How the Sanskrit treatise Abhinaya Darpanam continues to influence Indian classical dance

The strength of India’s knowledge systems — what we call the Bhāratīya Jñāna Paramparā — lies in their ability to evolve and find new meaning across time and place. Though grounded in metaphysical thought, these traditions were never static. They offered flexible ways of understanding the body, the mind and the cosmos — ways that could be expressed, practised and passed on. A well-known Vedāntic image, of a spider spinning its web, helps us imagine this relationship: the eternal, indivisible consciousness weaving creation while remaining one with it. Scholar Kapila Vatsyayan has described this as the integrative character of Indian aesthetics, where philosophy, ritual and performance meet to form a living knowledge of embodiment.

Within this framework, art and ritual are not separate from life, but essential tools of self-discovery. Through gesture, movement and storytelling, dancers give form to abstract ideas and bring philosophy into lived experience. Each unit of movement in Indian dance carries a symbolic meaning, connecting the small world of the individual with the vast order of the universe. Here, the meeting of bhava (emotion) and rasa (aesthetic experience), goes beyond performance. It creates a language where codified gestures bridge the dancer’s inner life with the audience’s shared response.

A key text that codifies how movement and gesture function in Indian classical performance is Nandikesvara’s Abhinaya Darpanam (a foundational Sanskrit text on Indian classical dance, focussing on angika abhinaya that acts as a guide to the dancer). The first known printed edition was prepared by Kavi Lingamaggunta Matrbhutayya in Telugu (published in 1851). In 1887, Madabusi Tiruvenkatacharyulu of Needamangalam (Nida) published a prose translation in Telugu. The text reached international audiences through its first English translation, The Mirror of Gesture: Being the Abhinaya Darpanam of Nandikeśvara, published in 1917 by Ananda Coomaraswamy and Gopala Krishnayya Duggirala. A few decades later, Manmohan Ghosh brought out another influential bilingual edition in 1934, revised in 1957, which presented the Sanskrit and English texts side-by-side.

Subsequent translations further extended the reach of the work within India. Drawing on Manmohan’s revised edition, Vacaspati Gairola translated the text into Hindi, titled Bharatiya Natya Parampara (1967). Later, Professor P.S.R. Appa Rao sought to reconcile the differences between the Nida and Manmohan editions, by publishing Abhinaya Darpanam of Nandikesvara first in Telugu (1987) and then in English (1997). Together, these scholarly efforts ensured that Abhinaya Darpanam remained accessible across linguistic and cultural boundaries, securing its place as a cornerstone of Indian performance traditions. Yet, beyond these publications, the text has lived most vibrantly in practice halls, classrooms and memories of dancers themselves.

It was Rukmini Devi, who first insisted on introducing the Abhinaya Darpanam into the curriculum at Kalakshetra. From there, its pedagogical legacy has been carried forward, especially by natyacharyas Shanta and V.P. Dhananjayan, ensuring its continued transmission to new generations of dancers.

In 2008, I drew upon this legacy to publish a handbook titled Message in Movements, created specifically for international students. I later came up with a more comprehensive edition — Abhinaya Darpaṇam: An Illustrated Translation, which is now in its fourth edition.

Pedagogical Scope

At the introductory level, Abhinaya Darpanam offers a progressive framework for understanding gesture (mudra), movement units (adavu, chari, mandala) and their execution through kinesthetic awareness. Dancers cultivate an internal visualisation of movement, refining proprioception and muscular engagement through intuitive imagery.

Shanta and V.P. Dhananjayan ensured Abhinaya Darpanam’s continued transmission to new generations of dancers through a series of workshops.
| Photo Credit:
The Hindu Archives

At the intermediate and advanced levels, the text invites exploration of — cultural, ritual and symbolic meanings of gestures across Indic traditions. The dialectic between objective form and subjective expression. Bodily practices as sites of identity formation, negotiation and transcendence. How movement vocabularies in classical dance encode ecological wisdom through symbolic references to natural elements, from medicinal plants to aquatic life — affirming a worldview that centers interdependence and sacred ecology.

In this expanded framework, Abhinaya Darpanam may be adapted to engage the following dimensions: aesthetic awareness (experiencing the body as a site of contemplation and transformation through focused movement), cognitive awareness (understanding dance as a precise and potent non-verbal language), psychological awareness (utilising embodied practice to process and release emotional states such as grief, stress and aggression), cultural awareness (tracing the performative encoding of mythology, value systems and social hierarchies, biomechanics (studying joint articulation, muscle control and postural mechanics to support injury prevention and optimal movement efficiency) and Natya-yoga (integrating ethical principles of yoga into artistic practice and community engagement) — this aspect foregrounds the dancer as both sadhaka and citizen, embodying values that extend beyond aesthetics into lived ethics.

Significance

Among the nearly 29 known Sanskrit texts on natya, Abhinaya Darpanam stands out for its granular focus on movement, gesture and expressive technique. For the contemporary dancer — approached through desi margi traditions, Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Mohiniyattam Kathakali, or Chhāu — it is not merely a manual, but a mirror: reflecting the dancer’s inner landscape, shaping the body into a vessel of empathy, a keeper of memory and a pathway to self-knowledge. Faithful to its origins, yet resonant in the present, it speaks to our ongoing search for meaning, belonging and transformation.

Published – September 02, 2025 05:55 pm IST