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Classification of Poetry
833 It may be noted here that the preksya varieties are first given by Bharata, so far as available documents are concerned. Normally Bharata is followed by all, including Bhoja. We have Abhinavabhārats on the Nātya-śāstra, and then Dhananjaya's Dasarūpaka (974-995 A.D.), and the Kavyanuśāsana of Hemacandra (11th Cen. A.d.) which gives ten types of rūpakas following Bharata exactly and then Hemacandra and following him Rāmacandra and Gunacandra, the authors of the Natyadarpana give us some uparūpakas also which are found in Bhoja also. After this we have Sārdadātanaya (1175-1250 A.D.), Vidyānātha, Singabhūpāla, Viśvanātha and Sāgaranandin (13th Cen. A.D.). They all follow Bharata.
So, the ten principal types of drama, the daśa-rupaka have their characteristics laid down by Bharata and followed by all dramaturgists later without any shift in the basic approach. We therefore will not pick up here any discussion regarding these ten principal types of drama but we will draw the attention of scholars to the fact that when Bharata in centuries prior to Christ or parallel to Christ, churns out theory followed so religiously by later theorists, one thing emerges for certain that there must have been a vast store-house of dramatic literature covering the entire span of life both in its success and failures, merits and demerits, victories and defeats, loys and sorrows, love and hatred and what not. The ten varieties taken together present theme that covers everything presentable and worthy of imitation for world solidarity and also that which is to be avoided for fear of fall. Actually as Bharata states in his earlier chapters, the nātya i.e. the dramatic art is the medium to represent entire existence : trailokyasyā'sya sarvasya nātyam bhāvanukīrtanam." Abhinavagupta elaborates on what is exactly meant by 'anukīrtana' which is not bare imitation, but artful re-creation. Beyond these types, and the technical discussion concerning the selection of the theme, the presentation through scenes, situations and acts, etc. Bharata has also mentioned 'nātikā' taken as an 'uparūpaka'.
There were other varieties of such 'uparūpakas' also not taken care of by Bharata but handed over to later theorists by unknown sources of both dramaturgy and actual practice. Some of them are discussed by Bhoja, Hemacandra Śāradātanaya. Sāgārnandin and Visvanātha. It may be noted at the outset that Bhoja calls them 'preksya' which is abhineya': The idea is that these varieties are
ms of "performing art" in general. They need not be just drama' where an artist plays the role of a given character. There are certain art-forms, we may call them folk-art-forms popular even to-day in say, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya-pradesh, Bengal, Orissa and different parts of India which owe their origin to these 'preksya' minor varieties of performance which go generally under the name of upa-rupakas. We will discuss the nature of these as seen in Bhoja,
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