Aṅgulīyāṅkam and Mantrāṅkam

Abstract

It can be said that Aṅgulīyāṅkam and Mantrāṅkam represent the essential features that distinguish Kūṭiyāṭṭam from the other traditions of performance and challenge the norms of abhinaya prescribed in Nāṭyaśāstra and allied texts. Though these plays are vastly dissimilar in theme, scope, and content, the possible correspondences of these two plays as interpretations-in-performance place them in a complementary relationship to one another. Why and how these two plays established a different path is what the author explores during the course of her article. The sixth act of Śaktibhadras Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi, on which Aṅgulīyāṅkam is based, depicts Hanumān’s encounter with Sītā while she is in Rāvaṇa’s captivity at the Aśoka Garden in Laṅkā. Mantrāṅkam refers to the third act of Bhāsa’s Pratijnāyaugandharāyaṇa. The plot of this act revolves around the strategies devised by the three ministers of the captive King Udayana for releasing their master from imprisonment by King Mahasēna.