When did you last a puppet game? It will probably take you a few minutes to think of the answer. It may be that many people have never seen this game. But it is certain that a very popular art form has recently been seen on the principle of a puppet art about 2500 years old, which is called film-movie or cinema recently.
Sitting with 500-1000 people in a dark theater watching a film and feeling emotional, dramatic and enthusiastic moments of the story is an experience that has no equality. In the way cinema and its technology have developed in its one and a half-two hundred years of history, scientists, inventors and technicians around the world have a hand. But you will be surprised to know that the principle of light and image on which cinema was born is actually an inspiration from a puppet art of India.
How did the puppet of cinema become a puppet?
The entire game of cinema is based on the science of projection. The picture published on a film, with the help of light, is the whole game of projection. The picture that took a picture on a celluloid film, the camera, started coming into existence from the beginning of the 19th century.
About 200 years before the arrival of the camera, the game of putting pictures on the big screen with the help of lens and light had started in the 17th century. Earlier these pictures were on a slide in the appearance of paintings or prints. It had started to be used for entertainment and education. But the big question is, where did the idea of ​​putting a small picture on the big screen with the help of light and lens?
This idea came from shadow play or shadow drama. In childhood, with the help of candle or flashlight light, you must have seen the game of removing this shape on the wall by making dogs or other shapes from the fingers of the hand. This was the shadow play, which in his basic avatar may have come into existence for the first time when a person would have seen a shadow made by the stop of the light. But over time, human civilizations made this game of shadow a medium of kisses.
The first beginning in this medium was with shadow theaters in which cut outs of puppets were cut. A screen of cloth was installed and the shadow of these puppets was launched on that screen by lighting the light behind it. The shadows that landed on the screen were told stories giving them movement like characters. It is considered an ancient art. This shadow drama, which is from the puppet, became the inspiration of today’s cinema and the idea of ​​projecting pictures on screen was done.
History of shadow drama is 2500 years old
While the history of shadow theater is old with the help of hands and body in the west, the history of theater with the help of puppets is more old in South-East Asia i.e. Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand. Whereas in India and China, this shadow drama was part of folk cultures.
In the light of candles or light of lamps, preparing a scene from the paintings made on clothes and presenting a story with songs, presenting the story, had begun about 3000 years ago. Instead of the shapes made on clothes, showing the story with leather shapes began with ‘Tholu Bommalta’, a puppet art in India, which is from the area that we know today as Andhra Pradesh. At the beginning of this shadow theater, stories related to Mahabharata and Ramayana were shown. Later, through this, the regional folk tales and the news that affected the public was also taken to far-flung areas.
Shadow drama reached the world after leaving India
Professor Fan Pen Chen, who conducted research on Asian folklore, has given a reference to several scholars in one of his studies ‘Shadow Theater of World’ that Chhaya drama originated in India. In his study, he referenced that in the Mahabharata and Patanjali, composed by Ved Vyas, there is mention of Chhaya drama.
In the 17th century, Varanasi scholar Neelkanth Chaturdhar explained in the interpretation of Mahabharata that a word is used in this epic- Roopopjivanam. In South India, this word is called Jalamandpika. Neelkanth said that in his own time, the word is used for the game of shadow of leather shapes made on thin clothes. The interpretation of Neelkanth and his Mahabharata is still new time. But the word ‘Saubhik’, which came in the Mahabhashya composed about 2200 years ago, is also explained in the sense of shadow playwrights.
South Indian Jain monk of the 10th century Somdev Suri has also given the meaning of the word ‘Saubhik’ in his book ‘Nitivakyamrit’ in the sense of Chhaya playwright. Jataka stories including Buddhist texts ‘Shikshakamuchaya’ and ‘Mahavastu’ also mention that shadow theaters were found in Andhra Pradesh even before 2200 years.
Professor Chen’s study mentions that when the kings of the Pallava and Kakatiya dynasty conquered the Java archipelago in Indonesia, the shadow drama reached there along with their rule. However, in Indonesia, this art got a different expansion with music and today it is known as the famous shadow drama Theater Veyang. Similarly, when Buddhism expanded between the sixth century to the ninth century, the art of shadow drama along with Buddhist monks also reached China. In China too, this art expanded differently.
Shadow Play has ancient history in India, especially in the southern parts. Tholu Bommalta in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Togalu Gombayatta in Karnataka, Tolpavakuthu in Kerala, Ravanchhaya in Odisha, and Chhay Drama Theater in Maharashtra named Chham Bahuli Natya are still alive.