The Hindu : Arts / Theatre

alamandalam Krishnankutty Poduwal redefined and repositioned the place of the chenda in Kathakali. The veteran artiste's birth anniversary falls on May 28.

When he decided to introduce the high-decibel chenda to Ramanattam in the early 18th century, the provincial king of erstwhile Vettathunadu (currently in Malappuram District) might have had a magnificent obsession with the masculine verve of this dance-theatre form.

It was only by the beginning of the 20th century that the chenda and the maddalam actively intervened in the angika and satwikaabhinayas of Kathakali. Moothamana Kesavan Namboodiri and Thiruvilwamala Venkichan Swamy were pioneers who initiated the preponderance of the chenda and the maddalam in this dance-theatre heritage. For Kalamandalam Krishnankutty Poduwal, the former was a role model and the latter, a venerable guru, the rigour of whose tutelage he remembered ever since.

FAMILY TRADITION

Kavil Pothuwatil in Vellinezhi village of west Palakkad has for long been a family of percussionists. K.P. Krishnankutty Poduwal had his first lessons of thayambaka and edakka from his uncle Govinda Poduwal. Prompted by his uncle and Olappamanna Mana, which had patronised Kathakali for over a century, Krishnankutty Poduwal enrolled as a student of chenda at Kalamandalam. “At the kalari, Venkichan Swamy taught me chenda and imparted training in maddalam to Appukutty simultaneously. Swamy was the incarnation of Nandikeswara,” Poduwal once fondly recollected.

Eventually, Krishnankutty Poduwal and Appukutty Poduwal stormed the Kathakali stage with their inexorable passion and deft fingering.

Moothamana Kesavan Namboodiri and Guruvayoor Kuttan Marar were the two top chenda players in Kathakali in the first half of the last century. Krishnankutty Poduwal started his career as a substitute/supporting player of Moothamana.

As an offspring of the disciplined Kalluvazhi chitta, safeguarded and promoted by Pattikkamthodi Ravunni Menon, Poduwal navigated the functional characteristics of the chenda armed with wisdom and imagination. With Appukutty Poduwal on the maddalam, he brought in macro and micro aesthetic transformations in the Melappadam and built up the aural atmosphere engulfing characters and contexts brimming with emotional minutiae. Krishnankutty Poduwal redefined the role of the chenda artiste on a par with thespians and vocalists of Kathakali.

The recognition from the Maharaja of erstwhile Travancore, as the ‘Kottaram (palace) artiste' made Poduwal a young celebrity in south Kerala. From then onwards, Poduwal accompanied on the chenda all the eminent Kathakali actors such as Kavalappara Narayanan Nair, guru Kunju Kurup, Kalamandalam Krishnan Nair, Vazhenkada Kunju Nair, Chengannoor Raman Pillai, Kurichi Kunhan Panickar, Mankulam Vishnu Namboodiri, Kalamandalam Ramankutty Nair, and the like.

The pre-Poduwal period in Kathakali melam did take into account the broad divisions of characterisation such as satwik, raajasa and thamasic (noble, villainous and the grotesque). But it did not always zero in on the correlation and the contrast between the sthayi (enduring) and the vyabhichari (transitory) bhavas of the dheerodattas (noble Nayakas) or dheerodhatas (valorous Pratinayakas). With an incomparably evocative nerkol (vertical falling of the stick on the chenda) and gloriously carved out urulukai (twisting of the wrists to the left and the right), Poduwal translated the emotional states of the characters and the shifting contexts of the plays into widely varying tones on the chenda.

For the scene of sambhogasringara, ‘Kuvalaya vilochane,' in ‘Nalacharitam Part II,' of Krishnan Nair, Poduwal's chenda aroused the tonal surge of dalliance. For the tapassattam of Ramankutty Nair in ‘Ravanodbhavam,' Poduwal's melam in triputa tala culminated into a magnified resonance parallel to the character's final outburst. The Raudra Bhima of Gopi confronting Dussasana in the Kurukshetra battle field transcended the ephemeral thanks to Poduwal's hypnotic strokes on the chenda.

Ramankutty Nair stopped donning the role of Parasurama after the demise of Krishnankutty Poduwal.

