CONTINUITY IN CULTURAL CHANGE.

Friends: I am glad to be here and confer the fellowships and distribute the awards to the artists who have been selected for the fellowships and the awards for their eminence in music: vocal and isntrumental, Karnatak and Hindustani; dance in its various forms of Bharata Natyam and Kuchipudi, Kathakali, Odissi, Katahk and Manipuri; and theatre, including direction, production and acting. I offer them my warm congratulations and hope that they will continue to aim at high standards of excellence in respect of their arts and inspire others who are practising them to follow their example. 
Our country is a great illustartion in its cultural forms of the principle of continuity in change. Mere continuity without change results in sluggishness and stagnation; mere change without continuity means restlessness and anarchy. All significant change is a growth from the past into the future. This growth is the expression of the free spirit of man. Mammata's expression, niyatikrta-niyama-rahita, brings out the distinction between the law-abidingness of nature and the waywardness of the human spirit. When the human spirit asserts its freedom from subjection to nature, creative art is produced.
It is a matter of great satisfaction to us that all these years there has been growing interest in the fine arts, music, dance and drama, throughout the country. More people are now listening to music and witnessing dance performances and plays than a few years back. This increasing interest is imperceptibly bringing about national understanding and cohesion from north to south.
Certain symbols are used for suggesting the different arts. Wherever you go, whatever part of the country you happen to be in, schools for music have the image of Saraswati, and those of dance, Nataraja. Saraswati is called vina-pustaka-dharani; while the pustaka (book) stands for intellectual learning, the vina makes out that the training of a pupil is incomplete without illumination of the heart, cultivation of the imagination. Man is one whole. The intellectual, the intuitive and the artistic sides should be developed in proper proportion. A balanced education means harmonious development. 
Music is said to be perfect form. The distinction of form and matter is used to interpret all growth, all evolution. It is wrong to assume that form is divine and matter undivine. Matter is capable of taking in form. Matter is not the antithesis of spirit. The whole world is isavasyam; it is sacramental. The fine arts are to be used to refine our nature.
Nataraja is the Lord of Dance. I have seen His image in almost all dancing schools and institutions I have visited from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Kutch to Assam. Perpetual movement, continuity in change and the tranquil face - these are what the image signifies.
International music festivals develop world understanding; when we enter into the realm of the heart, differences of colout and creed do not matter.
(Based on the speech delivered by Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan on the occasion of the distribution of the Sangeet Natak Akademi awards, New Delhi on 20th August, 1962).
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C.S. Chakravarthy
H. No. 12-13-302, St. No. 9,
Lane. No. 1, Flat. No. 203,
Satya Classic, Tarnaka,
Secunderabad- 500 017,
Telangana State.
e-mail: chakkuresearchscholar13@gmail.com
Cell: 9985732397.
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