Performance and language in Kathakali: A study within the Indian knowledge system

Kathakali is a traditional art form that originated in the Malayalam–speaking state of Kerala. It is a verse drama and makes use of navarasas from the Natya Shastra, authored by Sage Bharatamuni. It is one of the most complex forms of Indian theatre. The performance is a fusion of music, choreography and gestures (both hand and facial), integrating rhythm and visual storytelling into an intricate semiotic system that operates as a form of language in itself.

This paper analyses Kathakali as a performative language system while placing it within the framework of the Indian Knowledge System (IKS) to explore how meaning is generated, conveyed and construed through representations of the oral and visual modes of the art. The four expressive frameworks – angika abhinaya (gesture), vachika abhinaya (oral/vocal), aharya abhinaya (costume and makeup), sattvika abhinaya (emotional) – as outlined in the Natya Shastra, probe how Kathakali disseminates meaning through its layered storytelling, consisting of the vocalists and musicians playing their musical instruments, without the performer employing spoken dialogues. The mudras (hand gestures) and rasas (facial expressions), along with the sung text functions together to create meaning through performance.

Drawing on Bharatamuni’s Natya Shastra and Abhinavagupta’s Theory of Rasa, this paper places Kathakali within the Indian comprehension of language and meaning as performative and embodied. The process of generating meaning through the performance is shared by the performers, audience, custom and context. Hence, it is a dynamic rather than static textual reality. This paper examines Kathakali as a linguistic and epistemological system, underscoring the refined, advanced traditional performative knowledge. Thus, Kathakali is not merely an art, but a sophisticated cultural structure that cyphers cultural memory and cognition through exemplified language.