Know Your Classical Dances: Tracing Sattriya’s aesthetic legacies, from sattras or monasteries to the modern stage

Indian classical dances – celebrated across the globe for their enriching and mesmerising virtuosity – can be traced back to centuries-old ways of storytelling, performed as much for entertainment as for the spread of cultures and knowledge. Each classical form is built upon layers of complex histories that often converge at the intersection of culture, art, politics and even conflict, readjusting its structures and boundaries in the light of revolution and reform. Consequently, varying styles of the art form find new homes and families to become gharanas, yet other dance forms are added to the ever-dynamic definition of what constitutes as classical.  

This series is an attempt to reacquaint the connoisseur and engage the uninitiated in the vibrant facets of the eight classical dance forms of India by offering a glimpse into the history, performance, attire, comportment and musical accompaniments that give colour, form and rhythm to these cultural legacies.

In the seventh essay, a glimpse into the spiritual and ritualistic traditions of Sattriya.

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With a performance practice straddling the conventions of ritualistic offering and the artistic renderings of a dynamic movement vocabulary, Sattriya, the graceful and theatrical art embodying the Vaishnavite tradition is one of the last entrants into the lexicon of classical dance as recognised by the Sangeet Natak Akademi.

This inclusion in 2000 of the predominantly religious and sacrosanct celebration of mythology, storytelling and prayer is indicative of the classical as a category in perpetual flux, that despite its insistence on a formalised pedagogical framework nonetheless incorporates within its ambit rich, profound and layered performance aesthetics. For Sattriya’s roots can be traced to Assam’s evolving religious history as well as its socio-cultural practices, where in the dance form acted at once as a medium of worship and a propagation of the bhakti bhava (devotion) of the Vaishnavism school, immersed in the prayer of Lord Vishnu, or his avatar, the musical God Krishna.

In its earliest stages, the dance form was developed as the Ankiya Naat, or one act plays dedicated to the lord, performed in sattras or Vaishnavite monasteries bringing together music, dance and theatre to transmit spiritual energies and generate a near hypnotic atmosphere of complete surrender to the divine.

Through the medieval ages and well into the modern era of post-independent India, Sattriya has undergone numerous transformations – from being restricted to the sattras to its gradual foray into the public space to the entry of women artists into its performance practice – which have only contributed to expanding its sublime cultural and artistic repertoire.

Origins in the Bhakti movement

The Bhakti movement in India can be explained as a period of religious reform born out of the desire to connect all structures within a stratified society to ideas of spirituality, liberation and communion with the divine. Vaishnavism too was one such theological school with moorings in the Bhakti movement, its teachings resonating across the Indian subcontinent. The eastern provinces of Assam, Manipur and West Bengal among others continue to retain traces of the erstwhile prevalence of Vaishnavism so much so that Sattriya, the dance form hailing from Assam, becomes illustrative of the extent of this spiritual influence on the region’s art.

Historical references indicate that performing music and dance recitals in the kirtan ghar or naam ghar, the prayer halls within the sattras was a common practice in the medieval period, at a time when the monasteries functioned not only as centres for prayer but as spaces that would archive the evolving repository of an art form dedicated to Vaishnavism.  

As such, the sattras not only built an artistic legacy of Sattriya but through the practice of the art form bridged the gap between the devotees and centres of worship. Using hand gestures and mudras and at times even vachik abhinaya or dialogue, the male monks performing Sattriya described temple rituals, explained the meanings of prayers and verses and imparted lessons from texts like the Upanishads, Bhagvata Puarana and the Bhagvat Gita.

So also, lyrical ballads or songs in praise of Lord Krishna were a critical component of these recitals and the 15th century saint-poet and playwright Srimanta Shankaradeva is credited with conceiving some of the first Ankiya Naat especially for this dance form. The polymath, along with his apostle Madhavadeva contributed to the earliest makings of Sattriya’s poetry with a collection of six dramatic plays commonly referred to as the Ankiya Naator Bhaona.

Gradually, the emergence of the neo-Vaishnavite movement led to an expansion of the earlier movement vocabulary of Sattriya in a manner that nurtured and embellished the art form without dismantling the deep-seated faith central to its practice. Yet, newer stories and narratives appeared in this period, that added greater flourishes of abhinaya to performances that depicted episodes from the great epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana and the lore of Krishna and his relationship with the gopis of Vrindavan.

Much of the movement vocabulary of the dance form at this time integrated numerous Assamese folk styles like Ojapali, whose strand Vyah Goa Ojapali was composed of gestures and narratives in keeping with the teachings of Vaishnavism. Some other well-known folk styles including Bihu and Bodos have visibly inspired Sattriya’s movement vocabulary and the syllables of its nritta (technical) compositions.

