Of tellers and tales

2012-01-29T06:03:00.001-08:00

It would be difficult to overstate the significance of performance in Bharat, that ancient civilization now known as India. Performance infuses the culture still, as is apparent from from its innumerable forms of music and dance, its active celebration of festivals, and its engagement with images and icons, both on the altars and in the streets. All forms of performance are not created equal in this or any culture,but its centrality in Indian life cannot be challenged. - Susan L Schwartz in Rasa - Performing the divine in India.

Esoteric symbolism of Aditya Hridayam

2011-12-22T00:10:00.000-08:00

The Aditya Hridayam of the Ramayana could be a reference to the heart lotus that Ramana Maharishi refers to as the seat of the soul. The heart lotus is on the right side of the body (and corresponding to the left brain) which is the solar side in yoga physiology, thus it is aditya in nature. Hridayam is of course the heart. So the lotus heart Ramana Maharishi that laid so much emphasis on in his teachings could well be understood as the aditya hridayam.

This heart lotus according to Ramana Maharishi is the supreme seat of the self, the consciousness from which everything else emerges. Once this is realised the ego is eliminated. If the Ramayana be read as a an allegorical tale of the supreme awakening of the infinite I consciousness (Ram) eliminating the limited, contracted egotistic existence (Ravan), then the Aditya Hridayam which the sage Agastya teaches Ram in the Yudha Kandha of the Ramayana can be read as a symbol for the awakening of the lotus heart and the supreme I consciousness after which the yogi remains immersed in the infinite consciousness-energy field and ceases to identify with the conditioned egoistic existence. Ram is the knowledge of the cosmic self that removes Ravan, ignorance born out of egotism.

There are also references to this in the Bhagvad Geeta, ‘Cutting this doubt in the heart, born out of ignorance by the sword of knowledge of the Self, arise, O Arjuna, and engage in Yoga, ‘ and again, ‘Spilt is the knot of the heart; the doubts are removed.’

The Sri Ramana Gita published by the Ramana Ashram explains the significance of the heart lotus, ‘The body is the embodiment of ignorance, conditioned by time and space and characterised by inertness. It is suffused with the light of the notion of ‘I’. Its dealings of knowledge and action, like I know, I do etc. result only from the origination of the I activity. Therefore it is proper to infer that the place of the I-activity, the root of all activities of knowledge and action, pertaining to the body should also be somewhere, pertaining to the body....

Although egoism is surpassed by the I-activity, and all activities having their root in egoism resulting in the culmination in the I-activity, there is nothing wrong in indicating a location as the practice of tracking down to the root of the I-activity culminates in the accomplishment of the Brahmanic state in the form of the throbbing I. As regards the I activity, the bodily site conditioned by time and space, called heart is pointed out. As the true form not being conditioned by time and space etc., being the supporting base of the origin of the I activity is self accomplished there itself, in the groundless, in the unsupported, it becomes established that the same is also the location of knowledge, in the form of the I-throbbing. Thus become appropriate the authoritative statements that proclaim that the knowledge located in the heart itself destroys the ignorance located in the heart....

The place is on the right portion of the chest; not the left side. From here effulgence flows through Sushumna to the Sahasrara.’

One can see that this is a reference to the realization of the atman removing all limited thought constructs which obstruct the same.

- Swetha Prakash

Storytelling as a ritual

2011-12-21T06:10:00.001-08:00

What is a ritual? It is established or prescribed procedure for religious, magical or other rites, a system or collection of religious or other rites, and observance of set forms in public worship. Basically ritual means certain action or set of actions which gives certain results. Man believed that if certain action or series of actions are performed in a correct sequence certain results follow. A ritual is explained by myth. Myth is incorporated in a ritual and gradually the myth-ritual unit grows and evolves further together. - M.L. Varadpande in a History of Indian Theatre.

2011-12-10T22:08:00.000-08:00

'This search led to the mystery of a ubiquitous power that worked like a supreme faculty of self-transmutation. It was called maya. It was then understood as a supernatural force, magical force with the power to change form and appear under innumerable deceiving masks producing illusionary effects.
During the period of Brahmanas, the task of fathoming this mysterious maya was approached through pictographic reasoning of mythology and theology. Superhuman gods and demons were believed to be wielding this magical power and directing the world. Soon, the whole series of masks that could possibly be assumed by this magical power was identified and comprehended and a vast pantheon of gods emerged.' - Rajarshi Muni in Yoga - A synthesis of Psychology and Metaphysics.

2011-10-31T21:15:00.000-07:00

This atman, which is eternal and indestructible, is present everywhere and in everyone; hence, give up all grief O Bharata.

- Sri Krishna in Bhagvad Geeta

2011-10-18T22:46:00.000-07:00

Nachiketus! The fulfilment of all desire, the conquest of the world, freedom from fear, unlimited pleasure.. all were yours, but you renounced them all.. - From Katha Upanishad in The Ten Principal Upanishads translated by Shree Purohit Swami and WB Yeats.

2011-10-17T00:34:00.000-07:00

What thoughtful person would ever tire of drinking the nectarine tales of Sakti?
Death comes even to those who drink divine ambrosia, but not to one who hears this act of hers.

- From Chapter 1 (The appearance of the Great Goddess before the Mountain King Himalaya and the Gods) of the Devi Gita - The Song of the Goddess translated by C Mackenzie Brown.

2011-09-28T23:43:00.000-07:00

When thus the non-existence of the mind is realised, it is seen that the ego-sense, etc. do not exist. One alone exists - the infinite consciousness. All notions cease. The falsity which arose as the mind ceases when the notions cease. I am not nor is there another, nor do you nor do these exist; there is neither mind nor senses. One alone is - pure consciousness.

- The Supreme Yoga - Yoga Vasistha by Swami Venkatesananda

Me or my army?

2011-09-27T21:12:00.000-07:00

Krishna, however, has long been a presence more mysterious and powerful than any role he has assumed. His decision to accept a subordinate place for the battle, as Arjuna's suta is the result of wager in which Yudhishthira the Pandava and Duryodhana the Kaurava were offered either Krishna as non-combatant or the force of all of his armies. When Yudhishthira chooses Krishna for his counsel, friendship, and companionship over the mighty armies he might have chosen in alliance, Duryodhana believes he has received yet another boon from the choice of a foolish idealist who places false hope before realpolitik. But there is never anything false about hope and with Krishna, who then chooses to be Arjuna's charioteer, the Pandavas know they cannot lose: by having chosen from the heart than from the mere exigency of practical reality, they have chosen the divine. –

Douglas Renfrew Brooks in Poised for grace: annotations on the Bhagavad Gita from a Tantric view

2011-09-27T20:31:00.001-07:00

In Pranatoshini, Kali being blue-complexioned has been named Tara. Truly speaking, Sati being born at Daksha's abode has been known as Eka Jata owing to her divinely benevolent nature. She is ever called Tara as she is famed for giving salvation or moksha. She also spontaneously awards Vak sakti; hence she is befittingly called Nila Sarasvati. She is Ugra Tara due to her rash nature and is known as Ugratarini by way of saving her devotees.

- Dr Vishnu Datta Rakesh in Dasamahavidya Mimamsa.

2011-09-18T20:30:00.000-07:00

O daughter of the mountain king, the seers have said that the world is dissolved and created with the closing and opening of your lotus eyes. I suspect that you never blink and always keep your eyes wide open; keeping this universe, that has sprung up with the opening of your lotus eyes, from pralaya, dissolution. -

Adi Shankaracharya addressing the goddess Kameshwari in Saundarya Lahari.

2011-09-14T04:35:00.000-07:00

This book gave a possible answer to a core question of mythology - where do stories come from and why do they take the shape they do? They come from Inner Experiences, from strong visual imprinting. This is not just another version of archetypes though it is certainly connected to it. Not just archetypes, but all mythic thinking seems to exist in what Joseph Campbell called the 'inner reaches of outer space.' What this book seems to demonstrate is that such mythic structure is inherent in the condition of being human, which is why tales of Man are so similar all over.
The differences in stories are due to differences in personalities and cultures - they are differences in interpretations of what is fundamentally the same set of inner visions. - Rohit Arya in the Preface to Kundalini Dairy by Santosh Sachdeva

Ardhanarishwara - By Swetha

2011-08-09T18:48:00.001-07:00

To collect popular stories is either a most difficult or a most easy task. Everybody who finds nothing better to do thinks he is able at least to write down the stories which his nurse has told him. But this, you know, is a great mistake. First of all, not every story that an old woman may tell deserves to be written down and printed. There is a particular earthy flavour about the genuine home-grown, or, if I may say so, autochthonic Marchen - something like the flavour of the dark-red wild strawberry - which we must learn to appreciate before we can tell whether a story is old or new, genuine or made-up; whether it comes, in fact, from the forest or from the hothouse. This is a matter of taste; but, as tasters of wine or tea will tell you, even taste can be acquired. - F Max Muller

2011-08-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

'The picture showman has thrived throughout Indian history..We know the social (namely, low), economic (poor), and religious (lay) status of Indian picture reciters. ..More important, we have learned that they are normally illiterate, that the shape of their narratives is determined by various oral and pictorial formulaic devices, and the printed versions of their tales are the products of local scribes and publishers.' - Victor H. Mair in Tʼang transformation texts.

