Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c7: Post-Vedic Literature and the Origin of the Drama

The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c7

Language
English

Contents

Post-Vedic Literature and the Origin of the Drama

1. The Epics

c7.s1.1

(THE great epic of India, the *Mahābhārata*, in the whole extent of its older portions, does not recognize in any explicit manner the existence of the drama.¹ The term Naṭa indeed occurs, and, if it meant actor, the existence of the drama would be proved, but it may equally well merely denote pantomimist. This conclusion, moreover, is strongly supported by the strange fact that, if the epic knew the drama, it should never mention any of its characteristics or such a standing character as the Viḍūṣaka. There is, what is still more significant, even in the later parts of the epic, such as the Çānti and Anuçāsana Parvans, no clear allusion to the art, for the passage in the Çānti² in which Professor Hillebrandt has found an allusion to dramatic artists can perfectly well apply to pantomimes, and in the latter text³ the passage in which the commentator Nīlakaṇṭha finds comedians and dancers (*naṭa-nartakāḥ*) yields perfectly good senses as pantomimists and dancers, both occupations there repudiated by Brahmins. (To find the drama we are compelled to have recourse to the *Harivaṃça*,⁴ which is a deliberate continuation of the *Mahābhārata*, and there we have explicit evidence, for we learn of players who made a drama out of the *Rāmāyaṇa* legend. (But) this is of no importance for the purpose of determining the date of the drama; (the *Harivaṃça* is of uncertain date, but in all probability, as we have it, it cannot be placed earlier than the second or third century A.D., long after the time when there is no doubt of the existence of a Sanskrit drama.

c7.s1.2

¹ Hopkins, *The Great Epic of India*, pp. 55 ff. Nāṭaka in ii. 11. 36 is very late; JRAS. 1903, pp. 571 f.

c7.s1.3

² xii. 140. 21.

c7.s1.4

³ xiii. 33. 12.

c7.s1.5

⁴ ii. 88 ff. See § 3 below.

c7.s1.6

The *Rāmāyaṇa* lends no aid to the attempt to establish an early existence of drama; we hear of festivals and concourses (*samāja*) where Naṭas and Nartakas delight themselves,¹ and even of the speaking of Nāṭakas;² in another passage the term Vyāmiçraka³ denotes, if we believe the commentator, plays in mingled languages. But, accepting all these references as genuine, which we are not obliged to do, the passages have manifestly no claim to early date, for other reasons than the allusions, and leave us again without any early evidence.

c7.s1.7

¹ ii. 67. 15.

c7.s1.8

² ii. 69. 3.

c7.s1.9

³ ii. 1. 27; Hillebrandt ZDMG. lxxii. 229, n. 1; *contra*, SBAW. 1916, p. 730.

c7.s1.10

But, while the epics cannot be said to know the drama, there is abundant evidence of the strong influence on the development of the drama exercised by the recitation of the epics. The long continued popularity of these recitations is attested throughout the literature; at the beginning of the seventh century A. D.⁴ a Brahmin, Somaçarman, akin to the royal house of Cambodia, presented to a temple a complete copy of the *Bhārata*, in order that regular recitations might take place, and almost contemporaneously Bāṇa in the *Kādambarī* depicts the queen as hastening to the temple of Çiva to hear the recitation of the epic. Four centuries later Kṣemendra reproaches his contemporaries with their equal eagerness to hear such recitations, and their reluctance to carry out in practice the excellent advice contained in them. We have vivid accounts from recent time of such recitations not only in temples but in villages, when the generosity of some rich man has secured the presence, if need be, for three months or longer of the reciters, Kathakas, to go over the hugh poem, which claims to be an encyclopaedia of all useful knowledge as well as the best of poems. The reciters divide themselves into two classes, the Pāṭhakas, who repeat the poem, and the Dhārakas, who expound it in the vernacular for the edification of the people, whose deep interest in the recitations is attested if the *Rāmāyaṇa* is the epic chosen for recitation, the departure of the hero into exile excites their tears and sobs, even to the interruption of the recital; when he returns and ascends the throne the village is illuminated and garlanded.¹ Fortunately we have in a bas-relief² from Sāñchi, which may safely be placed before the Christian era, a representation of a group of these Kathakas. We see in it that they accompanied with music in some degree their recitations, danced, and indicated by gestures the sentiments of the characters they presented. We have thus something which in its nature is far from undramatic; given the use of dialogue, the drama would be present in embryo. This step is foreshadowed but not actually taken in the account given in the later additions to the *Rāmāyaṇa*³ of the first recitation of that poem. Vālmīki, the author of the narrative of Rāma's deeds, teaches the poem to Kuça and Lava, the children whom Sītā in exile bears to Rāma; they enter Ayodhyā at the moment when the king performs the horse sacrifice, and excite the curiosity of the king himself, who hears the recitation of his own deeds by the two rhapsodes, and recognizes them for his own sons.

c7.s1.11

⁴ Barth, *Inscr. Sansc. du Cambodge*, p. 30. At the close of the *Mahābhārata* the existence of such recitations is clearly recognized; Oldenberg, *Das Mahabharata*, p. 20.

c7.s1.12

¹ Max Müller, *India*, p. 81. Cf. Winternitz, GIL. iii. 162, n. 1.

c7.s1.13

² E. Schlagintweit, *India in Wort und Bild*, i. 176.

c7.s1.14

³ vii. 93.

c7.s1.15

The term Bhārata,⁴ which is an appellation of the comedian in the later texts, attests doubtless the connexion of the rhapsodes with the growth of the drama. It has survived in the modern form of Bhāṭ denoting a class of reciters, who are the inheritors of a tradition of recitation of the epics, and who are expert in genealogy, enjoy general consideration, and by their mere presence with a caravan assure its passage in safety. The Bhāratas must be the rhapsodes of the Bhārata tribe,⁵ whose fame is great in the early history of India, whose special fire is known to the *Ṛgveda*, and who have a special offering (*hotrā*) of their own. The *Mahābhārata* is the great epic of the family, preserved by their care. With the passage of time the rhapsodes doubtless took upon them the newer art of drama. Bhavabhūti in the *Uttararāmacarita* shows himself conscious of the debts owed by the drama to the epic, and the clearest proof is now available in the dramas of Bhāsa, with their wide indebtedness to the great epic itself.

