Books written and institutions established by Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam for the promotion of Art and National Integration
Padma Surbahmanyam derived her artistic and scholarly inspiration, amongst other works from Deivattin Kural, an encyclopedic work on Indian culture written by the Paramācārya of Kanchi. She has written several books in English and Tamil that focus on Indian aesthetics, artistic and cultural unity of the nation. ‘Bharatakkalai...
1.Śiva’s form as Naṭarāja
We know from the first chapter of the Nāṭyaśāstra (verses 41-45) that according to tradition, Śiva’s cosmic dance inspired Bharata to add the kaiṣikī-vṛtti to classical dance and to include aṅgahāra. (An aṅgahāra is series of karaṇa-s and cāri-s, and are like sentences in a prose text; cāri-s are movements of the body below the waist). Śiva is portrayed in his form as a cosmic dancer and as ‘Naṭarāja’ (‘the king of...
This article is an adapted version of the talk presented by Arjun Bharadwaj at the Swadeshi Indology Conference in December 2017
The following sections describe how Padma Subrahmanyam’s art presentations and research suggest the inclusive nature of sanātana-dharma and all regional variations as an integral part of the classical mārga tradition.
1.The reconstruction of the mārga-karaṇa-s: the common dance language of the entire Indian sub-...
This article is an adapted version of the talk presented by Arjun Bharadwaj at the Swadeshi Indology Conference in December 2017
Abstract
The current paper attempts to explore the contributions of Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam, an artist and scholar, in the context of the Dravidian movement and her artistic rebuttal of the same.
Arts are reflections of man’s emotions, values, ethics and aspirations and serve as impersonal media to communicate the...