When the sunshine spreads over nature after the monsoon, the festival season arrives in Kerala. It is the time for celebration of fertility and happiness. After the harvest, the people give a share of it to the gracious deities who protect them. Thus, a number of ritual art forms and celebrations are born. Padayani is such a ritual art form that has been performed year after year during the time of festivals in Kerala.

The ritual art forms all over the world are related to the land and the climate. Hence padayani is also no exception to this universal fact. Padayani is performed two districts Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha of Central and Southern Kerala. Alappuzha is costal and Pathanamthitta is mountainous regions. Padayani is nurtured by the mountains and the ocean. It is the festival of a people who believe that their lives are the gift of the great mountains

To have some kind of control over the unknown forces of nature man began to worship the divinity of nature itself and the seasonal changes brought about by it. These enquiries where resulted in certain definite rewards. Its endless repetitions would become part of protected assets and ultimately all our ritualistic actions would emerge from them. Stories that explain the mysteries of nature were generated. They were the first myths that provided energy for later day’s creative work.

As a mark of respect to nature, man personified the natural forces in characters that danced and sang according to the primal rhythms. These became expressions of the basic emotions in man. The primitive man had the power to express these basic emotions through his expressions in the raw form. Most of these expressions become theatrical.

Padayani is a ritual art form related to the Devi temples (temples of Mother Goddess) in Central Travancore, Kerala. It has tremendous theatrical value and very evocative language. It represents nature in its varied of North Kerala like Theyyam and Thora super-human characters. This ritual art possesses the sense of rhythm, vision, aesthetics and power of imitative quality of people, who are directly involved with nature. It elaborated man’s relationship to nature. For the ordinary people, it is the epitome of life. The text of this is derived from our tribal ethos and culminated in the Siva cult. In short, the hidden text of Padayani is rooted in the Siva and Shakthi cult, which have all tartaric rituals. It is ritual sacrifice performed by the village before the primal Goddess.

Padayani is the simple and at the same time complicated compilations of assumptions. It surpasses time. It is attached to the archetypal tendentiousness. Padayani has the interdependence of absolute glamour of adornment, costume, dance and theatrical languages

Padayani is usually performed ceremoniously in the rural areas of Central Trvancore. One can perceive a collectivist in it rarely seen in the modern Aryan culture. There exists a mixture of the life style of the people who are in various strata of society, their dialects and their special hereditary culture. It is an embodiment of Malayali’s nature that is highly deep rooted in their religion, art aesthetics, etiquettes and body culture, because Padayani is not merely an art form but it is a mode of factual culture.

Any myth worth the name is the essence of a multi racial society. Padayani is the theatrical representation of this myth. Religious rituals or ceremonies are media for communication. The cardinal element is favouritism to the life. The activity of training the unnatural powers can be visualized through the extra body fitting for decorative attire and masks to reveal super-human appearance (Kolams). We experience the dreadfulness and magnanimity, which play a great role in our village life. In it’s intricate and escalatory footsteps with it’s varied reverberations provide an eternal and emotional impression to the spectator a sense of bio-physical force which all inspires them to be with the Performer. Here the lyrics eulogize the transparent love, courage, heroic deeds and all the other human emotions in its rustic purity. The chorographical elements beating of drums and the modulated recitation of poetic verses all reveal a robust purity of the fertile soil and the village.

Rural areas are considered as endless resources of potential energy. Padayani is performed with all it’s riot of colours, extravagant expressions of visual revelations which all confluences in their painting techniques, artistic posters, architectural poses, haunting music, rich literature, scintillating dances and rhythmic movements. It is also a fusion of sixty-four different art forms. The participants are with earnest devotional flow of nectar, apart from the differences of cast and thus proclaim the equality of an era also.

The Kolams who dance in frenzy on the stage of Padayani are its main characters. During the performance a number of realistic characters also appear and disappear on the arena. Kolams dance according to the tune of songs, but songs do not accompany the realistic characters. They provide improvised dialogues. Their primary aim is to add amusement. A highly theatrical story is provided by the characters who perform comedy. This is illustrated in the presentation of 'paradesis' (exiles) to the Kolam. They appear in different opportunities, and their actions vary from place to place. These characters are on a par with the 'Paala Kolams' in significance

Padayani performances last for twenty-eight days in the courtyard of Kaali temple. Its make-up materials are taken from the nature, like Spathe of Areca palm ('paala in Malayalam), Terra-cota powder, and charcoal and turmeric powder. There are different varieties of effigies to represent like Yakshi palkshi, kaalan, kuthira Maadanm marutha. Pisach,Ganapathi,Bhairavi and kaajiramaala. There are effigies with masks and crowns. Padayani is replete with human creativity and natures bounty which all leads to excellent aesthetic extravaganza.

In good old days there were eighteen types of musical instruments used in the padayani performances. Today the most important instruments are "Thappu" (A percussion instrument with a wooden ring covered with leather on one side). Another speciality in padayani is different rhythmic ensemble. They are the rarest of the rare "Thaalaas" prevalent only in South Kerala. Some of the major Thaalaas are 'Marma' 'Valiya Lakshmi' 'Cheriya Lakshmi', 'Champa', 'Kaarika', 'Kumba', 'Adantha', For all these thythms there are corresponding stylised body movements. They are not only important in rhythm bur represent the characters with moments of acting which all basically based on rare rhythms. All these rhythms start mainly from a wider canvas and recede towards a conical structure.