c7.s1.16

⁴ Lévi, TI. i. 311 f.

c7.s1.17

⁵ Macdonell and Keith, *Vedic Index*, ii. 94 ff.

c7.s1.18

The term Kuçīlava, which occasionally denotes actor, is apparently derived from the Kuça and Lava of the *Rāmāyaṇa*; the mode of formation of the compound is indeed strange, for it is not obvious why it should have been formed on the mode of compounds in which the first member represents a woman's name, but it is equally, if not more difficult, to imagine how it could be derived from the prefix *ku* and *çīla* manners, denoting ‘of bad morals’. Weber’s attempt to compare this name with Çailūṣa of the Vedic texts and Çilālin, who is connected with a Sūtra for Naṭas, is obviously impossible, and it may be that the name, derived originally from Kuça and Lava, was later by a witticism altered to Kuçīlava as a hit against the morals of the actors, which were recognized on every hand to be bad.¹

c7.s1.19

¹ Konow, ID. p. 9; Lévi, TI. ii. 51. On these rhapsodes, cf. Jacobi, *Das Rāmāyaṇa*, pp. 62 ff.; GGA. 1899, pp. 877 f.; Hopkins, *The Great Epic of India*, pp. 364 ff.

2. The Grammarians

c7.s2.1

In Pāṇini² we find mention of Naṭasūtras, text-books for Naṭas, ascribed to Çilālin and Kṛçāçva; the fact is recorded because of the formation of the names assumed by their followers, Çailālins and Kṛçāçvins. The names are curious; it has been suggested by Professor Lévi to see in them ironical appellations; the Kṛçāçvins are those whose horses are meagre, with an ironic reference to the great Indo-Iranian hero Kṛçāçva, while the Çailālins have nothing but stones for their beds in pitiful contrast with the fame of the Vedic school of that name, whose *Çailāli Brāhmaṇa* is known to us. But we unfortunately are here as ever in no position to establish the meaning of Naṭa, which may mean no more than a pantomime. The conclusion is important, for Pāṇini’s date is most probably the fourth century B.C., and the fact that he has no term certainly denoting drama is of significance.

c7.s2.2

² iv. 3. 110 f.

c7.s2.3

In Patañjali,³ the author of the *Mahābhāṣya*, whose date is certainly to be placed with reasonable assurance about 140 B.C., we find much more effective evidence bearing on the existence of drama. We learn from his criticism on a rule laid down by his predecessor Kātyāyana, as to the use of the imperfect tense of things which a person has himself seen, that it was normal to use in his time phrases describing a past event as if it had occurred before the eyes of the speaker; we can understand this only of a character in a dramatic performance of some kind, and it is significant that the phrase cited in illustration of the usage is ‘Vāsudeva has slain Kaṃsa’. The reference is to the famous legend of Kṛṣṇa, son of Vasudeva, and his wicked uncle Kaṃsa, who first sought to destroy him in his childhood, and afterward paid the penalty of his evil deeds by death at the hands of Kṛṣṇa. This notice receives further elucidation by a famous passage, first adduced by Weber, in which Patañjali explains the justification of the use of phrases such as ‘He causes the death of Kaṃsa’, and ‘He causes the binding of Bali’.¹ Both these deeds, the actual killing, the actual binding, are deeds of the remote past; how then can the present be in place? The answer, we learn, is that the events are described in the present because the sense is, not that they are being actually done, but that they are being described. Of the modes of description no less than three are then set out. In the first place we have the case of the Çaubhikas or Çobhanikas, who before the eyes of the spectators actually carry out—naturally in appearance only in the first case—the killing of Kaṃsa and the binding of Bali; they represent in fact by action, without words, so far as this passage formally tells us, the slaying of the wicked Kaṃsa, the binding of the evil Bali. Secondly, we have the painters; they describe by their paintings, for on the canvases themselves we see the blows rained on Kaṃsa and the dragging of him about; a painter, that is to say, kills Kaṃsa and has Bali bound by painting a scene describing these incidents. Thirdly, we have those who use words, and not action of the Çaubhika type, the Granthikas; they also, while relating the fortunes of their subjects from their birth to their death, make them real to the minds of their audience, for they divide themselves into two parties, one set adhering to Kṛṣṇa, and one to Kaṃsa, and they adopt different colours, the adherents of Kaṃsa black, and those of Kṛṣṇa red, though, by what is probably an erroneous correction, the colours are ascribed in the inverse order by many of the manuscripts.

c7.s2.4

³ iii. 2. 111.

c7.s2.5

¹ *ye tāvad ete çobhanikā nāmaite pratyakṣam Kaṃsaṃ ghātayanti pratyakṣam Balim bandhayantīti. citreṣu katham? citreṣu apy udgūrṇā nipātitāç ca prahārā dṛçyante Kaṃsakarṣaṇasya ca. granthikeṣu katham yatra çabdagadumātram lakṣyate te 'pi hi teṣām utpattiprabhṛty ā vināçād rddhīr vyācakṣāṇāḥ sato buddhiviṣayān prakāçayanti. ātaç ca sato vyāmiçrā hi dṛçyante: kecit Kaṃsabhaktā bhavanti, kecid Vāsudevabhaktāḥ. varṇānyatvam khalv api puṣyanti: kecit kālamukhā bhavanti, kecid raktamukhāḥ.* See iii. 1. 26. The text, uncertain in detail, must be corrected by replacing *buddhīr* for the absurd *rddhīr* of some manuscripts only, defended by Lüders. See Weber, IS. xiii. 487 ff. Çaubhika is a variant.

