Bharata's Natyashastra

2015

Natya or theatre is an ancient practice of entertainment in India. Surviving texts and treatises suggest that theatre existed in the Indian subcontinent prior to the vedic age. Both Gods and human beings were said to be connoisseurs of art. The golden period of Indian theatre, mostly in Sanskrit, is said to have lasted until the 5th centuryAD, soon after which the flow of Sanskrit drama waned 1. In spite of dramatic literature receding, performance traditions thrived through dancers, musicians, singers, and storytellers. The basic aesthetics of dramaturgy survived, morphed into various variants, through the traditional folk and classical forms. Paul Kurtz 2 suggests that the Rig Veda gives evidence that dramatic theatre in India came into being around the eighth century B.C. According to Kurtz, the Jataka stories illustrating Indian life between 600 B.C. and 300 B.C. contain evidences of theatre. Like its Greek counterpart Indian drama and theatre owes its origin to religion. The two great Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata have contributed vastly to performing arts in ancient times. Kurtz observes that, like the cult of Dionysus, Vedic religion also held the seeds of dramatic theatre in India. In the fourth century B.C, actors were employed to perform at temples in the honour of Gods. Also, some villages exhibited public performances in the form of Stree Preksha (women's drama) and Purusha Preksha (men's drama) (66). The Natyshastra of Bharata Muni brings out the evidence of theatre arts at festivals and public celebrations during the Maurya Dynasty, founded by King Chandragupta (reigned 321 B.C-297 B.C). The Maurya Dynasty ruled India for a long period. During this period, kings sent Buddhist missionaries to various places like Ceylon,

Life is a long journey of our emotions, sentiments, happiness and grief. Our life hangs between love and joy on one hand and sorrow and pathos on the other. Modern Indian theatre is the real voice of mankind. It comprises not only art, literature, music and dance but also reflects our day to day life. If has a rich treatise since 2000 BC to the 4 th century A.D. the great playwright Bharat Muni pioneered the concept in his writing " Natyashastra ". India has the rich honour to give this treatise to the world. According to the historians Oscar Brockett and Franklin Hildy – " In a theatre rituals typically include elements that entertain or give pleasures, such as costumes and masks as well as skilled performers. As societies grew more complex, these spectacular elements began to be acted out under non-ritualistic conditions. As this occured the first step towards theatre as an autonomous activity were being taken. " (1) All the above said elements are keys to modern Indian theatre. It can easily be traced back to the religions and ritualism of the Aryans. From epic theatre (stories of the Ramayan and the Mahabharat) to the theatre of modern era it is a rich saga of a journey of modern Indian drama and theatre. The earliest form of Indian theatre was the Sanskrit theatre. (2) It gave a divine origin to the Indian theatre contributing it to the Natyaveda created by Lord Brahma. It emerged sometimes between 2 nd century BC and the I century AD and flourished between the I century and the 10 th , which was a period of relative peace in the history of India during with hundreds of plays were written. (03) According to the legends after defeating demons the gods performed their victory in dramatic art. Our rich ancient culture with multi-religions and rituals along with

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR INNOVATIVE RESEARCH IN MULTIDISCIPLINARY FIELD, 2021

There is a saying about the Mahabharata-"yanna bharate tanna bharate" (Tripathi 86) which means this great epic contains everything encompassed by this vast country i.e Bharata (India). With a slight variation, the same can be applied to the Natyashastra of Bharatmuni. The Natyashastra encompasses everything that sustains and nourishes the Indian tradition of art and aesthetics. Bharatmuni is the Vyas of Indian theatric universe. The term Natya in Sanskrit refers to the art of drama and practice of theatre. Natyashastra, literally means a discourse on the discipline of Natya. It is the codification of a tradition in practise well before its time. It is composed in verse form and comprises around 6000 stanzas in 36 chapters.

India has the longest and the richest tradition in drama. The origin of Indian drama can be traced back to the Vedic Period. As a manifestation of our national sensibility Indian drama came into existence as a means of exploring and communicating the truth of things and was popularly known as the "Fifth Veda." During the age of the Vedic Aryans, drama was performed in a simple way. Different episodes from the Ramayana, the Mahabharta, and the Bhagavad-Gita were enacted out in front of people. Such type of performance is still very popular in India during the time of 'dussehra.' Bharata's Natyashastra in Sanskrit is the most pioneering work on Indian dance and drama. It discusses deftly all major aspects of drama, namely stage-setting, music, plot construction, characterization, dialogue and acting. Sanskrit drama flourished in its glory till the fifteenth century but thereafter Indian drama activity almost came to an end due to certain invasion on India. When Britishers came in India, the crippled Indian drama regained its strength. Thus, the western impact awakened Indian drama. However, K.R.Srinivasa Iyengar writes: Western education was as yet carrying all before it. It was the 'open sesame' to knowledge, freedom, power; it cut the old bonds of convention and tradition; it let in light into the old dark rooms of an obscurantist faith; and it made a new world and a new life possible for its beneficiaries.

