Introduction to Theatre in India » Sanskrit Drama 6/19/16, 8:01 AM

Sanskrit Drama
Sanskrit?
Sanskrit drama emerges in fragments and short pieces
Highly literary and poetic, the
beginning in the first century, CE, and continuing to the
Sanskrit dramas had an elite
tenth century. audience in mind. Sanskrit is a
highly-inflected, Indo-European
language, related to classical
The most commonly read and performed examples of Greek and Latin. It was primarily a
Sanskrit drama include plays by Bhasa, Shudraka, and, literary language employed for
documenting the affairs of state
especially, Kalidasa. The work of all three of these and for composing literary art.
playwrights comes within the first three or four centuries of Not only was Sanskrit the language
the tradition. of the elite and educated, the
Sanskrit dramas are dense with
poetic devices, literary, mythic,
The plays often concern the exploits of the kings and and historical allusion, and literary
heroes of history. As with the Greek tragedies, ‘historical’ devices and ornaments of all sorts.
Furthermore, the stories that the
figures of Sanskrit drama include mythical persons and the plays dramatize tend to reinforce
subjects of epic poetry. Supernatural beings of several upper-class authority and values.
At first glance, the Sanskrit
varieties play important roles in the stories of Sanskrit dramas seem to be very exclusive.
drama. Important characters in Sanskrit dramas also come On the other hand, there isn’t all
from the middle and lower classes, including soldiers, that much Sanskrit in Sanskrit
dramas.
merchants, and hermits and sages. Of the two principal
Only the most elite characters in
types of dramas, the Nataka plays feature stories about the plays—divine beings, kings,
and brahmans—speak Sanskrit.
kings and divine beings. The Prakarana plays concern
Other characters, including
stories that revolve around middle-class characters. soldiers, merchants, townspeople,
etc., and very nearly all women,
With very, very few exceptions, the three hundred, or so, speak a variety of colloquial
languages referred to, collectively,
Sanskrit dramas that we have end happily, with conflicts as Prakrits. Which means that
comfortably resolved. The king and his wife are reunited. characters occupying the stage
together, and carrying on
The king discovers a son. The girl’s discovery of her royal conversations with each other, are
very often speaking different
or divine parentage clears the way to marry into the royal
languages.
family. Even an exception like Bhasa’s Urubhangam, which Imagine a play in which a king and
concludes with the morose death of its protagonist, does his closest advisors speak Latin,
while his queen and lesser
not affirm the sense of futility or the nihilistic worldview
members of the court speak
that figures so prominently in Greek tragedy. Sanskrit Italian, and the merchants and
townspeople who conduct
drama consistently regards existence as orderly and business around the capitol speak
predictable. Conflict in the plays occurs as individuals Spanish and Romanian.

make attempts to act outside of an order sustained, if not Sanskrit dramas, therefore, must

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Introduction to Theatre in India » Sanskrit Drama 6/19/16, 8:01 AM

established, by divine forces, and all such attempts are have appealed to a relatively
diverse audience. The plays
redirected so as to bring characters back into their include so much Prakrit dialogue
ordained places. Even so, the plays are not necessarily that the wider population of people
who could not access Sanskrit
predictable, since the characters themselves don’t always would, nevertheless, have been
realize exactly what their ordained places are until they able to follow a performance of a
so-called Sanskrit drama just fine.
suddenly occupy them. The king and his wife are
supposed to be together. The king is supposed to have a son. The girl was royalty all
along.

The action of Sanskrit dramas includes precious little action. Most often, the potentially
exciting moments of a drama occur offstage and are related to characters onstage by way
of messengers, letters, or eye-witnesses who can see what is happening out of view of
the other characters (and out of the view of the audience). Although the plots commonly
involve battles, kidnappings, flying demons, and rampaging elephants, what we get
onstage in a Sanskrit drama is dialogue about kidnappings and elephants, and so forth.
Nevertheless, as in many other dramatic traditions around the world, Sanskrit drama
creates and sustains tension through the plans that characters lay in dialogue with each
other, the obstacles that arise to prevent those plans from coming to fruition, and the
ways that characters maneuver to accomplish their aims, anyway.

