Two Masterpieces of Kuttiyattam : Mantrankam and Anguliyankam

Contents: Foreword. Introduction. I. Opening up: 1. Ascaragulīyānkam and Mantrānkam: Two Wondrous Crest Jewels of Kūtiyāttam (Sudha Gopalakrishnan). 2. Some Remarks on the Āścaryacūdāmani: Reflections, Refl exivity and Wonder (Lyne Bansat-Boudon). II. Mantrānkam: 3. Mantrānkam, an Ancient Integration Project? Its Structure and Composition (Heike Oberlin). 4. What is Mantrānkam? (David Shulman). 5. Pracchana Bārhaspatyam: Irony and Illusion, Reality, Reflection, and Play in Mantrānkam (Orly Hadani Nave). 6. Reflection and Arul: Creating Śiva on the Kūtiyāttam  Stage (Hemdat Salay). 7. Vasantaka: Personal Considerations from Within the Practice (Indu G.). 8. Mantrānkam: An Arena for Experimentation (Elena Mucciarelli). 9. The Mantrānkam Paribhāsa from a Historical Linguistics Perspective (Ophira Gamliel). 10. Tying the Universe: The Interplay of Veda and Kūtiyāttam with special reference to Mantrānkam (Elena Mucciarelli and Heike Oberlin). III. Anguliyankam: 11. Anguliyankam, Rāmāyana-Vēda of the Cākyārs (Virginie Johan). 12. Anguliyankam: The Nātyaveda of Kūtiyāttam (Bhadra P.K.M. and Rajneesh B.). 13. The World of Hanumān: Creating a Fluid Cosmos on a Kerala Kūtiyāttam Stage (Einat Bar-On Cohen). 14. Distinct Conventions in the Staging of Anguliyankam Kūttu (Ammannur Kuttan Chakyar and Aparna Nangiar). IV. Tying up: 15. My Experience of Performing Anguliyankam and Mantrānkam (Madhu Margi Chakyar). 16. Knowing and Being: Kūtiyāttam  and its Semantic Universe (Manu V. Devadevan). 17. An Actor in Red and White: The Cākyār Community and the Early Maniprāvalam Corpus (Sivan Goren Arzony). Index.

This volume focuses on Mantrankam and Anguliyankam that are the two great masterpieces of Kutiyattam, one of India's oldest living theatrical traditions. It provides some fundamental general remarks on the performance of Kutiyattam, relates it to the pan-Indian reflection on aesthetics, and gives an account of its development up to the present time. The chapters in the volume are authored by both scholars versed in this tradition as well as active Kutiyattam performers in Kerala, which is where it is practised. This is the first attempt to bring together a set of focused studies of this masterpiece-in-performance. (jacket)