WHATS WITH THE NAME SATWIK?
What does it mean?
The word Satwik is Sanskrit in origin and used with different connotations in the Bhagwad gita, Sankhya philosophy, the Ayurveda and most importantly for us the Natyashastra. The Natyashastra, is an ancient treatise on the arts, including acting, performance, theater sculpture,and dealing with Satwik Abhinaya in detail.
Satwik comes from the word Satva...
The Sankhya philosophers think of Sattva as the quality of goodness, positivity, truth, wholesomeness, serenity, creative, constructive, balancing, peaceful, virtuous, and drawn towards knowledge.
Satwik abhinaya...is the touchstone that transforms a lay ordinary actor into an unforgetable performer emulating divinity. It is what actors in traditional forms (may it be Bharatnatyam of Kudiyattam) seek to master in essence, years after the rigorous techniques of the bodily, verbal, and property/costume handling exercises are over..
In its original mention of the dhyana shloka in the Natyshastra it is that truth seeking spark in the performer that is the grain of divinty itself.
“Angikam bhuvanam yasya
Vachikam sarva vangmayam
Aharyam chandra taradi
Tam numah satvikam sivam.”
The full meaning of this sloka is
:
That l salute as Siva, the Sattvika (the God)
One Whose limbs are the universe,
Whose song and poetry
are the essence of all languages,
Whose ornaments are the moon and the stars
With Satwik Arts we aim to facilitate the search of that sparkling essence which resides within us all