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Different aspects of performance central to Sankaradeva�s vision: Prof Dasgupta

By Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Sept 13 - Sankaradeva and his Eka Sarana Nama Dharma have integrated different aspects of performance into a nucleus. The recitation of the name of the Lord, the singing of the borgeet (devotional songs) and the ghosas (hymns) from the Kirtana Ghosa and giving shape to a spectacle called the Ankiya Nat, became the very embodiment of the �Bhakti� enunciated by Sankaradeva through his Eka Sarana Nama Dharma.

This was the observation made by noted scholar of comparative literature, Professor Subha Chakravorty Dasgupta, while delivering the 19th Prof Maheswar Neog Commemoration Lecture at the Vivekananda Kendra Institute of Culture at Uzanbazar here today.

Prof Dasgupta was speaking on the topic �The many dimensions of Bhakti as performance: a case study�.

She said that different aspects of stagecraft and the very architecture of the Sattras (Vaishnavite monasteries) contributed to the process of this Bhakti movement initiated by Sankaradeva in Assam.

The different arts and crafts nourished in the Sattras were a part of the performative and the artisans involved in the process were also the perpetrators of the creed enunciated by Sankaradeva, she said.

There are numerous interrelationships of codes and signs in the whole body of Sankaradeva�s creed that may be viewed in terms of multichannel performance. It is through performance that his vision, retaining all its specificity, gets renewed again and again, in keeping with the needs of the time, said Prof Dasgupta, who, at present is a visiting professor in the Department of Modern Indian Languages and Literary Studies, University of Delhi.

She was a coordinator of the Centre of Advanced Study of the University Grants Commission Special Assistance Programme and a former Joint Director of School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, for a period. She also taught in the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and served as a visiting faculty in universities in India and abroad.

The function, organised by the Prof Maheswar Neog Memorial Trust, was presided over by the Trust president Prof Nagen Saikia. It started with the recital of the Sabad and Namghosa by Giyani Jasbir Singh from Barkola and his team. Prof Ranjit Kumar Deva Goswami spoke on Prof Neog and also introduced Prof Subha Chakraborty Dasgupta.

Before delivering the lecture, Prof Dasgupta released a book Sannidhyar Sowaran on Prof Neog, edited by Dr Lilawati Saikia Bora and Dr Alpana Deka Sarkar.

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