c7.s2.6

This is clear and intelligible, and it is unfortunate that it has recently been misunderstood by Professor Lüders,¹ with disastrous results for the comprehension of the notice. The Çaubhikas are made to be persons who explain to the audience shadow pictures, a view which has not even the merit of Indian tradition, and, as will be seen below, contradicts entirely the facts known as to the shadow play in India, where it is recorded only in late mediaeval times. The traditional rendering in India of the statement is recorded by Kaiyaṭa, more than a thousand years later; it is frankly obscure; Professor Lévi² renders it as meaning that the Çaubhikas are those who teach actors, representing Kaṃsa, and so on, the mode of recitation, a version which is doubtless very difficult. The sense accorded to it by Professor Lüders is that the Çaubhikas explain to the audience dumb actors, a form of drama which is recorded as performed by the Jhāṃkīs of Bombay and Mathurā in modern India, but of which in ancient times we have no certainty, since this is the only passage which even remotely can be supposed to allude to it. The obvious view, that of Weber,³ that we have a reference to a pantomimic killing and binding, seems irresistible; the use of the causative is explained by this fact; if Bali and Kaṃsa were persons of to-day the simple verb would express their binding and slaying; because it is mere actors, the causative is used, and its use denotes that the act is not now real but an exposition of a past act. ‘He causes the binding of Bali’

c7.s2.7

¹ SBAW. 1916, pp. 698 ff. Cf. Hillebrandt, ZDMG. lxxii. 227 f.; Keith, *Bulletin of School of Oriental Studies*, I. iv. 27 ff. Winternitz (ZDMG. lxxiv. 118 ff.) ineffectively supports Lüders, though he recognizes the extraordinary difficulties of this view. The error is due to the idea that one can only describe (*ācaṣṭe*) in words, ignoring art and action.

c7.s2.8

² TI. i. 315. The words are: *Kaṃsādyanukāriṇāṃ naṭānāṃ vyākhyānopādhyāyāḥ*.

c7.s2.9

³ Weber might be interpreted as believing in an actual killing, but, if so, he was clearly in error, and in point of fact he merely gives this as possible (IS. xiii. 490). That Çaubhikas did manual acts and were not talkers primarily, if at all, is suggested by the use elsewhere of the term; thus in the *Kāvyamīmāṃsā*, p. 55, they are classed with rope-dancers and wrestlers.

c7.s2.10

means ‘he describes the binding of Bali’. The only legitimate doubt on the passage is that regarding the exact mode of performance of the Çaubhikas; the word *pratyakṣam* in the text insists that it is done before the eyes of the audience, and we may justly assume that the Çaubhikas performed manual acts. Did they also use dialogue? There is nothing in the passage either to show that they did or that they did not; the contrast which follows later with Granthikas, whose medium was words, is sufficiently pointed if they used action as well as words. The most that can be said is that Çaubhika or Çobhanika does not obtain currency later as denoting an actor, which may tell against the view that Patañjali is here actually alluding to drama proper. Further we cannot go; to argue that, if he had known drama proper, he must have clearly mentioned it, is to ignore entirely the manner of Patañjali, whose silence as to what he must have known is as common as his incidental mention of current topics.

c7.s2.11

The error of Professor Lüders in insisting on a literal interpretation of the passage as referring to different sorts of narrators by words comes out with special clearness as regards the second class of persons alluded to by Patañjali. That they are painters whose canvases are living speeches was clearly recognized by the commentators in India. Haradatta tells us in the simplest and plainest language that when men look at a picture on which is shown the death of Kaṁsa at the hands of Vāsudeva they interpret the picture as the slaying of the wicked Kaṁsa by the blessed Vāsudeva, and thus by the pictured Vāsudeva cause to be slain the pictured Kaṁsa, for this is the conception which they form as they gaze, and he adds, very naturally, that this explains the practice of saying of artists that they cause the slaying of Kaṁsa, the binding of Bali.¹ It would be difficult to see how the idea could have been more forcibly expressed, but Professor Lüders interprets it in the sense that artists occasionally explain their own pictures to others, an idea which is not merely wholly impossible, but renders Haradatta’s language nonsense. On this basis he finds that the Ṣaubhikas added to their business of explaining shadow pictures that of showing and explaining other pictures, in this respect again without any support from tradition.

c7.s2.12

¹ *ye 'pi citraṁ vyācakṣate 'yaṁ Mathurāprāsādo 'yaṁ Kaṁso 'yaṁ bhagavān Vāsudevaḥ praviṣṭa etāḥ Kaṁsakarsinyo rajjava etā udgūrṇā nipātitāç ca prahārā ayaṁ hataḥ Kaṁso 'yaṁ ākṛṣṭa iti te 'pi citragataṁ Kaṁsaṁ tāḍṛcenaiva Vāsudevena ghātayanti. citre 'pi hi tadbuddhir eva paçyatām. etena citralekhakā vyākhyātāḥ.* On Lüders' view the second sentence is useless.

c7.s2.13

Finally Professor Lüders denies any division of parties among the Granthikas, whose name he derives, like the scholiasts, from the use of manuscript books in recitation, rejecting the idea of cyclic rhapsodes suggested by Dr. Dahlmann.¹ The derivation is too speculative in sense to be relied upon, but there is no doubt that the Granthikas were reciters. Their exact means of expressing the sense is not quite clear owing to the unlucky divergence of reading in the text, and the fact that the precise meaning of the second word in the most probable reading (ṣabda-gaḍu-mātram)² is wholly unknown. It is, accordingly, wholly illegitimate to assert that they used words alone, and on the score of that to deny that they could be said to divide themselves into two parties, one of followers of Kaṃsa, one of adherents of Kṛṣṇa, bearing appropriate colours. This view reduces us to the impossible theory that the division of parties refers to the audience. Apart from all questions of regard for the Sanskrit language, which Patañjali should be assumed capable of writing, the ludicrous result is achieved that among a pious audience of Kṛṣṇa adorers we are to suppose that there were many who favoured Kaṃsa, the cruel uncle whose vices are redeemed by not a single virtue, and for whose fate Sanskrit literature, pious and devout, shows not a sign of regret. The change of colour, which is asserted to be the only possible sense of the term varṇānyatvam, wholly without ground, is referred to the spectators, who turn red with anger if supporters of Kaṃsa, black with fear if they support Vāsudeva. Professor Hillebrandt, who has unfortunately accepted the new theory to the extent that he believes that there were persons who carried round pictures and explained them for a living, justly declines to believe in the possibility of a Hindu audience containing persons who wished the success of Kaṃsa, and he accepts the plain fact that the Granthikas took parts. The colours he explains, however, as indicating the sentiments which the two parties feel, a view for which there is the authority of the *Nāṭyaśāstra* which ascribes to each sentiment an appropriate colour, and, accepting the reading of Kielhorn, he is compelled to assume that the supporters of Kaṃsa on the stage showed as the dominant sentiment fury, while those of Kṛṣṇa are reduced to manifest fear as the sentiment of their side. But it is frankly incredible that the followers of Kṛṣṇa, the invincible, who calmly and coolly proceeds from victory to victory culminating in the overthrow of his wicked uncle, accomplished with ease and celerity, should show fear as the dominant sentiment, and it is clear that on this view we should accept the reading which inverts the descriptions,¹ thus allotting to the supporters of Kaṃsa the fear, to those of Kṛṣṇa the fury of slaughter and revenge. But in this trait it is more probable, as will be seen below, that we have a trace of the religious origin of the drama.²