Theirs was a meeting of the minds on the Kathakali stage. Poduwal's playing in the Melappadam and for the story per se was punctuated with silences pregnant with meaning.

PRUDENT PERFORMER

He was prudent in not interfering or intruding into the liberty of the maddalam player on stage. The maddalam maestro Cherpalacherry Sivan observes: “Poduwal Asan gave the maddalam player the right amount of space, nothing less, nothing more.”

There were treasured moments of Poduwal roaring on stage like, for instance, in the padappurappad of Ramankutty Nair's Narkasura or during the fast tempo of vattamvechu kalasam of Gopi's Raudra Bhima.

Modesty and irreverence played hide and seek in the life of Poduwal. He always held aloft the autonomy and stateliness of the artist. Little surprise then that Poduwal faced the relentless wrath of the administration at Kerala Kalamandalam where he was the principal teacher of chenda. He was removed from service in 1967. Poduwal had a life full of trials and tribulations for 12 years. In 1979, poet and cultural icon Olappamanna reinstated Poduwal as the head of the faculty of chenda in Kalamandalam. He returned to his alma mater with unmitigated pride and confidence.

FLAIR FOR LANGUAGE

Although a school dropout, Poduwal had a flair for language and literature. In a documentary film made on Kathakali by Prakash Jha, Poduwal defined the prominence of chenda in Kathakali as such: “Kathakali without chenda is like an ocean without waves.”

His book, ‘Melappadam' and the posthumously published ‘Melapperukkam' contain a good deal of interesting and informative articles on Kerala's traditional arts.

He had enacted the role of Bali in the play ‘Baalivadham' in an attempt to save the character from its clichéd actions. ‘Bheeshmaprathijna' (Bhishma's Pledge), the play he wrote, is known for its theatrical panache. He sang for Kathakali plays as and when the situation demanded.

Poduwal was the first percussionist in Kathakali to win the Central Sangeet Natak Academy Award. He had bagged awards and fellowships from the Kerala Sangeeta Nataka Akademi and Kerala Kalamandalam.

K.R. Mohanan made a documentary film on Poduwal, which went on to win a national award. However, talent and knowledge could not tame his tempestuous character. He was intolerant of mediocrity.

With his head held high, Poduwal, the non-conformist, passed away in 1992. His 87th birth anniversary is being celebrated by his family, disciples and admirers in May. This is the first time this genius' birth anniversary is being observed on a grand scale.

The eventful life he led and the rich memories he has left behind are a motivation to young artistes and art lovers.

