The Old Indian Theatre
The discovery by Europe of the old
Indian drama led immediately to suggestions that it had its origin in, or had
been greatly influenced by, Greek drama. There was some plausibility in the
theory, for till then no other ancient drama had been known to exist, and after
Alexander's raid Hellenized states were established on the frontiers of India.
These states continued to function for several centuries and Greek theatrical
representations must have been known there. This question was closely
scrutinized and debated by European scholars throughout the nineteenth century.
It is now generally admitted that the Indian theatre was entirely independent
in its origins, in the ideas which governed it, and in its development. Its
earliest beginnings can be traced back to the hymns and dialogues of the Rig
Veda which have a certain dramatic character. There are references to Nataka
or the drama in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. It began to take shape in
the song and music and dances of the Krishna legends. Panini, the great
grammarian of the sixth or seventh century B.C., men-tions some dramatic
forms.
A
treatise on the Art of the Theatre—the Natya-Shftstra—is said to date
from the third century A.C. but this was evidently based or previous
books on the subject. Such a book could only be written when the dramatic art
was fully developed and pub-lic representations were common. A considerable
literature must have preceded it, and behind it must lie many centuries of
gradual progress. Recently an ancient playhouse, dating from the second century
B.C., has been unearthed in the Ramgarh Hills in Chota Nagpur. It is
significant that this playhouse fits in with the general description of
theatres given in the Natya- Shastra.
It
is now believed that the regular Sanskrit drama was fully established by the
third century B.C., though some scholars take the date back to the fifth
century. In the plays that we have, mention is often made of earlier authors
and plays which have not so far been found. One such lost author was Bhasa,
highly praised by many subsequent dramatists. Early in this century a bunch of
thirteen of his plays was discovered. Probably the earliest Sanskrit plays so
far discovered, are those of Ashvaghosa, who lived just before or after the
beginning of the Christian era. These are really fragments only of manuscripts
on palm leaves, and they were discovered, strangely enough, at Turfan on the
borders of the Gobi desert. Ashvaghosa was a pious Buddhist and wrote also the Buddha
Charita, a life of the Buddha, which was well known and had long been
popular in India and China and Tibet. The Chinese translation, made in a past
age, was by an Indian scholar.
These discoveries
have given a new perspective to the history of the old Indian drama and it may
be that further discoveries and finds will throw more light on this fascinating
development of Indian culture. For, as Sylvain Levi has written in his 'Le
Theatre Indien': 'Le theatre est la plus haute expression de la civilisation
qui l'enfante. Qu'il traduise ou qu'il interprete la vie reelle, il est tenu de
la resumer sous une forme frappante, ddgagee des accessoires insignificants,
generalisee dans un symbole. L'originalite de 1'Inde s'est exprimee tout entire
dans son art dramatique; elle y a combine et condense ses dogmes, ses doct-rines,
ses institutions....'
Europe first learned
of the old Indian drama from Sir Wil-liam Jones's translation of Kalidasa's
'Shakuntala', published in 1789. Something in the nature of a commotion was
created among European intellectuals by this discovery and several edi-tions of
the book followed. Translations also appeared (made from Sir William Jones's
translation) in German, French, Danish, and Italian. Goethe was powerfully
impressed and he paid a magnificent tribute to 'Shakuntala'. The idea of giving
a pro-logue to Faust is said to have originated from Kalidasa's prologue, which
was in accordance with the usual tradition of the Sanskrit drama (There is a
tendency on the part of Indian writers, to which I have also partly succumbed,
to give selected extracts and quotations from the writings of European scholars
in praise of old Indian literature and philosophy. It would be equally easy,
and indeed much easier, to give other extracts giving an exactly opposite
viewpoint. The discovery by the European scho-lars of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries of Indian thought and philosophy led to an outburst of
admiration and enthusiasm. There was a feeling that these filled a need,
some-thing that European culture had been unable to do. Then there was a
reaction away from this attitude and criticism and scepticism grew. This was
caused by a feeling that the philosophy was formless and diffuse and a dislike
of the rigid caste structure of Indian society. Both these reactions in favour
and against, were based on very incomplete knowledge of old Indian literature.
Goethe himself moved from one opinion to the other, and while he acknow-ledged
the tremendous stimulus of Indian thought on western civilization, he refused
to submit to its far reaching influence. This dual and conflicting approach has
been characteristic of the European mind in regard to India. In recent years
that great European and typical product of the best European culture, Romain
Rolland, made a more synthetic and very friendly approach to the basic foundations
of Indian tought: For him East and West represented different phases of the
eternal struggle of the human soul. On this subject— Western reaction to Indian
thought—Mr. Alex Aronson, of Santiniketan University, has written with learning
and ability.