c7.s2.14

¹ *Genesis des Mahābhārata*, pp. 163 ff. Granthika occurs in MBh. xiv. 70. 7; cf. *granthin*, Manu, xii. 103.

c7.s2.15

² SBAW. 1916, p. 726. Hillebrandt (ZDMG. lxxii. 228) criticizes effectively Lüders's interpretation. Cf. *granthagaḍutva* in R. i. 243.

c7.s2.16

¹ It is a confirmation of the incorrectness of Lüders's view that he is driven to render *vṛddhīr*, which he reads for *buddhīr*, as ‘Schicksale’. Now *vṛddhi* cannot possibly be used in this sense; it means ‘prosperity’, and, applied to Kaṃsa or Bali, it is ludicrous. What is meant is that, by forming parties, the Granthikas make real to the audience the feelings of the characters, a doctrine entirely in keeping with the duty of an actor according to N. Hillebrandt’s view of the Ҫaubhikas as explaining the subject of the play to the audience, like the Sthāpaka later (N. v. 154 ff.; DR. iii. 3; SD. 283), contradicts the word *pratyakṣam*.

c7.s2.17

² Winternitz (ZDMG. lxxiv. 122) desires inversion, even on Lüders’s theory, although Lüders attaches importance to the text.

3. Religion and the Drama

c7.s3.1

We seem in fact to have in the *Mahābhāṣya* evidence of a stage in which all the elements of drama were present; we have acting in dumb show, if not with words also; we have recitations divided between two parties. Moreover, we hear of Naṭas who not only recite but also sing; we find that in the days of the *Mahābhāṣya* the Naṭa’s hunger is as proverbial as the dancing of the peacock, that it was no rare thing for him to receive blows, and that a special term, Bhrūkuṃsa, existed to name him who played women’s parts, appropriately made up.³ The *Mahābhāṣya* does not seem to recognize women as other than dancers or singers,⁴ so that it may well be that in the infancy of the dramatic art the rôles of women were reserved for men, though in the classical drama this was by no means necessarily the case. We cannot absolutely prove that in Patañjali’s time the drama in its full form of action allied to speech was present, but we know that all its elements existed, and we may legitimately and properly accept its existence in a primitive form.

c7.s3.2

³ i. 4. 29 (*naṭasya śṛṇoti, granthikasya śṛṇoti*); ii. 4. 77 (*agāsīn naṭaḥ*); ii. 3. 67 (*naṭasya bhuktam*); iii. 2. 127 (*naṭam āghnānāḥ*); iv. 1. 3.

c7.s3.3

⁴ vi. 3. 43.

c7.s3.4

That form, from the express mention of the subjects of the dramatic exhibitions, we may deduce to have been of the nature of a religious drama. It is difficult not to see in the Kaṃsavadha, the death of Kaṃsa at the hands of Kṛṣṇa, the refined version of an older vegetation ritual in which the representative of the outworn spirit of vegetation is destroyed. Colour is given to this theory by the remarkable fact that in one reading the partisans of the young Kṛṣṇa are red in hue, those of Kaṃsa are black. Now as Kṛṣṇa’s name indicates black, it would be almost inevitable that the original attribution of red to his followers should be corrected by well-meaning scribes to black, and this explains effectively the transposition found in the bulk of the manuscripts. In the red hue of Kṛṣṇa’s supporters as against the black of those of Kaṃsa we probably have a distinct reminiscence of another side of the slaying of the vegetation spirit.¹ The contest is often presented as one between summer and winter, and we have seen in the Mahāvrata what is probably a primitive form of this contest; the white Vaiçya fights with the black Çūdra for the sun, and attains possession of its symbolical form. The red of Kṛṣṇa’s following then proclaims him as the genius of summer who overcomes the darkness of the winter.

c7.s3.5

¹ Keith, ZDMG. lxiv. 534 f.; JRAS. 1911, pp. 979 ff.; 1912, pp. 411 ff.

c7.s3.6

With this view accords most interestingly the theory of the origin of the Greek drama from a mimic conflict of summer and winter, as developed by Dr. Farnell.² In the legend of the conflict between the Boiotian Xanthos and the Neleid Melanthos we hear that at the moment of conflict Melanthos descried a form beside his foe, whom he taunted with bringing a friend to aid him. Xanthos turned round, and Melanthos slew him.

c7.s3.7

² *The Cults of the Greek States*, v. 233 ff. The variant theory of Miss Harrison, Prof. Gilbert Murray, and Dr. Cornford in *Themis*, and of Dieterich, *Archiv f. Religionswissenschaft*, xi. 163 ff., is is much less plausible.

c7.s3.8

The form was that of Dionysos Melanaigis, and for his intervention the Athenians rewarded him by admission to the Apatouria, the festival of deceit. Thus the black Melanthos with the aid of Dionysos of the black goatskin slays the fair; the dark winter destroys the light of summer. Even in modern times in Northern Thrace¹ is celebrated a popular festival in which a man clad in a goatskin is hailed as king, scatters seed over the crowd—obviously to secure fertility—and ultimately is cast into the river, the usual fate for the outworn spirit of vegetation. In a similar mummery performed near the ancient Thracian capital there is a band of mummers, clad in goatskins, of whom one is killed and lamented by his wife. It is natural to deduce hence that tragedy had its origin in a primitive passion-play performed by men in goatskins, in which an incarnation of a divine spirit was slain and lamented, whence the dirge-like nature of the Greek drama.