The dialogue of Sanskrit drama consists of both verse and prose. Within a single, unified
speech, a character may slip out of prose and into verse and back into prose several
times. Dense with figurative speech and imagery, the verses demonstrate the
playwright’s poetic skill. Because the the verse in his play Shakuntala, the playwright
Kalidasa, for instance, is, perhaps, regarded in India more as a poet than as a dramatist.

Besides the dramatic literature that survive from the period, the tradition of Sanskrit
theatre gives us some practical information about play performance and also a theory
about how we experience theatre.

The Natyashastra, an encyclopedic volume dating from between the first and fourth
centuries, CE, touches on almost every practical aspect of theatrical art, and it speculates
in a theoretical-philosophical way about how theatre affects an audience. The concept it
dubs rasa is still essential to Indian aesthetics.

The following unit examines the work of the best-known Sanskrit playwrights, provides an
overview of some representative portions of the Natyashastra, and offers an approach to

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Introduction to Theatre in India » Sanskrit Drama 6/19/16, 8:01 AM

the complex idea that is rasa.

The Natyashastra
Bhasa
Kalidasa
Shudraka

The Sanskrit Prologue

In production, performances were preceded by elaborate preliminary rituals, collectively

known as purvaranga. The one element of these rites commonly documented by the play
scripts themselves is the nandi, a kind of opening prayer consisting of several lines of
verse that acknowledge divine authority over the space and time of the production. Most
often, Shiva is the subject of the nandi. The first piece of text in most Sanskrit plays,
then, is the nandi.

What generally follows the nandi is a dramatic prologue, involving a short conversation
between the production’s director and an actor or other member of the performing
troupe. These brief conversations serve to introduce the title and author of the play, and
may also preview the major themes of the play to follow. Bhasa’s prologues tend to be
very brief and formulaic. As an example, the prologue of his play Karnabharam consists
entirely of the following:

Stage-manager. With these words, my lords and gentlemen, I have to announce to

you—But what is that? I thought I heard a noise just as I was to make my
anouncement. Well, I must see what it is.

(Voice behind the scene.) Ho there, take word to his Highness the King of the Angas.

Stage-manager. Good, I understand. A flurried servitor with folded hands brings

word to Karna at Duryodhana’s behest that the battle grows tumultuous. (Exit.)

(translation by A. C. Woolner and Lakshman Sarup)

The prologues of Kalidasa, on the other hand, tend to be more elaborate and thematic. In
the prologue to Shakuntala, the director calls an actress to the stage to sing an
introductory song for the performance. The song is so lovely that by the time the actress
has finished, the director has forgotten what play the troupe is to present. The prologue

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Introduction to Theatre in India » Sanskrit Drama 6/19/16, 8:01 AM

here previews the themes of (weak) memory and reminders that move the play.

As a device, the prologue of Sanskrit dramas provides an interface between the audience
and the play. In the brief prologue from Bhasa’s Karnabharam included above, the ‘stage-
manager’ speaks directly to the assembled audience and, then, hears Duryodhana’s
messenger speaking from an area behind the stage. For the stage-manager whose
company is producing the performance, the audience to whom the stage-manager
speaks is a real audience. For the ‘stage-manager’ who is a character in Bhasa’s play,
Duryodhana’s messenger is real. The stage-manager, then, occupies a space in between
the world of the audience and the world of the play, and he brings the two world’s
together in the way he interacts with audience and play.

We might say that the stage-manager in the prologues of Sanskrit dramas serves to
facilitate the audience’s transition from their real world into the pretend world of the
performance. Perhaps, the stage-manager helps audiences ‘suspend their disbelief’, so
as to engage more fully with the world of the play.

However, such a superficial reading of the prologues and of the stage-manager ignores
the fundamentally theatrical worldview that pervades India, as articulated in the Bhagavad
Gita.

Further Reading

Miller, Barbara Stoller, ed. Theatre of Memory: The Plays of Kalidasa. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1984.

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