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The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c22.s3: 4. The Audience

The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c22.s3

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4. The Audience

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A drama like the Sanskrit demanded the full attention of a cultivated audience, and it is assumed or expressly asserted, as in the dramas of Kālidāsa, Harṣa, and Bhavabhūti, that the spectators are critical and experienced. The *Nāṭyaçāstra*³ requires from the ideal spectator (*prekṣaka*) keen susceptibility and excellent judgement, with ability to make his own the feelings and emotions of the characters depicted by the actors. But it is admitted that there are the usual degrees among the spectators, good, medium, and indifferent; the question of the success of a drama depends on the judgement of the critic (prācṇika), who is to possess every possible good quality to fit him for the delicate task. The audience, as it is to share the feelings of the characters, is expected to show them by the usual outward signs; laughter, tears, cries, hair standing on end, jumping up from their seats, clapping with the hands and other manifestations of pleasure, horror, fear, and other sentiments are both proper and natural.

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³ xxvii. 51 ff.; Lévi, TI. ii. 62 ff.

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The rules for placing the patron at whose bidding the drama is performed, Sabhāpati, and his guests, are elaborate.¹ He sits himself on the Lion Throne, the equivalent of the royal box, with the ladies of his harem on the left, and on the right the personages of highest importance, such as the vassal princes of a great king like Harṣa. Behind the latter are the treasurer and other officers, and near them the learned men of the court, civil and religious, including the poets, and in their midst the astrologers and physicians. On the left again are the ministers and other courtiers; all around are maidens of the court. In front again of the king are Brahmins, behind the bearers of fans, radiant in youthful beauty. On the left in front are the reciters and panegyrists, eloquent and wise. Guards are present to protect the sacred person of the sovereign.

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¹ Saṃgītaratnākara, 1327 ff.; Lévi, Tl. i. 375 ff. Cf. Kāvyamīmānsā, pp. 54 f.

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How far the dramas were viewed by the public in general we cannot say; the rules regarding the play-house contemplate the presence of Cūdras, but that is a vague term, and may apply to a very restricted class of royal hangers on. We have the general rule² that barbarians, ignorant people, heretics, and those of low class should not be admitted, but such prescriptions mean very little. There must, it is clear, have been the utmost variation in the character of the audience according to the place and circumstances of representation. At great festivals, when plays were given in the temples, there must have been admission for as many as could be crowded in; in private exhibitions the audience may well have been more select. The fact that the dramas must have been largely unintelligible to all save a select few of the audience would not matter much; a drama was essentially a spectacle; in many cases its subject was perfectly familiar to the audience, and the elaborate use of conventional signs must have been enough to aid many of the audience in following roughly the nature of the proceedings.

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² Tagore, Eight Principal Rasas, p. 61. That women as such were excluded (Wilson, ii. 212) cannot have held good for the early stage.

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When such dramatic exhibitions became rare we do not know; it is certain that in the eleventh century in Kashmir they were not uncommon; Kṣemendra advised aspirants to poetic fame to improve their taste by the study of such representations.¹ Doubtless the Mahomedan conquest seriously affected the vogue of the classical drama, which was obnoxious to Mahomedan fanaticism as being closely identified both with the national religion and the national spirit of India. The kings, who had been the main support of the actors and poets alike, disappeared from their thrones or suffered grave reverses in fortune. The tradition of dramatic performances gradually vanished. Other causes contributed to this end; the divorce between the language of the stage and that of the people steadily increasing with the passage of time made the Sanskrit drama more and more remote to the public, and the Mahomedans made it lose its position as the expression of the official and court life of the highest circles.²

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¹ Kavikaṇṭhābharaṇa, p. 15.

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² A certain revival of displays occurred in the nineteenth century; e. g. the Citrayajña of Vaidyanātha Vācaspati Bhaṭṭācārya, written for the festival of Govinda by request of the Rājā of Nadiyā about A.D. 1820. The Cakyars of Malabar still act Ṣaktibhadra’s Āccaryamañjarī and Kulaçekharavarman’s plays, as well as Act III of the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, under the style of Mantrāṅkanāṭaka, and the Nāgānanda; JRAS. 1910, p. 637; Pratimānaṭaka (ed. TSS.), p. xl; A. K. and V. R. Pisharoti, Bulletin of School of Oriental Studies, III. i. 107 ff., who maintain the impossible view that Bhāsa’s plays are compilations or adaptations of the eighth century, or later, holding that the Cārudatta is an adaptation of the Mṛcchakaṭikā (contrast p. 131), the Pratimānaṭaka is later than Kālidāsa, and the Avimāraka than Daṇḍin. The genealogy of Rāma in the Pratimā (iv. 9 f.) is that of Kālidāsa, but is also Purāṇic, and Daṇḍin, of course, is not the inventor of the Kathā. Barnett (Bulletin, III. i. 35) accepts Pisharoti’s views, holding the Nyāyaçāstra of Medhātithi (Pratimā, v. 8/9) to be the Manubhāṣya (tenth century), but this is wholly against the context, and Barnett’s view is surely incompatible with the priority of the Cārudatta to the Mṛcchakaṭikā which he admits, and the absence of Māhārāṣṭrī. Cf. also p. 341.

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The *fraternities* of the Middle Ages, which were so numerous and so varied in their objects, were not all of the same origin. Some were religious, some social, some charitable, and some industrial. The religious guilds, or *gilds*, as they were often called, were associations of laymen for the purpose of performing religious duties, such as the maintenance of a chaplain, the celebration of masses, or the support of a hospital. The social guilds were formed for the purpose of mutual aid and good fellowship, and often included in their objects the relief of the poor, the sick, and the aged. The charitable guilds were established for the purpose of supporting hospitals, almshouses, and other institutions of mercy. The industrial guilds, or *craft guilds*, were associations of men engaged in the same trade or industry, and were formed for the purpose of regulating the trade, protecting the interests of the members, and maintaining the quality of their work.

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The craft guilds, which became so powerful in the later Middle Ages, were the successors of the earlier *collegia* of the Roman Empire. The *collegia* were associations of artisans and tradesmen, which were recognized by the state and had a legal existence. When the Roman Empire fell, these associations were largely destroyed, but the idea of association for mutual protection and the regulation of trade survived. In the early Middle Ages, the *gilds* began to reappear, and by the twelfth century they were firmly established in many of the cities of Europe.

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The craft guilds were organized on a democratic basis, and every member had a voice in the management of the guild's affairs. The officers were elected by the members, and the rules and regulations were made by the guild as a whole. The guilds had the power to fix prices, to regulate the hours of labor, and to determine the conditions of apprenticeship. They also had the power to punish members who violated the rules, and to expel those who were guilty of serious offenses. The guilds were thus a powerful force in the economic life of the Middle Ages, and they played an important part in the development of the modern industrial system.

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The decline of the craft guilds began in the sixteenth century, when the rise of the factory system and the growth of international trade made it difficult for the small, local guilds to compete with the larger and more efficient industrial organizations. The guilds were also weakened by the growth of the power of the state, which began to regulate trade and industry directly, and by the rise of the capitalist class, which sought to break the power of the guilds and to establish a system of free competition. By the end of the eighteenth century, the craft guilds had largely disappeared, but their influence lived on in the trade unions and other labor organizations of the modern world.

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