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Paper: 2
Relationship Of Dance And Theatre, Study Of Rupaka And
Uparupaka, Traditional Theatres Of India
Module 25 Jatra
In Bengali the meaning of the word Jatra is to travel from one place
to another. Even processions are included in this travel idea. Several
ancient texts mention Jatra. In Skanda Purana we find twelve kinds of
Jatras are cited each held in one of the twelve months. These are
usually festivals held for the worship of Vishnu all over the year. They
are
Chandani Jatra- held in the month of Baishakh i.e. April-May
Snapuni Jatra – held in Jaitha i.e. May June
Rathyatra Jatra - held in Asharh i.e. during June-July
Sayani Jatra - held in Shravan
Dakshin Parshia Jatra - held in Bhadra
Bamparshia Jatra - held in Aswin
Uthhani Jatra - held in Kartik
Chhadni Jatra - held in Agrahayan
Puspabhishekh Jatra - held in Poush
Salyodni Jatra - held in Magh
Dol Jatra - held in Phalgun
Madanbhanjika Jatra – held in Chaitra
In Bamkeshar Tantra there are sixteen Jatras mentioned held in
different months.
Mancha Jatra and Chandan Jatra- held in the month of
Baishakh i.e. April-May
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Mahasnan Jatra –held in Jaitha i.e. May June
Rathyatra Jatra - held in Asharh i.e. during June-July
Jala Jatra - held in Shravan
Dhunan Jatra - held in Bhadra
Mahapuja Jatra - held in Aswin
Deepa Jatra - held in Kartik
Nabanna Jatra - held in Agrahayan
Angarag Jatra - held in Poush
Magadevi Jatra - held in Magh
Dol Jatra - held in Phalgun
Duti Jatra, Ras Jatra, Basanti Jatra and Nil Jatra – held in Chaitra
So we see that the Jatras mentioned in ancient texts and literature
are only social and religious festivals and did not specify any art
form. This statement seems all the truer when we see that a number
of ancient Sanskrit plays are written to be performed in the Jatra
festivals. Like Bhavabhuti wrote Uttaramcharit and Malatimadhava
for the Kalpriyanath Jatra.
Jatra is an initiative where people gather for rites, rituals, devotion
and entertainment. Thus these became festivals for the society. In
ancient times Jatra was also counted as a festival and theatre or
drama was almost a compulsory part of it. The reason of naming the
ritualistic worship in a place also as Jatra is found in the fifteenth
volume of Biswakosh. It says that though Jatra was initiated as a
religious procession along with kirtan singing in the preliminary state,
but gradually people began to confine the activities of the procession
and its rituals in a chosen place and hence the total activity became a
static occasion. But these occurrences carried forward the name
Jatra. Later on, the elements of the art of acting were added to this
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devotional singing and dancing ceremony. This new emerged form of
performance is now coined as Jatrapala.
The chief areas of the performance of Jatra are Bihar, Bengal, Orissa
and Assam in the eastern India.
Hemanta Kumar Das opines regarding Oriya Jatra, “We do not know
exactly when this powerful medium came to be known as Jatra. But
one thing is clear that it was widely known under that name during
Sarala Das’ time….This was at least a century before Chaitanya’s
arrival at Puri and the appearance of Krishna Jatra in Bengal …
However it must be added that Oriya Jatra came in contact with
Bengali Jatra during the 19th century and since then it has always
depended upon it for inspiration.” From the beginning Oriya Jatra
received the favor and patronage of rural as well as the urban
people. In Orissa it is in true sense a mass performing art media.
Primarily the stories here are also based on mythology, religious
themes, history and story of individuals. Social plays have very major
contribution in this art form. Now-a-days famous film stories are also
adapted along with technical advancements like sound, lights and
other aids are adapted in the performance, which they think are
important to continue the fight with electronics media and cinema.
In Bihar, Jatra is a folk dance of the Oraons, who are tribes supposed
to be emigrated from Nepal. These Oraons have three dances - Jatra,
Karma and Jadur. Interestingly Jatra here represents the fight of life
and the technique includes a lot of martial movements. The
movements are fast and display energy. During the dance a musician
stands in the center of the performing arena and sings the songs in
such a way that the delivery serves in motivating the dancers. The
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songs are sung in Nepali. Among many instruments that are used is
the Dholak.
In Assam Jatra is performed as the bhavna. These presentations
include religious stories taken from Sanskrit literature. Masks are a
special feature of this presentation.