2011-08-04T09:39:00.000-07:00

'One of the most common critiques of folktales once they are written down is that they lose their vibrancy as stories because they have been taken out of an interactive sphere. Oral, performed renditions of tales contain elements that written tales cannot possess.' - Amie A. Doughty in Folktales retold: a critical overview of stories updated for children

Dastangoi

2011-07-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

Dastan means story and dastangoi means to tell a story. It is a unique form of Urdu storytelling that uses no musical instruments, no props or other visual stimuli. Only the story is told. The tradition was very popular during the Mughal era and Akbar was known to patron dastangos in his court. The stories were about magic and sorcerers...Dastangoi remained popular till the early 20th century. Dastangos would recite stories in public squares and on the steps of Jama Masjid in Old Delhi. - Parul Khanna Tewari in 'Once Upon a Time' published in Hindustan Times Brunch, June 26, 2011.

2011-07-10T04:59:00.000-07:00

'With great wit he described the dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna, which comprises the entirety of the Gita, as being similar to a Broadway musical, when suddenly the cast freezes in position while the two main characters break out into a long song in the spotlight. Both armies effectively stand still, facing each other in silence, while Krishna and Arjuna have a profound discussion over hundreds of verses!' - John Friend in the Foreword to Poised for grace: annotations on the Bhagavad Gita from a Tantric view By Douglas Renfrew Brooks

Postmodern fairy tales

2011-07-06T21:52:00.001-07:00

postmodern fairy tales reactivate the wonder tale's 'magic' or mythopoetic qualities by providing new readings of it, thereby generating unexploited or forgotten possibilities from its repetition....Semiotically speaking, the anti-tale is implicit in the tale, since this well-made artifice produces the receiver's desire to repeat the tale anew: repetition functions as reassurance within the tale, but this very same compulsion to repeat the tale explodes its coherence as well made artifice. Finally, and perhaps most simply, the postmodern fairy tale's dissemination of multiple versions is strangely powerful - all re-tellings, re-interpretations, and re-visions may appear to be equally authorized as well as unauthorized.

- Cristina Bacchilega in Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies.

The Vajra

2011-06-28T17:19:00.000-07:00

In the Vajrayana ("Diamond Vehicle") of Tibet, the vajra, or lightening bolt (called dorje in Tibet) is the central image of gnosis.

The dorje is the symbol of the clear, immutable essence of reality that is the basis of everything. Its immaculate transparency, which nevertheless gives rise to a profusion of manifestations [i.e., the phenomenal world], corresponds to the concept of shunyata stressed by Nagarjuna. . . . Padmasambhava [writes]:

The secret mind of all the buddhas, Omniscient wisdom
Transmitted by the symbol of eternal strength and firmness
Clarity and emptiness, the dorje essence
Like heavenly space --
It is wonderful to see the true face of reality!

(Fischer-Schreiber, et. al., 1989).

Source: http://www.jrhaule.net/ipet12.html#s2

2011-06-23T06:03:00.000-07:00

' The sacred tremor, the very place of creation and return, is completely limitless because its nature is formless.' - Daniel Odier in Yoga Spandakarika

2011-06-19T20:49:00.000-07:00

' Creation comes from avyakta (the unmanifested) and leads to avyakta (dissolution). Avyaktam is brahmajnanam (knowledge of the absolute), devoid of creation and dissolution.' - Jnana Sankalini Tantra translated by Paramahamsa Prajnanaanada

Sandhya Bhasha

2011-06-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

In the itihasas and the puranas, the characters move through ‘forests of symbols’ that reveal deeper and deeper levels of meaning. Much of the Indian oral tradition starting from the Vedas has been composed in the Sandhya Bhasha or twilight language. As David Frawley says in Gods, sages and kings: Vedic secrets of ancient civilization, 'The Vedas are filled with mantras, symbols and cryptic statements and codes. They do not reveal themselves readily to those who don't look deeply. It is not enough to have records of the ancients if we do not know how to read them.'

2011-06-11T04:34:00.000-07:00

'Although the significance of sound and speech as the primordial stuff of creation is primarily a post-Rg-vedic concept, it is apparent even in the Rg veda that sound, and especially ritual speech, is powerful, creative, and a mainstay of the cosmic ritual order. The goddess Vac, whose name means speech, reveals herself through speech and is typically characterized by various attributes of speech. She is speech, and the mysteries and miracles of speech express her peculiar, numinous nature...She is the mysterious presence that enables one to hear, see, grasp, and then express in words the true nature of things.’ - David Kinsley in Hindu Goddesses: visions of the divine feminine in the Hindu religious tradition.

The esoteric Ramayana

2011-06-02T10:23:00.000-07:00

Robert Svoboda's brilliant book Kundalini: Aghora II presents a unique esoteric interpretation of the Ramayana. Here, the entire epic is read as an allegory for kundalini awakening wherein Sita (Kundalini Shakti), stuck in Lanka (Mooladhara chakra), is reunited with the Rama (the cosmic consciousness at Sahasradal padma) with help from Hanuman (the power of prana, the life force), Sugreev (the power of the throat chakra) and Lakshman ( the power of will power and concentration on the self). The entire epic is thus re-enacted with the body of the awakened yogi. The interesting thing is that the narrator of this version, the Aghori Vimalanada was a great sadhak of the Mahavidya Tara, the goddess who saves by giving the highest knowledge. The Mahavidya Tara is, according to tradition, identical with Ram. – Swetha

Combat as Lila

2011-05-31T23:49:00.000-07:00

'The Hindu scriptures, especially the puranas, frequently depict the world as being on the brink of disaster...The theme that runs through this ever recurring struggle (between the devas and asuras) is that of combat as play on the part of the gods. At the height of battle for instance the deity will laugh uproariously...In almost every case we are told explicitly, or it is inferred, that Vishnu's avatars are as much bent on amusing themselves as they are on saving the world...The Goddess in her many forms is also a formidable warrior who enters combat with zest. She clearly enjoys it and rarely seems to be in any trouble. For her also it is simply a diversion.' - David R Kinsley in ‘The Divine Player - A study of Krishna Lila.’

2011-05-31T23:41:00.000-07:00

“There is in Shiva an aspect of primordial wildness, as his earlier name, Rudra (the howler, from the root rud), suggests. His untamed nature is overwhelming...Siva the mad god is not bound by any of the restricting limits of the rather tedious sane world...The Great Goddess is frequently described as drunken, which well she might be, for she embodies maya, the effect of which is intoxicating...Ramakrsna puts the matter more directly when he says of Kali: ‘She appears to be reeling under the spell of wine. But who would create this mad world unless under the influence of divine drunkenness?’... “- David Kinsley in ‘The Divine Player – A study of Krishna Lila’

2011-05-31T03:25:00.000-07:00

'Chhinnamasta, whose image is a severed head, is the goddess who causes us to cut off our own heads or to dissolve our minds into pure awareness. She brings transcendence of the mind and represents the non-mind (unmana) state...As the power of Indra, Chhinnamasta is vidyut or lightning, the electrical energy of transformation (Vidyut Shakti) working on the cosmos at all levels. The electricity in the material world is only one form of this. In the mind it functions as the power of instantaneous enlightenment... As lightning, Chhinnamasta represents direct perception, pure seeing which cuts through everything and reveals the infinite beyond all forms.' - Dr David Frawley.

2011-05-26T20:23:00.000-07:00

Theeyattu is a ritualistic folk art from Kerela dedicated to Bhadra Kali or the Kali who brings auspiciousness. A single actor playing Bhadrakali, uses chants and classical dance mudras to narrate the incidents leading to the killing of Darukasura, a demon, to her father Shiva, who in the performance is represented by a flaming lamp.

Telling Tales

2011-05-20T09:34:00.001-07:00

Geetha Ramanujam in the Bangalore Mirror

Director, Kathalaya, the only academy globally for storytelling
The belief: The Steiner-Waldorf method of teaching lays emphasis on the role of imagination when it comes to learning and children. And therefore fantasy stories are believed to be a must for young minds.

The reasoning: Fantasy is believed to be the main foundation on which the imagination grows. It involves a suspension of belief — where we tend to believe in fantasy despite knowing it not to be true. This is a trait that children are born with, believes Geetha. She believes that the imagination has to grow with a child as though on a parallel railway track. The Montessori style of teaching says that fantasy stories can affect a child, if the child begins to live constantly in its world. However, children do have the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality. The stories of the Panchantantra have central characters revolving around animals that speak. In the Ramayana, Ravana is referred to as having 10 heads. Children do understand that this does not happen in real life and that these descriptions are merely representational. It’s a convenient and fun way to interpret things. Children largely believe that ghosts don’t exist, but there is a thrill in listening to stories about them.

Taking flight: Every child has an imagination that needs to evolve as a child grows. That should not be curbed in the growing years. There is something exciting about the fish who could talk, the birds who could swim and the boy who could fly. It helps the child relax and allows his imagination to grow.

http://www.bangaloremirror.com/article/74/201105132011051318302888450e96f01/Telling-Tales.html

2011-05-02T04:09:00.000-07:00

With the spread of Bhakti movement in India wandering saints retold puranic stories in vernacular languages with many regional variations. The stories were rendered into poems and songs that reflected a personal relationship between a cosmic deity and an ardent devotee.

