What Does 'Bharatanatyam' Mean?
Bharatanatyam is one of the oldest classical dance forms of India, originating in the temples of Tamil Nadu in South India. The name is often explained through a beautiful mnemonic: BHA for Bhava (emotion/expression), RA for Raga (melody), TA for Tala (rhythm), combined with Natyam, the Tamil and Sanskrit word for dance. Together they describe a complete art that unites feeling, music, and rhythm. The name also honours the sage Bharata Muni, author of the Natyashastra — the ancient treatise that is the foundation of all Indian performing arts.
Temple Origins (Before 1000 CE)
For centuries, Bharatanatyam lived inside the great stone temples of the Tamil land — Chidambaram, Thanjavur, Madurai. The dance was an offering to the deity, performed as a form of worship rather than entertainment. The very architecture of these temples — the carved poses (karanas) on the gopuram towers of Chidambaram — preserves the vocabulary of the dance in stone. To dance was to pray; the temple was the stage and the divine the only audience that mattered.
The Devadasi Tradition
The dance was traditionally performed by Devadasis — women dedicated to temple service who were highly trained in music and dance and held a respected place in society. Alongside them, the Nattuvanars — male gurus and conductors — preserved and taught the grammar of the art across generations. This solo female temple repertoire, often called Sadir or Dasi Attam, is the direct ancestor of the Bharatanatyam performed on stages worldwide today.
Decline and Revival
During the colonial period, the temple-dance tradition was stigmatised and nearly outlawed in the early twentieth century. It might have vanished entirely. That it survived — and flourished — is thanks to a determined twentieth-century revival that brought the art from the temple to the public concert stage, gave it the dignified name 'Bharatanatyam', and made it available to students of all backgrounds. We explore that revival in Chapter 5.
A Living Sacred Art
Even on the modern proscenium stage, Bharatanatyam never lost its devotional core. A recital still opens with an invocation to the gods and closes with a benediction. The themes — devotion to Shiva, Vishnu, Murugan, or Devi; the longing of the soul for the divine — remain the heart of the repertoire. When a dancer performs Bharatanatyam, she steps into a thousand-year-old conversation between the human and the sacred.