isara solutions, 2016

Drama has been an integral part of ancient Indian culture. In fact the dramas reflected the social milieu of its time. The origin of the Indian theatre is still obscure. It is certain, how-ever, that even in the Vedic period dramatic performances of some kind were given, passing references in early sources point to the en-action at festivals of religious legends, perhaps only in dance and mime. Some writers have found elements in common between the Indian and the classical Greek theatre. The curtain at the back of the stage was called yavanika, a diminutive form of the name by which the Greeks were generally known in India. One play at least, “The Little Clay Cart”, has a superficial resemblance to the late Greek comedy of the school of Menander. We cannot wholly reject possibility that Greek comedies, acted at the courts of the Greco-Bactrian kings of N.-W.India, inspired unknown Indian poets to develop their own popular stage into a courtly art form.

TDR, 1997

Although it is rare to find a comparative treatment of Greek and Sanskrit drama as thoughtful and passionate as this one, students of classical Indian theater will recognize a familiar topic in the title. It is natural to want to see how two great ancient cultures that produced both a body of dramatic theory and a limited number of extant plays can shed light on each other. When the comparative study comes from the Indian side, or from a cultural fellow-traveler (such as myself), there is often an additional motivation. When colonial administrators introduced the

REVISITING BHĀSA : Perspectives and Perceptions, 2021

The Sanskrit plays brought out by MM T. Ganapati Sastri raised a controversy. He ascribed the authorship of the 13 Sanskrit plays to Bhāsa. Some people called them Trivandrum Plays,denying the authorship of Bhāsa. Some scholars opine that only the Svapnavasavadattam and Pratijanyaugandharayanam, can be taken as authored by Bhāsa. The paper discusses some interesting aspects of Vedic tradition reflected in some of the "Bhasa Plays". Indications are that the author/s of Trivandrum plays were not even aware of some prime aspects of the Vedic Tradition. Some pointers to show the later origin of the plays are shown. Points out the ignorance of the author regarding the Vedic customs and practices. Such pointers corroborate the view that most of the plays in the Bhasa cycle of Dramas are of a later origin.

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"The Theory and Practice of the Performing Arts in Ancient India" , 2020

This essay looks at the evolution of "nrtta" (graceful physical movement), "nrttya" (graceful movement and expressions) and "natya" (acting, dancing, singing) and their close interfaces with sculpture and architecture in ancient India (1500B.C.E--800C.E). According to Kapila Vatsayayan in the "Square and the Circle of the Indian Arts", the fundamental rituals of the Rig Veda were inherently dramatic as they involved movement and the utterance of sonorous sounds. Bharata's "Natyashastra" ( 2 B.C.E- 2 C.E) a prodigious compendium of the various rituals of performance, its techniques and manifestations lays out what he designates as "natyadharmi", a term later picked up and used by theatre director and anthropologist Eugenio Barba to mean the specialized world of an actor's training and performance. It is opposed to "lokdharma" which is the stuff of life from which theatre or "natya" emanates.The essay takes the reader through the nine rasas (quintessential emotions), 49 bhavas (feelings), the sahrdaya (ideal spectator), the various kinds of "abhinaya" or acting (sattvika, vacika, angika, aharya), "vrittis" (mental attitudes) and "pavrittis" (local colour), various kinds of auditoriums, themes of "natya", and most importantly the operation of rasa as aesthetic principle. Abhinavagupta is one of the key theoreticians referred to in this essay. The essay also looks at the development of Bharatnatyam from Bharat Natya, from the 1000 C.E. in the great temples of South India, principally, Tanjore (Brihadeshvara). The court of the Naik rulers of Tanjore in the 16th and 17th centuries, provided strong encouragement to artists, principally dancers, to develop their talents. As E. Krishna Iyer posits in "Rasa and Bhava in Bharat Natya", Kshetrayya, a court poet for the Naik rulers in the 17th century, wrote many beautiful padas (poems, songs) for Bharatnatyam, which performed by the devadasis or the temple dancers, reached great heights of artistic fulfillment during this time. The essay also looks at the evolution of Indian classical music from its origins in the Samagaan (Vedic period) and the music of the Gandharvas, through "Jati" and "Graam" ragas to its final form of fruition in both North and South Indian classical music traditions.