Listen, sister, listen.
I had a dream

I saw rice, betel, palmleaf
and coconut.
I saw an ascetic
come to beg,
white teeth and small matted curls.

I followed on his heels
and held his hand,
he who goes breaking
all bounds and beyond.

I saw the lord, white as jasmine
and woke wide open.

- By Akka Mahadevi in Speaking of Shiva, translated by AK Ramanujam

Illustrated by Swetha Prakash

Feed Back from Batch no - 23

2011-04-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

April 11 to 16
Intensive Course.

Day 1
Monday : Introduction – Book marks / Nyayas / listening
RP: Geeta
Pooja Sagar: Loved the way we were asked to introduce ourselves. Simply loved the whole session.

Sonal Takrar: Learnt a lot about what actually storytelling is and where it lies.
Ambience is warm and homely.

Nanditha Bharat: A complete experience! The session offered a much needed clarity about story telling.

Brindha Shanmugam: It made me a good listener. I understood that story telling haas got different prospective.

Day 2
Tuesday: Creativity, How to tell a story? Different aspects of Story telling/ voice
RP: Geeta
Dhanya Magavi: Didn’t know that story telling involved so much of professionalism. What an eye opener !

Neha Bhandari: It is true, when a person wants to do something, the truth follows the person.

Nanditha Bhandari: A fantastic session! The varied examples sprinkled right through really helped to bridge the gap between theory and actual practice. Am in total awe of Geeta madam’s energy and the life that she brings in to each story.

Sonal : It was an intensive round up of how to prepare and tell a story. A very energetic and dramatic session.

Brindha: Story telling not an easy task but you can! – this I understood today.

Day – 3
Wednesday: Childhood stories & session with councilor
RP: Geeta & Varalakshmi.
Rama: The council ling session made me to realize the unknown potential in me.
Nanditha: Varalkshmi held a mirror up to our own self. I am so cought up with routines in life and have got so used to reacting to every situation. It was really so nice to pause and think and simplify things. Thank you for helping me to get in touch with myself.

Brinda: Sharing childhood memories was really amazing. Varalakshmi’s session was really useful and helped us to know about ourselves from other’s point of view.

Sonal: It was a very self knowing session. Very heart warming session, had a peep inside.

Pooja: Sharing a childhood memory was a wonderful experience. Varalakshmi’s session was not just ‘Window Opener’ but “Soul Opener’.

Neha: Felt very nice. Had a deep inside journey. Hope to continue on this journey.

Dhanya: It connecting with oneself and others. A journey begins inside. The teacher inspires and that is what Geeta and Varalakshmi did to me.

Sejal: I learnt to know oneself in a positive way and also think in a positive way .

Day – 4
Thursday – Body Language
RP: Anshul Pathak
Dhanya: Anshul’s energy was contiguous. It brought home the fact of how little we use our body to communicate effectively

Namitha: It made me how little I listen to my body and realize its hidden potential. Our senses are so powerful if we concentrate and pay attention. The session was all the more beautiful for me as it was done by Anshul with whom I grew up.

Pooja: Anshul was very confident, energetic and passionate about his work.

Sonal: Anshul did a great job in helping us to recognize the existence of our body parts and how to use them effectively.

Neha: It’s a very different experience to know your own body parts. Very nice realization.

Day –5
Friday: Puppetry
RP: Ambica Chandrashekhar
Dhanya: Common sense and Art blended well together. Great mentor. Loved it.

Nanditha: The session was enjoyable. It gave me a glimpse of how puppets can be made with such simple things.

Pooja: Ambica thought us some very simple and effective puppets.

Sonal: Puppet making was fun & creative.

Ramadevi: For the first time in my life, made puppets myself and realized that I am ok with it. I can improve upon myself.

Neha: realized that with little glue, paper and colour could do lots of puppets and can be resourceful to my own self. My creativity came to surface.

Brinda: So far I have not done any puppets, but this session gave me confidence that I can also make puppets.

General Comments:
Brinda: It was a holistic approach of story telling.
Quite interactive.
It was interesting and informative.
Gave me confidence and how to go about it.

Neha: Just too interesting. This learning was a different experience.

Ramadevi: The course is extremely useful for everyone. It is just not only about body language and voice modulation. It has been scientifically designed, each session had its own importance and brought out the best in all of us. For us, to become a good story teller, all the fundamentals were given and now it is up to us to improve upon it and make the best out of the workshop. I am really touched.

Pooja: A holistic approach to story telling; in a manner I have never experienced before.
Geeta’s energy and smile is simply infectious. I look forward to work with her some time in future.
The effort in preserving and nurturing India’s rich traditions of story telling is highly appreciable.

Sejal: It was really a wonderful experience. There are lots and lots to learn ahead.

Nanditha: Trying to desire my experience would be like trying to describe the scent of a Rose….. so subtle yet all-encompassing ….. words wouldn’t sufficient !!! Thank you .

Dhanya: Such a wholesome program!!!
I received more than I expected. All the sessions were soul touching. Most enjoyable workshop I have ever attended..

ACADEMY OF STORYTELIING ANNOUNCES ITS SPECIAL SUMMER INTENSIVE COURSES – APRIL 11 TO APRIL 16 , 2011.

2011-03-22T20:05:00.000-07:00

“ The Storyteller is deep inside every one of us. We listen to stories to experience that special moment of becoming”
To discover the Storytelling potential in you join our course.

Day/Date: Monday 11 to Saturday 16, April 2011
Timing: 9.30 am to 1.30 pm
Venue: Kathalaya, #88, B.H.B.C.S. Layout,
3rd Main, 2nd Cross,
B.T.M II Stage
Bannerghatta Road,
Bangalore 560076

Charges: Rs. 7000/- (Including materials, snacks and Certificate with a hand book for the Story Educators)

For registrations and queries call: 2668 9856, 98452 07073
Or mail to us at kathalaya@gmail.com, geetastory@gmail.com
www. Kathalaya.org

* We have facilities to accommodate out station candidates too.

The Hindavi Sufi Romance

2011-03-06T19:02:00.000-08:00

The cultural history of sultanate India is, in part, the history of the enthusiastic participation of Sufis and other Muslims in the formation of the canons of Indian poetry, art, and music. The genre of the Hindavi Sufi romance should be read against this larger background of cultural appropriations, co-minglings, and creative formulations. The Hindavi Sufi poets used Sanskrit rasa theory and the conventions of Persian poetry to create a mystical romantic genre centred around the various meanings of prema rasa, the juice or essence of love. While it is important to understand their poems as aesthetic and mystical creations, this genre can nevertheless be read for marks of historical process and seen as embodying a history of narrative motifs.
The Hindavi romantic ideal of desire and its transformation into Sufi love is set in a fantasy world of marvels and exotic locales, of supernatural helpers and agencies who aid the hero along his way. The poets of the Hindavi Sufi romances articulate their distinctive aesthetics of self transformation through the narrative, the unfolding of a story in a fantastic fictional universe. These narrative universes have four characteristic features. First, inspired by Persian verse narratives (mathnawis), they relate the story of a spiritual quest that proceeds through the deferment of desire and the enticement of the hero/reader further and further on the journey of self transformation. Second, the fictional universe is formulic and episodic, but the poet structures these formulic motifs using abstract characters or narrative options like the different kinds of love,or .. the relative values of asceticism and sensual pleasure. Third, they are not directly allegorical but suggestive of general Sufi values through the ordeals and experiences of the hero. Finally the narrative motifs that the poets use reveal a history of complex interactions between, on the one hand, Persian and Arabic storytelling, and on the other, Sanskrit, Prakrit, and other narrative traditions in the Islamic and pre-Islamic world of the Indian Ocean. - Aditya Behl in the Cultural History of Medieval India edited by Meenaskhi Khanna

Yoga Vasista

2011-03-06T10:06:00.000-08:00

Along with the Bhagvada Geeta and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the Yoga Vasista or Maharamayana is a key Indian yogic text which explains how fluctuations of the consciousness can be overcome and the highest self be realised. Yoga Vasista, traditionally attributed to Valmiki the composer of the Ramayana, employs interesting stories to achieve this end. The text is structured as a discourse between Prince Rama as a seeker and his preceptor Vasistha, the enlightened sage. It is believed that merely reading this book leads to self realization. As an Advaita Vedanta text, the Yoga Vasista deals with the knowledge of the all pervasive non dual consciousness and the unreality of the manifest world.

The story begins when the seer Vishwamitra arrives at King Dasaratha’s court to demand the company of Rama for the protection of his sacred rites from the flesheating rakshasas, only to hear that the later is absolutely dejected with the fickleness and meaninglessness of human existence. The court preceptor Vasista, who is also present, guesses that Rama is experiencing vairagya or detachment so essential for spiritual realisation. He offers to guide the prince through the process of enlightenment and does this through the medium of several fantastic stories. As the conversation proceeds, Rama attains enlightenment and discovers a completely new level of meaning and purpose to existence. Yoga Vasista is a vast text which presents varied cosmologies, creation theories, philosophies and tips for daily living as an enlightened being through some immensely enjoyable stories. - Swetha Prakash

The Bauls of Bengal

2011-03-05T10:59:00.000-08:00

'There is something very special and appealing about the Bauls, something significant and lasting. Once one's life has been touched by them, they can never be forgotten. Having heard their thrilling songs of passion and ecstasy and experienced their charismatic and spontaneous manner, there can be no turning away,' - Nik Douglas in the forward to the ‘The Path of the Mystic Lover: Baul Songs of Passion and Ecstasy.'

