A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s2.15

v3.c35.s2.15

³ When Regnaud (cf. Lévi 299 f., Oldenberg, LAI 205) gives "the first century of the Christian era" as the time of Bharata, his statement is as much unfounded as that of Pischel (GGA 1885, 763 f.) when he comes down to the 6th or 7th century A.D. P. R. Bhandarkar (Ind. Ant. 41, 1912, 158 f.) rightly explains that it will be futile to attempt to determine the age of the author of the Nāṭyaśāstra, since it is a remodelled work. He believes with regard to the chapter on music especially that its age can never be earlier than the 4th century. Haraprasād Śāstri (JASB 6, 1910, 307) conjectures that the Nātvaśāstra belongs to the 2nd century A.D. Jacobi (Bhavisatta Kaha von Dhaṇavāla p. 84) "perhaps to the 3rd century". P.V. Kane (Ind. Ant. 46, 1917, 177 ff.) shows that Bhāratīya-Nāṭyaśāstra could not have been written later than the 3rd century A.D.