c7.s3.9

¹ Dawkins, *Journ. Hell. Stud.*, 1906, pp. 191 ff.

c7.s3.10

The primitive Indian play differs in one essential from this suggested origin of tragedy; the victory lies, as we have seen, with Kṛṣṇa, with the Vaiçya, not with the dark Kaṃsa, the black Çūdra. We have, therefore, not sorrow, though there is death, and the fact that the Sanskrit drama insists on a happy ending is unquestionably most effectively explained if it be brought into connexion with the fact of the origin of the drama in a passion play whose end was happiness through death, not grief. This view has received a remarkable measure of confirmation from the discovery of the plays of Bhāsa; that dramatist does not conform to the rule of the later theory that there must be no slaying on the stage, but he most assuredly conforms to the principle of the Kaṃsavadha that the slaying is to be of an enemy of the god; the Ūrubhaṅga, which has erroneously² been treated as a tragedy is, on the contrary, the depicting of the deplorable fate of an enemy of Kṛṣṇa, and we have from Bhāsa himself the Bālacarita which describes the death of several monsters at Kṛṣṇa’s hands, and finally of Kaṃsa himself.

c7.s3.11

² Lüders (SBAW. 1916, p. 718, n. 3) is responsible for the view that Duryodhana is the hero. Lindenau (BS. p. 30) accepts this, but gives the true facts (pp. 32, 33), without apparently realizing that the views are contradictory. The Ūrubhaṅga’s conclusion is happy, not tragic, for the worshipper of Kṛṣṇa.

c7.s3.12

In the recitation of the Granthikas divided into two parties we have an interesting parallel to the place played according to Aristotle¹ by the dithyramb in the development of the Greek drama. Action was required neither of the singers of the dithyramb nor of the Granthikas, but it was only necessary in one case and the other to introduce action, and the form of the drama would be complete.

c7.s3.13

¹ *Poetics*, 1449 a 10 ff.

c7.s3.14

Both in the Greek and the Sanskrit drama the essential fact in the contest, from which their origin may thus be traced, is the existence of a conflict. (In the Greek drama in its development this conflict came to dominate the play, and in the Indian drama this characteristic is far less prominent.) But it is distinctly present in all the higher forms of the art, and we can hardly doubt that it was from this conflict that these higher forms were evolved from the simplicity of the early material out of which the drama rose.

c7.s3.15

(For the religious origin of drama a further fact can be adduced, the character of the Vidūṣaka, the constant and trusted companion of the king, who is the normal hero of an Indian play.) The name denotes him as given to abuse,² and not rarely in the dramas he and one of the attendants on the queen engage in contests of acrid repartee, in which he certainly does not fare the better. It would be absurd to ignore in this regard the dialogue between the Brahmin and the hetaera in the Mahāvrata, where the exchange of coarse abuse is intended as a fertility charm.

c7.s3.16

² Cf. the connexion of Greek Comedy with ritual cathartic cursing; Keith, JRAS. 1912, p. 425, n. For less plausible theories see F. M. Cornford, *The Origin of Attic Comedy* (1914); Ridgeway, *Dramas and Dramatic Dances*, pp. 401 ff.

c7.s3.17

Another religious element may, it has been suggested, be conjectured as present in the Vidūṣaka, the reminiscence of the figure of the Ṣudra who is beaten in the ceremony of the purchase of the Soma; possibly it is to this that the hideous appearance attributed to the Vidūṣaka is due. Professor Hillebrandt³ compares the history of the Harlequin who was originally a representative of the Devil and not a figure of mirth. It may be that these factors concurred in shaping the character of the Vidūṣaka, but the fact that he is treated as a Brahmin is conclusive that the abusive side of his character is the more important. It is to this doubtless that his use of Prākrit is due; it cannot be conceived that a dialogue of abuse was carried on by the Brahmin in the sacred language, which the hetaera of the primitive social conditions of the Mahāvrata could not possibly be expected to appreciate. Professor Hillebrandt suggests indeed that there is change in the character of the Vidūṣaka in the literature as compared with the account given in the Nāṭyaçāstra, but there is clearly no adequate ground for this view.

c7.s3.18

³ AID. p. 27. Cf. below, p. 51, n. 1.

c7.s3.19

There is further abundant evidence of the close connexion of the drama with religion; it is attested in the legend of Kṛṣṇa whose feat of slaying Kaṃsa is carried out in the amphitheatre in the presence of the public, where he defeats the wrestlers of his uncle's court, and finally slays the tyrant. The festival of his nativity is essentially a popular spectacle; as developed later, in detail which has often evoked comparison with the Nativity,¹ the young mother, Devakī, is shown on a couch in a stable, with her infant clinging to her; Yaçodā is also there with the little girl, who in the legend meets the fate intended for Kṛṣṇa by Kaṃsa; gods and spirits surround them; Vasudeva stands sword in hand to guard them; the Apsarases sing, the Gandharvas dance, the shepherdesses celebrate the birth, and all night is spent by the audience in gazing at the gay scene. Kṛṣṇa, again, is the lover of the shepherdesses and the inventor of the ardent dance of love, the Rāsamaṇḍala. Of great importance in this regard is the persistence in popularity of the Yātrās, which have survived the decadence of the regular Sanskrit drama. They tell of the loves of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā, his favourite among the Gopīs, for cowherdesses replace in the pastoral the shepherdesses of European idyllic poetry. Kṛṣṇa is by no means a faithful lover, but the end is always the fruition of Rādhā's love for him. And in Jayadeva's *Gītagovinda* we have in literary form² the expression of the substance of the Yātrā, lyric songs, to which must be added the charms of music and the dance. A further consideration of the highest importance attests the influence of the Kṛṣṇa cult: the normal prose language of the drama is Çaurasenī Prākṛit, and we can only suppose that it is so because it was the ordinary speech of the people among whom the drama first developed into definite shape. Once this was established, we may feel assured, the usage would be continued wherever the drama spread; we have modern evidence of the persistence of the Brajbhāshā, the language of the revival of the Kṛṣṇa cult after the Mahomedan invasions in the ancient home of Çaurasenī, as the language of Kṛṣṇa devotion beyond the limits of its natural home.¹ Mathurā, the great centre of Kṛṣṇa worship, still celebrates the Holi festival with rites which resemble the May-day merriment of older England, and still more the phallic orgies of pagan Rome as described by Juvenal. It is an interesting coincidence with the comparison made by Growse² of the Holi and the May-day rites that Haraprasād Śāstrin should have found an explanation of the origin of the Indian drama in the fact that at the preliminaries of the play there is special attention devoted to the salutation of Indra's banner, which is a flagstaff decorated with colours and bunting.³ The Indian legend of the origin of drama tells that, when Bharata was bidden teach on earth the divine art invented by Brahmā, the occasion decided upon was the banner festival (dhvajamaha) of Indra. The Asuras rose in wrath, but Indra seized the staff of his banner and beat them off, whence the staff of the banner (jarjara) is used as a protection at the beginning of the drama. The drama was, therefore, once connected with the ceremonies of bringing in the Maypole from the woods at the close of the winter, but in India this rite fell at the close of the rainy season, and the ceremony was converted into a festival of thanksgiving for Indra's victory over the clouds, the Asuras. The theory in itself is inadequate, but the preliminaries of the drama are sufficient to show the extraordinary importance attached to propitiation of the gods, a relic of the old religious service, which would be quite out of place if the origin of the drama had been secular.

