Siddhendra Yogi

Siddhendra Yogi is the teacher whom the dancers of Kuchipudi, a village of Krishna district, remember as the founder of their art.¹² The story says he taught the Bhama Kalapam, a dance-drama about Satyabhama, to the Brahmin performers of the village, the Kuchipudi Bhagavatulu.² Almost nothing else about him is certain, not even his century.²

The founder of Kuchipudi

The Census handbook of Krishna district (1981) calls Kuchipudi the birthplace of Siddhendra Yogi, “who is the father of the famous school of Kuchipudi dance”.¹ In its note on the Kuchipudi dance on its cover, it says he turned the rough street play (veedhi natakam) into the refined Bhagavata natakam.³ By 1981 a training centre named after him, the Siddhendra Kalakshetram at Kuchipudi, gave a five-year course leading to the title Natyacharya.¹

Mikkilineni Radhakrishna Murthy tells how the art spread. Between about 1700 and 1750, he says, the Nawab of Banganapalle invited families of artists from Kuchipudi to the Kurnool country, and gave them lands.⁴ The first was Challa Bhagavatam Dasambhotlu. The Challa family was known for performing the Parijatapaharanam taught by Siddhendra Yogi, generation after generation.⁴ See Music & dance.

A teacher without records

Sishta Ramakrishna Sastri examined the story in the monthly Bharati in 1960. He wrote that tradition makes Siddhendra the dance teacher of the Kuchipudi Bhagavatulu, and the man who taught them the Bhama Kalapam.² But, he added, there are no historical records of where he lived, which king he served, or when.² Even the Kuchipudi families believe only that he was the first to teach them dance.²

To date him, Ramakrishna Sastri used a village record, the Machupalli kaifiyat. It says the Kuchipudi Bhagavatulu performed at the court of Vira Narasimha Raya of Vijayanagara (1502–1509) and were honoured there.² Since they were already famous then, he argued, their teacher must have lived earlier.²

Where the sources disagree

His century. Sishta Ramakrishna Sastri, following Ponangi Sri Rama Apparao, placed Siddhendra in the 14th or 15th century, before the Bhagavatulu won fame at Vijayanagara.² The Krishna census handbook of 1981 dates the start of the tradition to the 16th century.³ A note to a story in Bharati in 1930 calls him a man of the 17th century.⁵

Footnotes

1. Census of India 1981: District Census Handbook, Krishna District (1985), p. 23, places of tourist interest (censusindia.gov.in↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Sishta Ramakrishna Sastri, “Siddhendrayogi Padunaidava Satabdivade” (“Siddhendra Yogi was of the fifteenth century”), Bharati, Vol. 37, No. 3 (March 1960), p. 37 (in Telugu) (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

3. Census of India 1981, Andhra Pradesh: District Census Handbook, Krishna District (1985), note “Kuchipudi Style of Dance” on the cover motif, PDF p. 2 (censusindia.gov.in↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

4. Mikkilineni Radhakrishna Murthy, Teluguvari Janapada Kalarupalu (Hyderabad: Telugu University, 1992), p. 601 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²

5. Note to a story, Bharati, Vol. 7, No. 6 (June 1930), p. 886 (in Telugu) (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