Acknowledgement

I sincerely express my gratitude to Sri Chandrashekharendra Saraswathi Visvamaha Vidyalaya, Kanchipuram for giving me admission for Ph.D. Being an ardent devotee of Kanchi acaryal, I am really blessed to do my doctoral work here. I express my sincere indebtedness to my guide Dr. Srinivasu, Registrar, SCSVMV, for giving me complete freedom and offering his feedback and support in the course of my research, in spite of his busy schedule.

My heartfelt thanks to my co-guide Dr. V. Abhiramasundaram, Associate Professor and Head PG & Research Department of Sanskrit, RKM Vivekananda College, Chennai for his expert guidance, valuable advice and encouragement in processing this work.

My sincere thanks are due to the Professor of Sanskrit Dr. G.Shankaranarayanan and Dr. Debajyoti Jena. I also extend my thanks to Nagarajan and all the teaching and non-teaching staff members of SCSVMV for their service and support.

I offer my pranams to my Guru Padma Bhushan Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam and Professor K.D. Tripathi who has educated me in the practical and theoretical aspects of Nāṭyaśāstra and has inspired me to take up this research project.

My sincere thanks are due to Dr. Radhavallabh Tripathi, Dr. Radhakrishnan and Dr. Jayashree Rajagopalan who have given their valuable advice regarding my research thesis.

I express my heartfelt thanks to my Sanskrit Professor Dr. R. Thiagarajan, Retd. H.O.D., Presidency College, Chennai. He has given a thorough foundation for my research studies, under whose perseverance I had completed my M.Phil.

I owe a great debt to Ms.Sundara Meenakshi for her continuous help and support in patiently answering my queries’ throughout my research.

My thanks are due to the Librarians and other staffs of the Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute-Chennai, Adayar Library and Research Centre-Chennai, Dr. M.G.R. Janaki College Library-Chennai, University of Madras Library-Chennai, Music Academy Library-Chennai and Saraswathi Mahal Library-Thanjavur.

I would like to express my gratitude and love to the students of my institution ‘Padmashree Nrithyalaya’, for helping me out in various activities regarding my research works.

This research would not have been completed without the support of my family members, especially my husband Mr. Mahadevan Mohan, as he gave me room to concentrate fully on my work. I thank my father Mr. Narayanaswamy Vasudevan who has helped me in typing my work and my son Anish Mohan for having facilitated me to work with computers. Last but not the least I would like to thank the Almighty for enlightening my thoughts during the course of this research.