The magic of 'mudras' and performance as 'loving play': the limits placed on intellectualism and rationalzing reforms by the performing arts of India

Projects to rationalize and standardize Indian aesthetics were taken up by intellectuals from the late nineteenth century based on exposure to a variety of western evaluations and comparisons. How have these attempts at reform been able to transform pedagogy in the course of the twentieth century? What are the internal limits placed by divided desires within intellectuals themselves? The desire to preserve Indian aesthetics has allowed the phenomenology of Indian performing arts to impose its own requirements on the practice of the arts. The paper argues for scholarly re-adjudication of the more dominant postcolonial scholarship and its focus on ritualised governmentality.