Phases of early Buddhism in South India and Sri Lanka

By Rajitha Weerakoon

Sri Lanka, having preserved Buddhism in its purest form since its introduction in 236 BC, was undisputedly the key player in the 2600th Sambuddhathva Jayanthi celebrations. But what caused Buddhism to flourish in Sri Lanka as opposed to the country of the Buddha’s birth where Buddhism has little relevance today? The cause for this contrasting outcome was traced by Professor Sudharshan Seneviratne, the Head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Peradeniya and former Director-General of the Central Cultural Fund during a lecture tour in Chennai some years back when he spoke on “The social base of early Buddhism in South India and Sri Lanka”. During a subsequent interview, he spoke about the shared historical legacy of Sri Lanka and Southern India when he identified the social formations in the two countries at the time of the early spread of Buddhism and the period prior to this era. His study was based on historical and archaeological research. Tracing the technological, cultural and subsistence patterns between Sri Lanka and South India, Professor Seneviratne travelled back to prehistoric times, long before the birth of ideologies so the picture of the gradual development was clear. He stated that some very early sites from the Middle Stone Age of the Megalithic Period discovered in Sri Lanka dating to around 30,000BC (which have been extensively cross-dated) suggest that the settlers may have descended from India. Sites discovered had been identified as similar to those in Tirunaveli District and elsewhere in the southern most parts of India. The next is the period around 1000 BC when the intrusions took place in the early Iron Age at the time the Protohistoric Megalithic black and redware culture existed. But the critical elements that kicked off the beginnings of history in Sri Lanka Professor Seneviratne stated was the commencement of the use of metal and ceramics, the introduction of domesticated varieties of animals and plants especially paddy and the initiation of the earliest village culture with small crafts like bead and pottery-making taking place. The most interesting aspects of this culture he pointed out were the introduction of burial cults or the memorials. The associated ceramic ware called black and redware bear the postfiring graffitti marks. This phase continued into the early historical period, chronologically identified as the 4th and the 3rd centuries BC when North Indian ideologies like Buddhism and Jainism entered South India and Sri Lanka. Trade routes Archaeological evidence from Amaravati, an ancient city which was situated in Southern India, where luxury items such as Northern black polishedware were discovered reveal that there were intrusions from Northern India to the South prior to the Mauryan period. These movements had taken place between the 6th century BC – the time of the Buddha and the 3rd century BC through the Southern trade routes. The Dhakshinapatha or the Southern trade routes mentioned even in Kautilya’s Arthsastra were functioning along the east coast of India’s looping trade network. The long-distance trade network was coming from the Gangetic delta to the South touching Sri Lanka. Ideologies were travelling along these trade routes. The episode of the trading brothers – Thapassu and Bhalluka, documented as the first to be converted by Buddha during His Lifetime who after the conversion and their trade deals arrived in Sri Lanka and built the first sthupa – Thiriyaya, illustrates this point. According to Professor Seneviratne, either specialized traders were carrying trading items or there was a down-the-line exchange where items were moving on their own from community to community and from one centre to another. The chank (conch) shell, a specific luxury item found in the Gulf of Mannar was found in the Northern Indian excavated sites. The trade of pearls, again from the Gulf of Mannar is mentioned in early Indian Pali texts. Later, the Jataka stories make mention of the long distance trade network. By the 3rd century BC which was the Mauryan Period in India, inscriptions of Settis – the merchant bankers were found in Amaravati. Professor Seneviratne attributes the flow of ideologies from Northern India to the trade network. What perhaps the Mauryan Empire did however was to become a catalyst and provide a greater fillip for the more organised expansion of Buddhism. Monks were travelling as missionaries or groups of people were taking the message of the Buddha with the clout of the Mauryan Empire. The adoption of the title of Devanampiya (Beloved of the Gods) by the then rulers – the epithet given to Asoka, suggests this. There were suggestions that some of the Kerala chieftains took titles that translated as Devanampiya. In the inscriptions of the Adiyamans in the Northern areas of Tamilnadu, the Adiyamans called themselves as Sathyaputhra, which was the name given in Asokan inscriptions to “southern neighbours.” The intrusion of Buddhism in the 4th and the 3rd centuries BC from Northern India brought not only a doctrine but also a whole new culture – a new language medium, may be even a script, a new way of living, architectural constructions and technology. During the Mauryan Era in the meantime, there was a shift of human settlements in South India from the peripheral hills towards the plains and the river valleys of Krishna, the Cauvery and the Tamirapani in the East. This may have happened probably for greater agricultural production to a kind of demand situation with specialisation of products coming in. Spread of ideologies With the southern expansion of the Mauryan Empire, the long-distance trade routes expanded. The Northern Indian ideologies thus flowed out to the South with the Jains, the Ajivakas and the Buddhist clergy moving along the trade-routes, some along with merchants mingling with the people. They had to preach to a settled agricultural society as the teachings would not have had any relevance to a hunting-gathering society. Professor Seneviratne stated that in South India however, Buddhist practices changed over the years from those practised in Sri Lanka due to the emergence of Mahayanism and the resurgence of Brahminic practices. Mahayanism had a social appeal at a personal level. But unlike Mahayanism, Brahmanism incorporated the pre-Buddhist cults and deities into its fold more effectively, particularly during the time of land grants of the feudal period. Under Brahminism, it is suggested that priests may have started the process of land reclamation for agriculture. With tribal areas having all kinds of cult practices, the Brahmin priests may have moved into such socially backward areas as these were locations where they were able to practise their doctrine. The Buddhist clergy on the other hand who were countering such practices could not move into these areas, away from their main base – the urban centres. And with more and more South Indian rulers opting for a Brahminic identity, state patronage to Buddhism gradually decreased. Thus along with the shift of trade patterns, Buddhism in South India came to an end. Whereas in Sri Lanka, Professor Seneviratne stated, the picture totally differed as Theravada Buddhism was faithfully practised by the more orthodox Sri Lankans. Mahayanism introduced much later found it difficult to compete with the Theravada Buddhism. And unlike in South India, Sri Lanka did not have a strong tradition of pre-Buddhist cults and practices and what existed was incorporated successfully into Buddhism. Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka not only visited urban areas but also ventured into remote areas and hills along trade routes. The monasteries by the first to the 3rd centuries AD which had expanded in Sri Lanka incorporated all the areas into their network and thus ran huge establishments even carrying on trade in order that these provided the sustenance while the state continued to be their chief patron.

