Hastas and Mudras at the 6th Bharatiya Vigyan Sammelan and Expo

Hastas and Mudras at the 6th Bharatiya Vigyan Sammelan and Expo

As the narrator (Sutradhar) for the 6th Bharatiya Vigyan Sammelan and Expo held in Ahmedabad in Dec 2023, I helped weave the dance that students of Nritya Kala Kendra did, with science. In this video, In this video, I talk about symbols and semiology, and talk about how the brain makes sense of (seemingly random) symbols. I link it to the hastas in Bharatanatyam. I also introduce the piece - Tridevi Stuti, where students will be praying or will be dancing to three goddesses - Goddess Lakshmi, Goddess Saraswati, and Goddess Durga. The transcript can be found under the video and in the close captions in the video. ​

"Transcript:
We talked about the years and years that go into studying dance and science, and in these years, we are really learning the different elements of both science and dance in dance. We study different steps, we study rhythm (or talam), we look at emotions, gestures etc., and in this the piece that our students are going to perform next, I wonder if we can look and think a little bit about the gestures that we are using.

Bharatanatyam students are familiar with a book called the Abhinaya Darpana which is literally translated or described as a "mirror of gestures". And one of the things that always (to this date after decades of studying Bharatanatyam) really stands out to me is how relevant Bharatanatyam is even in today's time. You know, one might wonder this is a 2,000 year old art form; what more is there to do, and hasn't everything that could be done, could be created? Hasn't that already been done? But we also know that that's not the case. And I think that's another point of commonality between the arts and the sciences where there's always more to study, there's always more to explore.

Coming back to gestures, as you know, as students of Bharatanatyam, we use our hands to tell tell stories. And these stories or these gestures are called 'hastas" or "mudras" in our tradition. And we can think of them as symbols. I remember growing up in Ahmedabad, and one of my earliest memories was I hadn't yet learned how to read but I was going through a book and I was looking at these words and I was just fascinated by the shape of the words. This really led to my love for words, and thinking about how these seemingly random shapes on a piece of paper tell us something, that there's a story to be told, there's a narrative. In a similar way these hastas are giving us a narrative and and there's meaning in each of these gestures. In Bharatanatyam, we have gestures for animals for example,  this is a peacock, a deer, a bird. We also have gestures for various deities.

While this gesture is used to show a flute, we also know that it is used to show Krishna who is seen with a flute. A peacock, while it is can be used to show peacock (the bird), it can also be used to show Lord Kartikeya, whose vehicle is a peacock. So how does the brain make sense of these symbols around us? While in dance we have a very systematic way of thinking about the symbols, still there are symbols all around us at all times. One might think of the the Giant "M" of McDonald's and how when we see that that symbol (that icon), we know that there's a McDonald's near us.

So how does the brain know what these things are, and how does the brain know how to make sense of these these symbols? When we think of reading (looking at reading or how children learn how to read or how as adults we learn to read a new language), it is a great way to understand how the brain makes sense of symbols.

And studies done using MRI scans have shown the involvement of a very specific part of the brain called the ventral occipototemporal cortex - this is a part of the brain that's located in our temporal cortex (somewhere towards the back), and what scientists found using MRI scan is that as we there was also a gradient; so there was also a change with the involvement of this part of the brain (that) happened as people were learning and once they had already  recognized what these symbols meant. And this gradient was that there was more activity towards the the the back portion of of this brain region, and as folks learned a particular symbol there was more activity towards the frontal part of the brain.

And so even in this very specific example we can see how there's specificity in the parts of the or the part of the brain that is involved. In the piece that our students are going to do next I wonder if we can take a look at the gestures they're going to be using.

This piece is called a Tridevi Stuti and students will be praying or will be dancing to three goddesses - Goddess Lakshmi, Goddess Saraswati, and Goddess Durga. As we know Goddess Lakshmi is the symbol or she is the goddess of wealth of good fortune of prosperity. Goddess Saraswati who's shown in a white sari, she is a symbol of knowledge and somebody who dispels darkness and ignorance and ego. Goddess Durga is symbolizing courage and feminine strength. This piece has also been sung by Sri Jayan Nair. The ragam - there are various ragams used - it is Ragamalika (or a garland of ragams), and the talam is Aadi. I hope you enjoy!