Ghungroo or salangai is an integral a part of Indian classical dances
The clouds create a blanket of darkness because the rain pours. Masking her head, the abhisarika nayika traipses by the woods, lit solely by occasional flashes of lightning. A snake makes an attempt to wrap round her ankle, however she bravely shakes it off. Nothing can cease her from assembly her beloved. Her solely companion — the anklets.
Ankle bells, also called gejje, salangai, muvva, or gejjalu in South India and ghungroo up North, have captured the flowery of poet and king alike. The decoration, in its most delicate type as a golusu or payal, is indicative femininity and is a prescribed decoration for girls in historical texts corresponding to Tiruvempavai of Manickavasagar.
Ankle bells add to the great thing about a dancer’s actions
| Photograph Credit score:
ARINDAM GHOSH
Whereas historical past could give it a number of prescriptive makes use of, how will we achieve a sensible sense of the anklet? Temple sculpture could include the solutions. The earliest documented anklets emerge from the repertoire of Buddhist terracottas and sculptures, with a consultant instance discovered on the well-known Mauryan Didarganj Yakshi, dated to the third century BC. This beautiful sculpture, now on the Patna Museum, sports activities thick, tyre-like anklets which can be extra harking back to ankle weights at our native health club than of the fragile nupura described within the texts. The truth is, foot ornaments as depicted in temple sculpture throughout India appear to distinction their delicate and inventive descriptions within the literature and scripture. In Belur, we’re confronted with sleek and languorous darpanikas sporting a number of kinds of layered, chunky anklets. Even in images of courtesans from Tanjore and Mysore, we observe a number of, stacked anklets.
Some students are very explicit in regards to the distinction between ornaments. The manjira, it’s argued, is clearly distinguished from the prakshepya by the previous’s thinness. If one have been to collate the entire phrases utilized in Sanskrit alone for the anklet, it’s possible that the survey would yield greater than 24 phrases for various nuances of the decoration. If vernacular languages have been to be thought-about, the rely would sail effectively over 100. What was the perform of a lot variation inside the idea of the anklet? Why was it necessary to differentiate between a salangai, a golusu and a silambu?
The sound of the ghungroos units the tempo of a Kathak efficiency
| Photograph Credit score:
FARUQUI AM
Maybe the reply lies within the meant impact of the ankle decoration within the Indian creativeness. Every of the types of anklets actually had a distinct aesthetic worth, however, extra importantly, every had a distinct sonic worth. In his e-book Nupura, S.P. Tewari means that it was the chiming of anklets that indicated feminine quarters within the palaces of yore. Epigraphs from the Edilpur Copperplate of Bengal clearly delineate the enjoyment of the “dulcet music arising from the anklets of courtesans each night” by the twelfth century Sena monarch, Lakshmanasena. It’s well-documented that favoured courtesans would usually obtain anklets in valuable metals, generally studded with gems, as imperial presents.
The ethereal sound of the ghungroo wasn’t restricted to the court docket, nonetheless. Literature usually makes use of the sound of the anklet as a personality in itself. In Jayadeva’s twelfth century magnum opus, the Gita Govinda, Radha says to her pal, “Take off these harmful enemies, your ankle-bells. They discuss loudly once you stroll and luxuriate in union.” Saint-poet Meera refers to dancing in abandon (possessed by her affection for Krishna) with anklets on within the well-known track ‘Pagh ghungroo baandh Meera nachi re’.
Balasaraswati’s ankle bells have been stored in a glass case in an exhibition by the Museum of Performing Arts in New Delhi.
| Photograph Credit score:
The Hindu Archives
Whereas these tales have been instructed from the attitude of getting an intimate relationship with the divine, the temple was an important website of the anklet’s historical past too. A vital facet of the devadasi custom was the gajjela puja or salangai puja, which marked the preparedness of a younger dancer to takeover the ritual performances on the temple and consecrate her formal dedication to the patron god. Whereas the context of this ritual was rooted in an historical system that has little relevance to classical dance immediately, many consider that they’re persevering with the custom of anklet puja by making it a compulsory ingredient of a dancer’s debut (arangetram). Moreover, the devadasi custom documented the fashioning of anklets out of a number of completely different supplies — particularly gold, silver and bronze. Dancers of immediately depend on brass bells to serve a metronomic perform on stage, however what may have been the hereditary dancing group’s cause for utilising anklets of various supplies? How did it change?
In an exhibition by the Museum of Performing Arts, legendary dancer Balasaraswati’s ankle bells rested inside a glass case. Tiny motifs have been engraved on every brass bell, and the viewer may get a way of the load of the decoration simply from taking a look at it. Balasaraswati was one of many final hereditary dancers to observe the shape in its genuine context. She steadily mentioned the necessity to tune her ankle bells. The sruti, she claimed, was an necessary facet of the efficiency at massive. She hailed from a convention the place the dancer offered vocal assist for her personal performances and thus we should ask whether or not the unique goal of the ankle bell was to function an instrument in its personal proper.
From classical dances to regional traditions such because the Bhagavatha Mela, the ankle bells emerge from Indian dance historical past as one of the crucial putting visible and sonic parts. With all of its myriad shapes, sizes and tones, the ankle bell traverses social, metronomic and decorative realms to carry us a soundscape peppered with heritage. There’s just about no dance tradition on the Indian subcontinent that exists with out a foot decoration.