On Myth

2011-03-04T08:26:00.000-08:00

'Myth can be defined in two ways. First, it is a sacred idea that is inherited over generations. Second, it is absurd, irrational, and fantastic concepts about the world that appeal to unsophisticated minds. The two meanings are two sides of the same coin.
Depending on one's point of view, a story, an image, or a custom can be sacred or stupid’

- Devdutt Pattanaik in Indian mythology: tales, symbols, and rituals from the heart of the subcontinent.

A Zen story

2011-02-25T22:28:00.000-08:00

A student went to his meditation teacher and said, "My meditation is horrible! I feel so distracted, or my legs ache, or I'm constantly falling asleep. It's just horrible!"
"It will pass," the teacher said matter-of-factly.

A week later, the student came back to his teacher. "My meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive! It's just wonderful!'

"It will pass," the teacher replied matter-of-factly.

Source: http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/zenstory/willpass.html

On the Mahabharata

2011-02-24T10:06:00.000-08:00

"The Mahabharata is the creation and expression not of a single individual mind, but of the mind of a nation; it is the poem of itself written by a whole people. It would be vain to apply to it the canons of a poetical art applicable to an epic poem with a smaller and more restricted purpose, but still a great and quite conscious art has been expended both on its detail and its total structure. The whole poem has been built like a vast national temple unrolling slowly its immense and complex idea from chamber to chamber, crowded with significant groups and sculptures and inscriptions, the grouped figures carved in divine or semi-divine proportions, a humanity aggrandized and half uplifted to super-humanity and yet always true to the human motive and idea and feeling, the strain of the real constantly raised by the tones of the ideal, the life of this world amply portrayed but subjected to the conscious influence and presence of the powers of the worlds behind it, and the whole unified by the long embodied procession of a consistent idea worked out in the wide steps of the poetic story." - Sri Aurobindo

Swedish delegation at Kathalaya

2011-02-14T23:26:00.000-08:00

The Swedish delegation comprising of Annelie Stark, President,
Lars Nordstrom, Vice President, Cultural affairs Committee, Region Vastra Gotaland, visited Kathalaya on 9th of February 2011. Ylva Gustafsson also came with them. Ola Henricssson, teacher and story teller at Bergsjon,Goteborg along with Geeta Ramanujam and Ambica did a workshop for two days. Three Swedish students of storytelling Maon Jasim, Sabina Krasniqi, Emma Murselovic were the part of the workshop. All the four story tellers along with P.Nagalakshmi and Usha Kolluru (Kathalaya resource people) enthralled the children of 1st and 2nd Standard of Shishugriha school in Tippasandra on 10th. On the same evening, a story space was organized were 25 people exchanged and enjoyed stories. Peter af Wetterstedt, Secretary of International affairs, Region Vastra Gotaland, also joined this Story Space. Academy students Sarita, Lakshmi, Sahana, Arathi, Varalakshmi and Bhuvana, Usha Venkatranman came with their family and friends.
0n the 12th, Ola Henricsson and Geeta Ramanujam did a workshop for adults at the British Council for about 40 people. On the same evening both of them enthralled about 40 children at Easy Library, Koramangala. Both of them told chain stories, which children and accompanying parents enjoyed. Vanishree Mahesh of Easy Library hosted the show.

A vedic hymn

2011-02-12T07:41:00.000-08:00

1. He is the first born, born of the golden womb – the Hiranyagarba. He is the lord of everything that was, is and will be. With his sole might the earth and heaven became stable. Unfathomable is this deity to whom all this belongs.
2. He is the lifebreath of the living, he is the might of the strong. His is the command which all the luminous gods revere; his stride is immortality, his shadow is death. Unfathomable is this deity to whom all this belongs.
3. Through his might alone he became the overlord of all these worlds, of all the men and beasts that live. Unfathomable is this deity to whom all this belongs.
4. He through his might wills these snowy mountains and this never ending sea into existence. Everything you see here are his two arms. Unfathomable is this deity to whom all this belongs.
5. He through whom the heaven and the earth were aligned, he through whom space came to be, and the firmament; he who measured the air in the sky. Unfathomable is this deity to whom all this belongs.
6. He to whom heaven and earth, standing firm by his will, look up, trembling in their mind; he over whom the risen sun shines forth. Unfathomable is this deity to whom all this belongs.

2011-02-09T03:27:00.000-08:00

Sanskrit, which has been aptly described as "the perfectly constructed speech dedicated to literary and religious purposes," is the language of song. These ancient peoples went deeply into the matter: while they sang their praise songs they wanted to understand exactly how the voice produced song, and they studied the breath in a way which had never before been attempted, and certainly has never since been excelled. They thought of it as "the breath of life," not merely as a supply of oxygen to the tissues, but as a direct means of real inspiration and the key to that deeper life which all so much long for. - Lylie Pragnell in The Philosophy of Speech

Originally printed in The Philosopher,Volume V, 1928
http://www.the-philosopher.co.uk/speech28.htm

2011-02-06T03:37:00.000-08:00

'We have a bequest of stories, tales from the old storytellers, some of whose names we know, but some not. The storytellers go back and back, to a clearing in the forest where a great fire burns, and the old shamans dance and sing, for our heritage of stories began in fire, magic, the spirit world. And that is where it is held, today.
Ask any modern storyteller and they will say there is always a moment when they are touched with fire, with what we like to call inspiration, and this goes back and back to the beginning of our race, to the great winds that shaped us and our world.
The storyteller is deep inside every one of us. The story-maker is always with us. Let us suppose our world is ravaged by war, by the horrors that we all of us easily imagine. Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise. But the storyteller will be there, for it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us -for good and for ill. It is our stories that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, that is our phoenix, that represents us at our best, and at our most creative.' - Doris Lessing

Source - "Doris Lessing - Nobel Lecture". Nobelprize.org. 6 Feb 2011 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2007/lessing-lecture_en.html

2011-02-05T23:10:00.000-08:00

I have always been fascinated to imagine the uncertain circumstance in which our ancestors – still barely different from animals, the language that allowed them to communicate with one another just recently born – in caves, around fires, on nights seething with the menace of lightning bolts, thunder claps, and growling beasts, began to invent and tell stories. That was the crucial moment in our destiny, because in those circles of primitive beings held by the voice and fantasy of the storyteller, civilization began, the long passage that gradually would humanize us and lead us to invent the autonomous individual, then disengage him from the tribe, devise science, the arts, law, freedom, and to scrutinize the innermost recesses of nature, the human body, space, and travel to the stars. - Mario Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa - Nobel Lecture". Nobelprize.org. 6 Feb 2011 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2010/vargas_llosa-lecture_en.html

2011-01-27T18:48:00.001-08:00

“the vast literature, the magnificent opulence, the majestic sciences, the great realized souls, the soul touching music, the awe inspiring gods….! It is already becoming clearer that a chapter which has a western beginning will have a to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in history the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way “ - Dr. Arnold Toynbee, British historian

2011-01-26T21:51:00.000-08:00

Sri Bhagavan become transformed while relating incidents from his vast collection of stories and tales. On one occasion while describing Gautama's joy at Goddess Parvathi coming to his ashram, Sri Bhagvan could not go on, for tears filled his eyes and emotion choked his voice. Trying to hide his plight from others, he remarked, "I don't know how people who perform Harikathas explain such passages to audiences and manage to do it without breaking down. I suppose they must make thier hearts hard like stone before starting thier work."
- From Spiritual Stories as told by Ramana Maharshi

2011-01-23T09:28:00.001-08:00

In South India, the art of story telling is referred to as Kathakalakshepa, which is a Sanskrit term meaning, “Katha” - story, “kala” - time, and “kshepa” - throwing away. In total it means spending time listening to stories. Such performances are held in temples, weddings and other religious or social functions. This is a one-person theatre where the performer has to be versatile in the aspects of exposition, singing and histrionics, and be able to interestingly narrate humorous anecdotes as well. The storyteller is looked upon as a teacher who is a scholar in ancient texts in Sanskrit and other vernaculars. He interprets the religious and mythological texts of the past to the present and future generations.

In the various States of India there are three traditions of storytelling. The first is the Purana-Pravachana, which literally means, “expounding the Purana”. The Purana-Pravachana was narrated by the Pauranika, who was an expert in the exposition. Such expositions are solemn and serious.

The second tradition, Kathakalakshepa is unique because the story is carried through various songs and compositions in different Indian languages like Sanskrit, Tamil, Marathi, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi, which is a peculiarity in the Tamilnadu-style of story telling.

The third is a folk art, prevalent in Andhra Pradesh (a State in South India), called Burrakatha. Burra is a drum that is shaped like a human skull (Burra means skull). In this tradition, gypsies narrate stories beating this drum. As referred to earlier, in Tamilnadu the folk story tradition is called Villu-pattu, viz., the bow-song.

Krteyadhyayato vishnum
Tretayam yajoto maghaihi
Dvapare paricaryayam
Kalautatu Harikeertanatu

Source: http://www.carnatica.net/harikatha1.htm

2011-01-20T02:30:00.000-08:00

Another thing he sorely misses is the institution of the storyteller, once an integral part of valley life.

