Yaksagana.

• Author: Gerow, Edwin
• Position: Review

By K. SHIVARAMA KARANTH. Second edition. New Delhi: INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL CENTRE FOR THE ARTS; ABHINAV PUBLICATIONS, 1997. Pp. 252. Rs 450.

This is a largely unchanged republication of the 1975 English edition, which appeared then with a Kannada twin, still available. The work bears the inimitable stamp of its feisty author, the doyen of Kannada novelists, playwrights, and essayists, who passed to his reward last December 9th [1997], at the venerable age of 96. Karanth is largely responsible for the current revival of interest in the traditional Kannada folk drama - a labor of love that he pursued, sometimes single-handedly, for more than sixty years. This essay is one of the fruits of that labor, but another, doubtless more important, is the renaissance of the art form itself - as patronized by institutes such as the Center for Folk Performing Arts, which Karanth helped found, in Udupi, South Kanara, not far from his home in Kota. To the essay's original text - unaltered as far as I can tell - have been added sumptuous color photographs of scenes and characters from various Yaksagana dramas. Several appendices are provided (see also next), including a "stores list" of a troupe, a list of palm-leaf manuscripts collected by Karanth, and an effort (very mysterious to the uninitiated!) to represent syllabically the rhythm and "choreography" of one drama, the Pandava Oddolaga.

Yaksagana dramas are notable for their retention of a vidusaka-like character, the hanumanayaka, for their elaborate and beautiful costuming, and for their wealth of themes, which range over both Sanskrit epics, the Bhagavata stories of Krsna, and Kannada versions thereof. In instance of the latter, Karanth has provided a translation of the book of the Babhruvahana Kalaga, based on Laksmisa's Jaimini Bharata - which may be of some interest to readers of this journal in view of Robert Goldman's and William Sax's recent discussions of that interesting...