The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c7.24

c7.24

I have been present at these exhibitions. The theatre is either in the open air, or under a slight temporary covering;¹³ but sometimes large enough to contain several thousand spectators. On these occasions, they have regular rows of forms and benches, on which the audience seat themselves. The men and women are intermixed as in our play houses. This is an amiable and remarkable contrast with the manners and jealous reserve of other parts of India. I have seen probably two thousand men and women assembled and sitting close together to witness one of these exhibitions. This, however, was on a great occasion of the marriage of a Raja's daughter. There was a very large *pendall* erected, with rows of seats one above another, for the accommodation of the audience. The dramatist personae were gods, goddesses, kings, heroes and their attendants. The actors were dressed, suitably as they imagined to the characters they represented, but there was no machinery employed. The whole of the scenery consisted of a sheet or a calampoe, which formed a curtain.