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The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c22.s1: 2. The Actors

The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c22.s1

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2. The Actors

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The normal term for actor is Naṭa, a term which has the wider sense of dancer or acrobat; terms like Bharata, or Bhārata, Cāraṇa,³ Kuçilava, Çailūṣa, or Çaubhika have interest practically only for the history of the drama. The chief actor, whose name Sūtradhāra doubtless denotes him as primarily the architect of the theatre, the man who secures the erection of the temporary stage, is occasionally styled ‘troop-head of actors (*naṭagāmaṇi*)’,⁴ and he is essentially the instructor of the other actors in their art (*nāṭyācārya*), so that his title Sūtradhāra can be used topically as equivalent to Professor. For this high position his qualifications were to be numerous; he was supposed to be learned in all the arts and sciences, to be acquainted with the habits and customs of all lands, to combine the completeness of technical knowledge with practical skill, and to be possessed of all the moral qualities which an Indian genius can enumerate. To him falls not merely the very important function of introducing the play, but also of taking one of the chief parts; thus he plays Vatsa in the *Ratnāvalī*, and in the *Mālatīmādhava* Kāmandakī, the nun, who powerfully affects the current of the drama. He is normally the husband of one of the actresses (*naṭī*), who aids him in the opening scene, and who is compelled, poor woman, to combine the arduous life of an actress with the domestic duty of looking after her husband's material wants. She is represented as devoted to him, fasting to secure reunion in another life, preparing his meal and seeking to remove by her good works the dangers which threaten him, and compelled to play her parts, although anxious, as in the *Ratnāvalī*, over the difficulty of securing the marriage of her daughter to a fiancé who has gone overseas, or, as in the *Jānakīpariṇaya*, over the wickedness of another actor in seeking to take her daughter from her.

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³ W. Crooke, The Tribes and Castes of the N. W. Provinces and Oudh, ii. 20 ff.

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⁴ Hillebrandt, AID., p. 12; cf. naṭagrāma, Epigr. Ind. i. 381.

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The Sthāpaka, according to the theory, is to resemble in his attributes the Sūtradhāra; as we have seen, to what extent he really in the dramas known to us was employed as distinct from the Sūtradhāra, it is impossible to say; the name suggests that he aided him in the structure of the stage, and then in his actor's duties. But there is no ground to assume that he really had disappeared as a living figure before the classical drama; the occasional mention of him in actual dramas as well as in the theory need not be artificial. We have, however, a much more common attendant of the Sūtradhāra in the Pāripārçvika, who appears in the prologue of many plays, and in addition acted the parts of persons of middle rank. He receives the orders of his master and passes them on to the other actors, and directs the operations of the chorus, as in the *Veṇīsaṃhāra*. He is addressed by his master as Mārṣa, and he greets him as Bhāva.

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The other actors, of whom there must often have been many in pieces with crowds introduced, are to have the qualities of the Sūtradhāra in as generous a measure as may be; they are divided, however, according to their qualifications into superior, medium, and third-rate actors.¹ The principal parts in any drama are, however, few; the king, the Vidūṣaka, the parasite, the heroine, and a companion are stock types. The division of rôles is seldom shown in the prologues, whence are derived most of the details of our knowledge of actual performances. The Sūtradhāra in the *Ratnāvalī* and the *Priyadarçikā* plays the part of Vatsa, his younger brother that of Yaugandharāyaṇa in the former play and that of Dṛḍhavarman in the latter; the Sūtradhāra and the Pāripārçvika take in the *Mālatīmādhava* the rôles of Kāmandakī and her pupil Avalokitā respectively. This taking of women's parts by men is not by any means the normal practice; the Naṭī normally plays an important female part;¹ in the embryo drama in the *Priyadarçikā* we find that the heroine's part is played by Āraṇyikā, and the hero's part was to have been performed by another girl Manoramā, but Vatsa, without the queen's knowledge, insinuated himself into the scene *in propria persona*. In the legend of Bharata's exhibition of the *Lakṣmī-svayaṃvara* the nymph Urvaçī is represented as playing the chief rôle, and in Dāmodaragupta's *Kuṭṭanīmata*, where an actual representation of the *Ratnāvalī* is described, we find a woman in the rôle of the princess. The *Nāṭyaçāstra*² expressly admits of three modes of representation; the rôles may be filled by persons of appropriate sex and age; the rôles of the old may be taken by the young and *vice versa*; and the rôles of men may be played by women and *vice versa*. The taking of women's parts by men has, curiously enough, a very early piece of evidence, for the *Mahābhāṣya* mentions the word Bhrūkuṅsa, which was used to denote a man who made up as a female.³

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¹ xxiv. 85 f.