"The storyteller would regularly come to our home in the evening. All the village children would assemble in a room as the storyteller started his narrative of princes and fairies and the wooden horse that would fly carrying the prince charming to the far off land where he fought the demon to retrieve his lady love.

"Hot 'kehwa' with saffron to keep the story teller and the listeners awake during the long winter nights was a ritual I still remember vividly," Sheikh said, ruing the end of the charming tradition. - From 'Kashmir: Where have all the icicles and storytellers gone?'

http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/travel/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4817985&page=2

2011-01-16T22:08:00.000-08:00

Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives. This incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress in the sciences: but that progress in turn presupposes it[...]The narrative function is losing its functors, its great hero, its great dangers, its great voyages, its great goal. It is being dispersed in clouds of narrative language elements—narrative, but also denotative, prescriptive, descriptive, and so on [...] Where, after the metanarratives, can legitimacy reside?

—Jean-François Lyotard

2011-01-15T18:38:00.000-08:00

Goddess figures and feminine imagery appear in many of the world's religious traditions, but often such goddesses have fallen into eclipse and such imagery has become peripheral or subordinate to the masculine metaphors of the divine. This was not the fate of the feminine in India. From one standpoint, the history of the Hindu tradition can be characterised as a re-emergence of the feminine.

- C. Mackenzie Brown in 'The Triumph of the Goddess'.

2010-12-28T00:04:00.000-08:00

Shaktas believe that stories about fierce goddesses stimulate our imagination. They are supposed to horrify and shock, so that we may strip away our pretensions and dare to confront the cosmic truth. - Elizabeth U Harding in Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar.

2010-12-12T09:43:00.001-08:00

"The very best in thought, the very best in action, the very best in character, the very best in literature and art, the very best in religion and all the world well lost if only this very best might be attained, such was the spirit of ancient India. He (the Indian) saw Harischandra give up all that life held precious and dear rather than that his lips should utter a lie or his plighted word be broken. He saw Prahlada buried under mountains, whelmed in the seas, tortured by the poison of a thousand venomous serpents, yet calmly true to his faith. He saw Buddha give up his royal state, wealth, luxury, wife, child and parents so that mankind might be saved. He saw Shivi hew the flesh from his own limbs to save one small dove from the pursuing falcon, Karna tear his own body with a smile for the joy of making a gift, Duryodhan refuse to yield one inch of earth without noble resistance and warlike struggle. He saw Sita face exile, hardship, privation and danger in the eagerness of wifely love and duty, Savitri rescue by her devotion her husband back from the visible grip of death. These were the classical Indian types." - Sri Aurobindo

The Indian oral tradition

2010-11-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

Until the nineteenth century, when the practice of printing and distributing literary pieces became feasible and possible, literature in India existed mainly in the oral tradition. Even when literary pieces were circulated in the manuscript form, the general dissemination of any literary work depended on its oral outreach. This includes a range of narrations from scriptures to folksongs, stories, aphorisms and drama.

Source: http://sahitya-akademi.gov.in/sahitya-akademi/projects-schemes/tribal_oral_literature.jsp

The healing powers of the 'Tale of the Four Dervishes'

2010-11-06T00:06:00.000-07:00

The Tale of the Four Dervishes (Ghasseh-e Chahar Dervish, Persian) is a collection of allegorical stories in Persian composed by Amir Khusro, a Sufi mystic, musician, scholar and poet in the late 13th century. The reading or listening to the collection is supposed to have healing powers.

Amina Shah has retold these tales. This is what she writes in her introduction:

“When the great 13th Century Sufi teacher Nizamuddin Awliya was ill, his disciple Amir Khusraw – the eminent Persian poet – recited to him this Sufi allegory. To mark this event, Nizamuddin on his recovery, placed this benediction upon the book:

‘Who hears this story will, by the divine power, be in health’.

“Mir Amman of Delhi translated the work a century and a half ago into Urdu, and ever since it has been regarded as a classic of that language, under the title of ‘Bagh o Bahar’ (Garden and Spring), a chronogram which, when decoded by the Abjad System, produces the date of its completion: Year 1217 of the Hijra Era”.

“It is widely believed that the recitation of the story will restore to health the ailing, and that the allegorical dimensions of the adventures of the Dervishes contained in it are part of a teaching-system which prepares the mind of the Seeker-after-Truth for spiritual enlightenment”.

Source: http://www.chishti.ru/chishti_books.htm

2010-10-28T00:46:00.000-07:00

There is a tension that is pervasive in the Mahabharata that threatens the conscious mind. Nothing is direct, straightforward. You feel currents from the subconscious and the unconscious that open up the human psyche. There is a ghoulish dance between despair and faith, between war and the highest message of peace (in the Geeta), between the sublime and the very conventional, between uncontrolled rage and yoga. This is of course the dance of Kali spread out on a larger stage. As in the Ramayana, something primitive emerges out of the narration challenging us to let go of our rational minds and enter the conciouscape of mythic codes and little understood archetypes. More than the absolute truth of the text (if there is such a thing) we need to look at the meaning it creates at a personal and psychological level as the conscious mind steps out of its mundane sensibility.

- Swetha Prakash

Myth as bricolage

2010-10-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

In his book 'The Savage Mind' (1962, English translation 1966), French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss used the word bricolage to describe any spontaneous action, further extending this to include the characteristic patterns of mythological thought. The reasoning here being that, since mythological thought is all generated by human imagination, it is based on personal experience, and so the images and entities generated through 'mythological thought' rise from pre-existing things in the imaginer's mind.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage#cite_note-1

On time in the Mahabharata

2010-10-24T02:59:00.000-07:00

'Now for several reasons, the Mahabharata's use of the frame story is of special significance for understanding its 'doctrine of time' and Hindu chronicities more generally. First, the epic is one of the first texts (its dating relative to the Ramayana remains uncertain) to explore framing and its narrative possibilities in relation to themes of temporality. Second, the frame story is probably the leading device through which the text supports its vast and complex meditation on time. Third, the epic 'takes time' in order to do interesting things with it and say provocative things about it, such as those mentioned earlier, which, we can now see, are not only a curtain lifted over the main story or parameters of a kalavada but also rhythms that can enframe each other, be collapsed to simultaneity, or make joints between the temporal experiences that the text itself offers.'...Fourth, it forms part of a cultural 'reading' experience that relocates its temporalities into images that people live with.' - Randy Kloetzli and Alf Hiltebeitel

2010-10-24T01:28:00.001-07:00

'For a combination of antiquity, volume, and ingenuity, there is nothing like it - so much so that folklorist Theodor Benfry (1801-91) could imagine India as the 'home of storytelling and of tale-types'' (Claus and Korom 1991:57). Much that is formative in these oceanic storytelling traditions is anchored in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the two Sanskrit epics.'
- Randy Kloetzli and Alf Hiltebeitel

More than the moral

2010-10-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

In the Panchatantra tales (disguised as animal fables) delve into the human condition. You see a concern with underlying behaviours and conditions that govern personal and social interactions. Certainly there is a surface preoccupation with niti or prudent conduct of worldly existence. But, when you meditate on the invisible layers you find a subtle presence of the sublime and terrible. There emerges a hidden focus on how reality is perceived and distorted, on the prejudice and deception of the mind and the senses, on the illusionary expressions of superficial relationships. Behind the two-dimensonality of traditional tale with a moral at its end is complicated framework of chaotic feelings, suppressions, impressions and yearnings.

- Swetha Prakash

The diverse voices of folk narratives

2010-10-20T09:23:00.001-07:00

Folktales, narrated in varied vernacular tongues, give us narrative lines that are different from the classic narratives composed in Sanskrit, literally the ‘perfected’ language. They give us the point of view of ‘the others’ – people of other cultures, castes, gender and even species. The diverse voices that make up folk narratives help us understand the hidden historic and social forces that operated in and shaped India. Also, these stories help us see the underlying unity behind diverse human (and sometimes non human) garbs and experiences.

- Swetha Prakash

Origin of the Indian Oral Tradition

2010-10-20T01:00:00.000-07:00

The Indian oral tradition starts with the Rig Veda which consists of 1028 poems. ‘The Rig Veda was preserved orally even when the Indians had used writing for centuries for everyday things like laundry lists and love letters and gambling IOUs. But they refused to preserve the Rig Veda in writing,’ says Wendy Doniger in The Hindus: An alternate history. While the Rig Veda was preserved orally it was preserved with meticulous precision. Doniger adds, ‘It was memorised in a number of mutually reinforcing ways, including matching physical movements (such as nodding the head) with particular sounds and chanting in a group, which does much to obviate individual slippage.’

Stories for meditation

2010-10-19T21:20:00.000-07:00

Stories often serve as tool and basis for Dhyana, which means meditation in Sanskrit, an important Indian yogic and philosophical tradition. The significance of Dhayana has been emphasised in the Chandogya Upanishad, ‘Meditation is greater than the mind. Know that the earth meditates, and the atmosphere too. Know also the heavens to meditate, and the waters too. Listen to this secret, the mountains meditate. Besides men and gods too meditate. He who knows all existence to be nothing but meditation, becomes omnipotent,’.

According to Indian yogic traditions meditation provides direct insights on our nature as pure consciousness liberating us from all the constrictions placed on us by a limited egoistic identity. But as the mind has a tendency to fluctuate – it needs a prop to meditate. Most Indian mythic stories were created with this end in view – to provide their listeners with a narrative they could contemplate on.

