There are fewer than 30 Drikung nuns who perform Cham, the yogic dance of the monks. They are taught by Sonam Kunga Rinpoche, 79, one of the three top oral lineage masters of the Drikung Kagyu Order of Vajrayana Buddhism. He is also a great dance master, as well as meditation master to veteran monks and nuns during long solitary retreats. In addition to performing two meditation visualizations with fluent symbolic hand gestures called mudra and using damaru drums and bells, the nuns also performed two masked Cham dances, Shawa Cham and Mahai Cham, the mandala dances of the stag and the buffalo. According to a 12th century text on the inner teachings of Drikung Cham, ‘The very core of the dance is to be a representation of the activity of the mind essence beyond conceptual thinking.’ It is a yoga, a meditation technique used to stabilize a visualization, to train in the act of separating from the ground of phenomenological being, and to experience the dissolution of the illusory world. These nuns never dreamed they would be doing meditation visualizations in front of a European audience. They are dedicated contemplatives living in the Himalayan foothills. None of these rites has ever been documented: they have been transmitted as living knowledge for at least 700 years.
Prajwal Vajracharya is the foremost exponent and practitioner of Charya Nritya among the few hundred remaining Vajracharya priests in the Kathmandu Valley. His family history extends to the construction of the great stupa at Swayambunath, and he is the 35th generation holder of his lineage. The Vajracharya priests practise a differently derived tantra to that from the Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan, the home of Padmasambhava, who introduced Tantric Buddhism in Tibet in the 8th century. It was Padmasambhava who at the same time established Cham dance, such as the nuns will perform. By contrast, the Vajracharyas adhere to a local, much older tantric tradition, citing a temple to a form of Vajrayogini, Khadga Yogini, dating to the 2nd century BCE. Charya Nritya is unlike Cham in every respect, a completely different form. Where we have tried to see movement similarities between actual Cham and the dance depicted in many Himalayan paintings and sculptures, we have learned there is more similarity in the yogic function of the deity and their placement in a mandalic composition than in the line of the actual dance movements.
Charya Nritya, however, brings Vajrayogini and other deities to life with mudra and postures any art historian would immediately recognize. As a singer proclaims the outer and inner attributes, the priest-dancer embodies the deity not only for his own self-transformation through deity yoga, but also for the sake of the observer. Indeed, the overall effect of these dances is akin to prayer. They have been maintained in esoteric secrecy, from the rise of the Hindu Malla kings in the 12th century until the 20th century, when Prajwal was instructed by his father to take Charya Nritya to the world to ensure its survival. There is controversy regarding how much should be shown; how much to advocate to assert true Nepali and not Indian dance scholarship; and how much should be kept hidden. The most sacred dances and highest tantric rituals are to this day still only performed in secret.
Prajwal’s art is a feeling art, not an intellectual one as with the nuns, or an offertory one as with the Sri Lankans. It becomes a vehicle for the bodhisattva’s vow of a person on the cusp of enlightenment to opt instead to remain in the world to assist all beings to attain enlightenment – the greatest act of compassion and, therefore, feeling. When Vajrapani offers protection, Prajwal embodies the deity and emanates protection. When Avalokiteshvara offers compassion, Prajwal embodies the bodhisattva and radiates compassion, a feeling toward all things. Among the dances Prajwal performed for ‘A Day of Rare Buddhist Dances’ was Mayanjala, which translates as ‘net of illusion’. In it, a wandering sadhu, or holy man, is overcome with feelings of samsara, the first Buddhist truth, that all life is suffering and all creation suffers. In this dance he feels compassion for the world’s suffering. This sung ritual is 1,300 years old.
The performance of four completely different Buddhist movement traditions in one place on a single day offered a variety of danced practices that challenge Western notions of time and space, and embody Buddhist notions of the body and self. Study of such dance tells a new story about the spread and practice of early Buddhism. The quintessential mystical quotient that is often least brought forward in the presentation of visual arts – usually for the good reason of the failure of words to communicate types of consciousness – is provided with integrity in the dances. A co-presentation of art and dance expands our experience of Buddhist cultural elements, and enhances our understanding of the visual arts with related consciousness-altering practices long embedded in dance.
For rarity and authenticity, as well as pedigree, ‘A Day of Rare Buddhist Dances’ was unprecedented in the history of Buddhism, of London and of the V&A. As a statement of enduring values in times of crisis, the lives of these nuns, priests, clan performers and actors serve as examples of ‘the road less taken’, voluntarily choosing lives that carry on living traditions of unbroken dance lineages dating back a thousand years and beyond. The dances performed on 1 May provide a touch- stone from which to reevaluate the full power and meaning of the art in the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Gallery, and mirror the evolving context of artistic meaning in light of the spreading exposure to genuine Buddhist practice.
