Shadow Plays in Karnataka

Abstract

Shadow Play of Leather-Puppet Play is believed to have originated in India and migrated to other countries of the world. “Hindu kings conquered Java in the first century A.D. and ruled for 1,500 years. During this long period of time Javanese life became Hinduized. Malay-Polynesian deities, which had counterparts in the Hindu pantheon, took on the corresponding Hindu names, and the shadow plays figures henceforth showed them dressed in the Indian dhoti. When there were no such Hindu counterparts for the Malay-Polynesian deities, these deities retained their Malay- Polynesian character and their shadow play figures continued showing them dressed in the Malay-Polynesian sarong. In the course of time the number of shadow play figures was increased by the addition of characters taken from Hindu mythology.”1 This kind of folk theatre is said to have been prevalent in India even before the beginning of the Christian era. There are said to be references to the Shadow Plays in Sanskrit as well as regional literatures. For example, there are said to be references to the Shadow Play in Kautilya’s the Artha Sastra, Vyasa’s the Mahabharata (1500 sloka), Harshavardhana’s Naisadha Charitre (XVIII, 13) mentions that King Nala invited the Puppet-Players and arranged a puppet-show in the Hall of Entertainment (Pramoda Bhavana). Rajasekhara, a Kannada poet of 11th century mentions in the fifth Act of his play Bala Ramayana that there was a puppet-player, who was playing the puppet s of Sita and her maidservant Sindhurika and that Ravana mistook the puppet-Sita to be the real one and touched it only to be disappointed. Gunadhya’s Kathasaritsagara of the 12th century mentions how Somaprabha, the daughter of Silparaja presented her friend Kalyanasena with a box of puppets. Ratnakaravarni’s Bharatesa Vaibhava points out the presence of puppet-players among the visitors to Emperor Bharata’s court. There are references to the Shadow Play in the vacanas of saranas, who lived in the twelfth century Karnataka and in the kirtanas of Kanakadasa in sixteenth century Karnataka. Cennabasava, one of such saranas, makes a reference to the Shadow Plays or Leather-Puppet plays in one of his vacanas. Kaliketa Bommayya, another sarana of the same galaxy is said to have been a killiketa i.e. professional shadow-play artist.