Recently, I visited the bronze gallery at the Government Museum in Chennai. It consists of three flooring, and homes of a few of India’s most beautiful historical sculptures. The mezzanine is nearly solely dedicated to bronzes of Nataraja, the dancing type of Lord Shiva. Sometimes known as ‘the thief who stole my heart’, on my go to it was not Nataraja who caught my consideration however Apasmara, the determine upon whom the Lord stands. It is he who stole my coronary heart.
Depicted throughout the centuries in a wide range of ‘trampled poses’, sculptors have virtually all the time had him level at the viewer — his direct gaze seeming to say one thing. This pitiable determine led me down a rabbit gap of studying, to discover his symbolic position in the grand iconography of the lord of dance.
The Tiruvalangadu Bronze, a masterpiece of the Cholas
| Photo Credit:
R. Ravindran
Understanding Apasmara
Apasmara is the title given to the determine in iconographic texts. It combines the phrases smara, which means reminiscence, and apa, the negation of it — collectively which means forgetfulness. Forgetting is a standard human lapse, so why was it depicted as one thing trampled underfoot? The metaphor’s gravity intensified after I realized that in Tamil, Apasmara is named Muyalagan, which interprets to epilepsy.
In Ayurveda, I uncover, the phrase is described as “a psychosomatic disorder involving memory, intellect and mind, and present with cardinal features such as transient loss of memory, abnormal movements of body and blackouts”.Ayurvedic texts checklist it amongst the eight mahagadas or most dreadful illnesses. This deepened my confusion. Did a neuropsychiatric imbalance really deserve such harsh therapy?
Apasmara can be stated to symbolize ignorance, vanity, irregular motion, religious inertia, delusion, attachment to the materials world, and ego. These symbolic meanings invited deeper reflection, particularly on how the legislation handled psychological imbalance.
A Nataraja idol at the Government Museum
| Photo Credit:
R. Shivaji Rao
What the legislation says
The authorized framework governing psychological well being in India is at present outlined by The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, which changed the Mental Health Act of 1987. The addition of “care” in the title indicators a shift in direction of supporting people needing psychological well being help. This change was influenced by India’s ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol in 2007, which got here into drive on May 3, 2008.
Section 2(1)(s) of the 2017 Act defines psychological sickness as “a substantial disorder of thinking, mood, perception, orientation or memory that grossly impairs judgment, behaviour, capacity to recognise reality or ability to meet the ordinary demands of life, mental conditions associated with the abuse of alcohol and drugs”. It excludes psychological retardation, described as “a condition of arrested or incomplete development of mind of a person, specially characterised by subnormality of intelligence”.
Given the complexity of human behaviour, how does one apply this broad definition? Section 3 states “nationally or internationally accepted medical standards (including the latest edition of the International Classification of Disease of the World Health Organisation) as may be notified by the Central Government” to be the determinant components of psychological sickness.
The Act clarifies that an individual’s background, or non-conformity with prevailing social, ethical, cultural, work-associated, political, or non secular norms can not qualify as grounds for prognosis.
Natarajar idol at the Bronze Gallery
| Photo Credit:
R. Shivaji Rao
Unclear requirements
More than eight years after the Act’s passage, the Central Government is but to inform particular standards for figuring out psychological sickness. When questioned in the Rajya Sabha, the authorities cited well being as a state topic, sidestepping its obligation beneath Section 3 to discuss with internationally accepted medical requirements, particularly these set by the World Health Organization (WHO), for outlining and diagnosing psychological sickness.
The WHO’s Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan 2013-2030 defines psychological issues broadly: despair, bipolar dysfunction, schizophrenia, nervousness, dementia, substance use issues, mental disabilities, and developmental or behavioural issues like autism and epilepsy.
It highlights the idea of susceptible teams — people or teams made susceptible by their social, financial, or environmental circumstances. These embody households dwelling in poverty, folks with continual sicknesses, maltreated kids, adolescents uncovered to substance use, minority and indigenous populations, the aged, these dealing with discrimination or human rights abuses, LGBTQIA+ individuals, prisoners, and people affected by battle, pure disasters, or different humanitarian emergencies.
A Chola bronze
| Photo Credit:
D. Krishnan
This expansive definition is worrying as the 2017 Act offers no particular standards of figuring out who might avail of the laws’s advantages, leaving the choice to psychiatrists or nominated representatives.
The strengths and gaps
The 2017 Act empowers these with psychological sickness, permitting advance directives on care and therapy preferences and easing entry to medical institutions. However, these directives don’t lengthen to issues regarding property.
When it involves authorized rights over actions and property, “person of unsound mind” stays a key time period. While Indian legislation has lengthy supplied safeguards for such people, courts maintain that not all psychological sicknesses qualify; ‘legal insanity’refers to a situation when “the cognitive faculty must be so destroyed as to render one incapable of knowing the nature of his act or that what he is doing is wrong or contrary to law.” The ambiguity is regarding as a result of some provisions may prohibit elementary liberties, corresponding to compelled admission to psychological well being amenities, or could also be misused to evade accountability.
I sought to grasp how legislation and the Lord view psychological instability. The 2017 Act discourages segregation, selling integration into mainstream society. Yet the Nataraja iconography attracts a stark distinction between the poised deity and the unstable Muyalagan. This separation is literal — Muyalagan is crushed underfoot. But if the intent is management over instability, wouldn’t the Lord have held Apasmara gently in his hand? Control is distinct from conquest.
If Apasmara stands for vanity, isn’t vanity typically a prelude to justice? If he represents ignorance, doesn’t ignorance precede knowledge? If he signifies inertia, is motion not born from stillness? And if he embodies ego, isn’t it wanted to understand humility? If Apasmara isn’t a demon to be destroyed however a metaphor for a psychological state, then does the iconography of Nataraja threat making him the much-maligned Muyalagan?
The Bengaluru-based author is an writer and curator, and a lawyer by career.
Published – June 19, 2025 03:40 pm IST
