Sources of Manuscript
SOURCES OF THE MANUSCRIPT
The present edition of Hastalakshanadipika is based on seven sources. They are as follows:
Manuscript A: The 1958 Malayalam edition of Hastalakshanadipika, edited by Tiruvangatta Narayana Nambisan, who first published the work in 1926. This has long been the standard and only edition in Malayalam script exclusively devoted to this work. In his preface, Nambisan indicates that he consulted a manuscript of a titled family who had a Kathakali troupe of its own. We have not consulted the original manuscript used by Nambisan. His is the only source consulted for the present edition containing six salutary introductory verses which includes a list of all the mudras used in the text.
Manuscript B: A handwritten copy in Malayalam script of a notebook of Padmashri Mani Madhava Cakyar of Lekkadi, provided by P. K. Narayanan Nambiar, his son. In some respects this document resembles Nambisan’s 1958 edition, however it may well have come from an another source, perhaps that of Gopinath, which like it also begins with verse number two.
Manuscript C: A Malayalam manuscript provided by Professor K. G. Paulose, Principal, Government Sanskrit College, Tripunithura. Unlike A and B, it does not contain the five salutary verses of A or the four of B. It also differs from all the documents consulted for this edition in that it has a third part found at the end of the Devanagari text and English translation of this edition. Part Three is devoted to the svaras and talas of Kutiyattam, suggesting that the document was meant to be used by the Cakyars for their use in performing Kutiyattam. The work was mistitled Hastamudradipika in the Manuscripts Library of the College. It resembles D,E, and F in that it begins abruptly with verse number six.
Manuscript D: One of three Devanagari manuscripts used for the present edition. It was provided by Dr. N. Ramanathan, Professor of Music, who was good enough to secure a transcript of the work from the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library, Madras. The document was transcribed from a manuscript of the Raja of Chirakkal, a princely state in northern Kerala, in 1918.
Manuscript E: A Devanagari manuscript found in the Trivandrum Manuscripts Library, University of Kerala. Dr. K. Vijayan, Director of the Library provided a transcript of this work which was also in the possession of the Raja of Chirakkal. The transcript was made in 1921. The document varies little from that of Madras and suggests that the scribes were probably working from the same original document.
Manuscript F: A Devanagari manuscript found in the Oriental and India Office Collections, London. The library records indicate little about this work except that it was copied from the original manuscript in 1923 and that it was bought by V. Venkatarama Sarma in 1924. Owing to the various distinctive arrangement and variations from the other manuscripts, it appears to be a different work from all those consulted for this edition.
Manuscript G: Abhinaya Prakasika by Natanakalanidhi Gopinath (Guru Gopinath), the well-known Kathakali artist and teacher. The work was originally published in 1946 and reedited in 1957. Without identifying where the specific Sanskrit verses that he quotes may have come from or the title of the work, Gopinath has in fact provided the first Devanagari version of the Hastalakshanadipika ever to be published. Absent is any reference to the manuscript(s) he may have consulted. The chief virtue of the book is that he has included photographic illustrations of selected gesture meanings using Kathakali as the source. Except in a few minor editorial details, Gopinath’s text resembles and probably is a Devanagari version of Nambisan’s 1926 Malayalam edition of the Hastalakshanadipika.