Kalidasa is acknowledged
to be the greatest poet and
dramatist of Sanskrit literature. 'Le nom de Kalidasa,' says Professor Sylvain
Levi, 'domine la po6sie indienne et la resume brillam-ment. Le drame, l'epopee
savante. l'elegie attestent aujourd'hui encore la puissance et la
souplesse de ce magnifique g6nie; seul entre les disciples de Sarasvati
(the goddess of learning and the arts), il a eu le bonheur de produire un chef
doe'uvre vraiment classique, oil l'Inde s'admire et ou l'humanitd se
re-connait. Les applaudissements qui saluferent la naissance de Gakuntala k
Ujjayini ont apr£s de long siecles delate d'un bout du monde a l'autre,
quand William Jones l'eut revels k l'Occident. Kalidasa a marque sa
place dans cette pleiade entincelante ou chaque nom resume une periode de
l'esprit humain. La serie de ces noms forme l'histoire, ou plutot elle est
l'histoire meme.'
Kalidasa
wrote other plays also and some long poems. His date is uncertain but very
probably he lived towards the end of the fourth century A.c. at Ujjayini during
the reign of Ghandragupta II, Vikramaditya of the Gupta dynasty. Tradi-tion
says that he was one of the nine gems of the court, and there is no doubt that
his genius was appreciated and he met with full recognition during his life. He
was among the fortunate whom life treated as a cherished son and who
experienced its beauty and tenderness more than its harsh and rough edges. His
writings betray this love of life and a passion for nature's beauty.One of Kalidasa's long poems is the Meghaduta, the
Cloud Messenger. A lover, made captive and separated from his beloved, asks a
cloud, during the rainy season, to carry his message of desperate longing to
her. To this poem and to Kalidasa, the American scholar, Ryder, has paid a
splendid tribute. He refers to the two parts of the poem and says: 'The former
half is a description of external nature, yet interwoven with human feel-ing;
the latter half is a picture of a human heart, yet the picture is framed in
natural beauty. So exquisitely is the thing done that none can say which half
is superior. Of those who read this perfect poem in the original text, some are
moved by the one, some by the other. Kalidasa understood in the fifth century
what Europe did not learn until the nineteenth, and even now comprehends only
imperfectly, that the world was not made for man, that man reaches his full
stature only as he realizes the dignity and worth of life that is not human. That
Kalidasa seized this truth is a magnificent tribute to his intellectual power,
a quality quite as necessary to great poetry as perfection of form. Poetical
fluency is not rare; intellectual grasp is not very un-common; but the
combination of the two has not been found perhaps more than a dozen times since
the world began. Be-cause he possessed this harmonious combination, Kalidasa
ranks not with Anacreon and Horace and Shelley, but with Sophocles, Virgil, and
Milton.'Probably long before
Kalidasa, another famous play was produced—Shudraka's 'Mrichhkatika' or the
Clay Cart, a tender rather artificial play, and yet with a reality which moves
us and gives us a glimpse into the mind and civilization of the day.
About 400 A.C.,
also during the reign of Chandragupta II, yet another notable play was
produced, Vishakadatta's 'Mudra-Rakshasa' or the signet ring. This is a purely
political play with no love motive or story from mythology. It deals with the
times of Chandragupta Maurya, and his chief minister, Chanakya, the author of
the ArthashSstra, is the hero. In some ways it is a remarkably topical play
to-day.
Harsha, the king, who
established a new empire early in the seventh century A.C., was also a
playwright and we have three plays written by him. About 700 A.C. there
lived Bhavabhuti, another shining star in Sanskrit literature. He does not
yield himself easily to translation for his beauty is chiefly of language, but
he is very popular in India, and only Kalidasa has prece-dence over him.
Wilson, who used to be professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University, has said of
these two: 'It is impossible to conceive language so beautifully musical, or so
magnificently grand, as that of the verses of Bhavabhuti and Kalidasa.'
