Sanskrit dance and drama

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

In a message dated 5/9/99 12:41:54 AM Central Daylight Time,
mbose at INTERCHANGE.UBC.CA writes:

> Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan's work, Classical Indian Dance
>  in Art and Literature, is another important work in this field, in which
>  she has discussed some of the major Sanskrit texts on the dramatic arts.
>  K.M.Varma's Natya, Nrtta and Nrtya is also a must read.  My own work
>  attempts to understand, analyze and reconstruct the dance tradition of
>  classical India on the basis of 30 Sanskrit texts (from the 2nd through
>  the 18th century).  My 1991 book, Movement and Mimesis,refers to many
>  other scholars in this field.

I have just browsed through this work, Movement and Mimesis. Is there any
reason why no Tamil text on dance and mime was consulted? In distinguishing
between abhinayadarpaNa and bharatArNava the differences in the number of
single-hand gestures and double-hand gestures are listed in the book.
Interestingly, in aTiyArkkunallAr's commentary (13th/14th century AD) on
cilappatikAram, we get  numbers different from those in the Sanskrit texts.
The Tamil text has 33 for single-hand and 15 for double-hand. The
dance-cum-music text paJcamarapu which preceded the cilappatikAram commentary
has the same numbers. (The Tamil text uses many Tamilized Sanskrit technical
terms in addition to Tamil technical terms also.) I would appreciate
scholarly views on where abhinayadarpaNa was composed? Also, is there any
relationship between the nandikezvara of abhinayadarpaNa and nandikezvara of
nandikezvara kAzikA/kArikA. Thanks in advance.

Regards
S. Palaniappan