Narayanam Namaskritya I Bow Before Thee With Deep Reverence O Lord Krishna Says Great Indian Epic Mahabharata In Its Opening Benedictory Verse. The Impact Of Krishna Cult On Indian Art, Literature And Culture Is Stupendous. Krishna Worship Includes Music, Dance, Drama, Which Delights Him Most. Bhassa Describes Him As Sutradhar, String-Holder, Of The Drama Of Life That Is Being Enacted In All The Three Worlds. Bhagavata Purana Eulogise Him As Natavar, Supreme Actor, And Enjoins The Devotees To Offer Him Theatricals On Festive Occasions. Inscriptions Speak Of The Tradition Of Enacting Plays In The Krishna Temples. The Tradition Still Continues As River Yamuna, On Whose Bank Krishna Performed Ras Dance, Continues To Flow. All Over India Plays Based On Krishna Theme Are Enacted. Indian Classical Dance Forms Take Delight In Depicting Radha-Krishna Love Lore. The Ras Leela Of Vraj, Ankia Nat Of Assam, Kala Of Goa And Maharashtra, Krishna Attam Of Kerala, Ras Of Manipur, Odissi Of Orissa Kathak Of Uttar Pradesh Are Some Of The Traditional Drama And Dance Forms That Depict Krishna Lore? Many Krishna Plays Are There In The Repertory Of Kathakali, Yakshagana, Kuchipudi, Tamasha And Many Other Folk And Traditional Theatrical Forms Of India. In Fact Some Scholars Believe That Indian Theatre Itself Has Originated From The Cult Of Krishna That Flourished In Surasena Region. This Most Colourful Theatrical Saga Full Of Poetry, Dance And Music Is Narrated In The Book By Eminent Scholar Shri M.L. Varadpande In A Most Attractive Manner. In A Style Picturesque And Lucid The Author Tells Us How The Dark-Hued Krishna Danced With Milkmaids Fair As Champak Flower On The Bank Of Yamuna And How The Indian Traditional Theatre And Dance Forms Recreated This Romance On The Stage. The Spectacular Rainbow Of Delightful Romance Of Krishna S Eventful Life As Seen On Indian Stage Is Charmingly Revealed To The Readers Through The Pages Of This Profusely Illustrated Book Of Infinite Charm.

Theatre and Religion on Krishna s Stage examines the history and form of India's râs lila folk theatre, and discusses how this theatre functions as a mechanism of worship and spirituality among Krishna devotees in India. From analyses of performances and conversations with performers, audience, and local scholars, Mason argues that râs lila actors and audience alike actively assume roles that locate them together in the spiritual reality that the play represents. Correlating Krishna devotion and theories of religious experience, this book suggests that the emotional experience of theatrical fiction may arise from the propensity of audiences to play out roles of their own through which they share a performance's reality.

On Krishna (Hindu deity).

This volume of the HISTORY OF INDIAN THEATRE presents most enhanting and colourful panorama of folk and traditional theatre flourishing in India since time immemorial. Utilising various sources the author meticulously and systematically builds up the theatre history, which spans over several centuries. It is for the first time an elaborate account of dramatic rituals associated with the Bhuta or the Cult of Spirits is given here. This will enable the students of theatre understand and relationship of ritual and dramatic performance in its correct perspective. Various ritualistic theatre forms such as Teyyam are described and discussed. The book also tells us how the teachnique of ballad singing was dramatized and finally evolved into full-fledged drama in the course of time. The history of narrative forms is traced from the Vedic times to the present. With the emergence of Bhakti cult the spics were dramatized. This gave rise to the Leela Theatre which dedicated itself to portraying the divine acts of incarnations such as Krishna and Rama. Various forms of Leela Theatre are described in the book. Audiences turn to theatre for entertainment. A class of folk theatre arose in India whose main function was secular entertainment. Swang, Tamasha, Nautanki, Khyal entertained the people with dance, music and song, as well as with humour and pathos, love and war. Their enchanting story is narrated here.

This book revisits Hans-Thies Lehmann's theory of the postdramatic and participates in the ongoing debate on the theatre paradigm by placing contemporary Indian performance within it. None of the Indian theatre-makers under study built their works directly on the Euro-American model of postdramatic theatre, but many have used its vocabulary and apparatus in innovative, transnational ways. Their principal aim was to invigorate the language of Indian urban theatre, which had turned stale under the stronghold of realism inherited from colonial stage practice or prescriptive under the decolonizing drive of the 'theatre of roots' movement after independence. Emerging out of a set of different historical and cultural contexts, their productions have eventually expanded and diversified the postdramatic framework by crosspollinating it with regional performance forms. Theatre in India today includes devised performance, storytelling across forms, theatre solos, cross-media performance, theatre installations, scenographic theatre, theatre-as-event, reality theatre, and so on. The book balances theory, context and praxis, developing a new area of scholarship in Indian theatre. Interspersed throughout are Indian theatre-makers' clarifications of their own practices vis-à-vis those in Europe and the US.