Kathakali is a highly visual dance-drama that originated in the Hindu temples of Kerala, South india over five hundred years ago. Kathakali uses an elaborate 4,000 year old sign language based on specific hand gestures to tell a story.. This dictionary has been created by Kalamandalam Vijayakumar, a world famous Kathakali dancer, to assist people to understand the extraordinary poetic language embedded in the hand gestures from this codified tradition. It has been made as a DVD Rom (PC windows only) in various sections: introduction; the alphabet; the words; facial xpressions; and a how to use this dictionary.