Sattriya

Sattriya is the dance of the sattras, the Vaishnava monasteries of Assam founded by Sankardev in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and for five hundred years it was performed only inside them, by celibate monks, as part of worship. It was recognised as a classical form only in 2000, which makes it the most recently admitted and the oldest continuously institutional of the eight. Sankardev created it as part of a whole devotional programme: he wrote the plays, composed the music, devised the dance and founded the monasteries to keep them.

The repertoire runs from the Ankiya Bhaona, the one act plays Sankardev wrote in Brajavali, to the solo items now performed on stage: the Krishna Bhangi, the Nadu Bhangi, the Jhumura and the Chali, which is the gentlest. The mati akhara are the basic exercises, sixty four of them, done on the ground. The khol, a clay barrel drum with an asymmetric pair of heads, and the bhortal, large cymbals, are the accompaniment, and the Borgeet are Sankardev’s and Madhavdev’s own compositions, sung in their own ragas.

In the sattras a boy entering as a bhakat begins the mati akhara at about six and trains for years as part of monastic life, not as a career. Outside them it is now taught in schools and at universities in Guwahati and to a syllabus, and women learn it, which the sattras themselves did not permit for most of their history. Five to eight years brings a performer to a stage recital. The sixty four mati akhara are drilled as conditioning before any item, and the khol is learnt by dancers as well as drummers.

The sattras themselves are the lineage: Majuli island holds the most important of them and each has its own repertoire and emphasis, with the Kamalabari and Uttar Kamalabari sattras prominent in taking the form to the stage. The change from a monastic male practice to a concert form danced by women happened largely after 2000, and the sattras are divided about it: some have supported it as survival, others hold that a devotional practice performed for an audience has become something else. Both positions are argued within Assam and the debate is recent and unresolved.

Assam

Majuli and the sattras of upper Assam are the home, with the Kamalabari line prominent on stage and the Bhaona performed in the namghars.

Bengal

The Vaishnava devotional stream of Chaitanya is contemporary and parallel, and the two traditions recognise each other.

Deities

• Krishna
• Vishnu

Festivals

• Krishna Janmashtami
• Goru Bihu
• Kati Bihu · Kongali Bihu

Temples

• Hayagriva Madhava Temple, Hajo

Related arts

• Bharatanatyam
• Odissi