The symphony and rhythm of padayani reflect the rhythms of rural life. The footsteps of the padayani artist imitate a farmer carrying bundles of paddy on his head and movements of a lonely boat in the backwaters. It reaches ecstatic heights slowly but gradually. The classical rhythms are in arithmetical progression, but in padayani it is like the structure and form of a mountain. The audience who participate in padayani moves towards the submits where the spititual force of the divine mother is showered on them.

Humour is widely used in padayani. Comic interludes that sketch the Village life is performed in the skits. These comic strips point to a time before the advent of castesm. The character tittled paradesi (Our-Lander) though a villager, is supposed to be coming from outside. Paradesi appears with dual function, ie he is Parama Shiva (almighty) as well as Paradesi (Outsider). When he comes on the stage, we witness the conflict of a person entering into an alien tribal culture.

Padayani portrays stories with historical background also. For eg: Horse Kolams. The story goes like this: The king of Madurain in Tamil Nadu is about to attack Travncore of Kerala. The King of Travancore enquires his minister about the preparations for the war. The minister informed that everything was ready except horses. The envoys pf the King go to Arabia to buy horses. Their dealings with the horse trader are narrated here dramatically.

Padayani has a therapeutic side as it is said that it can be used to treat epilepsy. The ancient people have carved out a treatment method out of these rituals based on the core life experiences. The Kolam of the demon is used for this purpose. All village Gods and Goddess are considered to have healing powers. The Marutha Kolam is considered to be a Goddess of Small Pox. The Goddesses are thought to be living on mountaintops. They are invoked to the planes of human existence and they take part in the ceremonial feast the children offer to them. TheMarutha Kolam re-enacts these ancient lore's, in theatrical manner

A scene with beginning, middle and end in unison is enacted in the spectacle of Kaalan Kolam (Effigy representing eternity) relates duration or time in its specific purpose. The mask used by Shiva denotes past, present and future. The actor performs many characters at the same time. There are elements of the physical theatre in it. The same actor performs the roles of Chitraguptan, Bhoothas, Kaali and Consorts. It is almost like a total theatre. These elements spring from the tribal culture, as is evident from the Padayani performances.

The lore of padayani believes that the primal Godhead was a bird. The Rig - Veda imagines the Sun as a God with wings. The mask of the bird is enacted in Padayani in relation to a myth on children. Maadan is Shiva himself in relation to the ancient culture oriented in cow. He is the protecting deity of all quadrupeds.

The skies are imagined as Yakshi in the Anthara Yakshi (A sort of Demi-Goddess). In all its elements there is a philosophical dimension of nature, which may appear in the form of Anthra Yakshi and Sundara Yakshi (charming Goddess). The Yakshi in padayani emphasise the intimate relationship between man and nature, which is defining that movement, is self-realization. Then they come as Yashis of beauty, enacted in padayani.

he mother Goddesses like Bhairavi, Kaanjira Maala and Sundara Yakshi are very important in padayani. They represent the 'Pancha Bhoothas' (Five facets of nature). Kaanjira Maala is the embodient of 'Sheetala Devei' who represent winter. Kaanjira Maala represents heat also.

Purification of the individual leads to the purification of the whole world. To attain this aim sacrifice on a large scale is needed. The Pooppada (flower offering) represent the selfsacrifice of people performed through the theatrical spectacles of Padayani. 'Kara Vanchi is the theatrical performance showing the solidarity of the whole village. They recreate the semblance of paddling in water.

Padayani fulfil the aspiration of the people, their value systems and sense of beauty. Despite the drastic changes that occur in the world, padayni holds on to the eternal aspects. The popular subterranean forces of Padayani gradually ascend to great realm of the spirit and enables the actors and spectators to participate in the dance of the eternal elements. It links the earth and the sky.

One can measure the relevance of padayani from different angles. It represents the social ethos and solidarity. It is formed out of a classless and casteless society that is essentially tribal in nature. The class feeling is supreme to every individual. They worked and prayed in solidarity. Padayani also resembles a streak of light that illuminates the primal darkness. It is a grand spectacle of theatre that uplifts the human hearts to the eternal realms of the spirit that exist in the collective self of man. When we analyse Padayani in a theatrical manner, we understand the following aspects: -

The methods of actor transforming himself into characters. The performer maintains strict spiritual discipline (Vratham) for days together prior to the actual performance. By this, the presenter of the character changes his 'Self' into the self of the character and analyses the character very deeply before the actual day of the performance

The made up performer who carries heavy masks and decorative body fitting forgets himself and reaches to an unconscious state of affairs - a trance - in it's full sense. Here the conscious actor slips into then mental state and sub conscious to unconscious sate which is nothing but a non-performance. One should study properly all these aspects from a modern psychic level so that the transformation of 'self' to the character is a psychological process which is full and final when it reaches the trance.

Another important factor in the Padayani performance is that the performer himself becomes a character in certain sequences and then changes to his 'Self' and then from the 'self' to back stage worker and then from the back stage worker to onlooker and vice versa.

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