Bengal has contributed greatly to this art form. In Bengal the festival
of the local folk deities is called Jata. Some are of opinion that Jatra
has derived its name from this Jata. Whatever be the origin the
historians of Bengali dramatic literature have linked its origin to
Natgeet, which was actually sung in festivals that were called Jatra.
Hence gradually the word Jatra took the place of Natgeet. However,
the history of Bengali literature points to the Jangam festival, which
people referred to as Jatra. This Jangam too was a religious
procession.
The Natyashastra stands as a proven fact of the prevalence of Natya
in India. But according to Biswakosh, Jatra was a common
patronizing art form of the Hindu kings. It narrates that the actors
with all make up and costume would sit in the performance area
commonly called the asar/असर. As per their appearance sequence according to the story, each actor would stand up, sing, dance and
act the character. This is an example of Jatra being a separate kind of
performing art, which is not guided by the Natyashastra technique.
So it is obvious that the dramatists are not in the lineage of Bhasa,
Kalidasa or Sudraka, the Sanskrit dramatists.
Around 15th century, Baru Chandidas of Bankura-Birbhum area of
Bengal wrote Srikrishna kirtana/श्रीक्रिष्ण कीर्तन. Prior to this between 1473 and 1480 Maladhar Basu of the village of Kulin in Bardhhaman
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wrote the first Bengali literature on the theme of Krishna named
Srikrishna Vijay. In 1494 Jasiraj Khan wrote Krishna Panchali/कृष्णा पाांचाऱी. In 1495 Biprodas Piplai of Basirhat wrote Manasabijoy. Kabindra Parameswar of Chatttogram wrote Pandav Bijoy. From this
time onwards we find a definite development of the elements of
Bengali drama. The stories of Manasa (the serpent God), his kind of
Dharma, Chandi and other local mythology along with Ramayana,
Krishnalila were taken as theme and presented through songs,
dance, music and narration. These kinds of oral tradition
presentation were now penned down by the writers and poets. Thus
Srikrishnakirtana of Baru Chandidas was the first writing on the story
of Radha Krishna and it is presented with dialogues and songs
illustrating the story line. In the introductory episode the depiction of
the birth of Radha and Krishna takes place;then follows twelve more
episodes on Krishna’s life cycle in this play- such as
Tambulakhanda/र्म्बुऱाखांड, Dankhanda/दांखांड, Noukakhanda/नौकाखांड, Bharkhanda/भाखडं, Chhatrakhanda/छात्रखांड, Vrindavanakhanda/वनृ्दावनखांड, Kaliyadamankhanda/कालऱयादमनखांड, Yamunakhanda/यमुनाखांड, Harkhanda/हखडं, Vankhanda/वनखांड, Vangshikhanda/वांग्शीखांड and Virahakhandaववरहखांड. All these episodes could not be performed in one day. They were performed on
different days. The word pala was already in existence in Bengal. So
with each episode the word pala was added now. So the episodes
became Tambulakhanda Pala, Dankhanda Pala and so on.
Sri Chaitanya was born in 1486, while Srikrishnakirtana was written
in 1500. So during the life of Chaitanya Srikrishnakirtana was already
prevailing. In Srikrishnakirtana generally the songs are dialogue-
oriented and hence had a dramatic structure. There are three main
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characters -- Krishna, Radha and Barai (the messenger) - all three
characters present their dialogues in tune. In this way the story is
described and the dramatic moments developed. Hence
Srikrishnakirtana is often called by various names like the
Gitinatyakavya/गगतर्नात्याकव्य or the Natyagiti/नाटयगतर् by the scholars. But nobody could deny this as a Natya as the dramatic
elements were present.
During the time of Chaitanya, Krishnakirtana and Krishnajatra was
already prevalent but Chaitanya added a different dimension to the
Krishnajatra. He introduced the costume and make-up according to
the characters. Around the first half of the 16th century we find Sri
Chaitanya had acted in Krishnalila/कृष्णऱीऱा. This performance is described in Sri Chaitanya Bhagavat of Brindavandas. Hence we may
conclude that it was Chaitanya who formulated the first stage of
Jatra in Bengal. But after Chaitanya till the 18th century there is not
much evidence of the development in Jatra.
In the 18th century the second phase of Jatra development began.
