Sambodhi 1996 Vol 20

Author(s): Jitendra B Shah, N M Kansara
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 13

Vol. XX, 1996
NĀTYAŚĀSTRA, SANSKRIT DRAMA...
masses which have come to see the performance of his play :
सन्निपतितश्च भगवतः कालप्रियनाथस्य यात्राप्रसङ्गेन नानादिगन्तवास्तव्यो महाजनसमाजः ।
(Mālatīmādhava; prologue) It is also to be noted here that the protagonist of this play meets his beloved in the gathering of a yātrā-festival of some Kāmadeva-temple. Several other incidents take place here within the precincts of a siva-temple. We thus find the atmosphere of the yātrā-festival pervading the texture of the plot of this play. Bhavabhūti does not adhere to the norms and precepts laid down in the NŚ very strictly. This is because of his attachment with a different school of our theatrical tradition. He belongs to the temple-theatre. We can understand the verbosity and loud-thinking of the characters; the vigorous movements and requirement of a larger stage-space in the plays of Bhavabhūti in the light of the theatre he was writing for. Through the temple-theatre, we find the Sanskrit drama reaching the masses, and as a result there is increasing interaction with folk-motifs and folk-theatre. The śāstric tradition had already started standardising the minor forms of drama, termed as the 'uparūpakas ! These minor forms of drama were in fact, varieties of folk-theatre. . The tradition of the minor forms of drama was continuing from pre-Bharata period. Bharata, in his Nś concentrated on the major forms and left the task of evaluation, classification and standardization of the minor forms of drama to his worthy student Kohala : शेषमुत्तरतन्त्रेण कोहलस्तु करिष्यति ।
(Nś. XXXVII. 18)
The work of Kohala, which Bharata had termed as the 'Uttaratantra' – sequel to his own Nś, and which is referred to sometimes as the 'Kohalīya-Nātyaśāstra' by later rhetoricians, is no more extant. But Kohala was definitely held as an authority on the so-called uparūpakas“. Abhinava. and Hema. quote his definitions of a dozen of such uparūpakas, calling them nrtyaprabandhas. Even in the present texture of the Nś, a sizable portion appears to have been contributed by Kohala and his colleauguess. Kohala became the exponent of a tradition of our theatre which, with all its vigour and potentiality ran parallel to Bharata's tradition, and side by side with Bharata. Kohala exercised great