c7.s3.20

¹ Weber, *Ueber die Kṛṣṇajanmāṣṭamī* (1868).

c7.s3.21

² The influence of the Kṛṣṇa legend is suggested on the *Vikramorvaçī*; Gawroński, *Les sources de quelques drames indiens*, pp. 33 ff. Cf. below, p. 130.

c7.s3.22

¹ Lévi, Tl. i. 331 f. Cf. Bloch, Langue Marathe, pp ix. 12 f.

c7.s3.23

² Mathurā, pp. 91 f., 101 f.

c7.s3.24

³ JPASB. v. 351 ff.

c7.s3.25

The importance of Kṛṣṇa must not cause us to ignore the prominent place occupied by Çiva in the history of the drama.

c7.s3.26

To him and his spouse are ascribed the invention of the Tāṇḍava¹ and the Lāsya, the violent and the tender and seductive dances, which are so important an element in the representation of a play. Nor is it surprising that a god who in the Vedic period itself is hailed as the patron of men of every profession and occupation should be regarded as the special patron of the artists. But it is probable that this importance in the drama is later than that of Kṛṣṇa, and it is not without significance that Bhāsa, who is older than any of the other classical dramatists, unlike them, celebrates in full Kṛṣṇa, and is a Vaiṣṇava, while Ṣūdraka, Kālidāsa, Harṣa, and Bhavabhūti alike are adorers of Ṣiva in their prefaces. The *Mālavikāgnimitra* of Kālidāsa introduces a dancing-master who speaks of the creation of the dance by the god and its close connexion with the drama. The sect of the Pāṣupatas, adorers of Ṣiva as lord of creatures, include in their ritual the song and the dance, the latter consisting in expressing the sentiments of the devotees by means of corporeal movement in accord with the rules of the *Nāṭyaṣāstra*. In the decadent ceremonial of the Tantras the ritual includes the representation of Ṣiva by men, and of his spouse as Ṣakti, female energy, by women.

c7.s3.27

¹ Megasthenes ascribed the Kordax to the Indian Dionysos (Ṣiva); Arrian, *Ind.* 7. Bloch (ZDMG. lxii. 655) exaggerates his importance.

c7.s3.28

The part of Rāma in the growth of drama was certainly not less important than that of Kṛṣṇa himself, for the recitation of the *Rāmāyaṇa* was popular throughout the country, and has persisted in vogue. The popularity of the story is proved to the full by the effect of the Rām-Līlā or Daṣārha festival, at which the story is presented in dumb show, children taking the places of Rāma, Sītā, and Lakṣmaṇa before a vast concourse of pilgrims and others. No effort is made to speak the parts, but a series of tableaux recalls to the minds of the devotees, to whom the whole tale is familiar, the course of the history of the hero, his banishment, his search for Sītā, and his final triumph. In Rāma’s case the influence of the epic on the drama appears in its full development.²

c7.s3.29

² Cf. Ridgeway, *Dramas and Dramatic Dances*, p. 190, and pp. 192 ff. on modern Indian drama in general.

c7.s3.30

The religious importance of the drama is seen distinctly in the attitude of the Buddhists towards it.¹ The extreme dubiety of the date of the Buddhist Suttas renders it impossible to come to any satisfactory decision regarding the existence of drama at any early date, while the terms employed, such as Visūkadassana, Nacca, and Pekkhā, and the reference to Samajjas leave us wholly without any ground for belief in an actual drama. We see, however, that the objection of the sacred Canon to monks engaging in the amusement of watching these shows, whatever their nature, was gradually overcome, and it is an important fact that the earliest dramas known to us by fragments are the Buddhist dramas of Açvaghoṣa. With the acceptance of the drama, the *Lalitavistara*² does not hesitate to speak of the Buddha as including knowledge of the drama as among his accomplishments; the Buddha is even called one who has entered to gaze on the drama of the Great Law. The legend is willing to admit that even in Buddha’s time there were dramas, for Bimbisāra had one performed in honour of a pair of Nāga kings,³ and the *Avadānaçataka*,⁴ a collection of pious tales, places the drama in remote antiquity. It was performed by the bidding of Krakucchanda, a far distant Buddha in the city Çobhāvatī by a troupe of actors; the director undertook the rôle of the Buddha himself, while the other members of the troupe took the rôle of monks; the same troupe in a later age, under Gautama the Buddha himself, performed at Rājagṛha, the actress Kuvalayā gaining enormous fame, and seducing the monks, until the Buddha terminated her career by turning her into a hideous old woman. She then repented and attained the rank of a saint. The same idea of a play bearing on the life of the Buddha himself is preserved in another tale in Tibet where an actor from the south sets up in rivalry with the monks in giving representations of the life of the Buddha. These Buddhist dramas have left their imprint on the form of the *Saddharmapuṇḍarīka*, the Lotus of the Good Law, itself, which has none of the epic character of the *Lalitavistara*, but is presented as a series of dialogues in which the Buddha himself, now supernatural, is the chief, but not the only interlocutor. The same love of the Buddhists for artistic effects is seen in the use of music, song, dance, and some scenic effects in the ceremonial attaching to the foundation of Thūpas in Ceylon by a prince of the royal house; the *Mahāvaṃsa* assumes that dramas were displayed on such occasions, though this may be an anachronism. The frescoes of Ajaṇṭā show the keen appreciation felt for music, song, and the dance, though they date from a time when there is certain evidence of the full existence of the drama. We find also in Tibet¹ the relics of ancient popular religious plays in the contests between the spirits of good and those of evil for mankind, which are part of the spring and autumn festivals. The actors wear strange garments and masks; monks represent the good spirits, laymen the evil spirits of men. The whole company first sings prayers and benedictions; then an evil spirit seeks to seduce into evil a man; he would yield but for the intervention of his friends; the evil spirits then arrive in force, a struggle ensues, in which the men would be defeated but for the intervention of the good spirits, and the whole ends with the chasing away with blows of the representatives of the spirits of evil.

