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Concept
Tribhanga
Summary
Tribhaṅga or Tribunga is a standing body position or stance used in traditional Indian art and Indian classical dance forms like the Odissi, where the body bends in one direction at the knees, the other direction at the hips and then the other again at the shoulders and neck.
The pose goes back at least 2,000 years in Indian art, and has been highly characteristic for much of this period, "found repeated over and over again in countless examples of Indian sculpture and painting". Indian religions carried it to East and South-East Asia. Like the equivalent contrapposto and "S Curve" poses in Western art, it suggests movement in figures and gives "rhythmic fluidity and ... youthful energy".
The word derives from Sanskrit, where bhanga (or bhangha) is the word for an attitude or position, with tri meaning "triple", making "triple-bend position". Other poses described in old texts on dance were samabhanga for the "figure in equipoise", whether standing, sitting or reclining, and abhanga for a slight bend in one leg giving a smaller curve to the figure. Other more complex positions in dance are atibhanga; the famous Shiva Nataraja figures are examples of this.
The history of the stance is often said to reach back to the famous Dancing Girl from Mohenjo-Daro, of about c. 2300-1750 BCE, although this does not exactly show the usual later form. It may well derive from dance before art, but the remaining record in early art is more clear. The earliest versions are nearly all in female figures, but it gradually spread to males. Versions of the stance can be seen in (Buddhist) yakshi at Bharhut, c. 100 BCE, and the classical form of the stance at Sanchi, around 10 CE, and the Bhutesvara Yakshis (2nd century CE).
The pose is used on many coins of the Gupta Empire (c. 319 to 543 CE), by both the kings on the obverse and the deities on the reverse, and in Gupta sculpture. During this period it became very common in both Buddhist and Hindu art (as well as Jain art). The most famous ancient Indian painting, the large figure of Padmapani in Cave 1 at the Ajanta Caves (c.
Official source
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