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INTRODUCTION
19
iv) PRAKRIT DRAMA: SATTAKA
a) EARLY INDIAN DRAMA? Even in the hands of early play-wrights like Bhāsa, Śūdraka and Kālidāsa, the dramatic compositions exhibit such a perfect form and finish that one is forced to postulate a long period of evolution and extensive experimentation prior to these authors. Aśvaghoşa's plays, though found in fragments, are quite mature products, Turning to treatises on dramaturgy by Bharata and others, we are faced with a bewildering mass of theoretic details about the various aspects of drama: it is more an attempt at systematic collection and compilation of the then known materials. This plethora of details, howsoever useful for practical purposes and for understanding the dramatic technique, will not give us a historical sketch of the origin and gradual growth of the drama. The Indian tradition claims divine origin for the drama: Brahman drew elements like recitation, song, mimetic art and sentiment from the four Vedas; Siva and others contributed dancing etc.; and it was Bharata who brought it down to the Earth. Such an explanation cannot satisfy modern scholarship. Consequently the scholars took the drama almost in its final form and tried to trace back its various constituent elements in the different strata of ancient Indian literature, arranged according to relative chronology. The conversation has its counterpart in the dialogue-hymns of the Rgveda which were repeated at a sacrifice perhaps by two parties with musical modulation, which, as an art, was fully developed as seen in the Sāmaveda. Ethnologically music, dance and drama have developed together among many peoples. The rituals of the Mahávrata ceremonial, too, possess elements from which the drama might develop. The literary form and the themes of the drama are heavily indebted to the recitations and the contents of the epics like the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaņa. Pāṇini (c. 4th century B. c.) speaks of națas and nceta-sūtras, i. e., dancers and their hand-books. The Mahābhāșya of Patañjali (c. 140 B. c.) refers to a dramatic performance of some kind connected with the legends of Krşņa, Kamsa and Bali. All these references presume and would indicate a religious origin of drama. The drama, in its finished form, has much of the palace-life in it and can amuse only an audience
1 Sylvain Lévi: Le Théatre Indien, Paris 1890; A. B. Keith: The Sanskrit
Drama, Oxford 1924; D. R. Mankad: The Types of Sanskrit Drama, Karachi 1936.
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