Shringara in Classical Indian Dance

Whether you write it Shringara, Sringara, Śrngära Sringar or sometimes even Srungara, we are talking about centuries and even millennia of expressions of primarily spiritual love through dance in the Indian subcontinent. Such dance lexicons were culled out of western spiritual traditions over roughly the same time period. The concept of communicating unselfish, unconditional spiritual love through the metaphors of mundane human love is intrinsic to Indian aesthetic and philosophical traditions. The chapters of this book offer insights into both the shared and unique understanding and performance of shringara in various classical Indian dance traditions. "Nritya Kalanidhi' Guru Lakshmi Vishwanathan kindly contributed an introductory overview of Śrngāra in Natya (communicative dance) to contextualize the focus on specific classical genres that follows.

First asked by the publisher Sanjay Arya, whose concept initiated this publication, to write the chapter on Odissi, it soon fell to me to edit and produce the finished product It has been a pleasure doing so and I am grateful to the authors who so generously came forward to make this possible. I appreciate Shubhi's longstanding commitment to bringing out publications on the visual and performing arts of India. In addition to writing her chapter on Bharatanatyam, Smt. Kamalini Dutt completely designed her chapter as well as that of Vilasini Natyam with invaluable technical support from Ram Niwas Singh as I am equally grateful to Suresh Byahut for for technical support in the design. Heartfelt thanks to you, the reader, who has actually read this preface. Whether a performing artist, student of dance or aesthetics, raskika or casual reader, without you, this gift of spiritual and aesthetic knowledge would remain unopened.

**Contents and Sample Pages**