The Hindu : Arts / Books : Voyage beyond the Three Seas

The well-known Russian Indologist, Ivan Minayev's work on Voyage Beyond the Three Seas, a 15th century travelogue by Afanasy Nikitin (a Russian merchant and adventurer), developed the original so beautifully as to reflect contemporary India in all its diverse, but integrated, economic, social and cultural facets.

The book starts with two notes: one by Irina Chelysheva on Minayev's contributions to Indian studies, and the other by Minayev himself, briefly introducing Nikitin's manuscript. Chelysheva's note sharply brings out Minayev's heritage that continues as leavening influence on the Russian Indologists, even after 120 years.

The first of the seven chapters in the book is on Nikitin's voyage from Hormuz, a tiny island of Persia, 20-30 miles in perimeter with barren land and inhospitable climate, but with one of the most strategic ports. It is followed by a narration of his trading experience in Cambay, a port from which ships sailed all over the Indian seas. Nikitin had a sojourn in Chaul, a commercial town in the Bhamini kingdom, situated 23 miles to the south-east of Bombay.

Bidar, where Nikitin arrived from Junnar via Kulungir and Gulbarga, is discussed extensively. The prominent role Bidar played as a medieval point of exchange and a transactional centre of contemporary politico-cultural life; the Shah and his court; and his campaigns and excursions — all these are dealt with in detail. The contextualised note of the editor, given towards the end, helps the reader a great deal in comparing Nikitin's travelogue with contemporary sources.

THE MANUSCRIPT

The English translation of Nikitin's manuscript, given as an annexure, provides the reader a feel of his long, arduous, and eventful journey from the Volga. The other annexure presents Chelysheva's study of the manuscript and its elucidation undertaken in India in the 19th century on the basis of archival material in Maharashtra.

Nikitin's travelogue comes across as a thoroughly unprejudiced account of Indian reality. It is argued that Nikitin's account, though naïve and inadequate sometimes, has immense historical value for the Russian and Indian researchers.

If the original is remarkably objective, the fact that it has been contextualised and supplemented by Minayev's historical scholarship makes the book an important source of information on medieval India. It transports the reader from the harbour of Hormuz to the shores of Gujarat and enables him to experience the life and culture of the ruling aristocracy, the splendid courts, the militia and the rank and file, the market place, holy places, food habits, fairs, festivals, rituals, local traditions, and superstitions that prevailed during that period in the kingdom of Bidar.

MINAYEV'S COMMENTARY

By way of commenting on Nikitin's observations, Minayev has traced the genesis and development of the socio-economic, political, and cultural history of India up to the 19th century, comparing the picture emerging from the travelogue with the one that prevailed in British India. In the hands of Minayev, Nikitin's manuscript has acquired an intellectual depth.

Minayev differed from his European colleagues on two points. First, he did not share their preferential focus on the ‘classical ancient', which they considered glorious, or their prejudiced neglect of the ‘post-classical' as degenerative, and hence disgraceful. He found it important to study the Indian historical process as a whole. Secondly, unlike theirs, his approach to contemporary Indian civilisation was open and without any reservation.

Russia is perhaps the only country to express sympathy for India's struggle for Independence and cast doubts on the “progressive mission” of British colonialism in India.This perception, left as Minayev's legacy, deserves to be shared with the people of the country he studied insightfully and affectionately. This book does serve that purpose.