- Swetha Prakash

Durga as a slayer of the ego

2010-10-13T23:54:00.000-07:00

The “I” or the little ego is constituted by Nature and is at once a mental, vital and physical formation meant to aid in centralising and individualising the outer consciousness and action. When the true being is discovered, the utility of the ego is over and this formation has to disappear – the true being is felt in its place. ‘1
One of the most famous Indian images of Durga slaying Mahishasur is a representation of cosmic nature or Prakriti, the force of the cosmic will killing the limited ego.

1 Sri Aurobindo ‘Planes and Parts of The Being’, p.278, Letters on Yoga.

On the development of meaning in language

2010-09-13T00:45:00.000-07:00

'At first, therefore, word-clans, word families started life on the communal system with a common stock of possible and realised significances and a common right to all of them; thier individuality lay rather in the shades of expression of the same ideas than in any exclusive right of expression of a single idea. The early history of language was a development from this communal life of words to a system of individual property in one or more intellectual significances. The principle of partition was at first fluid, then increased rigidity, until word-families and finally single words are able to start life on thier own account. The last stage of the entirely natural growth of language comes when the life of the word is entirely subjected to the life of the idea which it represeents. For in the first stage of language the word is as living or even more living force than its idea; sound determines sense. In its last state the positions have been reversed; the idea becomes all important the sound secondary.'

- Sri Aurobindo. 'The Philological Method of the Veda.', The Secret of the Veda.

ACADEMY OF STORYTELLING COURSE

2010-09-03T04:16:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time there live a Man who wanted to tell stories in a land where people never died……..this is our latest story from Brazil…..

Kathalaya is back with its week long Intensive Certificate Course on storytelling from September 20th to September 25, 2010.

Timings: 9.30-1.30 at the Kathalaya BTM Layout centre.

We will be focusing on Listening and the types of listening, Childhood journeys with analysis of knowing oneself, Stories for healing and the subtle layers of the qualities of a storyteller on the hidden aspects of storytelling……Then of course we move on to Voice, Modulations, Body language, Puppetry .

How one can create more stories, find stories and Stay with stories ……

The Fee is Rs. 6000/- inclusive of snacks, tea, materials and Certificate.

We promise you a fun filled workshop through the Story wonderland.

Contact and call us :

Kathalaya Trust, #88,BHBCS Layout,
3rd Main, 2nd Cross,
Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore 76.
mail us kathalaya@gmail.com
call – 080-26689856 or 9986244808.

Academy of Storytelling Workshop

2010-08-04T00:23:00.000-07:00

We are happy to announce the Academy of Storytelling Workshop to be held at the Kathalaya Resource Centre,
from 24th to 28th of August 2010.

The workshop will cover –
 Listening skills, Voice and language development.
 Intrinsic and extrinsic Qualities of a teller.
 Body language-Role Play, The 4 Rs of telling
 Creativity and Innovative ways of creating your own stories.
 Use of puppetry and making of 10 different types of puppets,
 Chitrakathas and different Kinds of picture stories- How to make use them.
 Storycards-Integrating stories with lesson plans and worksheets.
 Cultural and indigenous story telling forms
 Exploring Personal stories- strengths and weaknesses of a teller.
 Group and individual presentations
 Evaluation and Certificate.

The Academy faculty comprises subject specialists, artists and counselors
The timings are: 9.30 am to 1.30 pm.
Service charges – Rs. 6000/-. Includes materials, snacks tea, certificate and
a “resource book for Story Educators’.
Contact us:kathalaya@gmail.com,
Ph: 9845207073, 9886244808, 26689856
Visit us : www.kathalaya.org

Teaching philosophy through stories

2010-07-25T18:40:00.000-07:00

Yogic philosophy teaches us that consciousness can indeed be disengaged from existence and be freed of every thinkable conditioning. Several Puranic tales serve to illustrate this. Ved Vyasa, the narrator of the Mahabharata, is traditionally believed to be the compiler of the Puranas. Brhadaranyaka Upanishad refers to Puranas along with the Epics as the "fifth Veda" - itihasapuranam panchamam vedam. The word Veda is derived from the root vid which means to know. So a veda is book of knowledge. Of the many Puranas, eighteen are considered critical texts and these are known as the Mahapuranas. They are - Agni, Bhagavata, Bhavishya, Brahma, Brahmanda, Brahmavaivarta, Garuda, Harivamsa, Kurma, Linga, Markandeya, Matsya, Narada, Padma, Shiva, Skanda, Vamana, Vayu and Vishnu.

- Swetha Prakash

What is a tall tale?

2010-07-23T23:20:00.000-07:00

'What is a tall tale? And what is tall talk? A tall tale is a folk tale seized by the activity of tall talk and construed as a lie. Anyone who memorizes Vladimir Propp's thirty-one episodes can tell a folk tale, recite the legend of a hunt, but only a thinker who has contemplated the bloody hurt of that hunt, considered the pains of Time, Distance, and Dimension, and examined critically the way myth resolves them, can properly stretch a tale, derange its structural features, and expose its absurdity. Tall talk is thus at once a narrative skill and a philosophical stance. The teller unerringly bombards us with pertinent hyperbole, artfully digresses, takes us in, draws us into the field of deception, and makes us at last complicit. Whether in folklore or literature, the tall tale is never innocent, mythically immediate, but instead always begins as a subversion of the story.'

- Neil Schmitz
From Tall Tale, Tall Talk: Pursuing the Lie in Jacksonian Literature

The creation hymn from the Rig Veda

2010-07-20T23:08:00.000-07:00

There was neither non-existence nor existence then.
There was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond.
What stirred?
Where?
In whose protection?
Was there water, bottlemlessly deep?

There was neither death nor immortality then.
There was no distinguishing sign of night nor of day.
That One breathed, windless, by its own impulse.
Other than that there was nothing beyond.

Darkness was hidden by darkness in the beginning,
with no distinguishing sign, all this was water.
The life force that was covered with emptiness,
that One arose through the power of heat.

Desire came upon that One in the beginning,
that was the first seed of mind.
Poets seeking in their heart with wisdom
found the bond of existence and non-existence.

Their cord was extended across.
Was there below?
Was there above?
There were seed-placers, there were powers.
There was impulse beneath, there was giving forth above.

Who really knows?
Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced?
Whence is this creation?
The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this creation has arisen
- perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not -
the One who looks down on it,
in the highest heaven, only He knows
or perhaps even He does not know.

Translation by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty. From the Book "The Rig Veda - Anthology"

The wisdom of the traditional tale

2010-07-20T02:20:00.000-07:00

While traditional tales often have flat characters without any interior landscaping and seemingly simple narrative lines they are full of timetested wisdom. They are reliable guides which tell us how it act in any situation, any crisis. In India, traditional tales were used for the political education of princes. The Panchatantra, one of India's best known tale collections is full of stories which teach people how to survive in a world where contradictory forces like violence and tranquillity continuously act on each other, in an energy field where impetuses are rarely straightforward. By helping us understand and accept primordial human energy currents (envy, fear, greed, lust etc.) these traditional stories keep us from getting disenchanted with existence.

- Swetha Prakash

Stories and sympathetic magic

2010-07-13T23:20:00.000-07:00

Sympathetic magic or imitative magic involves any belief or ritual which attempts to influence an environment through imitation or correspondence. In correspondence it is believed that one can influence something based on its relationship or resemblance to another thing. In Myth = Mitya, Dr Devadutt Pattnaik extends the concept to using narratives such as the Ramayana and the Puranas for influencing events in the household. He says that this is the logic that 'prescribes the reading of stories from the Bhagavata.' The Bhagavata Purana describes the joyous events in the life of Krishna and thus becomes a perfect candidate for sympathetic magic.

- Swetha Prakash

References: Myth=Mitya: A handbook of Hindu Mythology - Dr Devdutt Pattanaik, Penguin Books India, 2006.

Storytelling Course

2010-07-13T00:18:00.000-07:00

On the Mahabharata

2010-07-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

It’s conflict that keeps drawing readers and writers back to the Mahabharata. Not just the literal conflict of the war on the field of Kurukshetra, but the conflict between right and wrong, between duty and personal belief, between the larger pictures and the smaller details, between your station in life and what you want to be – the Mahabharata is all about conflict.

By Kushalrani Gulab, In the greatest story ever retold, Hindustan Times Brunch, July 11, 2010

'No one in the Mahabharat knows how to be moral and I realised when I read it that morality is a difficult quest. The Mahabharat makes you ask questions.'

Gurcharan Das, Quoted in In the greatest story ever retold, Hindustan Times Brunch, July 11, 2010

'And the Mahabharat is a very dark tale. Its a horrific narration. To have everything at one moment and to be exiled to the forests for 13 years - that's not easy.'
Devdutt Pattanaik, Quoted in In the greatest story ever retold, Hindustan Times Brunch, July 11, 2010

Stories and Identity

2010-07-11T08:27:00.000-07:00

'Status in India still depends on being westernized - but we're Indian. Yet, what does 'Indian' mean?..

What better way to understand who you are than through tales that have come to you down the generations, tales that have been alive for hundreds, if not thousands of years, tales that can tell you where you came from, so you can perhaps figure out where you are now and where you're going?'

