Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c13.38

c13.38

We now turn to Indian literature. A claim has been made¹ that Indian drama, if not Indian philosophy, owes a great deal to the drama of Greece. Many curious resemblances between the two have been pointed out. The *vidūshaka* and the *viṭa*, have been compared to the Parasite and the Pimp of the New Attic Comedy. The *Nāṭya Śāstra* of Bharata lays down as one of the canons of the drama that the number of persons appearing upon the stage should be limited to five. Indian like Greek drama, avoids the portrayal of violent or unseemly actions. The "Greek curtain" (*Yavanikā*) was used, and *Yavanī*, Greek girls, appear as the attendants upon royal persons. At Rāmgarh, a small Greek amphitheatre has been unearthed². The *Toy Cart*³ is compared by critics to plays of the type of the New Attic Comedy. Again, the passage of Chrysostom is quoted, wherein he states that "it is said that the poetry of Homer is sung by the Indians, who had translated it into their own language and modes of expression, so that even these Indians are not unacquainted with the woes of Priam and the weeping and wailing of Andromache and Hecuba, and the heroic feats of Achilles and Hector, so potent was the influence of what one man had sung¹.” Plutarch attributes to Alexander’s invasion the fact that the Gedrosian read Homer, Euripides and Sophokles. A similar statement is made by Aelian².