c7.s3.31

¹ Lévi, TI. i. 319 ff. That any of the early Buddhist texts (e.g. *Padhānasutta*, *Pabbajjāsutta*; *Mārasamyutta*, *Bhikkhunisamyutta*; *Chaddanta*-, *Ummadantī*-, *Mahā-janaka*-, or *Candakinnara-jātaka*; *Theragāthā*, 866 ff.; *Therīgāthā*, 912 ff.) is really dramatic is out of the question; cf. Winternitz, VOJ. xxvii. 38 f.

c7.s3.32

² xii. p. 178. Drama is alluded to in *Divyāvadāna*, pp. 357, 360, 361.

c7.s3.33

³ Schiefner, IS. iii. 483, *Indian Tales*, pp. 236 ff.

c7.s3.34

⁴ ii. 24 (75).

c7.s3.35

¹ E. Schlagintweit, *Buddhism in Tibet*, p. 233; JASB. 1865, p. 71. Ridgeway's *Dramas, &c.*, ignores Tibet. For similar Chinese performances, see *Annales Guimet*, xii. 416 f.

c7.s3.36

With Jainism it is as with Buddhism; we find censure of such ideal enjoyments as the arts akin to the drama, but also recognition of song, music, dance, and scenic presentations in the Canon.² But it is hopeless, in view of the utter uncertainty of the date of that collection, to draw any conclusion from it as to the age of the drama. As in the case of Buddhism, Jainism in its development was glad to have recourse to the drama as a means of propagating its beliefs.³

c7.s3.37

² *Āyāraṃga Sutta*, ii. 11. 14; *Rājapraṇīya*, IS. xvi. 385. The love of the Indians for song and dance is recorded by Greek tradition; Arrian, *Anabasis*, vi. 2.

c7.s3.38

³ Unfortunately the date of this change of view is uncertain. No early Jain drama is certainly recorded. A number of mediaeval works have recently been printed; see E. Hultzsch, ZDMG. lxxv. 59 ff.

c7.s3.39

The evidence is conclusive on the close connexion of religion and the drama, and it strongly suggests that it was from religion that the decisive impulse to dramatic creation was given. The importance of the epic is doubtless enormous, but the mere recitation of the epics, however closely it might approach to the drama, does not overstep the bounds. The element which fails to be added is that of the dramatic contest, the Agon of the Greek drama. That this was supplied by the development of such primitive vegetation rituals as that of the Mahāvrata, until they assumed the concrete and human form of the Kṛṣṇa and Kaṃsa legend would be a conjecture worth consideration, but without possibility of proof if we had not the notice of the *Mahābhāṣya* which expressly shows that the story of Kṛṣṇa and Kaṃsa could both be represented by Granthikas, who coloured their faces and expressed vividly the emotions of those whom they represented, but also, in dumb show seemingly, by Ṣaubhikas. If there did not exist an Indian drama proper, in which these sides were combined when Patañjali wrote, it is fair to say that it would be surprising if it did not develop shortly afterwards, and we have perfectly certain proof that the Naṭas of Patañjali were much more than dancers or acrobats; they sang and recited. The balance of probability, therefore, is that the Sanskrit drama came into being shortly after, if not before, the middle of the second century B.C., and that it was evoked by the combination of epic recitations with the dramatic moment of the Kṛṣṇa legend, in which a young god strives against and overcomes enemies.

c7.s3.40

The drama which was nascent in Patañjali’s time must be taken to have been, like the classical drama, one in which Sanskrit was mingled with Prākṛit in the speeches of the characters. The epic recitations of the slaying of Kaṃsa which he records must have been in Sanskrit, but, if the drama was to be popular—and the *Nāṭyaçāstra* in its tale of the origin of the art recognizes both its epic and popular characteristics, the humble people who figured in it must have been allowed to speak in their own vernacular; this accords brilliantly with the presence of Ṣaurasenī as the normal prose of the drama of the classical stage. A different view is taken by Professor Lévi,¹ who conceives that the drama sprang first into being in Prākṛit, while Sanskrit was only later applied at the time when Sanskrit, long reserved as a sacred language, re-entered into use as the language of literature; India, he contends, was never anxious for contact with reality, and it is absurd to suppose that the mixture of languages was adopted as a representation of the actual speech-usage of the time and circles in which drama came into being. This contention is supported by the observation that a number of the technical terms of the Nāṭyaçāstra are of strange appearance, and the frequency of cerebral letters in them suggests Prākṛit origin. The contention can hardly be treated as satisfactory, nor is it clear how it can possibly be reconciled with the evidence of Patañjali. The early drama, it seems clear, was not secular in origin, and Professor Lévi emphasizes its dependence on the cult of Kṛṣṇa; to refuse to use Sanskrit in it, therefore, would be extremely strange, unless we are to assume that the existence of true drama goes back to a period considerably earlier than Patañjali, and that it came into being among a milieu which was not Brahminical. There are very serious difficulties in such a theory; we may legitimately hold that such a literary form as the true drama was not created until the Brahmin genius fused the ethic and religious agonistic motives into a new creation of the highest importance for the literary history of India. The presence of a number of Prākṛit terms in the Nāṭyaçāstra is probable, but it does not mean that a theory of drama was first excogitated in Prākṛit; the main theory in all its essentials is expressed in Sanskrit, and all that is borrowed from Prākṛit is some technical terms of subsidiary importance, borrowed, doubtless, from the minor arts, which go to aid but do not constitute the drama, song, music, dancing, and the mimetic art.