- By Kushalrani Gulab, In the greatest story ever retold, Hindustan Times Brunch.

Stories and metaphors

2010-07-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

Metaphors are the building blocks of story worlds, the language in which meaning is constructed. To truly realize a story, follow its metaphors

- Swetha Prakash

Storytelling in action

2010-07-08T00:08:00.001-07:00

On Stories

2010-07-07T23:53:00.000-07:00

'Stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memory. This is how people care for themselves.'

- Barry Lopez

Re-enacting the vedic sacrifice

2010-07-06T20:58:00.000-07:00

The ancient vedic story of the primeval sacrifice is re-enacted in the Ramayana. According to the Vedas the worlds were created when the primordial person or spirit sacrificed his own being. Rama is often identified with this ancient person, described in the Upanishads as Neti Neti – Not this, Not this, the one who is without attributes while encompassing everything that exists – ideas, abstractions, forms, sentience and insentience.
A vedic saying goes, ‘sacrifice is the nabhi, navel of the world’. The vedic sacrifice is made to the ancestors and devas, gods or better translated as the powers of nature and manifestation such as fire, time, etc.
Rama re-enacts the ancestral sacrifice when he renounces his kingdom to keep his father’s word. This act is ultimately done for the pitrs or ancestors.
Rama’s vow to eliminate the flesh eating rakshasas is primarily a sacrifice to the gods. It is the devas who are most harried by Ravana and his clan. Rama’s misfortunes are not of his own making but the result of a niyati or divine fate that has decreed that he must be put in direct combat with Dasamukha, the one with ten heads. The Rakshasas have been continuously been disrupting sacrifices being made to the devas and by subduing them Rama protects the Vedic sacrifice.
Chants are indispensable for any Vedic fire sacrifice and Rama complies by finishing his great Rana Yajna or War sacrifice with the recitation of the ode to the Sun god - the sacred Aditya Hridayam, which conclusively disempowers his opponent.

- Swetha Prakash

On place stories

2010-07-05T20:04:00.000-07:00

“Without place-lore man would be surrounded surroundings; place-lore links generations and provides them with a shared identity – the narratives of belonging.”

- Ulo Valk

Notes on Assamese Place-Lore
Indian folklife, Serial No.31, November 2008, p13.

Tales of the wild land tortoise

2010-07-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

In Kokborok, one of the languages of Tripura, there is a single term for folklore - ‘Kerang Kothoma’. A Kerang is a land-tortoise and Kothoma means a tale. All folk-tales are thus designated as tales of the wild land tortoise.

Source: http://www.wiki.indianfolklore.org/images/d/d6/IFL_35.pdf

The destruction and regeneration of stories

2010-07-04T23:35:00.001-07:00

Stories are set in a certain time and place, within a specific historic context. They use the vocabulary and symbols of the culture that creates them. When all these things pass way, the stories too cease to be relevant. The stories of kings and queens don’t make any sense in world bereft of them and it is hard to identify oneself with a bow and arrow carrying archer. But, when tellers and writers stop thinking of old stories literally and instead present a narration that highlights their symbolic value, these ‘relics’ are once more resurrected. This is a cyclic process which happens periodically.

- Swetha Prakash

Myth

2010-07-04T06:47:00.000-07:00

Myth is the concentration of attention. It is the consciousness becoming singlepointed and joyous. This is pure being rejoicing at the recognition and appreciation of its own fabulous nature.

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Each myth is what Koestler called a `holon', a whole that is simultaneously part of some other whole.

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It is the geometry of spirit, intersecting at marmas that enlighten instantly like zen koans.

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Myths are imprints of the reptilian brain; emotional reactions which eternally and unfailingly override our rational mind.

- Swetha Prakash

A case for researching, documenting and preserving India’s storytelling traditions

2010-07-03T20:45:00.000-07:00

Cultural heritage is not limited to material manifestations, such as monuments and objects that have been preserved over time. This notion also encompasses living expressions and the traditions that countless groups and communities worldwide have inherited from their ancestors and transmit to their descendants, in most cases orally.
- UNESCO Intangible Heritage Portal

The soul of a people is mirrored in their legends.
- Henry Murray

Storytelling traditions reflect the spirit of peoples and communities. India's storytelling traditions are endangered by globalisation and cultural homogenisation. By preserving knowledge about storytelling traditions we preserve community-based intangible cultural heritage
Following are some points on the importance of researching and documenting India’s storytelling traditions –
- India has many unique storytelling traditions that have evolved in response to their environments, giving their communities a sense of identity and continuity. It is important to preserve the knowledge behind these traditions for future generations.
- Understanding the ideological and social backdrop to storytelling traditions will help contemporary practitioners to accordingly modify their performance to suit new needs and audiences.
- The storytelling research can be used extensively in training teachers and educators.
- Storytelling has a profound impact on culture. Culture can be conceptualized in terms of groups of individuals who share common stories to interpret and provide meaning to their lives. Stories introduced and established cultural identities. Storytelling constructs meaning in the lives of audiences.
- By researching our stories we can discover and preserve the enormous diversity of India's living cultural heritage. Indian stories are a rich source of Indian life, legend and thought.
- Storytelling is a tradition and living expression inherited from ancestors. Stories provide a link from the past. Thus stories contain ancestral knowledge concerning nature and an understanding of how the universe works. Through storytelling cultural identities and history were known within a generation and were communicated from one generation to the next.
- An understanding of the storytelling heritage of different communities paves the way for intercultural dialogue.
- Preserving India's rich storytelling heritage is important for maintaining cultural diversity in the face of cultural standardization and globalization.
- By researching and documenting India's storytelling traditions we also preserve the wealth of knowledge and skills that has come down through many generations. Stories have been handed down from generation to generation in vernacular languages and there is a risk of losing these stories with the spread of globalization and mass media driven cultures.
- Storytelling traditions represent contemporary rural and urban practices which allow diverse groups to express themselves. India's storytelling traditions are constantly changing and evolving and being enriched by each new generation, and recording this evolution and change is important.
- Storytelling traditions result in create social cohesion and help in building responsible communities.

- Swetha Prakash

Spontaneity in storytelling

2010-07-03T20:19:00.001-07:00

Spontaneity is very important aspect of the storytelling experience. Tellers improvise upon frame stories based on their own life experiences and the social conditions they live in. Oral stories also emerge as the inspection and interpretation of immediate awareness and lived experience. This is how stories and storytelling traditions mushroom over history across diverse geographies.

- Swetha Prakash

Stories as aspects of the consciousness

2010-07-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

In Indian consciousness studies, the consciousness is known to have two distinctive traits - Prakasha and Vimarsha. Prakasha refers to the self luminous nature of consciousness and vimarsha is its ability to reflect on itself. Subjective reality is understood to be prakasha while objective reality is vimarsha. Storytelling corresponds to both these aspects of consciousness. Stories are created as expressions of the consciousness revealing its nature. For recipients of storytelling performances, consciousness manifests as reflecting upon its essential nature through the 'truth' perceived in the stories.

- Swetha Prakash

Myths and emotions

2010-07-03T02:22:00.000-07:00

Storytelling caters to our psychological needs fluctuating between feeling and fantasy. Stories proceed from the deep association that exists between emotion and imagination, depicting the intimate connection between our feelings and the world we perceive. The irrational beings that populate myth are psychic expressions of our emotions and reactions to the world around us. In myth, creatures such as Mahishasur in the Devi Mahatmya cycle are often creative expressions of pathological phobias, persistent fears, obsessions etc.

- Swetha Prakash

Myths in the Saundarya Lahari

2010-06-25T00:42:00.000-07:00

Known for its aesthetic depiction of the mother goddess, the Saundarya Lahari by Sri Sankaracharya is complex and beautiful poem in Sanskrit. A study of Saundarya Lahri helps us understand the complex mythology surrounding the goddess. In it Tripura Sundari is depicted as the energy that pervades all manifestation creating, protecting and destroying everything that exists. Following are the myths in the poem that explain how this is done.
- According the Soundarya Lahari the world is created when Brahma collects a minute particle of dust from the goddess Tripura Sundari’s feet and then creates the wondrous, limitless and infinitely mysterious universe.
- The world is sustained when Adisesha, the ancient serpent and a form of Vishnu, supports the universe on his thousand jewelled hoods.
- The world is destroyed when Shiva takes the universe made of the dust of the goddess’s feet and crushes it into sacred ashes, which he smears all over his body.

by Swetha Prakash

Serpent Deities

2010-06-21T02:47:00.000-07:00

India has a long history of worshipping serpent gods and goddesses. Serpents are supposed to represent wisdom - which can be both poisonous and regenerative. Serpents are known to cast off their slough periodically and hence represent immortality. As dwellers of the underworld they are understood to be guardians of the earth's hidden treasures.

