Temple dance and the anatomy of desire

At the heart of human experience is Kaama—desire or attachment to pleasurable outcomes. Kaama has popularly been interpreted in sentimental ways as love, however it is broader than our romantic interpretation. The art of dance contemplation in Indian temple traditions centralised Kaama as the domain of inquiry and transformation. The Natya Sastra, the traditional text on dance theatre, has copious discussions on Kaama. The text recognised that Kaama is the origin of all things. This is because Kaama is the source of all action, without Kaama we are inert. A practice that is of the loka or of this world has to perforce work within the domain of Kaama.

Indian temple dance has manifold approaches to Kaama. It locates pleasure in women which functions on two levels—in a literal sense women are seen as givers of pleasure (as well as enjoyers of pleasure) and Prakrithi the female domain of nature, loka or the world, is also primarily interpreted by us as giving us pleasure. This may account for the ways in which we have exploited our planet without a reciprocal loving and giving interaction. Kaama in dance is teased out through the frameworks of various relationships, which are equated to the relationships between men and women. Men are equally important as their nature and behaviour determine the nature of the Kaama relationship as much as that of the women.

The power of bringing Kaama into an intimate, personal and embodied domain is one of the most unique aspects of temple dance. There is no other practice that holds Kaama at this level of sophistication and beauty, and none which invite such an immersive experience of the complex, turbulent, passionate and beautiful world of the main driver of human action. In bringing attention to the anatomy of our personal Kaama, especially as embodied in sexual desire or romantic attachment, we experience how the same experience applies to attachment as an overarching paradigm.

Temple dance practice astutely situates Kaama in the contexts of courtesans and removes it from the safety of domestic and familial surroundings. It boldly asserts that transgression is at the heart of Kaama as it amplifies attachment and longing. The cocktail of secrecy, yearning, transcience, loss, obsession and even death by the fires of Kaama (Kamaagni) become the microcosm of the way in which we construct our relationship to reality itself.