We find that different kinds of Jatra are now performed. Some of
these are Shakti Jatra, Nath Jatra, Pala Jatra and Krishna Jatra, which
was the most popular. In Krishna Jatra, the Kaliya Daman episode
was so popular that Krishna Jatra became famous as Kaliya Daman
Jatra also. At the end of this century Bidyasundar Pala of Bharat
Chandra was the most popular Jatra. But at the same time Jatras
incorporated cheap entertainment and hence its dignity started to
decline.
Shishuram Adhikary took up the task to revive the old glory of Jatra
and performed in it. He introduced prose dialogues with songs. His
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performances gave more importance to dialogues and the use of
songs was reduced.
The next personality in Jatra to come up in the first half of the 19th
century was Premchand Adhikary. He acted and presented Krishna
Jatra and gained popularity. His disciple Badan Adhikary also
continued the same trend and opened his own company, called the
Badan Jatra. He wrote a number of Jatras that were performed.
In the beginning of the 19th century, another phase of the Jatra in
Bangladesh began. This was named as Natun Jatra (The New Jatra).
The old phase is now the Purano Jatra. So now we find two divisions
in Jatra- Natun and Purano. From the 16th century to the beginning of
the 19th century is the phase of the Purano Jatra. In this phase we
observe that these palas/पऱास based themselves on the religious and devotional themes, like Krishna Jatra, Ram Jatra, Manashar Bhasan
Jatra, Shiva Jatra and Chandi Jatra. During this time Jatra was
individualistic. So the companies bore the names of the individual
personalities e.g. Paramananda Adhikary’s company, Krishnakamal
Adhikary’s company, Gopal Ure’s company and so on. These
companies were professional in nature and were controlled by the
owner (called the Adhikary) of the company.
The Natun Jatra-s, however, were run by rich individuals, but in an
amateur manner. Their content was secular in nature. The main aim
was entertainment and these became their status symbol. These
owners also spent a lot of money too. In this new phase, the notable
point is that in 1849 the team of Ramchand Mukhopadhyay
performed a Jatra named Nanda Biday. In this the women took part
for the first time in Jatra. The vocal rendition part developed now
and we find the inclusion of classical ragas, khayal/खयाऱ, tappa/टप्प,
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hafakhrai/हफाखरै, payar/पयार rhythm in dialogues and kirtana started being used. Dance was also included along with songs now.
Expensive costumes and makeup was introduced. The Pala
NalaDamayanti, Raja Bikramaditya, Nanda Biday and Bidya Sundar
Pala are very prominent plays in this phase.
Sri Chaitanya Dev in his acting had deviated from the then prevalent
style of acting on singing. He introduced prose dialogues in Krishna
Kirtana along with narrative singing. Prior to this, dialogues were not
used. His presentation did not conform to the Sanskrit theatre
tradition. In his performance the entrance and exit of the characters
in the performance arena was used. Scholars opine that this system
may not have existed earlier. From his performance scholars derive
that in the medieval age the characteristics of Jatra Pala were the
following:
There were no ready/written dialogues in the performance. But
the songs were fixed.
The actors delivered the dialogues on extempore basis,
following the songs. They also performed danced and acted
accordingly.
The men acted in the roles of both male and female characters.
The comedy in the presentation would be rendered through
the characters of aged persons.
In the 19th century Govinda Adhikary reformed Krishna Jatra.
From this time onwards the prose dialogues took up a major
part of the presentation.
The other reformers of Jatra are Shishuram, Sridam Das,
Suboldas Adhikary and Manomohan Basu.
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One of the notable persons who reformed Jatra in the 2nd half
of 19th century was Madanmohan Chattopadhyay, who was a
professor in Hooghly College. He brought changes in costume,
make up, music, tune, dance and also instruments used in Jatra
Pala. He started with an amateur team, but his popularity made
him leave his job and take up Jatra as his profession and run
the team professionally. He changed the song performances in
Jatra also. His refined these songs by introducing classical ragas
and raginis. He also stressed on the expression of delivery of
the songs. Till his time the men took up the acting of female
characters. Naturally the female songs were sung in male voice.
But Madanmohan made young boys sing for the female
characters from the background. Also aged singers sang the
songs of the male characters. This new system gave rise to the
concept of Jurhy in Jatra. Later on Motilal Roy, Brajamohan Ray,
Paramananda Adhikary, Sridam Das, Subol Das and others
followed this pattern of presentation.
The style of the acting in Jatra can be divided into 5 types-
a. Acting with character analysis
b. Acting with stunt and pose.
c. Emotional acting
d. Melodramatic acting
e. Mixed style of acting.
Apart from these another style is perceived i.e. the lecture style.
