The University of Nalanda c13.144

c13.144

But of greater importance than the identification of various amusements are the expressions such as “Mimicking other people’s acts,” “Exhibiting signs of anger,” and the last lines which speak of dancing. In these, perhaps, there is an allusion to the drama. And if it can be proved that the art of dramatising had developed so early as the 5th century B.C. much new light can be thrown upon the alleged Greek influence on the Indian drama. An exhaustive and critical study of all Buddhist works, prior to the invasion of Alexander the Great, with whom many actors and others are believed to have come to India and implanted the Greek drama—especially its peculiarities, for instance, the *Yavanikā*—would bring nearer the solution of the vexed problem. There is no doubt that the games spoken of, including the drama, belong to the pre-Alexander invasion, and to the Buddha and the post-Buddha period. For even allowing a space of a hundred years to elapse in which the *Vinaya Texts* came to be collected and, so to say, codified, to meet the argument that the games referred to may not really have existed in the time of Buddha, but may have reference to things found in the years that followed the death of Buddha, even then, the original theory remains untouched. And even if references to the games of the Buddha-age be disproved, they will and must refer to the interval between the death of Buddha and the Greek invasion, during which period the various *Vinaya Texts* came to be codified.