmozi’s uncle (father’s brother) Madurantakan was aspiring for the throne. Knowing this, Arunmozi made him king and let him rule for 15 years. In 985 C.E after the death of Madurantakan Arunmozi accepted the throne. It was during this time that he was named Rajaraja. He lost his parents at an young age. He grew up all his life under the care of his grandmother, Sembiyanmadevi and sister Kundavai Pirattiyar.

Rajaraja had many wives. Among them Lokamadevi was his queen in reign. Through Vanavanmadevi he had a son Madurandakan alias Rajendra Cholan. Rajendran Chola has two sisters Madevi adigal and Kundavai.

Rajaraja who had taken the country after the Pallava reign understood very early in life that war and strife will stunt the growth of his kingdom. Hence, he developed the culture, art, religion and education during his time so much so that it is not an exaggeration to state that tanjavur became a seat of art and music.

One of his greatest victories was the victory at kandalur salai.

Natya:

407 dancers, 7 nattuvanars, assistant singers, moraviyam, vangiyam singers, padaviyam singers, veena players, aryam singers, sankha blowers etc. In all there were 539 artistes in the temple during the chola reign.

The names, village names, place of work (temple they were attached to), the strret in tanjur were they lived, direction and house number have been mentioned for all the 408 dancers. The names of all the musicians, the manyams given to them, their work ethics, rules and norms to be followed have been inscribed in what can be called one of the longest epigraph at the temple.

Karana Series

They are the earliest in the series we find in Tamil nadu. They are performed by a male figure, identified as Siva. They are an incomplete series with only 81 karanas. They are in the exact order as told in the Natya sastra, starting from talapuspaputam to sarpitam.

My obsession with Rajaraja, the periya koil and the chola contribution to the world of dance is immense. I was so particular, adamant if you will that all other kings and eras simply fell behind the great chola times! In a way, they do. But i was blinded. So, when my lecturer asked me if I would like to write about the contributions of lesser known kings, I coughed up a very arrogant answer about how that would make my work insignificant. Now I didnt want that. So, it has to be Rajaraja or no No one else !

I did exactly that. I wrote about him and how he has represented Indian art especially Bhartanatyam in this visually stunning sculptural series and immortalized the Natya sastra in the south. At a time when communication was difficult, its amazing how what Bharata wrote as a grammer was sculpted on the walls at tanjavur. It only clearly shows that the karanas were very much in vogue and were in use in the south indian dance as well and that Natya sastra was very well known.

As a conclusion to my article on him and the big temple I added a a few paragraphs on the later kings who ruled Tanjavur and who added their own contributions to the great temple that Rajaraja had built.

I wrote about the Nayak kings and their additions. I wrote about the Marattas and their contributions. I ended the article with the mighty role of the Tanjore quartette (the four brothers) who I believe are the architects of modern day bharatanatyam.

Little did I know that with writing that article I had paid a visit to the Attic!

The attic at tanjavur!

More in the next post.

Swarnamalya Ganesh

from below the great Attic!