Koodiyattam

Koodiyattam is the oldest living theatre tradition in the world, Sanskrit drama performed in Kerala temple theatres in a form that has run continuously for perhaps two thousand years. It was recognised by UNESCO in 2001 as the first Indian form on its list. What makes it extraordinary is its pace: a single play may be performed over several nights, and one verse can be elaborated for hours as the actor plays out everything the words imply, including the backstory of every person mentioned.

Performed in the koothambalam, a temple theatre built for it, by Chakyar actors and Nangiar women, with the mizhavu, a large copper drum, played by Nambiars. The elaboration is the point: in the Nirvahanam an actor retells everything leading up to the moment, in character, sometimes for nights. The famous example is the Ascharyachudamani, where Hanuman’s single mention of seeing Sita is played out as several nights of recollection. The eye and hand vocabulary is the ancestor of Kathakali’s. The actor speaks, which Kathakali’s does not, in a stylised chant.

Training begins in childhood in the hereditary families and takes fifteen to twenty years before a performer is considered complete, which is the longest apprenticeship of any Indian performing art. The eye exercises, the hand vocabulary and the chant are learnt separately for years. Kalamandalam and the Ammannur Chachu Chakyar Smaraka Gurukulam now teach it outside the hereditary families, which began in the 1950s and was fought over at the time. A Nangiar performer learns the Nangiarkoothu, the solo women’s form, which runs its own long cycles.

The Chakyar families held the performing right and the Nambiars the drum, by temple appointment, and for centuries nobody outside them performed. Painkulam Rama Chakyar took it outside the temple in 1949 and taught non Chakyars, which the conservative families regarded as a breach and which most historians now credit with its survival. Ammannur Madhava Chakyar is the name most associated with the twentieth century form. The hereditary families and the institutions still differ on whether what is taught at Kalamandalam is the same art, and the question is live.

Kerala

Performed in the koothambalams of Thrissur, Irinjalakuda and Guruvayur, by Chakyar and Nangiar families and by the Kalamandalam trained.

Tamil Nadu

The Sanskrit drama tradition it preserves is pan Indian, and the plays of Bhasa it keeps alive were known only from these performances until manuscripts were found in 1909.

Deities

• Rama
• Krishna
• Siva

Festivals

• Thiruvonam · Onam
• Vishu

Temples

• Vadakkunnathan Temple, Thrissur
• Guruvayur Sri Krishna Temple

Related arts

• Kathakali