The History of Indian Literature c9.56.2

c9.56.2

Páṇini further cites [§] the word *náṭyam* in the sense of ‘*naṭánáṃ dharma ámnáyo vá*.’ In both cases, we have probably to understand by the term the art of dancing, and not dramatic art.—It has been uniformly held hitherto that the Indian drama arose, after the manner of our modern drama in the Middle Ages, out of religious solemnities and spectacles (so-called ‘mysteries’), and also that dancing originally subserved religious purposes. But in support of this latter assumption, I have not met with one single instance in the Śrauta- or Gṛihya-Sútras with which I am acquainted (though of the latter, I confess, I have only a very superficial knowledge).²⁰⁹ The religious significance of dancing is thus, for the older period at least, still questionable; and since it is from dancing that the drama has evidently sprung, the original connection of the latter with religious solemnities and spectacles becomes doubtful also. Besides, there is the fact that it is precisely the most ancient dramas that draw their subjects from civil life; while the most modern, on the contrary, almost exclusively serve religious purposes. Thus the contrary, rather, would seem to be the case, namely, that the employment of dancing[^asterisk] and of the drama at religious solemnities was only the growth of a later age.²¹⁰ This does not imply, however, that dancing was excluded from those great sacrificial festivals which were now and then celebrated by princes;