c7.s3.41

¹ JA. sér. 9, xix. 95 ff. If this had been the case, one would have found references freely to the literature in Hāla, where only v. 344 alludes to the Pūrvaraṅga of the Nāṭaka (*raiṇāḍaapuvvaraṃgassa*).

c7.s3.42

The religious origin of the Sanskrit drama in Kṛṣṇa worship is also admitted as part, however, of a wider thesis by Dr. Ridgeway,¹ who contends that Greek drama, and drama all over the world, are the outcome of the reverence paid to the spirits of the dead, which again is the source of all religion, a revival in fact of the doctrine of animism in one of its connotations. The contention as applied to the Indian drama involves the view that the actors in the primitive drama were representatives of the spirits of the dead, and that the performance was meant to gratify the dead. It is supported by the doctrine that not only Rāma and Kṛṣṇa were believed once to be men, but that Çiva himself had this origin;¹ all gods indeed are derived from the memory of noble men. The evidence adduced for this thesis is simply non-existent. A valuable collection of material due to Sir J. H. Marshall proves the prevalence throughout India of popular dramatic performances celebrating the deeds of Rāma and Kṛṣṇa, and the modern Indian drama deals also with the lives of distinguished historical characters such as Açoka or Candragupta. But there is nothing to show that the idea of gratifying the dead by the performances of dramatic scenes based on their history was ever present to any mind in India, either early or late. Rāma and Kṛṣṇa to their worshippers were long before the rise of so late an art as drama, just like Çiva, great gods, of whom it would be absurd to think as dead men requiring funeral rites to give them pleasure. Nor is it necessary further to criticize his reconstruction of Vedic religion on the basis of his animistic theory, for these issues of origins have no possible relevance to the specific question of the origin of the Indian drama. Whether elsewhere the worship of the dead resulted in drama is a matter open to grave doubt; certainly in the case of the Greek drama, which offers the most interesting parallel to that of India, the evidence of derivation from funeral games is wholly defective.

c7.s3.43

¹ The Origin of Tragedy (1910); Dramas and Dramatic Dances of non-European Races (1915); JRAS. 1916, pp. 821 ff.; Keith, JRAS. 1916, pp. 335 ff.; 1917, pp. 140 ff. G. Norwood (Greek Tragedy, pp. 2 f.) rejects Ridgeway's view for Greece, and see Keith, JRAS. 1912, pp. 411 ff.

c7.s3.44

¹ *Drama, &c.*, p. 129 asserts this as the view of 'the best authorities'; very wisely he does not refer to these amazing authorities. Cf. E. Arbman, *Rudra* (Uppsala, 1922); Keith, *Indian Mythology*, pp. 81 ff.

c7.s3.45

Definite support for this view of the origin of drama may be found in the accounts of dramatic performances which are given in the *Harivaṅça*, the supplement of the *Mahābhārata*. That work cannot, as has been mentioned, be dated with any certainty or probability earlier than the dramas of Açvaghoṣa, and, therefore, it cannot be appealed to as the earliest mention now extant of the dramatic art. But it is of value as showing how closely connected the drama was in early times with the Kṛṣṇa cult, thus supplementing the conclusions to be derived from the *Mahābhāṣya*, and falling into line with the evidence of Bhāsa.

c7.s3.46

At the festival performed by the Yādavas after the death of Andhaka, we find that the women of the place danced and sang to music, while Kṛṣṇa induced celestial nymphs to aid the merriment by similar exhibitions, including a representation by the Apsarases, apparently by dancing, of the death of Kaṃsa and Pralamba, the fall of Cāṇūra in the amphitheatre, and various other exploits of Kṛṣṇa. After they had performed, the sage Nārada amused the audience by a series of what may fairly be called comic turns; he imitated the gestures, the movements, and even the laughter of such distinguished personages as Satyabhāmā, Keçava, Arjuna, Baladeva, and the young princess, the daughter of Revata, causing infinite amusement to the audience, and reminding us of the part played by the Vidūṣaka in the drama. The Yādavas then supped, and this enjoyment was followed by further songs and dances by the Apsarases, whose performance thus resembled a modern ballet with songs interspersed.¹

c7.s3.47

¹ ii. 88.

c7.s3.48

In a later passage² in connexion with the story of the demon Vajranābha, whom Indra asked Kṛṣṇa to dispose of, we learn of an actor Bhadra who delighted all by his excellent power of representation; Vajranābha is induced to demand his presence in his abode, and Kṛṣṇa's son Pradyumna and his friends disguise themselves to penetrate there; Pradyumna is to be the hero, Sāmba the Vidūṣaka, and Gada the assistant of the stage director, while maidens, skilled in song, dance, and music, are the actresses; they delight the demons by presenting the story of Viṣṇu's descent on earth to slay the chief of the Rākṣasas, a dramatised version of the *Rāmāyaṇa*, presenting the figures of Rāma, his brother, and in special the episode of Ṛṣyaçṛṅga and Çāntā, that curious old legend based on a fertility- and rain-ritual.³ After the play the actors showed their skill in depicting situations suggested by their hosts, and Vajranābha himself induces them to perform an episode from the legend of Kubera, the rendezvous of Rambhā; after music from the orchestra the actresses sing, Pradyumna enters and recites the benediction, and then a verse on the descent of the Ganges, which is connected with the subject-matter of the piece; he then assumes the role of Nalakūbara, Sāmba is his Vidūṣaka, Çūra plays Rāvaṇa, Manovatī Rambhā. Nalakūbara curses Rāvaṇa, and consoles Rambhā, and the audience was delighted by the skilled acting of the Yādavas, who by a magic illusion had presented mount Kailāsa on the stage.

First 84 of 214 passages. Read on

Linked texts (69)