The stream of
Sanskrit drama continued to flow for centuries, but after Murari, early in the
ninth century, there is a marked delcine in the quality. That decline, and a
progressive decay were becoming visible also in other forms of life's
activities. It has been suggested that this decline of the drama may be partly
due to the lack of royal patronage during the Indo-Afghan and Moghul periods
and the Islamic disapproval of the drama as an art-form, chiefly because of its
intimate association with the national religion. For this literary drama, apart
from the popular aspects which continued, was highbrow and sophisticated and
dependent on aristocratic patronage. But there is little substance in this
argument though it is possible that political changes at the top had some
indirect effect. As a matter of fact the decline of the Sanskrit drama was
obvious long before those political changes took place. And even those changes
were con-fined for some centuries to north India, and if this drama had any
vitality left it could have continued its creative career in the south.
The record of the
Indo-Afghan, Turkish, and Moghul rulers, apart from some brief puritanical
periods, is one of definite encouragement of Indian culture, occasionally with
variations and additions to it. Indian music was adopted as a whole and with
enthusiasm by the Moslem Courts and the nobility and some of its greatest
masters have been Moslems. Literature and poetry were also encouraged and among
the noted poets in Hindi are Moslems. Ibrahim Adil Shah, the ruler of Bijapur,
wrote a treatise in Hindi on Indian music.
Both Indian poetry
and music were full of references to the Hindu gods and goddesses and yet they
were accepted and the old allegories and metaphors continued. It might be said
that except in regard to actual image-making no attempt was made by Moslem
rulers, apart from a few exceptions, to suppress any art-form.
The Sanskrit drama
declined because much in India was declining in those days and the creative
spirit was lessening. It declined long before the Afghans and Turks established
them-selves on the throne of Delhi. Subsequently Sanskrit had to com-pete to
some extent as the learned language of the nobility with Persian. But one
obvious reason appears to have been the ever-widening gap between the language
of the Sanskrit drama and the languages of day-to-day life. By 1000 A.C.
the popular spoken languages, out of which our modern languages have grown,
were beginning to take literary forms. Yet, in spite of all this, it is astonishing
how the Sanskrit drama continued to be produced right through the medieval
period and up to recent times. In 1892 appeared a Sanskrit adaptation of
Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' Manu-scripts of old plays are
continually being discovered. A list of these prepared by Professor Sylvain
Levi in 1890 contained 377 plays by 189 authors. A more recent list contains
650 plays.
The language of the old plays (of Kalidasa and others) is
mixed—Sanskrit and one or more Prakrits, that is, popular variations of
Sanskrit. In the same play educated people speak in Sanskrit and ordinary
uneducated folk, usually women, though there are exceptions, in Prakrit. The
poetical and lyrical passages, which abound, are in Sanskrit. This mixture
probably brought the plays nearer to the average audience- It was a com-promise
between the literary language and the demands of a popular art.
Yet,
essentially, the old drama represents an aristocratic art meant for
sophisticated audiences, usually royal courts and the like. Sylvain L6vi
compares it, in some ways, to French tragedy, which was cut off from the crowd
by the choice of its subjects and, turning away from real life, created a
conventional society. But apart from this high-class literary theatre, there
has always been a popular theatre based on stories from Indian mythology and
the epics, themes well known to the audience, and concerned more with display
than with any dramatic element. This was in the language of the people in each
particular area and was therefore confined to that area. Sanskrit plays, on the
other hand, being in the all-India language of the educated, had an all-India
vogue.
These Sanskrit plays
were undoubtedly meant for acting and elaborate stage-directions are given, and
rules for seating the audience. Unlike the practice in ancient Greece,
actresses took part in the presentation. In both Greek and Sanskrit there is a
sensitive awareness of nature and a feeling of being a part of that nature.
There is a strong lyric element and poetry seems to be an integral part of
life, full of meaning and significance. It was frequently recited. Reading the
Greek drama one comes across many customs and ways of thought and life which
sud-denly remind- one of old Indian customs. Nevertheless Greek drama is
essentially different from the Sanskrit.
The essential basis of the Greek drama is tragedy, the
prob-lem of evil. Why does man suffer? Why is there evil in the world? The
enigma of religion, of God. What a pitiful thing is man, child of a day, with
his blind and aimless strivings against all-powerful fate—'The Law that abides
and changes not, ages l o n g . . . . ' Man must learn by suffering and, if he
is fortunate, he will rise above his striving:
Happy be, on the
weary sea
Who hath fled, the
tempest and won the haven.
Happy whoso has
risen, free, Above his striving.
For strangely graven
Is the art of life
that one and another
In gold and power may
outpass his brother.
And men in their
millions float and flow.
And seethe with a
million hopes as leaven;
And they win their
Will, or they miss their Will,
And the hopes are
dead or are pined for still;
But whoever can know,
As the long days go,
That to Live is
happy, hath found his Heaven!
