Natyanjali means “offering of the dances”. It is an invocatory piece in a Bharatanatyam recital, portraying different physical aspects of the Divine in the forms of five manifest deities revered across the Eastern world. The Sanskrit verses are dedicated to the following deities:

1. Ganesha, depicted in the form of an elephant headed being, a symbol of wisdom and a negation of blind belief, the embodiment of mindfulness and agency. Ganesha tradition marks a central schism between the ideas of the West and the East, where belief in the Creator is to be suspended, and one must attain agency to find one’s own conception of the Divine.
2. Saraswati, the embodiment of the river around which the ancient Indus civilization prospered, who is considered as the repository of knowledge, music, and the arts.
3. Vishnu, the Preserver, one of the central trinity in the Indian pantheon.
4. Siva, the eternal divine, an embodiment of the cycles of creative construction and destruction in the universe.
5. The last deity depicted in the dance is the guru, or the teacher herself, who sculpts the mind, and is therefore considered higher than all deities.

This Natyanjali is set in 5 different rhythmic cycles, starting with a 7 beat cycle, followed by 5, 6, 8, and finally a 9 beat cycle. This is not a measure of speed, but the measure of timed rhythmic intervals.

Raga: Ragamalika, choreographed by: the Dhananjayans, taught by: Smt Jaynti Seshan.

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