Braj · Upper Indus–Gangetic Plain
Dance
A sung and danced enactment of Krishna's life in which the performers, all male and pre-pubescent for the principal roles, are treated as the deities themselves during the performance — the audience touches their feet afterwards. It combines a fixed nritya opening with a lila episode, and runs for hours.
Performed by: Boys of hereditary Raslila mandalis, trained from childhood. Occasion: The Krishna festival calendar, and nightly in season at Vrindavan
A woman dances balancing a large multi-tiered wooden wheel on her head carrying scores of lit oil lamps, her face covered, to rasiya accompaniment. The form is specific to Braj and is said to commemorate the announcement of Radha's birth.
Performed by: Women. Occasion: Radhashtami, and the third day after Holi
The peacock dance — a performer in a peacock frame imitates courtship display, referring to an episode in which Krishna and Radha dance as peacocks in the groves of Vrindavan.
Performed by: Men and boys. Occasion: Janmashtami and temple festivals
Barsana's women drive the visiting men of Nandgaon with long staves while the men defend with leather shields and sing taunting rasiya. It is choreographed, expected, and taken entirely seriously by both towns.
Performed by: Women of Barsana and men of Nandgaon. Occasion: The Holi cycle
Music
The Braj folk-song genre — short, cyclical, often teasing songs about Radha and Krishna sung by mixed village groups with dholak and jhika. The Holi rasiya of Barsana and Nandgaon are a distinct competitive repertoire.
Congregational temple singing at Vrindavan's Radhavallabh and Haridasi temples, in a dhrupad-derived style, unaccompanied except by cymbals and pakhawaj, with the assembly answering the lead singer line by line.
The Pushtimarg music tradition of the Vallabhite havelis — kirtan set to the deity's eight daily services and changing with the season, preserved in a repertoire attributed to the Ashtachhap poets.
Swami Haridas, who lived at Nidhivan in Vrindavan, is remembered as the teacher of Tansen; the line connects the Braj temple tradition directly to the north Indian classical mainstream.
Theatre
Hereditary troupes, largely from Vrindavan and Mathura, who perform a repertoire of over a hundred lila episodes and tour the Braj towns and the wider Vaishnav diaspora.
Tableau processions and folk enactments staged by neighbourhoods at Janmashtami, less formal than the Raslila and open to anyone who wants to take part.
Crafts
A temple art of the Pitru Paksha fortnight, once made by priests as an offering and now sustained by a very small number of families in Vrindavan.
Material: Paper, and stencils cut with scissors. Technique: A single sheet is cut freehand with fine scissors into an intricate stencil, laid on water or on the ground, and coloured powder sifted through it to leave the image. The image on water is the difficult version — the stencil is lifted and the pigment floats.
An entire bazaar given over to clothing and ornamenting deities, supplying temples and household shrines across India and the Vaishnav diaspora.
Material: Silk, velvet, zari, gota, artificial and precious stone. Technique: Tailoring and embroidery to fixed image measurements, with a seasonal wardrobe cycle.
The Kushan-era Mathura school was one of the two places where the Buddha was first shown in human form, and the red sandstone it used travelled as far as Sarnath. Carving continues locally for temple work.
Material: Spotted red sandstone. Technique: Hand carving in the round and in relief.
A pilgrim-market trade producing everything a household shrine needs, at every price point.
Material: Brass and bell metal. Technique: Casting and hand-finishing of images, lamps, thrones and ritual vessels.
Effectively a craft cluster — Mathura's khoya mandi supplies the sweet trade across western Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
Material: Milk. Technique: Slow reduction in wide iron kadhais over dung or wood fire, then browning and shaping by hand.
The dance, music, theatre and crafts of Braj, from classical forms to village traditions. (15)