Man learns by suffering, he learns how to face life, but he
learns also that the ultimate mystery remains and he cannot find an answer to
his questions or solve the riddle of good and evil.
There be many shapes
of mystery;
And many things God
brings to be,
Past hope or fear.
And the end men
looked for cometh not,
And a path is there
where no man thought.
(
These two quotations are from Professor Gilbert Murray's translations from
Euripides. first one is from 'The Bacchae,' and the second from 'Alcestis.' t/
have frequently consulted Sylvain Livi's 'Le Theatre Indien' (Paris, 1890), and
A. '••'ale Keith's, 'Sanskrit Drama' (Oxford, 1924), and some quotations have
been taken these two books)
There is nothing comparable to the power and majesty of Greek tragedy in
Sanskrit. Indeed there is no tragedy at all for a tragic ending was not permitted.
No such fundamental questions are discussed for the commonly held patterns of
religious faith were accepted by the dramatists. Among these were the doctrines
of rebirth and cause and effect. Accident or evil with-out cause was ruled out,
for what happens now is the necessary result of some previous happening in a
former life. There is no intervention of blind forces against which man has to
fight, though his struggles are of no avail. The philosophers and the thinkers
were not satisfied by these simple explanations and they were continually going
behind them in their search for final causes and fuller explanations. But life
was generally governed by these beliefs and the dramatists did not challenge
them. The plays and Sanskrit poetry in general were in full accord with the
Indian spirit and there are few traces of any rebellion against it.
The rules laid down for dramatic writing were strict and it was not easy
to break them. Yet there is no meek submission to fate; the hero is always a
man of courage who faces all hazards. 'The ignorant rely on Providence', says
Chanakya contemptuously in the 'Mudra-Rakshasa,' they look to the stars for
help instead of relying on themselves. Some artificiality creeps in: the hero
is always the hero, the villain almost always acts villainously; there are few
intermediate shades.
Yet there are powerful dramatic situations and moving scenes and a
background of life which seems like a picture in a dream, real and yet unreal,
all woven together by a poet's fancy in magnificent language. It almost seems,
though it may not have been so, that life in India was more peaceful, more
stable then; as if it had discovered its roots and found answer to its
questions.
It flows along serenely and even strong winds and passing storms ruffle
its surface only. There is nothing like the fierce tempests of Greek tragedy.
But it is very human and there is an aesthetic harmony and a logical unity
about it. The Nataka, the Indian drama, says Sylvain L6vi, still remains the
happiest invention of the Indian genius.
Professor A. Berriedale Keithf says also that 'The
Sanskrit drama
may legitimately be regarded as the highest product of Indian poetry, and as
summing up in itself the final conception of literary art achieved by the very
self-conscious creators of Indian literature... .The Brahmin, in fact, much
abused as he has been in this as in other matters, was the source of the
intellectual distinction of India. As he produced Indian philosophy, so by
another effort of his intellect he evolved the subtle and effective form of the
drama.'
An
English translation of Shudraka's 'Mrichhkatika' was staged in New York in
1924. Mr. Joseph Wood Krutch, the dramatic critic of the Nation, wrote
of it as follows: 'Here, if anywhere, the spectator will be able to see a
genuine example of that pure art theatre of which theorists talk, and here, too
he will be led to meditate upon that real wisdom of the East which lies not in
esoteric doctrine but in a tenderness far deeper and truer than that of the
traditional Christianity which has been so thoroughly corrupted by the hard
righteousness of Hebraism.. . A play wholly artificial yet profoundly moving
because it is not realistic but real.... Whoever the author may have been, and
whether he lived in the fourth century or the eighth, he was a man good and
wise with the goodness and wisdom which come not from the lips or the smoothly
flowing pen of the moralist but from the heart. An exquisite sympathy with the
fresh beauty of youth and love tempered his serenity, and he was old enough to
understand that a light-hearted story of ingenious complication could be made
the vehicle of tender humanity and confident goodness.... Such a play can be
produced only by a civilization which has reached stability; when a
civilization has thought its way through all the problems it faces, it must
come to rest upon something calm and naive like this. Macbeth and Othello
however great and stirring they might be, are barbarous heroes because the
passionate tumult of Shakespeare is the tumult
produced
by the conflict between a newly awakened sensibility and a series of ethical
concept? inherited from the savage age. The realistic drama of our own time is
a product of a like confusion but when problems are settled, and when passions
are reconciled with the decisions of an intellect, then form alone remains. . .
Nowhere in our European past do we
find, this side the classics, a work more completely civilized.'
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