Here the character while acting would often lecture on a relevant
contemporary topic.
On the basis of themes Jatra can be classified into 8 groups-
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Mythological and devotional
Historical
Political
Social
Quasi-historical and metaphorical
Biographical
Dramatization from famous literary works
Adaptation from foreign plays and sources
There are three major trends of contents in the history ofJatra- the
mythological and devotional trend, history and quasi-history based
trend and socio-political trend. The first trend continued till the
World War II, the second trend prevailed from after the World War II
to 1965. From 1965 till date the third trend continues.
Elements of Jatra
Broadly there are six elements in Jatra. They are Music, Dialogues,
Stories or Plots, Characters, Mass Education, Exposition of Rasa or
sentiments.
The Presentation
For Jatra the music part is divided into the following divisions:
a. Prastavana Geeti
b. Jurhi Gaan
c. Dohar
d. Ekanebalaker Gaan
e. Ganer Gaan
f. Jatra Duet
g. Jatra Ballet
h. Bibeker Gaan
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Prastavana Gaan: This is an invocatory song where the theme of the
play is introduced.
Jurhi Gaan: The musical dialogue of a character is often sung by
another person or by a group. This system of presentation is called
the Jurhi Gaan. If the actor was a good singer, then he would sing by
his own and would not need a Jurhi to help him.
Dohar: It is a group of singers who sing together. There are two
divisions of Dohar: 1. Aag Dohar and 2. Pach Dohar. In the group the
person who sings for the character and leads the group is called the
Aag Dohar. The rest who join in as a group are the Pach Dohar.
Ekanebalaker Gaan: The word ekane means lonely and balak is boy.
So it is the song that represents the sorrow of a lonely boy in
distressed condition and is sung by the character himself.
Ganer Gaan: The word Gan is the mass. This mass song speaks of
protest or stresses on many social issues. The characters, who sings
this song are the group of many religious people like Vaishnava,
Shaktas, the Sakhis of Radha and so on.
Jatra Duet: It is a duet dance of a male and a female of low caste
characters. They dance to entertain people and often had vulgar
movements. These were in no way related to the main story. These
served as comic relief in the presentation.
Jatra Ballet: In the beginning of the 20th century, Haripada
Chattopadhaya and Mathurnath Saha introduced a group dance
composed by proper dance teachers. But these were again not
directly related to the theme of the play. These served as
entertainment of the audience. The first Jatra where this was
incorporated was the Padmini Pala. As this became very popular,
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such dances became an inevitable presentation in Jatra from then
on.
Bibek/बबबेक: A singer who sings the songs of the soul of the character is called the Bibek. The content of these songs expose the truth.
The music in Jatra is of four types: Concert, Mood Music, Sound
Effect and Atmosphere Music.
The Technique
There are five fundamentals in the technique of Jatra:
a. Aasar, the area of performance
b. Lights
c. Costume and Make up
d. Sangit/सांगीर् e. Acting style
From the above discussion we find that Jatra is one of the major
theatrical forms, which evolved with the aim to disseminate religion.
During evolution it incorporated the stories from mythology, history
and quasi historical stories written by playwrights and poets. But
during this time it became the status symbol of the rich people of
Bengal. The form was used here neither for propagation of religion
nor as a true connoisseur of art. Cheap entertainment brought the
decadence of this beautiful prospectus media. But it is observed by
the then educated people, not rich with money, but with adequate
education even some of them were academicians came forward to
work with this form. Some of them were Shishuram Adhikary,
Madanmohan Chatterjee called as Madan master. With their efforts
Jatra came up with proper shape shredding off the unnecessary use
of songs, dance and the vulgar gestures are removed. Again the
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commoners became interested on this presentation. Jatra now
became a mass entertainment and medium of mass education. In the
next phase Jatra entered into its modern period, where along with
mythology, history, quasi-history the social plays took prominent
positions. Commercially the Jatra become an industry of performing
art. Notable actors and actresses, directors and playwrights of other
media particularly the theatre and cinema contributed in it. The
names of Utpal Dutta, Uttamkumar, Supriya Devi and Asit Mukherjee
are worth mentioning. The western plays are adapted for Jatra now.
Productions like Othello, Macbeth, King Lear and even plays of Ibsen
were taken in. Political ideologies also were incorporated in the
productions, like Sannyasir Tarabari, Ajoy Vietnam.
A performing media in Indian history with such professional and
commercial attitude is a rare incident in the history of performing
arts.
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