The India International Centre (IIC) is all set to present a book rendition of ‘Speaking Sculptures: Karanas in Kathak’, published by Shubhi Publications, on Saturday, 25 July 2026 at 6.30 p.m. at the C.D. Deshmukh Auditorium, India International Centre, New Delhi. The evening will comprise the rendition of the book, followed by a panel discussion and a dance presentation by the disciples of Padma Shri Guru Dr Shovana Narayan based on the karanas. The programme will be graced by Dr Sandhya Purecha, Chairperson, Sangeet Natak Akademi; Dr Sachchidanand Joshi, Member-Secretary, IGNCA; Dr Bharat Gupt, Vice Chairman, National School of Drama, Trustee and Executive Member, IGNCA; and Dr. K. N. Srivastava, Director, India International Centre.
‘Speaking Sculptures: Karanas in Kathak’ examines the relationship between sculptural depictions of the karanas and the living tradition of Kathak. Drawing on the sculptural heritage of the Indo-Gangetic and Vindhyan regions, it treats these images as visual records of dance, preserving movement, costume, gesture and musical traditions. The book traces the links between ancient Indian dance theory and present-day Kathak while addressing long-held misconceptions about the origins of Kathak’s dance vocabulary, costume traditions and musical instruments by examining sculptural evidence that can be scientifically and archaeologically dated.
“For a long time, I wanted to understand how the movement vocabulary of Kathak could be read through India’s sculptural heritage. This work is an attempt to bring together the evidence preserved in sculptures, the descriptions in the Nāṭyaśāstra and the living tradition of Kathak. The intention is to encourage a dialogue between archaeology, texts and performance, allowing the sculptures to be viewed as records that continue to speak to us today,” says Padma Shri Guru Dr Shovana Narayan, author of ‘Speaking Sculptures: Karanas in Kathak’.
The book addresses a question that has long engaged scholars and practitioners alike: the origins of Kathak and the historical roots of its movement vocabulary. At the centre of this enquiry is the Nāṭyaśāstra, the foundational Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts, which describes 108 karanas, integrated units of coordinated movement involving the hands, feet, torso and head that form the grammar of classical Indian dance. Although the karanas are widely associated with the Chola temples of South India, the absence of a comparable corpus in North India has led to the belief that the karana tradition did not flourish there and that Kathak emerged much later, shaped primarily by the medieval and Mughal courts.
Rather than treating temples as manuals of dance notation, the book identifies karanas in sculptures created for devotional and narrative purposes, including images of deities, celestial beings, attendants, musicians and dancers. The study spans the Indus Valley Civilization through the Mauryan, Śuṅga, Gupta and later periods up to the seventeenth century, drawing on temples and museum collections across the Indo-Gangetic plains, Central India and the Vindhyan region. Each sculpture is examined by comparing its posture, movement and gesture with descriptions in the Nāṭyaśāstra and with photographs of contemporary Kathak dancers performing the corresponding karanas.
The book also examines costume and musical accompaniment through sculptural evidence, correlating depictions of garments, instruments and dance postures with textual references and contemporary Kathak practice. It concludes that Kathak is a continuous expression of the dance theory articulated in the Nāṭyaśāstra, preserved through the guru-śiṣya paramparā and the archaeological record.
The evening will also include a dance presentation by the disciples of Guru Dr Shovana Narayan on the karanas, demonstrating a teaching approach that brings together their Sanskrit names with Kathak’s rhythmic and movement vocabulary.
