Performance Traditions of the Mahabharata in Tamil Nadu

By Prof. Sashikanth Ananthachari, Prof. Rajesh Kumar | IIT Madras

Learners enrolled: 423 | Exam registration: 59

ABOUT THE COURSE: In over 300 villages in Tamil Nadu, the Mahabharata is celebrated as a unique festival. The Epic is performed as village rituals, sung/narrated as a story, and enacted right through the night in a traditional masked theater form called the Koothu. It is an immersive experience of the Epic and entire villages relive the Epic for twenty days each year. Each family in the village contributes money for the festival making this possibly the oldest independent theater festival in the world currently.

Intended audience: Students of Performance studies, students of Religious studies, sociologists, Mahabharata scholars.

Summary

Course Status :	Completed
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	12 weeks
Category :	Humanities and Social Sciences English Studies
Credit Points :	3
Level :	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date :	22 Jul 2024
End Date :	11 Oct 2024
Enrollment Ends :	05 Aug 2024
Exam Registration Ends :	16 Aug 2024
Exam Date :	02 Nov 2024 IST

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

WEEK 1
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE MAHABHARATA
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE MAHABHARATA FESTIVALS OF TAMIL NADU

WEEK 2
THE IDEA OF THE CHARIOT
THE CUSTODIANS OF THE FESTIVAL

WEEK 3
THE FESTIVALS AS TOTAL THEATRE
POTTURAJA AND THE ANTI-WAR NATURE OF THE FESTIVAL

WEEK 4
KELAI DRAUPADAI
Is a documentary made on the festival at Ecchur to give an overview to the participants. It was awarded the ‘Best Foreign Film’ at the DIY Film Festival at Los Angeles [2016] and was the Official Selection at The BlowUp Chicago International Arthouse Fim Festival in 2016

WEEK 5
A brief introduction to Koothu as a theatrical form
Vil Valaippu, or The bending of the bow

WEEK 6
Draupadi Kalayanam or The Marriage ritual of Draupadi
Subhadra Kalyanam

WEEK 7
Rajasuya Yaagam
Draupadiyin Thugilum, Parandhamanin Arulum

WEEK 8
Arjuna’s Tapas
Kichaka Vadham

WEEK 9
Krishnan Thoodu

WEEK 10
Aravan Kalabali

WEEK 11
Karna Moksham

WEEK 12
Pathinettam Por or the Eighteenth Day’s War
Dharumarin Pattabhishekam and Ashwamedha Yaagam

Books and references

1. R K Narayan’s abridged rendition of ‘The Mahabharata’ Published by Heinemann, London, 1978.
2. Manmathanath Dutt’s English translation of the entire Mahabharata [Available on Internet Archive]

3. The Mahabharata- The Book of the Beginning-translated by J A B van Buitenen Published by University of Chicago Press, 1973

4. Ways and reasons for thinking the Mahabharata as a whole –Vishwa Adluri Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 2013
5. Rethinking the Mahabharata- A Reader′s Guide to the Education of the Dharma King -Alf Hiltebeitel University of Chicago Press, 2001
6. Moral Dilemmas in the Mahabharata- Bimal Krishna Matilal Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study in association with Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi (1989)
7. The concealed art of the soul- Jonardon Ganeri- : Theories of Self and Practices of Truth in Indian Ethics and Epistemology [2007] Oxford University Press

Instructor bio

Prof. Sashikanth Ananthachari

Prof. Sashikanth is a filmmaker who has been researching these traditions for the last fifteen years. His film ‘Kelai Draupadai’ [Listen Draupadi] was awarded the Best Foreign Film at the DIY Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2016. The film was also the official selection at the prestigious BlowUp Chicago International Arthouse Film Festival in 2016

Prof. Rajesh Kumar

IIT Madras

Prof. Rajesh Kumar is a professor of linguistics in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai. He obtained his PhD in linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to joining IIT Madras, he taught at IIT Kanpur and IIT Patna in India and at the University of Texas at Austin in the USA. He has been a visiting faculty at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai in India. His book on Syntax of Negation and Licensing of Negative Polarity Items was published by Routledge in their prestigious series Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics in 2006. He has been associate editor of the journal Language and Language Teaching. He has been part of the language teaching program at all the institutions he has been affiliated with. The broad goal of his research is uncovering regularities underlying both the structural form (what language is) and sociolinguistic functions (what language does) of natural language. He works on structure of South Asian Languages. He is keenly interested in issues related to language (multilingualism) in education; politics; human cognition; and landscape.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5268-3080

URL: https://hss.iitm.ac.in/team-members/rajesh-kumar/

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.

The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).

Date and Time of Exams: 02 November 2024 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.

Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.

The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.

Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 8 assignments out of the total 12 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Madras. It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team