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¹ Cf. *Karpūramañjarī*, i. 12/13.

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² xxvi. ; cf. xii. 166 f.

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³ Weber, IS. xiii. 493.

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We are, it is clear, to conceive of the troupe of actors under the Sūtradhāra as ready to wander hither and thither in search of a favourable opportunity of exhibiting their powers as interpreters. The performance of a drama became, it is clear, in later times at any rate, a worthy adornment of a festive occasion such as a religious festival, the consecration of a king, a marriage, the taking possession of a town or a new estate, the return of a traveller, and the birth of a son. The best patrons of the actors might be kings, but there was evidently no lack of appreciation of their services among men of lesser rank but of large means. The later prologues give us details of the rivalry between different troupes. In the *Anargharāghava* the actor declares that he has come to exhibit a superior sort of drama to that played by a rival, and asserts that the dearest desire of a player is to satisfy the public and to win back the favour he has lost. Rājaçekhara twice introduces the motive of a competition between actors to win the hand of an actress who has been offered by her father in marriage to the most adept of her suitors. Jayadeva invents a pleasing tale of an actor who won great success and reputation, inducing a comedian of the south to claim his name and steal his renown. The actor in revenge went south, and, striking up a partnership with a singer, won both repute and profit in the courts of the Deccan.

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The reputation of actors and actresses was low and unsavoury; they are reputed to live on the price of their wives' honour (*jāyajīva*, *rūpājīva*), and Manu imposes only a minor penalty on illicit relations with the wife of an actor on the score of their willingness to hand over their wives to others and profit by their dishonour.¹ The *Mahābhāṣya* gives equally clear testimony of the lack of chastity among the actresses or their predecessors.² The law book of Viṣṇu³ treats them as Āyogavas, a mixed caste representing the fruit of alliances, improper and undesirable, between Çūdras and the daughters of the Vaiçya; to be an actor or a teacher of the art is ranked as a lesser sin in Baudhāyana.⁴ The Kuçilava is described as a Çūdra, who ought to be banished;⁵ his evidence, and indeed that of any actor, is not to be accepted in law,⁶ and Brahmins may not accept food offered by an actor,⁷ a fact attested by the Sūtradhāra in the prologue to the *Mṛcchakaṭikā* who can find no one in Ujjayinī to accept his hospitality. Actors again are classed in Manu with wrestlers and boxers. An actress was often, if not necessarily, one of the great army of courtesans; Vasantasenā, the hetaera of the *Cārudatta* and *Mṛcchakaṭikā*, is herself skilled in acting, and has in her household maidens learning to act, and Daṇḍin includes lessons in this art in his account of the education of the perfect courtesan in the *Daçakumāracarita*.

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¹ viii. 362; cf. *Rāmāyaṇa*, ii. 30. 8; *Kuṭṭanīmata*, 855.

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² vi. 1. 13.

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³ xvi. 8.

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⁴ ii. 1. 2. 13.

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⁵ *Kauṭilīya*, p. 7.

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⁶ Manu, viii. 65; Yājñ. ii. 70

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⁷ Manu, iv. 215; Yājñ. i. 161.

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On the other hand, we have traces of a higher side of the profession, which doubtless can quite fairly be connected with the gradual elevation of the drama from humble origins to the rank of an elaborate and refined poetry. Bharata, the alleged founder of the *Nāṭyaçāstra*, ranks as a Muni, or holy sage, and Urvaçī, a divine nymph, is treated as an actress. What is more important is that Bāṇa definitely enumerates in the *Harṣacarita* among his friends an actor and an actress; Bhartṛhari¹ refers to their friendship with kings, which is also attested in the legend of Vasumitra, son of Kālidāsa’s hero Agnimitra, who was slain amidst his actors by his enemy. Kālidāsa himself represents Agnivarṇa, king of Raghu’s line, as pleased to compete with actors in their own speciality. Vatsa, in the *Priyadarçikā*, is prepared to play a part without question, and Bhavabhūti in two of his prefaces asserts his friendship with his actors. In truth, men who could effectively declaim the stanzas of Bhavabhūti must have possessed both education and culture in a high degree, and have been very different from the acrobats and jugglers, dancers, and others whose humble occupations account for the censures of the law books and the *Arthaçāstra*.

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¹ iii. 57.

Cites (19)