D Rustam Bharucha to approach them with considerable scepticism and a sense of history. If I had wanted to write 'objective!/ on the subject, I could easily have made a false start: 'Performed in the sacred precincts of the Guruvayur temple, Krishnattam is a dance-drama cycle in eight parts that celebrates the life of Lord Krishna. Attributed to Prince Manavedan, later the Zamorin of Calicut, who reigned between 1655-1658, this ancient art (the forerunner of Kathakali) has been inspired by Gita Govinda and the Narayaneeyam.... / And so on. 35 Already, in this seemingly incontestable statement there is a problem of perspective. Manavedan is designated as the creator of Krishnattcim, when in actuality he is the author of Krishnagithi, a poetic text ofpadams (songs) and slokas (verses) written in eight parts that serves as the 'dramatic text of Krishnattam. Unfortunately, most pundits fail to distinguish between 'drama' and 'theatre', revealing a definite bias for what has been written rather than for what could have been performed. Actors, unfortunately, do not write performance history: they act. Their representation (or rather, non-representation) is determined by scholars who invariably assume that the 'dramatic text' is the performance, when in actuality (as in the case of Krishnattam), they may have a very ambivalent relationship, not based on illustration or correspondence, but on counterpoint, contradiction, if not outright negation. In this context, it is essential to know that the actors of Krishnattam do not know Krishnagithi, which is sung in the background by two musicians to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals. Indeed, most of the actors may have never known the text in the entire history of the performance. When I questioned the oldest guru, Sri C. Sankaran Nair, on the matter, he firmly emphasized that the actors are not meant to know the text. During his own apprenticeship this was a golden rule, though today the younger (more 'progressive') gurus feel that the actors should know the text so that they can act 'better'. To my mind, the situation is extremely paradoxical: the older guru, in upholding the separation of the spoken word and the action, seems to be more 'progressive' (by contemporary aesthetic standards) than the younger gurus, who seem to be advocating a correlation of the narrative and the choreography in a more 'realistic' manner. There is, of course, an underlying social reality for the separation of song and dance in Krishnattam: the caste system. By tradition only the Brahmins and theaw-balavasis (the temple-serving caste) are permitted to sing and chant within the temple precincts. All the lower castes, including the Nairs, who were originally employed as soldiers in the Zamorin's court, have the freedom to act and dance, but they cannot sing. Though this restriction does not affect the Koodiyattam performers because they are all choky ars, the most highly ranked among the ambalavasis, it definitely differentiates the dancers from the singers in Krishnattam. Today, out of the 56 members in the troupe, there are 37 Nairs (19 dancers, 8 maddalam players, 4 makeup artists, 5 stage and greenroom attendants, and one dhobi). All the remaining performers, notably the musicians and some of the dancers, are Brahmins and ambalavasis. Even to this day, despite the opening of the temple to all castes, restrictions relating to the performance of a temple art continue to be strongly upheld. Though Number 16