Mudras

A dance is made up of several korvais put together; a korvai is made up of several adavus put together and adavus are composed of mudras and mandalas, which I mentioned in an earlier post. In this post I'll be talking about what a mudra is, why it is used and the different types of mudras used in Bharatanatyam.

A mudra is simply a hand gesture. It is used to express a feeling, an idea or a story to the audience, visually, without using any words. This applies to a Niruthiyam dance. In a Nirutham dance, mudras are used to create aesthetic pleasure and to accompany the leg movements.

Many mudras together form hastas, or hand movements, which depict certain things. Form example, Deva hasta is a group of hastas used to portray different gods like Indra, Agni, etc. Also, one mudra may have several viniyogas, which means meanings or uses. These terms will be explained in upcoming posts.

There are two different types of mudras in Bharatanatyam, Asamyutha Hastas and Samyutha Hasthas. Asamyutha means single-handed and Samyutha means double-handed. There are many different hand gestures, but right now, only 28 single-handed ones and 24 double-handed ones are used. 

Lasyam

• The term Lasyam, in the context of Hindu mythology and Indian dance, describes the dance performed by Goddess Parvati since it expresses happiness and is graceful and feminine. 
• This is because the word Lasyam literally means beauty, happiness, joy and grace, in Sanskrit. 
• Lasyam is the feminine counterpart of the masculine Tandava and Parvati is believed to have danced the Lasyam in response to the vigorous Tandava performed by Lord Shiva, to balance it out. 
• The Bharatanatyam term 'Thala' has been claimed to have been derived from the union of the first syllable of the words Thandavam and Lasyam, since they are important elements in the dance.
• Parvati taught the Lasyam dance to Usha, the daughter of Banasura, who then taught it to the gopis of Vrindavana, who then subsequently spread it to more people.