Studies in Theatre and Performance Volume 29 Number 2 © 2009 Intellect Ltd Notes and Queries. English language. doi: 10.1386/stap.29.2.187/3 Ves nät¸uma, 1 a common dance type in Kandyan dance 2 of Sri Lanka: a semiotic 3 analysis of selected features with a brief introduction to the relevant approaches of Indian and Western semiotics Sudesh Mantillake Abstract To understand an art form that was born and grew up in a particular society, one has to study the patterns of meaning in that society. Thus, scholars had been looking for a comprehensive way to analyse art and culture. Semiotics was intro- duced as one way to do this. There are several semiotic theories and concepts to analyse art and culture. Although theories or concepts formed outside a particu- lar culture may not be sufficient to reveal the inner patterns of meaning, they can be adapted to different circumstances. Ves dance (ves nät¸uma) is an art form that was developed in Sri Lankan society. To understand the ves dance in its cultural context, some Indian and Western semiotic approaches can be used, because they have some commonalities. The aim of this article is to introduce some basic theories and concepts of both Indian and Western semiotics and to analyse some features of ves nät¸uma, a common form of Kandyan dance in Sri Lanka, using those semi- otic approaches. Some Indian approaches to ‘sign’ and theories of signs When compared with Western approaches to semiotics, a well-structured discipline of semiotics is not explicit in the Indian tradition of philosophy or literature. But throughout history many attempts have been made by Indians to analyze and understand ‘signs’. These attempts provide us with the basis for understanding Indian semiotics. Pa - nini, who is believed to have lived in the fifth century B.C. in India, gets the credit for creating a well-organized, structured grammar for the Sanskrit language. Even though Pa - nini did not talk about semiotics in par- ticular, what he did by structuring the grammar of the Sanskrit language to convey the expected meaning through letters, words, tones and so forth indicates a semiotic approach. Bharatamuni, who is believed to have lived between the third and sixth centuries A.D. (Goonasekera 1991: 147), is considered one of the greatest 187 STP 29 (2) 187–192 © Intellect Ltd 2009 Keywords Kandyan dance ves dance semiotics abhinaya sign Sri Lanka 1 The so called ‘Ves dance’ of Sri Lanka. See Mantillake 2004. It is the most sacred type of Kandyan dance (see note number 2 below). 2 ‘Kandyan Dance’ is considered the most popular dance tradition of Sri Lanka. For more details see Dissanayake 1988 and Mantillake 2004. 3 The concept of ‘Semiotics’ was developed primarily in the European and American continents. In that sense one can argue that semiotics is not an Oriental phenomenon. If we take the term ‘semiotics’ without