The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c10.s2.4

c10.s2.4

Nor is there more to be said for Konow's other suggestions of date; the fact that the term Nāṭaka is used, and that the Vidūṣaka appears, cannot show that he is early, for they are used on continuously to the latest days of the drama, and the view that Bhāsa was an innovator who shortened the preliminaries, which is given as a reason for making him early, because the *Nāṭyaśāstra* gives the preliminaries in detail, is abandoned *sub silentio* in the author's later work,¹ where it is candidly admitted that we do not know whether he shortened the preliminaries at all. Nor can we say anything regarding his relation to the *Nāṭyaśāstra* which will aid us to a date; there is even a tradition that he himself wrote on the theory of the drama. Nor can any weight be attached to the view that Bhāsa stands nearer Aṣvaghoṣa in technique than Kālidāsa; these matters do not permit of precise evaluation in time, and, (if we place Bhāsa about A. D. 300, we go as far as the evidence allows.)