Some Remarks on the Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi

Lyne Bansat-Boudon gives us a ‘thick description’ of Śaktibhadra’s Āścaryacūḍāmaṇi, from which the act Aṅgulīyāṅkam is taken. She defines powerful thematic emphases and focuses on the special expressivity of this work within the classical tradition and in light of the Nāṭyaśāstra and Abhinavagupta’s commentary. Further, she discovers surprising continuities between structural features discussed by Abhinavagupta and the living performance tradition of Kūṭiyāṭṭam. She further emphasizes that the preparation of the clearing also alludes to the pūrvaraṅga, those semi-ritual and semi-theatrical preliminaries to the performance of dramatic fiction. She concludes by saying that the yogin and the spectator of drama have in common such a ‘recognition’ of the Self (which is none other than their own Self)—a transitory experience for the spectator but one established once and for all for the yogin, who is thus nothing but an ‘emancipated spectator’.