Shri Jatin Goswami, a Padma Bhushan awardee in the year 2025, is an exponent of which one of the following dance forms ?

Correct — B, (b) Sattriya. Shri Jatin Goswami is the foremost exponent of Sattriya, the classical dance of Assam, and he was among the Padma Bhushan awardees announced for 2025, in the field of Art, from Assam.

His career is the history of Sattriya's journey out of the monastery and onto the national stage. He trained in the tradition, taught and choreographed it, carried it to audiences across India and abroad, and was among those whose advocacy led to Sattriya's recognition as a classical dance form. He received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2004 for his contribution to Sattriya and the Padma Shri in 2008, and he is widely addressed as Nrityacharya.

Sattriya itself takes its name from the SATTRAS, the Vaishnava monasteries founded in Assam in the wake of the reform movement led by the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century saint Srimanta Sankaradeva. It grew as a devotional practice within those monasteries, performed by celibate monks called BHOKOTS as part of a repertoire built around the ANKIYA NAT, Sankaradeva's one-act plays on themes from the life of Krishna, presented in the prayer hall or NAMGHAR. Its music is BORGEET, the devotional songs Sankaradeva and his disciple Madhavadeva composed, accompanied by the KHOL drum and TAAL cymbals. Because it developed inside a monastic order rather than in a court or a temple town, it remained largely unknown outside Assam until the twentieth century, and the Sangeet Natak Akademi recognised it as a classical dance form in the year 2000 — the most recent of the eight to be so recognised.

So the item joins a person to a region and a region to its dance. The three wrong options belong to Tamil Nadu, Kerala and North India respectively, and the notes below place each.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)Bharatanatyam — Bharatanatyam is the classical dance of Tamil Nadu, not of Assam. It descends from the temple dance of the devadasis of the Tamil country, was codified in the eighteenth century by the Tanjore Quartet — the brothers Chinnayya, Ponnayya, Sivanandam and Vadivelu — and was revived in the twentieth century by figures such as E. Krishna Iyer and Rukmini Devi Arundale, who founded Kalakshetra in 1936. Its structure runs through alarippu, jatiswaram, shabdam, varnam, padam, tillana; its music is Carnatic and its accompanying conductor the nattuvanar. Its association is with the south, and no part of its tradition connects it with the sattras of Assam.
• (c)Kathakali — Kathakali is the classical dance-drama of Kerala, not of Assam. It is instantly identified by its elaborate make-up — the pacha, kathi, thadi and minukku types — its towering headgear and voluminous costume, its use of the mudras of the Hastalakshanadeepika, and its acted narratives drawn from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas. Its literature is the attakatha, its music Sopana style, and its drums the chenda and maddalam. It shares with Sattriya the feature of being a male-dominated dance-drama tradition rooted in religious performance, which is the resemblance that makes it a plausible distractor, but the region and the repertoire are entirely different.
• (d)Kathak — Kathak is the classical dance of North India — Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and adjoining regions — and its name comes from the KATHAKAS, the storytellers who narrated epics in temples. It developed under both temple and court patronage, absorbing Persian and Central Asian elements in the Mughal period, and it is distinguished by intricate footwork with ghungroos, rapid pirouettes or chakkars, and the interplay of the dancer with the tabla in tukras, toras and parans. Its principal gharanas are Lucknow, Jaipur and Banaras. Note that this option and the one above it differ by only two letters in print, and they are different dances of different States; they must never be read as variants of one name.

The Sangeet Natak Akademi recognises eight classical dance forms of India, and the examinable core is the pairing of each with its region and its distinguishing features: BHARATANATYAM, Tamil Nadu; KATHAK, North India; KATHAKALI and MOHINIYATTAM, Kerala; KUCHIPUDI, Andhra Pradesh; ODISSI, Odisha; MANIPURI, Manipur; and SATTRIYA, Assam. Sattriya is the newest addition, recognised in the year 2000, and it is the only one that grew inside a monastic order. Its lineage runs from Srimanta Sankaradeva, the saint-scholar who led the Ekasarana Dharma movement in Assam, through the sattras he and his followers established. Its performance vocabulary divides into the ankiya nat plays with their sutradhar or narrator, the pure dance items, and the character-based items; its music is the borgeet; its instruments the khol drum and the taal; its costume the traditional Assamese pat and muga silk with the distinctive kanchi or waistcloth. For a candidate the four related facts most likely to be asked are the region, the founding saint, the recognition year, and the monastic origin. The Padma awards, in which this dancer's 2025 honour sits, are announced on the eve of Republic Day and conferred in three grades — Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri — across fields including art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, civil service and sports.

Key facts

• Shri Jatin Goswami is an exponent of Sattriya, the classical dance of Assam, and was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2025 in the field of Art, from Assam.
• He received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2004 for Sattriya and the Padma Shri in 2008.
• Sattriya takes its name from the sattras, the Vaishnava monasteries of Assam founded in the tradition of Srimanta Sankaradeva.
• It was performed by celibate monks known as bhokots, in the namghar or prayer hall, as part of the ankiya nat one-act plays.
• Its music is the borgeet, composed by Sankaradeva and Madhavadeva; its instruments are the khol drum and taal cymbals.
• The Sangeet Natak Akademi recognised Sattriya as a classical dance form in the year 2000, the most recent of the eight to be recognised.
• The eight recognised classical dances are Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Odissi, Manipuri, Mohiniyattam and Sattriya.
• Bharatanatyam belongs to Tamil Nadu, Kathakali to Kerala, and Kathak to North India.
• The Padma awards are announced on the eve of Republic Day and conferred in three grades — Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri.

Common traps

• Confusing Kathakali with Kathak. Two letters apart in print, two different States and traditions.
• Assuming a dance from the north-east must be a folk form. Sattriya is one of the eight classical forms.
• Placing Sattriya in a temple or court tradition. It grew inside monasteries.
• Reading the award year as the year of the achievement. The Padma Bhushan here is of 2025.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Sattriya, the classical dance of Assam, developed within the monastic institutions founded in the tradition of :

  • (a)Madhavacharya
  • (b)Srimanta Sankaradeva
  • (c)Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
  • (d)Ramanuja

  Answer(b) Srimanta Sankaradeva

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is the most recently recognised of India's classical dance forms ?

  • (a)Odissi
  • (b)Manipuri
  • (c)Mohiniyattam
  • (d)Sattriya

  Answer(d) Sattriya