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 via 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, often known as gejje, salangai, muvva, or gejjalu in South India and ghungroo up North, have captured the flamboyant 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 comparable to Tiruvempavai of Manickavasagar.
The ankle bells add to the great thing about a dancer’s actions
| Photograph Credit score:
JOTHI RAMALINGAM B
Whereas historical past could give it a number of prescriptive makes use of, how can we acquire a sensible sense of the anklet? Temple sculpture could comprise 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 might be extra paying homage to ankle weights at our native fitness center than of the fragile nupura described within the texts. In actual fact, 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 varieties of layered, chunky anklets. Even in pictures of courtesans from Tanjore and Mysore, we observe a number of, stacked anklets.
Some students are very specific concerning 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 all the phrases utilized in Sanskrit alone for the anklet, it’s seemingly 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 depend would sail nicely over 100. What was the operate of a lot variation throughout the idea of the anklet? Why was it necessary to tell apart 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 supposed impact of the ankle decoration within the Indian creativeness. Every of the sorts 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 treasured metals, generally studded with gems, as imperial items.
The ethereal sound of the ghungroo wasn’t restricted to the courtroom, 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 buddy, “Take off these harmful enemies, your ankle-bells. They discuss loudly while you stroll and revel in union.” Saint-poet Meera refers to dancing in abandon (possessed by her affection for Krishna) with anklets on within the well-known music ‘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 angle of getting an intimate relationship with the divine, the temple was an important website of the anklet’s historical past too. A necessary side 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 in the present day, many imagine that they’re persevering with the custom of anklet puja by making it a compulsory aspect of a dancer’s debut (arangetram). Moreover, the devadasi custom documented the fashioning of anklets out of a number of totally different supplies — particularly gold, silver and bronze. Dancers of in the present day depend on brass bells to serve a metronomic operate on stage, however what might have been the hereditary dancing group’s motive 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 might get a way of the burden of the decoration simply from it. Balasaraswati was one of many final hereditary dancers to apply the shape in its genuine context. She ceaselessly mentioned the necessity to tune her ankle bells. The sruti, she claimed, was an necessary side of the efficiency at giant. She hailed from a practice the place the dancer offered vocal help for her personal performances and thus we should ask whether or not the unique function of the ankle bell was to function an instrument in its personal proper.
Maybe the anklet is a research in itself — steeped in custom but utterly customisable.