- Swetha Prakash

Tamil Festivals in honor of Iravan

2010-06-21T02:28:00.000-07:00

Iravan, also known as Iravat and Iravant, is a minor character from the Hindu epic of Mahabharata. The son of Pandava prince Arjuna (one of the main heroes of the Mahabharata) and the Naga princess Ulupi, Iravan is the central god of the cult of Kuttantavar—which is also the name commonly given to him in that cult—and plays a major role in the cult of Draupadi. Both these cults are of South Indian origin, from a region of the country where he is worshipped as a village deity and is known as Aravan.
The Mahabharata portrays Iravan as dying a heroic death in the 18-day Kurukshetra War (Mahabharata war), the epic's main subject. However, the South Indian cults have a supplementary tradition of honouring Aravan's self-sacrifice to the goddess Kali to ensure her favour and the victory of the Pandavas in the war. The Kuttantavar cult focuses on one of the three boons granted to Aravan by the god Krishna in honour of this self-sacrifice. Aravan requested that he be married before his death. Krishna satisfied this boon in his female form, Mohini. In Koovagam, Tamil Nadu, this incident is re-enacted in an 18-day festival, first by a ceremonial marriage of Aravan to Alis and male villagers (who have taken vows to Aravan) and then by their widowhood after ritual re-enactment of Aravan's sacrifice.
The Draupadi cult emphasizes another boon: Krishna allows Aravan to witness the entire duration of the Mahabharata war through the eyes of his severed head. In another 18-day festival, the ceremonial head of Aravan is hoisted on a post to witness the ritual re-enactment of the Mahabharata war.

Source: http://wapedia.mobi/en/Iravan

A different geography

2010-04-20T18:21:00.000-07:00

Like most ancient cultures, Indian too believed that life primarily existed on three planes. The heavens or swarg were home to celestial and light beings – devas, apsaras, gandharvas and the like. In the netherlands or palata lived the frightful asuras and serpent beings – nagas. The earth was home to manavas – humans, pasus – animals and vanaspati – plants.

- Swetha Prakash

Indian Cosmology

2010-04-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

In Indian mythology, it is believed that many different types of beings inhabit the universe. Some of these beings are benevolent towards humans and others malevolent.
Some of the beings which form a part of Indian cosmology include
Devas – Or the nature deities who oversee the natural world eg Fire, Wind, sky, earth etc. Indra is the king of these gods.
Grahas – These are planetary deities who subtly influence human life – eg Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Venus, Jupiter, Rahu and Ketu along with the asterisms.
Yakshas – These are a class of forest deities who guard the treasure of the world
Apasaras – They are celestial dancers who live in Indra’s heaven
Gandharvas – These are a class of celestial musicians who also live in Indra’s heaven
Siddhis – These are a class of perfected beings
Nagas – They are a class of snake-people who live in the underworld
Bhutas, Picashasas, Betals – These are phantom spirits that mostly live in cremation grounds
Asuras, Daityas, Danavas – These are giants and demonic beings who oppose the devas
Rakshasas – These are monstrous beings that feed on human flesh and are experts in illusion or Maya.

- Swetha Prakash

The mother goddess as the supreme power in the universe

2010-04-17T18:10:00.000-07:00

The Devi Bhagvata Purana is one of the great puranas devoted exclusively to the glory of Devi or the mother goddess. This Purana emphasises that the energy that creates all the universes and permeates them is that of the supreme goddess at whose command all existence viberates. According to this Purana, it is Devi who empowers the trinity - Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva - responsible for creation, preservation and destruction of the worlds.

- Swetha Prakash

Guru Shishya stories

2010-04-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

India too has its share of Guru Shishya stories. Similar to the Buddhist and Zen stories, these narrate how a student is initiated into an esoteric tradition or how he is enlightened about the essential truth of existence by his preceptor. The Upanishads which deals with the nature of the supreme consciousness, the non dual reality and its realization by the initiate are embedded with such stories. Famous Guru-Shishya pairs in the epics include – Arjuna and Krishna, Aruna and Dronacharya, Eklavya and Dronacharya, Rama and Vashista, Rama and Vishwamitra & Rama and Agastya – Agastya teaches Rama the sloka Aditya Hridayam which empowers him to kill the ten headed beast Ravana.

- Geeta Ramanujam and Swetha Prakash

Twist to the tale

2010-04-15T20:24:00.000-07:00

India’s vast storytelling traditions have produced a great deal of variety in its traditional tales. One of the most unusual Ramayanas is the Adhbut Ramayana, or the wonderful Ramayana. Here the slayer of the greatest demon the world has known is not Rama but rather Sita. Here, Janaki transforms into Mahakali and annihilates the villain of the piece - a thousand headed Ravana.

- Swetha Prakash

Saraba – An unusual form of Siva

2010-04-15T20:11:00.000-07:00

When Narasimha killed the demon king Hiranyakashyapu his ferocity did not subside – after all he had drunk the blood of the demon. He started destroying all creation. The awestruck devas who oversaw the worlds rushed to Kailas to explain the situation to Siva. Siva assumed the Saraba moorthy avathar to pacify Narasimha. Sarabeshwara was frightful form combining a monstrous bird, human and lion body. He had four hands with sharp claws, huge wings, a sharp Garuda like beak, and protruding teeth like the Kali. He had eight feet and was known as ashtapada. His hands were held a deer, axe, serpent and fire. Sarabeshwara embraced Narasimha with his huge wings and legs. Narasimha calmed down and returned his peaceful form as Vishnu. Different versions of this myth exist.

- Swetha Prakash

Symbolism of Kali in Indian mythology

2010-04-13T20:14:00.000-07:00

Kali is Prakriti or the nature that gives birth to all beings. She represents the gory manifestation of reality - all the human sub consciousness impulses that ‘polite society’ doesn’t want to talk about. She represents that aspect of existence which is considered ugly, unaesthetic and unappealing. Daksha represents mainstream society – rules, codes of conduct, propriety etc. As Dakshayini – Kali is both Daksha’s daughter and the destroyer of his life’s greatest sacrifice or work. Kali as a Mahavidya or Great Wisdom Goddess asks us to consider reality in its totality – with both its pleasant, peaceful aspects as well as its unattractive and painful parts.

- Swetha Prakash

What is education?

2010-04-08T20:49:00.000-07:00

What is education? Teacher speaking
To the disciple seated by his side,
Wisdom between, discourse connecting them.

- From the Taittiriya Upanishad
Translated by Eknath Easwaran

Railway stations as storytelling spaces

2010-04-04T02:42:00.000-07:00

An interesting Indian storytelling custom is associated with the railway station. In parts of India, groups of people would assemble at railway stations and listen to stories from the Puranas as narrated by Pandits. Typically one Pandit would read the Sanskrit book in a sonorous tone while another Pandit would expound on the stories. The narration would take place by brass lamps lit with castor oil. The audience would squat on the ground, emotionally responding to the stories with joy and grief. A famous Pauranika named Suta used to expound stories at a railway station called Nimsar in Oudh. This tradition continues in some remote stations in Southern India.

Contributer:
Swetha Prakash

Reference:
The Puranas – In the light of modern science – K Narayanaswami Aiyar

Reading stories as a way to fulfil wishes

2010-03-23T02:00:00.000-07:00

In ancient times, stories were recited and heard as a way to fulfil wishes and to acquire punya or the religious merit that would afford people a good afterlife / rebirth. Listening to certain stories was believed to confer upon the audience specific punya, that would help materialise their wishes. Often specific days for reading the stories were also mentioned to maximize the expected gains. This practice acted as a key motivating factor which helped spread the storytelling culture in ancient and medieval India.

The stories themselves would mention what desires the listener could get fulfilled by hearing / reciting the story. For instance the Adhyatma Ramayana which is a part of the Brahmanda Purana cites the following as some of the benefits that audiences get if they heard / recited the epic.

· A recitation of the Adhyatma Ramayana will lead people to a happier life
· The gods headed by Indra serve one who cheerfully sings the Adhyatma Ramayana day and night
· Anyone who reads the Ramahridaya (a part of the Adhyatma Ramayana) thrice daily in front of an image of Hanuman achieves all that he wishes
· Any one who listens to, reads or recites the Adhyatma Ramayana on RamaNavami with a concentrated mind gets tremendous merit.

Writer
Swetha Prakash

References
The Adhyatma Ramayana translated by Lal Baij Nath

Symbolism of the crow in Indian mythology

2010-03-22T22:08:00.000-07:00

In most world cultures the crow is considered to be highly inauspicious. However, in Indian mythology the crow is a symbol for caution. The crow warns all beings of incoming danger and thus serves the role of a protector and preserver. Due to this the crow has a revered role in Indian symbolism and is offered food during various sacred rites. The crow is also considered to be the vehicle of Dhumavati - one of the ten great wisdom goddesses or Dasa Mahavidyas.

Contributor:
Geeta Ramanujam

Bayalata - The Storytelling Tradition in Karnataka

2010-03-20T05:38:00.001-07:00

Varied storytelling traditions exist in Karnataka. These traditions have distinct styles which vary according to the region they originate from. The storytelling traditions of Karnataka are referred to as Bayalata or open air theatre. The bayalata styles have derived their form and content from religious rituals. All bayalata folk performances are part of a ritual festival consecrated to a local deity. The five key forms of Bayalata are Dasarata, Sannata, Doddata, Parijata and Yakshagana. In Parijata and Yakshagana a single narrator or sutradhar controls the story while in the other forms the story is told through a chorus of four to five narrators, aided by a Vidhushaka or jestor.

Contributer:
Manjula Kuratti

References:
1. Karnataka Janapada Kalegala Kosha Dictionary of Folk Arts in Karnataka, Edited by: Prof. H.C. Boralingaiah.
2. http://www.culturopedia.com/Theatre/theatre_karnataka.html