Sattriya

What it is

Dancers group Sattriya into three kinds of performance. Nritta is pure movement: fast, rhythmic and abstract, with no story told. Nritya is slower and carries feeling, using gesture and stance to suggest words and moods set to music. Natya is a play, usually by a group, in which one performer can shift between characters through set body movements. All three draw on hand gestures known as mudras, on footwork and on fixed postures. A performance may blend an energetic, jumping style with a softer, delicate one, so the same dance can look forceful and tender by turns.

Origins and history

Assam's dance and music traditions are old. Copper plate inscriptions and sculpture tied to Shaiva and Shakta worship point to performances in the distant past, and choral singing of the Ramayana and Mahabharata has deep roots in the region. The form known today is credited to Sankaradeva, a scholar and poet of the 16th century. He shaped it with guidance from older Sanskrit works, above all Bharata Muni's Natya Shastra, compiled somewhere between 200 BCE and 200 CE, though estimates vary more widely. Sankaradeva used dance and drama to encourage devotion to Krishna, and the monasteries that followed him kept the art alive.

In the monastery

Inside a sattra, the monastery, monks known as bhokots danced as part of daily worship and on festival days. The performance was not staged in front of a sculpted image. A copy of the Bhagavata Purana was placed in the eastern corner of the prayer hall, called the manikut, and the dancing took place before the book. Plays were written for the community, and the earliest came from Sankaradeva and his leading disciple Madhavadeva. Heads of monasteries were asked to compose at least one play during their time in charge. The pieces told of Krishna and other figures from scripture.

Dress and music

Male dancers wear a dhoti, a shoulder cloth and a turban; female dancers wear a ghuri, a chadar and a waist cloth. White and raw silk were once the norm, with red, blue or yellow for particular numbers, and Assamese silks such as pat and muga are used today. Gold jewellery, much of it made in the raw-gold technique called kesa sun, includes forehead pieces, bangles and neck ornaments shaped like leaves, birds or the dhol drum. Music comes from bargeet songs set to classical ragas, led by the khol, a two-faced drum played with the fingers, along with cymbals and the flute.

Today and change

From the second half of the 20th century, Sattriya moved out of the monasteries onto public stages, and its dancers are no longer only monks. Women perform it now, and the themes reach past the old mythological plays. On 15 November 2000 the Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's national academy for music and dance, named Sattriya one of the country's classical dance forms. It joined a set that includes Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Odissi and Kathakali. Troupes take Sattriya to audiences abroad, while the sattras continue to keep the older ritual setting.

How Sattriya is kept

A performance usually opens with the sutradhara, a narrator figure who introduces the story and speaks to the audience in the local language. Dancers then move through pure rhythmic passages, expressive sequences and, where a play is staged, dramatic scenes with song. Trained performers learn a set of foundational exercises first; a complete course is described as numbering sixty-four, as in the old dance treatises. Musicians sit with the khol drum, cymbals and flute. In the monasteries the dance belongs to daily worship and to festival days, and masks and crowns are brought out for plays about demons and other characters.

When and where

Sattriya is not tied to one date in the year. In the sattras it forms part of daily worship and marks special festivals, so it is danced regularly rather than on a single day. Stage performances happen throughout the year, whenever a troupe is invited. The date most often attached to the dance is 15 November 2000, when the Sangeet Natak Akademi granted it classical status.

The dance belongs to Assam, in north-east India. Its home is the sattras, the Vaishnava monasteries that dot the region, and that is where the older ritual form is still kept. Outside the monasteries, Sattriya is taught in cities across India and taken to stages abroad, with troupes travelling to perform it.

What Sattriya means

For those who keep it, the dance is an offering rather than a show. Sankaradeva meant it to stir feeling for Krishna, and the monastery setting keeps that purpose visible: dancers bow toward the Bhagavata Purana instead of an image. The Natya Shastra treats performance as a way of expressing spiritual ideas and virtue, and Sattriya inherits that idea. Its stories of Krishna, Rama and the epics are told so that the audience takes part emotionally, not simply as spectators.

Questions people ask about Sattriya

See also

PulikaliPainted tigers and leopards dance through Thrissur on the fourth day of OnamBhangraA Punjabi harvest dance, first kept by farmers and now performed worldwideGhazalA short rhyming poem of love and parting, recited and sung from Arabia to South AsiaQawwaliDevotional Sufi singing from South Asia, led by hereditary parties at shrines

Good reading and sources

• Sattriya on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.