But even as the dance form evolved in its performance practice, it continued to be restricted to temple precincts, and to stringent rules that prevented female artists from acquiring training. However, the nationalist revival of indigenous cultures at the beginning of the 20th century brought about pertinent shifts and Sattriya soon stepped out of the monasteries onto the modern proscenium. According to a Sahapedia essay, the artist Pitambar Deva Goswami set up a recital in the early 1920s, on the eve of the Raas Pournima, that at long last introduced perhaps for the first time Sattriya not as a religious but as a secular aesthetic practice.

Performance practice and the inclusion of women artists

A contemporary Sattriya recital is made up of two components, the bhaona or the abhinaya, that is storytelling and expressions and the dance numbers which encompass the whole of its nritta or movement grammar. Some of these purely nritta elements consist of the Chali and Jhumura of which the former explores the softer, more graceful elements of the lasya anga with an emphasis on footwork while the latter is a group performance filled with rigorous jumps and acrobatics of the tandava anga.

In its formalised structure, Sattriya, like most other classical dances follows the theoretical framework laid out in texts like Natya Shastra and Abhinaya Darpana and a typical contemporary solo recital is thus a coming together of both the nritta and nritya (emotive) elements of the dance form. Angik abhinaya or bodily movements interspersed with natya dharmi abhinaya or the theatrical mode give the dance form its own distinct quality making for an alluring blend of graceful postures and pronounced facial expressions.

A Sattriya recital of the more traditional Ankiya Naat starts with the preliminary gayan-badan or purvaranga, dance numbers that act as a prelude to the performance, followed by the pravesha naach (entry dance), renditions of the yuddhar naach (warrior’s dance), other variations like the Rama Nach and Gopi Nach and finally the prasthanar naach (exit dance). The sutradhar or the narrator of the story also performs a distinct Sutradhari Nach.

Earlier, male monks within temple precincts would dress up as specific characters, including the female roles in dance dramas. In the early decades of the 20th century however, Sattriya loosened some of its more rigid structures consequently leading to more and more female artists receiving tutelage in the art form.

Rasheswar Saikia Barbayan, the prominent Sattriya exponent is known to have played a significant role in imparting the knowledge of this dance style to women. The Sangeet Sattra was also established during this period becoming the first formal institute to impart the training of Sattriya as a performing art, rather than a religious pursuit, complete with a pedagogical structure and a syllabus-oriented teaching technique. With this, the dance form was also conceptualised as a solo recital whilst keeping alive the tradition of the Ankiya Naat.

Costumes and musical accompaniments

Assamese fabrics like the muga or the golden silk of Assam, buttery satins as well as the Pat or the silk extracted from mulberry plants make up the costume for Sattriya artists which consists of the ghuri or long kurta, the chadar and the kanchi (waist cloth). Male dancers and the sutradhar also don on a white paguri or turban.  

For the one act plays, dancers often adorn themselves with accessories distinct to their characters so that the artist portraying Krishna is often dressed in hues of blue and yellow. A distinctive feature of the Sattriya performance are the masks or mukha that signify certain characters, like the snout of a vulture while portraying the mythical Jatayu or a fearsome visage with protruding fangs that denotes demons and asuras. The mukhas continue to be crafted in Majuli, which has remained the epicentre of Sattriya’s practice within the monasteries.

The jewellery that adorns Sattriya dancers is exceptional too more so for its local idiom and includes some of the region’s most beautiful ornaments like the Kopali or the headgear and the Gam Kharu bracelets. Artists also wear neck pieces shaped like leaves, eagles, lizards and even grains of rice. In its contemporary form, although these adornments have undergone multiple changes to resemble the more conventional ornaments of classical dances like Odissi or Kuchipudi, they continue to retain some of the more exquisite folk motifs celebrating the Assamese aesthetic.

The dancer thus readied for a recital performs to the rhythms of the khol, an asymmetrical drum of Assam that produces a high-pitched tone providing Sattriya its distinct musicality. Other instruments like manjira, bhortal, khutital and the flute are also part of Sattriya’s repertoire along with the tunes of the violin and harmonium: recent additions to the local, folk rhythms producing a particular mix of varied musical traditions.

Musical compositions like the borgeet or lyrical poetry composed in Maithili, Sanskrit, Brijavali or Brijbhasha and Assamese lend themselves beautifully to such vibrant Sattriya recitals, in their contemporary performance practice often presented as individual numbers rather than parts of a longer performance. The vignettes presenting Sattriya’s abhinaya steeped in bhakti are woven into traditional ragas that play with the tempo or laya, akin to the Dhrupad to introduce multiple speeds into one composition.

Sattriya in its representation as a classical dance form of India has now emerged as a significant body of art that makes relevant the universal ideas of infinite faith, its registers resonating across the globe as its proponents and practitioners continue to explore and expand the contours of its performance style.

All images via Wikimedia Commons.

Aishwarya Sahasrabudhe writes about art, culture, books, and entertainment. Currently, she has returned to school to study the intersections between gender, culture, and development. The writer is a Kathak Visharad practicing and performing the classical dance form for over a decade.

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