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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
roles deeply rooted in the sringara (romantic and/or erotic) sentiment were to be considered as the forte of women actor-dancers.
Natyasastra also specifies a pre-condition that natya (drama) should be performed by women well versed in the dramatic sastra (treatise) (Gupta 1991:88); this would imply that women involved in theatre would have been required to be well versed in Sanskrit, the language of the sastras (sacred texts and treatises). In terms of the spoken language, however, Sanskrit theatre followed the brahmanic convention whereby dialogues for all female roles and clowns were written not in Sanskrit, but rather, in the vernacular or Prakrit. This, in keeping with the brahmanic norm that Sanskrit was the language for the high born; women (regardless of their upper or lower caste), stratified with a lower social status similar to that of the sudra, were not considered eligible for learning or reciting Sanskrit verses.
Although the popularity of and patronage to pan-Indian Sanskrit theatre is assumed to have faded away between the gth and the 10th centuries AD, selected elements of the conventions of the ancient Sanskrit theatre continued to be adapted and practiced in many regional forms of dance-theatre in one form or another. What obviously got ruled out during the medieval and later bhakti period was female participation in artistic dance-theatre.
Manusmriti (hence forth, MS), one of the texts in the Dharmasastras, makes very negative remarks about the status of the male and female actors. Manu prohibits brahmins from becoming actors. He refers to acting as the lowest means of livelihood making an assertion that actors should not be socialized with. Accusing actors as those "who habitually tell falsehoods” (Buhler 1886:163, MS IV:214), Manu forbids brahmins to accept food from the hands of the actors. Natas as the actors and singers were called, were assumed to be spies and therefore not trustworthy (Buhler 1886:406, MS X:22). Manu claims that 'trustworthy men of all (four) castes (varnas) [including sudras) may be made witnesses in lawsuits” but kusilavas or actors, dancers and singers, tainted by moral sin, may not even qualify to be witnesses in a court of law; their testimony was not considered valid (Buhler 1886:265, MS VIII:63-65). Conversing or socializing with another's wife was forbidden for all adult men; "the rule does not apply to wives of actors and singers ... for such men send their wives to others, or, concealing themselves, allow them to hold criminal intercourse” (Buhler 1886: 317, MS VIII 361-362). Gupta quotes from Visnusmrti, the law book of Vishnu, that actors were perceived as ayogava, of a mixed caste, representing a lineage from "improper and undesirable” alliances between sudras and daughters of vesyas” (1991:97). Along a similar vein, the Mahabhasya of Patanjali also denounces the actors and more particularly, the wives of actors indicating that, "women of natas mix with different persons as [do] vowels with consonants" (quoted in Gupta 1991:97). Impressions of Manusmriti are reflected in the Ramayana where an "actor, Sailusa is (mentioned) as handing over his wife to another (quoted in Gupta 1991:96). The Epic Mahabharta also projects a low social position and accords a trans-gendered status to the actor in the example of Arjuna, the Pandava prince who, while in exile, disguises as a "eunuch” dance instructor to the princess; his castrated
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